That’s what the kiddo came out of The Muppets saying. She also cried both scared and happy tears over the course of the movie. Of course, our house had been all-Muppets, all-the-time for the six weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, so it’s not all that surprising that she loved it. But the adults loved it, too. Sure, there’s not a hell of a lot of plot, but it’s really not necessary. It’s all about reveling in the Muppet-ness of it. What plot there wasn’t was made up for by the music… I especially enjoyed “Pictures in My Head” and the kiddo has been singing “Life’s a Happy Song” at the top of her lungs at least three times a day for the past week.

The cameos were Muppetly fantastic, too. M and I looked at each other when the Moopets first appeared and made the “Is that really Dave Grohl?” face. Jim Parsons as Human Walter was also particularly brilliant casting. Because I’m me, I was sad that NPH didn’t at least have a real line or two.

It’s a damn good thing I didn’t try to see it with the kid… she wouldn’t have lasted five minutes before being scared out of her mind. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire thing; the animation was beautiful, the story was moderately predictable but at the same time had enough twists and deviations from the obvious to keep me interested. It definitely would have been awesome (and probably I wouldn’t have watched half of the flying scenes) in 3D.

Review c&p’d from Goodreads (and look, a link to my profile!)

The System of the World (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 3, Book 3) by Neal Stephenson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review isn’t just about System of the World, but about the whole Baroque Cycle. The short version of the review is… I think he could have accomplished everything he set out to accomplish with these books in a third as much space. Finishing them felt like a test of endurance. I always have trouble keeping track of Stephenson’s characters and plotlines but, again, this time there were simply too many for me to have half a chance. I felt like I needed a flowchart and a timeline.

All of this sounds like I didn’t enjoy the books. I did. There were certainly characters I found very engaging (I loved Jack Shaftoe and Eliza; for the first two books I was downright bored by Daniel) and the historical context was compelling.

But… there was just. too. much.

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It was… extremely powerful. And very different from what I was expecting. Ironic as this will sound, I expected it to be darker. Or maybe I should say I expected it to be much more graphic than it was. I appreciated that I didn’t have to worry about showing it in class (I’m confident that my college students can handle the F word; I’m less comfortable showing sexually explicit material in a classroom setting – never mind that I’m the person who’s used The People vs Larry Flynt and Brokeback Mountain as educational material). But Precious as a narrator was amazing, and compelling, and just… amazing. Gaby Sidebe was just… I don’t have words for how blown away I was by her performance, and by Mo’Nique’s. Mo’Nique earned the hell out of her Best Supporting Actress Oscar, that’s for sure. The penultimate scene, in the counselor’s office? I almost couldn’t take it.

So. Required viewing. Amazing. But be prepared to be uncomfortable.

We had watched bits and pieces of Book (Season) 2 on demand a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it, but nothing prepared us for how AMAZING this show was. It… was not a kid’s show. Sure, there were comic moments. But… it won a Peabody. It casts war and combat in a VERY negative light and, in the final battle, Aang’s conflict is whether he can defeat the Fire Lord without killing him.

Go. Watch it. Not with young children because it will scare the bejeezus out of them. The whole thing is on Neflix streaming.

All three of his tv shows have featured characters named Danny: Dan Rydell on Sports Night, Danny Concannon on The West Wing, and Danny Tripp on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Also: Both Lisa Edelstein (Laurie Rollins, aka Sam’s call girl, from The West Wing) and Janel Moloney (Donna Moss, also from The West Wing) appear in Sports Night, Edelstein as sportscaster Bobbie Bernstein and Moloney in one episode as wardrobe assistant Monica Brazleton.

Finally, all three shows feature hetero life partners who write things for a living: Casey and Dan writing Sports Night, Josh and Sam writing Presidential speeches, and Matt and Danny writing Studio 60.

I’m also noticing a lot of misogynistic jokes in Sports Night that I don’t remember ever picking up on in the other two shows.

Veronica Mars is so clearly inspired by perennial Sarah-favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer that comparison between the two is inevitable (and very much done). The similarities in the basic outlines are … uncanny. Formerly popular but now outcast snarky/sarcastic teen girl with single parent solves cases of weird stuff that goes on in high school, both small weird stuff but also with a background of big weird stuff for each season. Add in the sarcastic quipping and it’s very clear why Netflix recommended VM to me based on my ratings of everything Joss Whedon ever wrote.

All that’s missing in Veronica Mars is the supernatural. Where Buffy dealt with teenage girl-ness in a supernaturally-influenced metaphorical sense, VM does it head-on. There’s nothing metaphorical in Veronica’s being drugged & raped before the show begins; there’s nothing metaphorical in her best friend’s murder-by-blunt-force-trauma. And yet… I think Buffy dealt with the issues in a more deep way. We never see Veronica struggle with the aftereffects of her assault; it comes up when it’s convenient but otherwise doesn’t seem to be an issue in her daily life.

Much like Buffy, Veronica Mars suffered with the transition to college. The quality of the plots (but not of the dialogue) declined with the second (VM’s senior year of high school) and third seasons. The behavior of the supporting characters got more and more inconsistent as well. Is Logan the 09er bad boy? Is he a tortured soul? Why in the very end of season 3 does Dick Casablancas suddenly become something other than a jerky playboy? Why does Keith take the moral high ground sometimes and not other times? (Though this could have been mitigated by having a better idea as to his motivations.)

On the other hand, I have a perverse love of Enrico Calontoni and you can’t argue with guest stars like Alyson Hannigan, Patty Hearst, and Laura San Giacomo as one of Keith Mars’ many love interests (I admit it… I watched Just Shoot Me and I loved their chemistry in that show, too). The arc of the first season was definitely compelling, even if the subsequent two seasons weren’t as good.

Verdict: Not as good as Buffy. Definitely watch the first season, maybe watch the second season, give season 3 a pass.

… I didn’t like it as much as I did the first time. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the book but I kind of wish I hadn’t been immersed it when we saw the show. I got distracted by the changes, which are substantial. The subtitle of the musical is “The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz” so it’s much more Glinda-heavy than the book is. I honestly prefer Elphaba, I love the moral ambiguity of Elphaba.

I just discovered when I went looking for the link to post to the book that Maguire has written a third volume in the series: A Lion Among Men, which is the story of the cowardly lion. Given that I didn’t love Son of a Witch, though, I might give it a pass.

Last month I made my first solo long-haul flight in I don’t know how long. (No, I take that back… I know exactly when my last one was, I just prefer not to think about it.). Anyway, I slept basically the whole way from Detroit to Amsterdam so I didn’t watch anything then, but on the way back I got to indulge in some airline movie-viewing.

Avatar was stunning, even on the 6″ screen. Stunning and engrossing and even though you knew how it was going to end, the getting there was very entertaining. If I ever find myself teaching a course that has a big section on colonialism, I’m going to show Avatar.

Also completely predictable in how it’s going to end: The Backup Plan. Total brain-candy, and not something I would have watched unless I was on a plane.

Sad that I fell asleep half an hour from the end: Toy Story 3. It did NOT make me cry, and I thoroughly enjoyed what I was awake to see. Sadly, when I woke up, it was the very end of the flight so I couldn’t rewind to the last thing I remembered seeing. We’ll have to rent it sometime.