Episode 16 - Here, Have Some Ale While I Sing You The History of My People

We all discuss works based on Shakespeare, but not just adaptations.  For the movie we watched 1961's West Side Story and the novel was Terry Pratchett's 1992 Discword novel, Lords and Ladies.  Amy goes off on pancake makeup, I discus how Robert Wise lost something when he had to go all shiny for the color era and Randy gives some thoughts on what makes enjoyable fantasy novels.

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For next episode, Joseph chose the theme and we're doing Dystopian game shows.  Amy chose Horace McCory's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? for the novel and Randy chose David Cronenberg's Videodrome for the movie.

Amy is recapping Dancing With The Stars for the Baltimore Sun again this season! and here is her cast preview.

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Buffy Rewatch: My Boyfriend's Back

Season 2 comes to its tragic, operatic conclusion with the two-parts of "Becoming".


"No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?"

"Me."


Looking back at the show now, after 7 seasons of BUFFY and 5 seasons of ANGEL, it's hard to watch these (or any) episodes of this great series without thinking of where these characters' journeys will take them. We know that, after 144 episodes, the core foursome of BUFFY will continue to be Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles. The events of "Becoming" (especially its first part) give Angel more prominence, but they also show that his usefulness as a character on BUFFY would have a limited shelf-life. (This is a dilemma I expect I'll discuss more throughout season 3.)

Buffy Rewatch: The Waiting is the Hardest Part

This week, we mostly stall the Angelus storyline, with "Killed By Death", "I Only Have Eyes For You", and "Go Fish."


"We'll have to do this again sometime."


Through the first 17 episodes of season 2, I've given the show five A+ grades and four A grades. I was thinking that I might have trouble justifying calling any other season the show's best. But then we got to episodes 18, 19, and 20.

It's understandable that we'd need a bit of a breather after "Passion", but here's the thing: pacing matters. We're five episodes from the end of the season, Angelus has just killed Jenny, and we get three stand-alone episodes that don't really address the big stories of season 2.

Episode 15 - Revisiting the Wilderness of Childhood

This week, we revisited things that we enjoyed in our teenage years.  I chose Robin Hood (the 1973 Disney animated version) for the movie and Amy chose Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War for the novel.  We talk horrid villains, recycled animation, the songs of Roger Miller and Randy presents why Robin Hood is a Tea Party movie.

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For next episode, Amy chose the theme and we're doing Shakespeare Reimagined.  I chose Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies (Midsummer Night's Dream) for the novel and Randy chose West Side Story (Romeo & Juliet) for the movie.

Amy is recapping Dancing With The Stars for the Baltimore Sun again this season and here is her cast preview.

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Buffy Rewatch: Let's Hear It For The Boys

The guys of the Buffyverse take center stage this week, with "Phases", "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered", and "Passion".


"Since Angel lost his soul, he's regained his sense of whimsy."


First, I just want to say that I am loving this little project. Since BUFFY ended in 2003, I've seen random episodes occasionally, but I love being able to rewatch the whole series again. I care about these characters so deeply (especially Buffy and Willow), and I love watching them on their journeys again. (We'll see how I feel when I get to season 6.) The show is aging SO WELL (much better than, I think, a show like BREAKING BAD will). Sure the technology is dated (E-LETTERS!), but these characters and their transformations are as powerful and involving now as they were 15 years ago.

Buffy Rewatch: Edge of Seventeen

Things take a dark turn this week, with "Bad Eggs", "Surprise", and "Innocence".


"So what did you do for your birthday? Did you have fun?"
"I got older."
"You look the same to me."


After rewatching "Bad Eggs", I was going to use it an example of an episode that (if it aired today) might have inspired lots of online hate directed at Joyce. She, like Skyler White on BREAKING BAD, really stands in the protagonist's way in this episode. She also acts - from our perspective at least - unreasonably... though from her perspective her behavior is completely reasonable and warranted. And I might come back to this idea later in the rewatch, but for now all I want to talk about is "Surprise" and "Innocence."

Episode 14: Time Keeps On Slipping

We discuss Agatha Christie's The Clocks and the 2009 movie Timer, along with mocking mystery novel contrivances, debating the ethics of having your romantic destiny determined by a wrist timer and why Hercule Poirot is kind of a dick.

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Next time we're revisiting childhood favorites.  Amy chose the novel The Chocolate War and I chose the 1973 animated version of Robin Hood.

Amy's New Project: LibraryLinks

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Will/Should/What Could Have Been - Oscar Talk

With the Oscars ceremony tomorrow, we figured we'd all make our predictions as well as try and correct some obvious missteps in the nominations.  The next episode we record, we'll talk our picks a bit and see who flamed out the least.

