I really want to do this before it closes in July.

Sleep No More

I would never have even heard of it if I hadn't randomly watched the "Side-By-Side" interview Susan Blackwell did with Book of Mormon's Andrew Rannells at the "theater" where it takes place. (You Dan fans will no doubt remember the amazing one-on-one she did with Dan Radcliffe where she made him separate her laundry.) I don't normally go in for haunted house type situations ("don't normally go in for" being the nicest way to say it), but this seems like ... an adventure.

If me and my wallet decide to do it, I will certainly report back.

As usual, the numbers indicate the number of each episode in production order and airing order, respectively.

( The Galileo Seven, Court Martial, The Menagerie, Shore Leave, and The Squire of Gothos )

It's been a relatively slow night at work tonight, and I should have spent it plowing through several more Star Trek episodes, but dangit I read a lovely article about Veronica Mars on the way to work and I was jonesing to watch it instead and before I knew it I'd watched the first five episodes.

- Maybe it's just been a while since I saw the pilot, but it felt incredibly awkward. It's got a LOOOOOOOT of backstory to set up and it does it by saddling Kristen Bell with a whole bunch of ham-fisted exposition that tells the story like we already know it. It's not that it's a *bad* episode, really, but all the voice-over is just weird.

- Dudes, I had completely forgotten that PARIS HILTON was in an episode of this show! As one of Logan's skanky girlfriends, remember that?

- Speaking of recognizable cast members, Sydney Poitier (the daughter of the Poitier you're familiar with) plays the teacher of the "newspaper" class. This is very relevant to my interests, because she would go on to play Jungle Julia in Tarantino's Grindhouse movie Death Proof. Also, Melissa Leo is in "Meet John Smith" as [SPOILER].

- And on a more obscure casting note, the guy who plays Cliff, the sleazy lawyer, was in perhaps the worst movie of all time - Hobgoblins. He was the effeminate, be-sequined emcee of Club Scum, and he's a perfect example of the fact that there can be life and an acting career after a movie like Hobgoblins.

- There are some parallels you could draw between Veronica and her sleuthy ancestor, Sherlock Holmes. Both brilliant, both totally superior to the law enforcement "powers that be" (seriously, Lamb is like an extremely douchey Lestrade - but not BBC New!Sherlock Lestrade, because he's kind of awesome). But one BIG difference is that Ronnie does what she does generally to help people and not just to keep herself from being bored. That Veronica Mars, she's a marshmallow (something you DEFINITELY could not say about old Sherly).

NBC has announced some new shows for the fall and my favorite fake Mormons, Book of Mormon's Andrew Rannells (Elder Price) and Josh Gad (Elder Cunningham), are in two of them! Andrew is in a (*sigh*) Ryan Murphy sitcom called The New Normal about a gay couple and the surrogate who's going to help them have a child and Josh is in another (sans Murphy) called 1600 Penn, which is a family comedy set in the White House.

I'm assuming both these shows are shooting in NYC, since my boys are contracted for Book of Mormon - along with the rest of the main cast - through early 2013 (which HOBVIOUSLY means I should see it once or twice more before they fly the coop). But I'm so excited to see them in something else, playing different characters, and they both seem pleased to be working under the same roof again.

Gratuitous only in that I'm guessing most of you who wanted to see it in the first place have already done so. :-) But if you have, we have to talk about this, yes? Because of reasons!

First off, though, for those of you who *haven't* seen it and are wondering if perhaps you should, answers to some questions you may or may not have.

WILL I LIKE IT?
Well, I'm not you, but for my money it's incredibly entertaining and, as it's directed and written by Joss Whedon, it has some familiar elements - snark, meta, cultural references, reversals, characterization out the wazoo, and the trademark Joss heartbreak.

