152 insights into my soul

So, got $150 worth of itunes gift cards from various sources. So far, I've used it to buy Charlie XCX's latest album, "Sucker", Little Big Town's previous album, "Tornado", the Kinky Boots soundtrack, a smattering of songs by Ariana Grande, Becky G, Clean Bandit, and BJ Thomas, as well as the last two eps of Legend of Korra.

Anyways, I was looking up the movie Kinky Boots was based on, interestingly enough there were a lot of people who's names I recognize in the cast. Like Don was being played by Nick Frost, and Lola/Simon was played by Chit-that guy who's name I can't spell/pronounce, so I'll just say, The Operative from the Serenity, Lauren was the innkeeper from Gracepoint (who was apparently in 14 eps of Felicity, but I do not remember her being on at all!), and Charlie was Joel Edgerton, who, the commercials of Exodus act like he's a name people should know. But looking him up, the only thing that seems notable is the young version of Uncle Owen from Star Wars in Episodes 2 and 3.

Oh, and he was apparently in Smokin' Aces, which, while there are tons of famous peeps in that movie, there's also a number of peeps I didn't realize were in that movie that surprise me- like Carter from PoI being the sniper lady, and Chris Pine being the head of the Tremors. But I guess its because they were playing roles way different than I'm used to seeing them in.

Finally saw Joss Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing". Its a cute little movie, and Amy Acker looks mad cute, as per usual. Lots of people from Whedon stuff- besides Wesley and Fred, there's Coulson, Castle, Topher, Simon Tam, Reed Diamond, Tom Lenk, as well as Chrissy Seaver, Finn's mom, the kid from Gladiator (what the hell, he's like grown up now!) and whichever of Garfunkel and Oates that's not on Raising Hope. (is it confusing to mix characters names with actors names when listing? Or saying Castle, instead of saying roles Nathan Fillion had in actual Whedon productions, like Mal or Captain Hammer?)

I'm not familiar with the play, nor the movie from the 90s, but I hear its pretty true to the source (despite taking place in modern times), with one supposedly subtle change, but more than that later. Since they talk in that old English style, I had a little trouble following. Like Nathan Fillion is playing Dogberry, who in the original play uses a lot of malapropisms. And like I caught some of them, but I have no idea if there were some I just failed to pick up on because they're talking all Shakespearean and shit.

But I got the gist of the movie, even if there were some dialogue I found hard to understand. Benedict (Alexis Denisof) and Beatrice (Amy Acker) hate each other, but some of their insults, I was all, "what the hell are they talking about?" And then their friends think they are way too obsessed with each other, and with nothing else to do, decide to trick them into falling in love with each other. Here's the change I hear that was subtly introduced in the beginning of the movie- Benedict and Beatrice had a former dalliance, but I guess it ended badly, which is why they're always insulting each other? Whereas in the original work, I guess they just hated each other? It was totally cute how dorky they got when they thought the other was in love with them. And then in the end, with the scheme revealed, even though they totally are in love with each other now, they still try to deny it, but thankfully finally admit their feelings.

But I guess the overarching story was that Don Pedro (Reed Diamond), Claudio (Fran Kranz), Benedict, and Don Pedro's brother, Don John (Sean Maher) visit Leonato's (Clark Gregg) villa, whereupon Claudio falls in love with Leonato's daughter Hero (Jillian Morgese). And all the while Benedict and Beatrice (who is Leonato's niece) talk shit about each other. Claudio asks for Hero's hand in marriage, and as I said previously, out of boredom since they apparently don't have anything better to do before the wedding, the rest of them decide to get Beatrice and Benedict together.