Best Picture

Nominees: American Hustle; Captain Phillips; Dallas Buyers Club; Gravity; Her; Nebraska; Philomena; 12 Years a Slave; The Wolf of Wall Street 

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated
Amy	???	Philomena	I wouldn't have minded seeing "Rush" make the list.
Joe	Gravity	12 Years A Slave	Before Midnight was hosed.  Upstream Color was the best film of the year but had no chance of a nomination.
Randy	12 Years a Slave	Gravity	Before Midnight

Best Actor

Nominees: Christian Bale – American Hustle as Irving Rosenfeld
Bruce Dern – Nebraska as Woody Grant
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Wolf of Wall Street as Jordan Belfort
Chiwetel Ejiofor – 12 Years a Slave as Solomon Northup
Matthew McConaughey – Dallas Buyers Club as Ron Woodroof

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated
Amy	McConaughey or Eijofor	Anybody but Bale
Joe	Matthew McConaughey	Chiwetel Ejiofor	Simon Pegg, "The World's End"
Randy	Matthew McConaughey	Leonardo DiCaprio	Robert Redford, "All Is Lost"

Best Actress

Nominees:

Amy Adams – American Hustle as Sydney Prosser

Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine as Jeanette "Jasmine" Francis

Sandra Bullock – Gravity as Dr. Ryan Stone

Judi Dench – Philomena as Philomena Lee

Meryl Streep – August: Osage County as Violet Weston

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated
Amy	Adams	Dench
Joe	Cate Blanchett	Amy Adams	Julie Delpy.  Inexplicable omission.
Randy	Cate Blanchett	Sandra Bullock	I would have loved a nom for Brie Larson in "Short Term 12".

Best Supporting Actor

Nominees:

Barkhad Abdi – Captain Phillips as Abduwali Muse

Bradley Cooper – American Hustle as Agent Richard "Richie" DiMaso

Michael Fassbender – 12 Years a Slave as Edwin Epps

Jonah Hill – The Wolf of Wall Street as Donnie Azoff

Jared Leto – Dallas Buyers Club as Rayon

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated
Amy	Leto		Daniel Brühl was terrific as Niki Lauda in Rush. The Germans I saw it with said he NAILED Lauda's distinctive Austrian accent.
Joe	Jared Leto	Jared Leto	I have nothing on this one.
Randy	Jared Leto	Jonah Hill	James Gandolfini, Enough Said.

Best Supporting Actress

Nominees: Sally Hawkins – Blue Jasmine as Ginger

Jennifer Lawrence – American Hustle as Rosalyn Rosenfeld

Lupita Nyong'o – 12 Years a Slave as Patsey

Julia Roberts – August: Osage County as Barbara Weston-Fordham

June Squibb – Nebraska as Kate Grant

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated So It Could Win
Amy	Nyong'o	Lawrence - Took a character that could have been LOATHED and made it multi-dimension and sympathetic. I thought hers was a better performance than Adams', frankly.
Joe	Lupita Nyong'o	Lupita Nyong'o	No choice on this one.
Randy	Lupita Nyong'o	June Squibb	Margot Robbie, The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Director

Nominees: David O. Russell – American Hustle
Alfonso Cuarón – Gravity
Alexander Payne – Nebraska
Steve McQueen – 12 Years a Slave
Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated
Amy	Russell	Cuarón	Stephen Frears for Philomena or Ron Howard for Rush
Joe	Alfonso Cuarón	Alfonso Cuarón	Shane Carruth for Upstream Color or Edgar Wright for The World's En.
Randy	Alfonso Cuarón	Alfonso Cuarón	Sarah Polley deserved more recognition for the remarkable Stories We Tell.

Best Screenplay - Original

Nominees:

American Hustle – Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell

Blue Jasmine – Woody Allen

Dallas Buyers Club – Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack

Her – Spike Jonze

Nebraska – Bob Nelson

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated
Amy	Her or American Hustle	American Hustle	Don Jon - Joseph Gordon Levitt. Way smarter than it had any right to be. Original and interesting.
Joe	American Hustle	Nebraska	I like Amy's Don Jon nod so I'm going to copy it.
Randy	American Hustle. Ugh.	Nebraska	Gravity, because this ridiculous notion that its screenplay is bad needs to stop.

Best Screenplay - Adapted

Nominees:

Before Midnight – Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke

Captain Phillips – Billy Ray

Philomena – Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope

12 Years a Slave – John Ridley

The Wolf of Wall Street – Terence Winter

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated
Amy	12 Years a Slave	Tie: Philomena and Before Midnight
Joe	12 Years a Slave	Before Midnight
Randy	12 Years a Slave	Before Midnight

Best Animated Feature

Nominees: The Croods; Despicable Me 2; Ernest & Celestine; Frozen; The Wind Rises

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated
Amy	Frozen	Frozen	This category could be very interesting next year with both How to Train Your Dragon 2 AND The Lego Movie in contention.
Joe	Frozen	Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)
Randy	Frozen	Frozen

Best Documentary Feature

Nominees: 

The Act of Killing; 20 Feet from Stardom; Cutie and the Boxer; Dirty Wars; The Square

	Will Win	Should Win	Shoulda Been Nominated So It Could Win
Amy		I only saw 20 Feet from Stardom but I loved, loved it.
Joe	20 Feet From Stardom	The Act of Killing	Stories We Tell
Randy	The Act of Killing	The Act of Killing	Stories We Tell

Other categories: