Slumdog Millionaire.

Ever since I read about its success at the Toronto Film Festival, I've wanted to watch Slumdog Millionaire. So I did. And it has stuck with me the past couple days, and that's a rare, but welcome aspect of good movies.

So Jamal is this dude from the slums of Mumbai, India, who somehow gets pretty far on India's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. (It's unlikely, despite the protestations of the masses, that I'll regale you with my own failed pursuit of eternal happiness in this blog, but I will say that Jamal's cinematic pursuit is much, much cooler.)

It's a fairytale--something that critics I usually admire--recognize. But then at the same time they recognize the form of the story, they lambaste the same for plasticizing what should shock us (the movie in no way "ennobles poverty," Owen). It seems to me that when a movie takes on a specific form of storytelling, and either successfully reinvents it or just executes it really well, then that's a good thing. Here, Danny Boyle has done the latter. The fairytale before us makes us--forces us--to dive headlong into the poverty of the slums. That we know it turns out okay doesn't gloss over the horror, it provides us with the bannister to hold while we descend into what we otherwise wouldn't want to go: the life of a slumdog.

A couple of side notes that aren't worth mentioning, but I will anyway. First, it struck me that the movie feels dated by anchoring to such a huge phenomenon like WWTBAM. I wonder if that was intentional. And second, I totally guessed a key part of the ending. Something I've done before (see, e.g., Ender's Game and Saw). You'd think that a geek like me would think that's an awesome skill to have. I don't.

I Think Awesomely.

Entertainment Weekly has this feature called "The Bullseye" where they track the past week's pop culture randomness and rank it from awesome to not-awesome. Awesome stuff is closer to the bullseye, while not-awesome stuff can show up as far away as a different page of the magazine (very meta).

Just want to point out that in the November 28, 2008 issue, the one with Patrick Wilson and Kate Winslet making out on the cover, one of the not awesome items on The Bullseye reads:

Note to recording artists: Please stop asking us to buy the expensive deluxe versions of your year-old album.

Sound familiar? Yeah. I read too much EW.

Make Up Your Mind.

Black Tuesday was bad.  But Black Friday is good.  Ok.

Who Does This?

I've been a bit backlogged with Netflix and reading my Entertainment Weekly. I think it's this, you know, job I have. So I was reading the issue from a couple weeks ago, and I noticed that the cover of the magazine was for Twilight. Now, I'm not ashamed to admit this, because I think my friends sort of expect it by now, but I like keeping up with what's big in pop culture-- so I've, yes, seen High School Musical from beginning to end and I've even deigned to watch a whole episode of Hannah Montana. However, I have yet to read or see Twilight, because I don't think even I'll like it, but it's getting hard to resist, truth be told.



To make a long story short (too late, I know), EW sometimes publishes "collectors covers" for an issue. Like, it's the same content inside, but there might be 3 different covers, as here. So my question: Does anyone actually go out and collect all the covers? Like, even if you were a huge Twilight fan, wouldn't you want something cooler than a magazine cover? Like a lock of Robert Pattinson's hair? Or something less creepy, I guess.

Trivia is the Best.

I saw Role Models tonight. Kick. Arse. Paul Rudd is the man. There's some Renaissance Fair type stuff in the movie, and I told Reva that I'd rather go to a comic convention than a Renaissance Fair. She'd do the opposite. But she said that she would have gone to a comic convention during the time that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on the air. Who wouldn't? That reminded me that Alyson Hannigan, who played Willow, and is now Lily on the best show on television right now, is pregnant. Good Buffy fans know that she's married in real life to Alexis Denisof, who played Wesley, Faith's Watcher. (So far -- coolest blog entry ever.) This was shocking to all because the best show on television just wrapped up a storyline where Lily and Marshall decide to postpone having kids. Now we have to wonder how the show will handle Alyson's pregnancy.

We debated whether it was better to ignore the pregnancy (like Debra Messing on Will and Grace -- although this example never came up in our conversation tonight -- yesh, everything else so far did), or better to write it in. Adding a baby doesn't always work, because as Reva noted, ignoring the baby during the show just makes the characters seem like bad parents -- like Rachel on Friends. Which made us all agree that how Friends dealt with Lisa Kudrow's real life pregnancy, by making Phoebe be a surrogate to her brother with triplets so that she would have to give away the kids on the show at the end, was perfection. (This is just the best blog entry I've ever written.)

And that of course, made me think of George Harrison's I Got My Mind Set On You music video from way back when. Why? Little known fact #1: There are actually 2 versions of the video. And little known fact #2: Alexis Denisof is in one of the versions.

You see, this stuff -- this awesomeness -- this I know. The law? Despite evidence to the contrary... not so much.

Version 1 (with Wesley):



Version 2 (without Wesley):

My First Gift to Myself.

This t-shirt. Courtesy of threadless.com. I've wanted it ever since I saw it on EW. And now in 3-5 days, plus 0-3 for leaving the warehouse, it will be mine.

Where's the Ding Ding Ding?

Frankly, the only reason I watch America's Next Top Model anymore is for the final montage after the last episode when the winner is announced, and that collage of photos of the contestants right after they got their makeovers starts deleting the losers in order one by one. And then the winner's photo is the last one standing, and the soundtrack goes "dih dih dih dih dih dih." Seriously. 13 weeks for that.

And they didn't do this time.

And Tyra looked possessed. By Elvira. And not on Halloween.

EDIT: I totally found it on the web. The fade out song is called "Free for All" by Nick Nolan. Here's an example of the end of a season when Jaslene won:



And here's the entire song, set to clips of Tyra et al. being nutso:

Beyonce.

Sasha Fierce's new song is called "If I Were a Boy."

Sasha, I will call you whatever the hell you want if you continue to keep the English subjunctive mode alive.

One Ounce.

I haven't had to travel for work yet, but it is likely that I'll have to at some point. It was suggested (strongly) that I never check bags if I can help it. This presents a small problem. I use Proactiv-- because I think Jessica Simpson is the smrterest person evAH!!!--but the two main bottles for the wash and the toner are 4 ounces each. You can only carry-on bottles that 3 ounces or less.

Don't worry, I have more important problems in my life.

Short People.

Yes, I'm freakishly tall for an Asian person, but I can't be the only one who legitimately thinks that short people with open umbrellas are down right dangerous.

I'm Posting this Remotely.

By the way, I passed the bar.

Blogging is Hard When You Have a Job.

Why is it that people always say "there are no bad questions," but those same people will answer some questions starting with "good question . . ." and other questions with nary a hint of praise?

You can totally tell which the speaker thinks are the bad questions.

Cool.

This is the man I hoped he'd be:

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

This is the man I am honored to have elected:

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends...though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

It's a pretty awesome day.