Well, Don John has other plans. He wants to ruin the wedding, so he sends his man Borachio (Spencer Treat Clark) to bang Hero's maid Margaret (Ashley Johnson) in Hero's room, while wearing one of her dresses. And Don John's all, "Oh, your betrothed is a slut! Don't believe me, spy on her window tonight!" So they do and Claudio and Don Pedro are livid. So Claudio for some reason the best way to handle it is to go through with the ceremony, but then publicly embarrass her. Like he's all weird and awkward, and everyone thinks its some sort of weird joke, but then he goes to Leonato, "Take your whore daughter back, because she's a whore!" She faints over the whole deal and Claudio and Don Pedro take their leave

And what the frick, I suppose it was olden times, but instead of believing his daughter, since Don Pedro and Claudio are men of honor and thus would never make something up (or be wrong!?), he's basically, I wish you were dead for bringing shame upon the family. Its like, screw these dicks! You're going to believe them over your daughter? And you wish her dead?! Eventually he relents, but still! In any case, the priest is all, "She should pretend to be dead and then if Claudio really loves her, he'll feel totally bad!"

Meanwhile some constables happen upon Borachio telling Conrade (Riki Lindhome) the scheme, so they arrest them and Dogberry and Verges (Tom Lenk) get the whole story and tell Don Pedro. Meanwhile, Beatrice is all, "if you really love me, you'll kill Claudio for slandering my kinswoman!" to Benedict. At first he's all, "That's crazy, plus, he's my friend!" but eventually he acquiesces because he does love her. Which is kinda disturbing for a romantic comedy- "Oh, this guy totally humiliated my cousin! Hey, guy who I used to hate but now love, if you want to prove you love me (and show that you're a real man!), you'll kill your friend!" But I guess that was more acceptable back then or something?

And its like, after Don Pedro finds out the truth, there's no scene where they tell B&B what happened! He did like challenge his friend, and its good he was all, "I shall duel you on the morrow!" because one could have killed the other, making this romantic comedy take like a dark and tragic turn. But yeah, when Don Pedro and Claudio go to see Leonato after Benedict's challenge, since he revealed Hero is dead, he's all, "See, you were tricked by your brother schemes! Thanks for killing my daughter, dicks!" So they're all wanting to do anything to make up for it. Leonato is all, "If you want to make up for it, you'll marry my other niece whom you have not met and no one has ever mentioned up to this point (but is really Hero in disguise)!"

Claudio agrees, and on the day of, they're all, "Gotcha! Even though you publicly shamed my daughter, the fact that you were willing to force yourself into an arrange marriage makes everything alright!" And then Benedict and Beatrice wait for the other to make some big overture to the other and ask the other to reveal their love, but they're both being stubborn asses, so the rest of the gang have to show them letters the other wrote talking about how in lurve they are with each other! So its two weddings!

But like I said, despite me knocking some parts of the story, I did enjoy it.

Since Fox had canceled the Seth Mcfarlane portion of its Sunday night lineup last night because it had a "hurricane" theme going, which would be kinda awkward given the 200+ deaths from tornados last week (tornados, hurricanes, same diff), I was watching the USA Sunday night lineup. And as such, I was totally unaware about the Osama thing until this morning. Well, I did see a vague tweet mentioning Osama on my twitter feed last night, but it didn't explicitly say he was dead, and I apparently checked it right before twitter went crazy with the news. Heh, and some guy apparently live tweeted about the raid as it happened without even knowing it.

Heh, I noticed people are trying to make vague connections like Hitler was confirmed dead on May 1st, 1945 so look, Hitler and Osama died on the same day. I guess they switched it to confirmed dead to make the connection work since Hitler actually died on 4/30. But given the time diff, even though it was announced in the US on May 1st, wasn't Osama actually killed on May 2nd in Pakistan?

Hmm, as much as I enjoy the Fast and the Furious franchise, I guess I'm totally unaware of its popularity. I mean, I guess it has to be popular if they made 5 of them and are prolly making a 6th. But wow, an $83.5 million box office take, and 2nd place was only $14 million?

I still think frak is the superior nerd curse word. I think it flows well off the tongue and doesn't sound as weird or fake as things like frell and goram.

