¡Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!

I wish a happy Thanksgiving to all my devoted readers. May you all enjoy this blessed day and have many things to be thankful about!

Things I'm Thankful For

1. My mother. She has been very supportive of me during the last few years and I'm glad to see that she is still hanging in there and in good health.
2. My siblings, who have been more patient with me this past few years than perhaps they should be.
3. My current mejor amiga, who has been more patient with me this year than I would have been in her place.
4. My health. (Never a thing to take for granted at my age.)
5. My job. (Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a job this time of year.)
6. My co-workers.
7. My late sister's children, who are doing their best to make their mother proud.
8. My relatives in Michigan, California and other states, who continue to inspire me far more than they will ever know.

Trailer of the Week: Doctor Who Season 12

Wait! Stephen Fry is actually a guest star next season? And there actually is a next season? Oh, my!

Quote of the Week

Hunger has no business preceding ability, but it always does, with no exceptions.
--Richard Russo, "Getting Good"

Book of the Week

I probably should resist the urge to comment on this book, given the fact that I've held enough blue-collar jobs in my lifetime to qualify as a blue collar intellectual in my own right, but I must admit that I liked it anyway. I kinda wished it went into more detail on certain subjects but it still delivered what it promised.

Movie Quote of the Week

Yes, winter's coming. I don't like the winter.
--Ann Carter, The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

TV Quote of the Week

When did the FBI get back to you so fast? I'm still waiting to hear back on Oswald and Kennedy.
--J.K. Simmons, The Closer, "The Big Picture"

Trailer of the Week: Last Christmas

Personally I can think of better Christmas songs to use as a movie title but hey, nobody in Hollywood asked for my advice so it's just as well they didn't get it. Besides, as much as I like to parody the title song, I must confess that part of me always manages to have a little soft spot for it in my heart. Especially when it's combined with tap dancing. And that might be the biggest flaw I find in this movie trailer -- no tap dancing.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Some Assembly Required”

Silly Buffy! Always falling into open graves! When will she ever learn?

Quote of the Week

The Byronic Hero and I have been spending a lot of time brainstorming holiday horror movies, and have concluded that Jewish holidays are a largely untapped source, ranging from Chanukah (at least one candle has to stay lit or the monster will get the protagonist), Passover (home invasion by blood libel-believing cult after local child goes missing) and Yom Kippur (man pursued by monster embodying his own regret), and even Christmas (”Merry Christmas!” says the killer Santa guy; “I’m Jewish” says the final girl, cocking a shotgun.)
--Mira, For the Gothic Heroine, November 17, 2019

Quote of the Week

We drown in information but we starve for knowledge.
--Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy

Trailer of the Week: The Animated Adventures of Doctor Who

I'm fairly certain that Jenna Coleman doesn't really look like that.

Book of the Week

It's like Ms. Tung knows me. Personality-wise, at least. Gender-wise, of course, is another issue.

¡Feliz Día de los Veteranos!

In honor of all the people who have served in the American armed forces -- including two of my late uncles -- I hope you all have a pleasant Veteran's Day.

Pop Song of the Week: "I'm No Communist"

Testify!

Movie Song of the Week: "If This Be Slav'ry"

The past really was a different country. Just imagine the reception a musical number like this would receive nowadays.

Movie Quote of the Week

"What makes a man a man?" a friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don't think so. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.
--Rupert Evans, Hellboy (2004)

TV Quote of the Week

Oh, it's not our planet. We're just destroying it.
--Daniel Travanti, Lost in Space, "Collision of Planets"

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Demons of the Punjab”

As much as I like to poke fun at the British, you'd think I would enjoy this episode a lot more than I actually did. But I didn't.

I give the show credit for attempting to show a slice of history rarely seen from a non-English perspective but in the end, I could not help feeling that the show's writers could have done a better job. And I could not help but find something sad about the show's attempts to depict the conflict between Muslims and Hindus in post-British Pakistan as exclusively the fault of the British. As much as I like twisting the tail of the British lion, I can't help but suspect that there was much more to that conflict than that.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Nancy Drew: "Pilot"

Personally I liked this show much better when it was called Veronica Mars.

