Lately I’ve noticed a disturbing trend about myself: I don’t get as excited about things as I used to. Perhaps it’s a merely function of getting older – I just hit the big 3-0 six months ago, after all – or, maybe, all the years of crushing cynicism and relentless snark has finally caught up to me. Passion, perhaps, is the provenance of the young and the unencumbered, and I’m no longer either of the two. For example, it would have shocked the ten-years-younger version of myself, maybe even the 2009 model, to learn that it took me, a devoted Wes Anderson-ophile, two months to see The Grand Budapest Hotel, especially after making a pilgrimage to see The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic during their respective opening weekends, and attending a screening of The Darjeeling Limited by myself because I just couldn’t wait any longer, even if that meant sitting alone in a small theater on a Tuesday afternoon. Likewise, I’ve yet to see X-Men: Days of Future Past, and that’s already been out for a whole week and is possibly the X-Men movie that I’ve been praying for these last fourteen years. There are spoilers abound and I run the very real risk of having the movie ruined before I get around to seeing it. It’s a danger I’m well aware of, and one, for some reason, I’m at peace with. Perhaps most egregiously – and this something I’m very much ashamed to admit on this blog – I’ve yet to watch last week’s Survivor finale. Yes, I was out-of-town for two weeks, but I’ve been back for four days already. Really, what good excuse could I possibly have for not immediately marathoning the last three episodes, including the two hour-finale and post-show live cast reunion? Heresy, is it not? Not only am I liable to inadvertently stumble upon the final result at any turn, removing any drama upon viewing, but shouldn’t this be tearing me up inside? It’s Survivor, the subject I’ve perhaps committed more space to on this blog than any other, and, yet, I’ll get to it when I get it to it. Urgency, shockingly, I do not feel. It’s not apathy or indifference – that would be truly alarming – but, rather, caring a bit less, being more patient. It’s an odd, peculiar, somewhat concerning notion to not experience the same sense of pressure, immediacy, and life-or-death importance about these shows and films and bands that I always did. Am I depressed? Should I look into Lexapro? But the change is also freeing in a way. There is a flipside to caring a little less. It means that it doesn’t hurt so much when something you love is taken away from you.
Tag Archives: X-Men
Don’t Cry Because It’s Over, Smile Because It Happdeaned: Five (and Maybe More) Seasons of ‘Community’ and the Truly Jumping the Snark
‘Survivor: Filippines’ – Player-by-Player Odds and Celebrity Look-Alikes Are Here!
Alright, guys, let’s try to do this before the entirety of the Matisyahu Tribe is completely decimated and all we have left is the memory of Angie’s boobs. We’ve been dark for the last few weeks, but all we missed discussing was the systematic destruction of Russell Swan and the Gang. But after tonight, when Denise and Malcolm will likely be forced into tribe cannibalism for survival and admission to the merge, things should get more interesting. So throw away your binders full of women and let’s get to it.
(Note: we want to thank Nate Silver from the Electoral Blog FiveThirtyEight for providing absolutely no scientific of statistical input for these predictions.)
Abi-Maria: Well, if the idea of the game was to out-crazy, out-make no sense, out-constantly touch your hair, then Abi-Maria would have this game completely locked up. Unfortunately for her, that is not how the game is played, and what she considers strategic, clever gameplay is actually loose cannon paranoia that verges on schizophrenia. Perhaps the reason that she keeps pulling at her tresses is that she’s trying to keep the voices out (or in). Certainly, considering the rapid disintegration of her alliance with RC Cola, her loyalty and judgment are suspect, and we think she’s ripe for a blind-side down the road. Odds of Winning: 45-1
Gratuitous Search Term Bait of the Day: The Ice Queen
One of our consistently most popular posts is our review of January Jones’ turn as host of SNL from November of 2009, titled January Jones Was the Worst Host Ever on the Worst Episode of ‘SNL’ Ever, so it’s not surprising that among today’s top search terms is “january jones worst host.” But we’re not going to talk about how terrible she was that night (we’ve spent enough time on that), nor are we going to discuss how horrible we thought she was on Mad Men. No, today we’re going to talk about an upcoming January Jones project that we fear might be just as bad.
Earlier this week the first images from X-Men: First Class surfaced, featuring January Jones as the White Queen Emma Frost, and it doesn’t look promising. To Jones’ credit, the whole photo is panic-inducing, not just her part of it (although the look on her face doesn’t help).
To be fair, director Matthew Vaughn has shot back asserting that this is an unofficial photo that does not reflect the look of the film. Which is somewhat reassuring. Still, that doesn’t make us comfortable with the idea of Jones as Frost, and nor does it assuage our concern that once again an X-Men movie has chosen to neglect the many proven storylines in favor of a hodgepodge of plot points and characters from the comics combined with an original narrative. It just seems silly to disregard so many revered and beloved stories. And by setting this film in the 60s, and including characters who appear in the other films or are related to characters in the other films, it totally confuses the cinematic timeline. We won’t get into the geeky specifics here, but this is why bringing a comic book to the screen can be so complicated. In the comic book world super heroes really don’t age, so it’s no big deal for someone to look the same in 1965 as they do in 2005. But it becomes much trickier with movies, and we think setting this film decades before the previous X-Men films invites too many contradictions. But we’ll just have to wait until June to find out.
And come back here then to read our review, “January Jones Was the Worst Actress in the Worst X-Men Film Ever.”
Jumped The Snark 