Some brief reviews

World's Greatest Dad

Robin Williams stars as a put-upon high school teacher whose sputtering literary career goes into overdrive after his son dies, despite his lack of any discernible talent. This explains the working title, Jeph Loeb: A Life In Pictures. But seriously, while I appreciate that it's a dark comedy and it does go THERE, I think the same observations and insights were made by Heathers in a much shorter amount of time, much more incisively, and (this is key) much funnier. I don't think there's any real funny line from this I could quote. So while I can appreciate the effort it took by the filmmakers and Williams to make you sympathize with a character even as he becomes James Frey (pretty much), if you're interested in this, I'd recommend you watch Heathers instead.

Big Fan

It's a movie from the writer of The Wrestler, and it can only suffer in comparison. The thing is, The Wrestler made you sympathize and care about a character who got his jollies being smashed in the head with a plate of glass for a audience of rednecks. Big Fan can't make you sympathize with a guy who likes football.

It's the story of... some guy... played by Patton Oswalt, who is a huge fan of the New York Giants. The movie takes an interesting tack in that, instead of making him clever or witty or gregarious, it just spends the entire runtime talking about what a pathetic dumbfuck he is. That's kind of an interesting choice. IMDB says that it's a Comedy Crime Drama Sport movie, which is another interesting choice. Comedies work by making fun of the protagonist, while dramas work by making you feel sorry for the protagonist. So, interesting that they want you to think that the protagonist is a complete schmuck (and he is) while also finding it amusing that he's a complete schmuck. I'm just saying, there are a thousand ways to make a character sympathetic, and the movie doesn't use any of them. You've got Patton Oswalt, one of the funniest guys in comedy, and he doesn't tell any jokes. Like I said. Interesting.

So some stuff happens to Patton Oswalt's character and as it turns out, he's a complete schmuck. Very little conflict, growth, or revelation leads to this conclusion. I get that he hates change (because every so often someone asks him to try something new and he yells at them), but that's a kind of flimsy subject to hang a movie on. Two hours of a guy not changing. Maybe it would've worked better as a short film, so it could get to the punchline and move on, because there's literally a scene where, after Oswalt's told a cop he can't remember anything, he calls him up and meets with him and says "I still can't remember anything." So, while the movie makes me buy that a person like Patton Oswalt's character could exist, it never convinces me that it would be a good idea to make a movie about him.

True Blood: Season 3

( Spoilers. )

Research: Blood of the Fold Chapters 1 and 2

Yeah, so, this is the third book of the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, and would've formed the basis for the third season of Legend of the Seeker if/when the series continued. Take it away...

Backstory: Remember those few episodes where Richard had to go to a nunnery to learn magic from magic nuns? You remember, with The Seahawk of Casual Sex??? Well, in the second book, that was pretty much the entire plot, with a lot more characters and shit. But they got rid of all that to focus on Cara's feelings, so it all worked out. Anyway, Richard had to go off and leave Kahlan, because I guess she couldn't go with him for some reason even though that would make things much simpler for everyone, and at the nunnery there were some evil magic nuns who served the Keeper instead of the Creator. I guess under the feeling that it's worse to serve in heaven than to... serve in hell.

So their evil plan for Richard went awry (I think it involved sex. Did it involve sex? Pretty sure...) and now they're on a boat (not Penny's). They all wake up from a nightmare of Emperor Jagang torturing a different Sister of the Dark for her failure, sort of a Chaotic Evil pep talk. In the process, he grabbed one of the Sister's breasts hard enough to leave bruises, thus ensuring a complaint from the HR Department of the Damned. So the ladies, who all happen to sleep in the nude -- is that an evil thing? Is that why so many annoying celebrities go commando? -- get up to turn the ship around and go where Jagang ordered them, not even bothering to get dressed. I'll tell them what I told my dad, there's always time for pants. Naturally, the sailors respond to six naked ladies like sailors, so one of the SotD uses magic to gouge some eyeballs out. Feminists, man.

Meanwhile, in generic fantasy name, Richard and his pet gar, who he raked his brain to name Gratch, are eating spice soup. How's spice soup work anyway? Soups are named after the chief ingredient. By their very nature, spice is someone you add to a soup, not the main soupy bit. Why not 'salt soup' or 'bits of saltine cracker soup'?

Oh, yeah, Richard killed the mother of this baby gar (it's like a bear with wings. That sound you heard is every one of you making a Stephen Colbert reference in your head at the same time) and then he took the baby and raised it as his personal attack dog and Jesus, when I put it that way it sounds really bad. So, tl;dr, Richard is a Pokemon master.


Fact: Cara isn't kept in a Pokeball. The rest of the world is kept outside a Pokeball.

Some exposition goes down, along with some annoying Mary-Sueness from Kahlan... who as a child stole a roasted duck to give to a beggar woman. The beggar then yelled at her for not giving her gold, which I'm pretty sure is a joke from Scary Movie? So Kahlan's mother told her that if you help someone, they become your responsibility, so then Kahlan spent the entire day helping the woman find a job. I guess the moral is never help anyone ever? Huh. Odd story.

Then some invisible lizard people in capes attack (look, it's the third book, and not all the plot points can be 'bisexual dominatrix assassins in skintight leather') and Richard goes...

"Dance with me, Death. I am ready," Richard murmured [...] With the words came an instinctive understanding of their meaning: it was a morning prayer, meant to say that you could die this day, so you should strive to do your best while you still live.

That's why I say "Hang in there, kitty," when I charge into battle. Cliff hanga!