TV commentary:

Doctor Who- Hmm, interesting overarching plot for the season. ( spoiler cut )

Sporcle quizzes:

Can you name the roles played by Joss Whedon's often used actors and actresses in his projects? Argh, only 16 out of 27! I friggin suck. I didn't get any of the roles played by Carlos Jacott, Andy Umberger and Jonathan Woodward, but it was only the last one who's name sounded familiar. When I saw his roles, I was at least, "Oh, its that guy!". The Andy guy, I recognize the Buffy character but not the Angel one. As for Carlos, I have no idea at all who the frick those characters are!

What I'm really kicking myself for missing is Summer Glau's character on Dollhouse (I knew it was something unisex sounding), Nathan Fillon's Buffy character (I at least remembered it was somethng biblical sounding), and Felicia Day's character on Dollhouse (heh, I was close, it ended up rhyming with what I kept thinking it was). This kinda of quiz is supposed to be my bag!

Name the 2000s song from the music without the lyrics- 20 out of 36. Better than I was expecting at least!

So my sources say Josh Schwartz is gonna have the OC and Gossip Girl crossover? Well, have them exist in the same universe. He could go for his show trifecta and throw Chuck in there as well, but while I can see the OC and Gossip Girl going together, Chuck would not. But yeah, my sources tell me they're thinking of having a young Lily (apparently the pilot is already being filmed, with Brittany Snow as young Lily, and Krysten Ritter is in it as well?) interacting with a young Kirsten Cohen (well, I guess that would be Nichols) and Jimmy Cooper, and possibly young Julie Cooper as well, though I can't see how that would work. It always seemed to me that Jimmy didn't get with Julie until long after Kiki dumped him, and I thought they got married because she was knocked up with Marissa. And wasn't she 18 at the time, so unless Jimmy was a pervert, they couldn't have been going out for too long. So for Marissa and Seth to be the same age, the Coopers couldn't have been going out until Kirsten and Sandy had been together for a while.

But I digress. What if other shows made by the same creator existed in the same universe? The David E Kelley stuff, didn't Boston Public, the Practice/Boston Legal, and Ally Mcbeal all exist in the same world? Like I think Joss could make it so either Buffy/Angel or Dollhouse existed in the same universe as Firefly (though I don't think Buffy/Angel and Dollhouse being the same world would work). I'd throw Dr. Horrible in there as well, but I think they've hinted very heavily that it takes place in the same universe as The Tick. Although one could geekily argue that the Buffyverse is the same as the Firefly-verse through the Alien: Resurrection connection. (which Joss wrote). Weyland-Yutani is the corporation in the Alien series, whom Wolfram & Hart listed as a famous client in the 5th season of Angel, and more than a few of the weapons in Firefly have the Weyland-Yutani logo on it.

But heh, I don't think it would be too far fetched for Alias, Lost, Fringe, and Felicity to exist in the same universe. After all, Driveshaft does exist in the first two. And Felicity has had mystical elements (the deus ex machina spell Meghan cast first season that broke Felicity and the Gnoll up and hooked her up with Ben, and of course Felicity going back in time and reliving her senior year of college). So I don't think there's anything preventing those shows from taking place in the same universe. Like I don't think the weird stuff in Alias, Fringe, or Lost really contradicts each other. Hey, I totally think Rambaldi, the Island, and the Pattern could exist in the same world without stepping on each others toes.

TV commentary:

Smallville- I was complaining about how terrible this show was last week, but I will say I do like how they're doing the whole Doomsday storyline, making it more like an evil-Hulk kinda thing. When the show isn't about Clark moping about his secret life and how he can never tell Lana (now Lois), it isn't too bad. ( spoiler cut )

Supernatural- Interesting ep of Supernatural last night. As I've said, I like the addition of angels to the mythology. I guess this is kinda blasphemous, but I've always found the whole angel or angels doing something bad out of jealousy of the human race, being all they're the most loyal, but humans are the big G's favored creation even though many don't even acknowledge him and do all sorts of things against his will, to be an interesting storyline. ( spoiler cuts )

The Office- Wow, some crazy developments in the Office as well. ( spoiler cut )