To be fair, the first episode was not that bad but then it wasn't all that memorable either. And on the diversity front, it was nice to see that this version of Nancy Drew had a black boyfriend and a Chinese-American friend/boss.

But time will tell if it's worth watching. And the show's attempt to hedge its bets by constantly hinting at a supernatural angle -- Buffyization? -- did not do it any big favors.

Trailer of the Week: Fight Club

Remember the good old days of the late 1990s when it was considered perfectly acceptable for film critics to like movies that encouraged you to root for poor white losers who turned to violence to solve their problems? Of course, few critics back then bothered to point how different this movie would be if Tyler Durden were black or Hispanic. So apparently racism did not exist back then...

Quote of the Week

So here’s what I think. The Dark Knight trilogy was based around the idea that Gotham, our civilization, was worth saving in spite of everything.

Joker is the case for the prosecution.
--Stephen Browne, "Review/Commentary: Joker," Rants and Raves, October 29, 2019

Detroit Is Other People

Where's Jean-Paul Sartre when you need him? There's something very No Exit-ish about the way people keep implying that the premise of the 2017 movie Detroit is okay with them while in the same breath arguing that it's better suited for other people. It makes me kinda surprised that the studio didn't simply rename this movie Detroit, c'est los autres (Detroit is other people) or better yet, Detroit est pour les autres (Detroit is for other people).

In an odd way, that makes me kinda proud to be a native-born Detroiter.

Of course, when you grow up hearing your Mexican-born father tell stories about having to sit in jail and listen to the sound of his friends getting beat up by various members of the Detroit police, it's hard not to consider a lot of the stuff in Detroit to be old news. Yet I would like to think I learned something from this movie anyway.

My City May Be Screaming But It's Not Saying Anything

You know a movie is in trouble when the first five minutes of the flick are an action sequence and you find yourself trying your best not to be bored to tears.

You know a movie is really in trouble when those first five minutes seem like the high point of the movie.

The sad thing is that the 2008 movie The Spirit had enough talented people in its cast that it should have been a lot more memorable than it was. Then again, I always preferred the Capra-ish spirit of some of the original Will Eisner stories that allegedly inspired this flick than the "look, Ma, it's another Sin City remake" approach that dominated this flick. And even if you like the idea of another Sin City remake, I suspect that you're bound to find The Spirit a bit disappointing.

Thoughts About Reading

Lego ergo sum. (I read therefore I am.)

I like big books and I can not lie.

Book of the Week

I always had a soft spot for both horror novels and books about Spanish history and while the late Les Daniel's novel The Black Castle was not exactly the ideal combination of both, it was certainly a more memorable read than I expected.

The novel introduced a Spanish vampire named Don Sebastian de Villanueva, who, for reasons of his own, helped out his own clergyman brother Diego. Eventually Don Sebastian turned against his brother -- again for reasons of his own. The results weren't exactly heroic but then again Sebastian's brother was not the type of clergyman most modern-day Christians would wish to root for.

One of the various editions of the Don Sebastian de Villanueva books described him as the vampire who is horrified by man. And indeed, there was much emphasis on real-life historical horror in the Villanueva books. To be fair, there were many moments of supernatural horror as well. However, the main point of the Villanueva books was obviously that mankind already produced enough demons without the aid of the supernatural. And it's hard to watch the daily news and argue with that statement.

Pop Song of the Week: "Poison"

Alice Cooper has issues with women? Surely you jest.

Movie Song of the Week: "He's a Rebel"

My favorite musical moment from the otherwise mediocre 2018 thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. To be fair, there are other great musical moments too -- almost all of them involving actress Cynthia Erivo -- but this scene is my favorite.

Movie Quote of the Week

Why attack Russia? Aren't they our friends now?
--Edward Furlong, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

TV Quote of the Week

No, John. You can't do this. You're not doing the right thing, this is not the right thing, John. Things are good now. Things are fine now, I ran a test. Things are good now, I'm fixed now. You can trust me now, everything's good now.
--Summer Glau, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, “Samson and Delilah”

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Innocence”

You say Linda Hamilton used a rocket launcher in the new Terminator movie?

Darn shame we never saw anything like that on the small screen...