Random Thoughts

Nothing makes you appreciate the blessings of a warm house more than a cold winter day.

I never realizes how overplayed "Bohemian Rhapsody" was overplayed by local radio stations until I heard it on three separate radio stations within a ten-minute period. And yet I still like that song.

If there's anything more depressing than hearing so many 1980s songs on local radio stations, it's noticing how many of the songs that were overplayed back in the 1980s are still being overplayed today.

"Free" television seems to be rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

I used to enjoy going to the movies back in my younger days so it bothers me that I find it harder and harder to find the time to go to a movie and even harder to find a movie that's worth going to when I have the time.

What do I think of the political candidates who are running for President in 2020? As little as possible...

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!

Trailer of the Week: The Animated Adventures of Doctor Who

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

Trailer of the Week: The Animated Adventures of Buffy

Yes, I am a Buffy addict and it's no surprise that much of the fanfic I've been writing lately inevitably involves either characters of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer or else characters of its spin-off, Angel.

As a result, part of me feels churlish saying anything mean about this trailer even though it's quite likely that I would have hated this idea had I first seen it ten years ago.

Then again we are talking about a trailer for a TV show which -- as much as I hate to admit it -- will never really exist. It would be nice to think that I'm wrong but this trailer was first uploaded in 2014. The fact that there's not yet a TV series like this doesn't seem very promising.

On the plus side, it's hard for me to really hate anyone who can find genuine humor in the likes of Dark Willow and Ghost Tara. (Not to mention Ghost Anya.) And of course, the Buffy theme is always hard to resist.

Trailer of the Week: The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell

I normally don't post trailers for TV shows but I'm starting to wonder if I should change that policy.

In the meantime, I can't help thinking that this trailer is almost too good to be true. And yet it makes me want to renew my Netflix subscription much more than anything else I've seen from them thus far.

Mixed Message?

Movie Quote of the Week

I would have thought watching your TV shows was torture enough.
--Pierce Brosnan, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

TV Quote of the Week

Big Brother may be watching, but he certainly knows how to make good TV.
--Stephen Fry, Bones, “The Final Chapter: The Steel in the Wheels”

TV Quote of the Week

One is liable to hear almost anything on television these days, Lieutenant, none of it necessarily true.
--William Shatner, Columbo, “Butterfly in Shades of Grey”

Movie Quote of the Week

Caesar had his legions, Napoleon had his armies, I have my divisions. TV, news, magazines. And by midnight I'll have reached and influenced more people than anyone in the history of this planet, save God Himself. And the best He ever managed was the Sermon on the Mount.
--Jonathan Pryce, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Buffy Goes Latin

I have joked for years about the scarcity of Hispanic characters on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- a thing that seems especially frustrating when you consider that the show is set in California, a state in which Hispanics are not exactly uncommon.

Yet I did not realize how bad the situation was on that show until I came across this site and I realized that my first reaction was not so much "that few?" but rather "that many?".

Yet more proof that we might as well take a cue from Ray Bradbury and start writing our own stories because it is not likely that they are going to get told by anybody else. Especially Joss Whedon.

Quote of the Week

We don’t see stories about people like me or my dad. Indeed, network executives say to my face that I don’t exist. That’s the problem.
--Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, "The problem with “Devious Maids” goes far beyond Hollywood", NBCLatino.com, June 07, 2013.

Quote of the Week

It is not wrong to be a maid, or even a Latina maid, but there is something very wrong with an American entertainment industry that continually tells Latinas that this is all they are or can ever be.
--Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, "The problem with “Devious Maids” goes far beyond Hollywood", NBCLatino.com, June 07, 2013.

My comment:

I know I should have commented on the Devious Maids controversy long before this, but unfortunately, I got caught up with other issues. I often put off commenting on controversial issues until I find the right words to do them justice, but unfortunately, the right words don't always come at a convenient time.

Anyway, as much as I admire Marc Cherry's and Eva Longoria's work on the TV series Desperate Housewives, I always have found that show's take on ethnic issues a bit embarrassing -- almost as if the hearts of the show's writers and cast were not really in it. In a way, I could understand. After all, Longoria's character Gabby Solis wasn't meant to be the ideal example of a Mexican-American woman any more than Ricky Ricardo was meant to be the ideal Cuban-American man. Indeed, part of what made her so entertaining on Desperate Housewives was that she was anything but an ideal person of any ethnic background and yet because she was less than ideal, she came across as being more human -- and thus, more believable and sympathetic -- than a more PC character would have been. (Then again I grew up with a father who always liked Donald Duck better than Mickey Mouse because he too was more "human" -- or at least more believable -- than the squeaky-voiced rodent. Not that a talking duck is all that comparable to Ms. Solis but still...)

As for the Devious Maids series, I have not seen it yet. And while I hesitate to comment on it for that reason, I have yet to read anything concerning it which would suggest it would be an improvement on Desperate Housewives. Indeed, as a person of Mexican descent who spent most of his life around relatives of Mexican-American descent -- and who has yet to meet any one who has ever worked as a maid or a domestic servant -- I can not help but be a little tired of seeing yet another TV series in which the main Mexican-American characters are maids. After all, it is not like such shows are rare. Indeed, I find it a bit ironic to note that most of my more prosperous relatives in Mexico are more likely to hire maids than be maids -- and yet one rarely sees such Mexicans portrayed on American TV shows.

But then most American TV shows are not made for either Mexican or Mexican-American viewers. And I doubt very much that the success of a Devious Maids is going to change that. Which is a shame -- for both Mexicans and non-Mexicans.

Movie Quote of the Week

On television, Mr. President, you look much smaller.
--Peter Sellers, Being There (1979)

Movie Quote of the Week

See, it's okay. He saw it on the television.
--Jack Nicholson, The Shining (1980)

TV Quote of the Week

I knew there was more to English television than Masterpiece Theatre.
--Kate Hodge, She-Wolf of London, “Nice Girls Don't”

Movie Quote of the Week

Hey, let’s get the stuff we need. I’ll get a television and a radio.
--Ken Foree, Dawn of the Dead (1978)

TV Quote of the Week

Now don't adjust your sets. You are seeing three Latinos on television.
--Herbert Siguenza, Culture Clash

Trailer of the Week: Network (1976)

Remember the good old days when people still watched live television?

Movie Quote of the Week

Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages submit to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a free people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a box with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that’s power.
--James Coburn, Looker (1981)