<body><script type="text/javascript"> function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('load', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } </script> <div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() { if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) { gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({ url: 'https://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID\x3d16149408\x26blogName\x3dThe+Blogulator\x26publishMode\x3dPUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT\x26navbarType\x3dBLACK\x26layoutType\x3dCLASSIC\x26searchRoot\x3dhttps://chrisandqualler.blogspot.com/search\x26blogLocale\x3den_US\x26v\x3d2\x26homepageUrl\x3dhttp://chrisandqualler.blogspot.com/\x26vt\x3d4655846218521876476', where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"), id: "navbar-iframe" }); } }); </script>

« Home | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next » | Next »

A Bloggy Good Blogend.

We here at the Blogulator are way good friends. We get together, have fun, talk, play "Sweet Valley High: The Board Game" whilst others of us (i.e. me) sleep on the floor, make dinners together, eat grilled cheese sandwiches, make avant-garde style short films, play with doggies, and watch such fine films as Firestarter together when we get together. This weekend was no exception, and even a little more special than your average weekend, because DoktorPeace and Sean made the trek from the land of cheese, beer, and pseudo-intellectual pop cultural commentary, Milwaukee, WI. It was a weekend full of meetings (the Blogulator will be making some big, exciting changes AGAIN in the near future!), the aforementioned grilled cheese sandwiches (delicious with tater tots!) and filmmaking. Oh, where to begin? I suppose a weekend recap will do.

Girl Talk! or, How Did You Creep Into My Brain?
Listen to Girl Talk, and you will gain an all-access pass into what it sounds like to be inside my brain. That's because like Girl Talk's super-hyper-mash-ups of pop music from the past, oh, 30 years. For example, on Girl Talk's newest album Feed the Animals (available as a pay-as-you-like type model on the above MySpace link), the mixture of Yo La Tengo's "Autumn Sweater" and the '90s hit single "Ghetto Superstar" which, I am told by the interweb, is by Pras and features Ol' Dirty Bastard and Mya, made me flash back to high school. I specifically recalled watching all of my high school peers "grind" to "Ghetto Superstar" while I drank Mountain Dew and pretended I was too cool to dance (I wasn't too cool -- I was not cool enough to dance!), juxtaposed with numerous school trips on the bus listening to the album that featured "Sweater", Yo La Tengo's best album I Can Feel The Heart Beating As One, and totally getting excited to incorporate the organ into my band (we never did, though.) I listened to this on my way to Chris's place, and the weekend was off to a great start.

Firestarter! or, Thank You For Movies Where You Can Miss Large Chunks And Still Know What Is Going On.
After our aforementioned blog meeting, we got together, ate some aforementioned dinner and participated in some aforementioned short films, and came home to watch the 1984 classic Stephen King-based movie Firestarter starring a pre-teenage Drew Barrymore. Taped on the Qualler family DVR, a large chunk of the movie (about 30 minutes) was apparently lost due to storm while it was originally recorded. No worries! The plot was easy enough to fill in the gaps -- Drew Barrymore's firestarting pyrotechnic girl and her wonderfully overacting father were indeed kidnapped by an incognito-via-eyepatch George C. Scott (yes, his disguise was an eyepatch) and a how-did-his-hair-get-so-poofy Martin Sheen (seriously! How is it so poofy?!?) Yes, this film is not quite at the level of The Shining, but it was campy enough to keep me interested. All hail 80s era Stephen King-based movies!

Gen Kill/Mad Men! or, Thank You For Quality Television Programming
After DoktorPeace and Sean left, we cried, then most of the Mpls crew got back together to watch Part 3 of HBO's remarkable miniseries Generation Kill. Part 3, "Screwby", focused mainly on an incident of a quasi-accidental shooting of an Iraqi child and the emotional/political ramifications of it. Like the other two parts, this part was funny, action-packed, heart-wrenching, and amazingly well-written (in fact, so rich and dense with dialogue that I will need to go back and watch it again to really catch everything that went on.) Meanwhile, season two of Mad Men debuted last night on AMC. Before I can discuss season two, I need to watch all of season one. Brigitte and I got through episode three last night, and I realized why this show reminds me so much of The Sopranos beside the fact that it was created by longtime Sopranos scribe Matthew Weiner -- the incessant lounging in bed and working important jobs while also looking like lounging! Yes, when Don Draper was lounging in bed with his version of his goomah, and then went to work leaning back in his chair, Brigitte pointed out how comfortable everyone is on the show. Indeed, character comfort is a highly underrated element of the quality of a television show. Meanwhile, the dense characterization and secrets that slowly get revealed about Don Draper make him one of the more interesting new characters on TV, perhaps the most so since our boy Tony S.

Labels: , , ,

  1. Blogger Sean | 12:20 PM |  

    generation kill should be re-titled to "war is bad."

    and then the later episodes can have nice titles like "seriously, war is bad."

  2. Blogger chris | 1:37 PM |  

    I'm glad we played Sweet Valley High and had Demolition Man on in the background instead of going to Eyes Wide Shut at midnight. Instead of going to bed feeling gross and bored, I went to bed with scenery-chewing Wesley Snipes and a board game victory in my head. What dreams I had!

  3. Blogger Unknown | 1:42 PM |  

    Haha crap how did I forget about Demolition Man? Oh yeah, probably because as soon as I changed the channel to it, I fell asleep. Wonderful film, though -- hey, has anybody remember "Judge Dredd"? I loved that movie.

  4. Blogger Sean | 2:06 PM |  

    whoa, did i just stumble upon a private conversation?

  5. Blogger Brigitte | 2:10 PM |  

    I've never seen "judge dredd," but perhaps one of our readers has. readers? what can YOU tell ME about this film (that's right, the table has turned!)

  6. Blogger Unknown | 2:25 PM |  

    Yes! Readers! Out there in blog-o-land! Remember Judge Dredd and his "I Am The Law!" gobbledygook? Did he have guns for hands? Rob Schneider is totally hilarious as a 12 year old, no?

    I'm totally breaking the fourth wall right now.

  7. Blogger Brigitte | 3:49 PM |  

    wow...this sort of killed the conversation...eeeeeee

  8. Blogger DoktorPeace | 3:58 PM |  

    I don't know how to read :(

    - Anonymous reader who hacked into doktorpeace's account.

  9. Anonymous Anonymous | 8:12 AM |  

    The only thing I remember about Judge Dredd was that Sylvester Stallone could tell his gun what shooting mode to use, like "double whammy" for instance, and then his gun would say "double whammy!" back to him, and then he could shoot double whammies out of his gun. I guess that means, like, two bullets at once?

    Also, is there more to Mad Men than that one guy making a serious face all the time? Because in all the ads for that show that I see, it's always that one guy wearing a suit and making a serious face.

leave a response