DO I NEED TO HAVE SEEN THE OTHER MARVEL SUPERHERO MOVIES BEFORE SEEING THIS ONE?
It's not absolutely essential, but I'd highly recommend it. I think you'll be able to follow what's going on without the prior movies, but you'll enjoy it like 1000x more if you've seen the others. For the record, here are the movies that set up The Avengers:
- Iron Man and Iron Man 2 (if you can only do one, go with the first one, though the second one introduces at least one character that crops up in a major way in Avengers)
- The Incredible Hulk (the 2008 one with Edward Norton, not the Ang Lee one). This is the least essential, as there's a totally different actor playing Bruce Banner and the events of this film are only glancingly mentioned in The Avengers. Also, you probablyknow all you need to know about the Hulk already - dude gets gamma overdose, dude turns into big green monster when angry, 'nuff said.
- Thor (2011). This film not only introduces the character and backstory of Thor but also the chief villain of The Avengers.
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). This one sets up the "great whatsit" of The Avengers - you know, the doodad that everyone wants and no one completely understands the power of. Plus, besides the first Iron Man, it's the best film of the bunch (again, in my opinion). Also, it's a period movie (set mostly during WW2), which sets it apart stylistically from the rest.

SHOULD I STAY FOR THE CREDITS?
YES! And that goes for all the movies mentioned above, if you choose to watch them. Luckily with the DVDs you can fast-forward through the credits to get to the post-credit scenes. Please note, though, that The Avengers actually has TWO bonus scenes - one halfway through the credits, and another one (a purely Joss moment) at the very very end.

HEY - I JUST WATCHED THE MOVIE, STAYED THROUGH THE CREDITS LIKE YOU SAID, AND CAME BACK TO THIS POST. WHO-WHA-HUH?!
I should say here that if you are NOT a comic book nerd, familiar with the Avengers comics, you should actually pay attention to this right now, because you're not going to grasp what's awesome about the mid-credits scene when you see the movie if you don't. I'll put it under a cut, but seriously, if you're not a comics person, you'll enjoy it more if you know going in. I know I did. And it helped me enjoy the super-fans' enjoyment, if you take my meaning.( Whoooo are you? Who-who...who-who? )

Okay, so now for actual thoughts about the movie.

( If we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it. )

I'm working on putting my feelings about The Avengers into words, but I'm not sure I can. It's like the 2009 Star Trek movie all over again, where I feel ill-equipped and almost like it wasn't really made for me anyway, even though I ferociously love it. But I did manage to put together some thoughts on a very different film, one that is going into a bit wider distribution this weekend, and which might be an interesting alternative if you want to see something *besides* superheroes at the movies.


Damsels in Distress

I think I have previously mentioned my great affection for a film called The Last Days of Disco. I know I have. Here, in fact. It has pained me that, until last year, its director, Whit Stillman, had not made a film in the thirteen years since. I was inexpressibly excited, therefore, at hearing he had at last broken his cinematic silence with a film called Damsels in Distress, which debuted as the closing film of the Venice festival last year (and which I have been impatiently waiting to clap eyes on for several months now). I think it's safe to say that this is another movie for my "favorites" pile.

( What you described is a Playboy or Operator move. )

Okay, thanks to major_dallas I am adopting an entirely new watching order, based on the production order and not the airing order (which is what Netflix and the DVDs use). I'm all messed up already, though, since I started with "The Cage" and "The Man Trap." Has anyone ever tried watching in Stardate order? :P Eh, production order it is. From here on out, I'll note both the production order and airing order with the title, with production first.

( The Corbomite Maneuver, Mudd's Women, The Enemy Within, and The Naked Time )

[This is the closest thing I have to a Star Trek icon.]

I've been meaning to plow through the original series for years, and I even started watching the first few episodes six or seven years ago, but impatience at having to wait for available copies from the library eventually outweighed my interest and I never tried again. HOWEVER, I do so love a deadline, and given my (obsesseive-compulsive) decision to mimic the Alamo Drafthouse's "Summer of 1982" series at CinemaPam - a series which includes the epic (or so I've heard) Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan - and thanks to the easy availability of all the episodes on Netflix Instant - I've decided there's no time like the present. Between now and my June 3 "in spirit" screening of Khan, my goal is to plow through all 68 episodes of the original series, plus the 1979 movie. Crazy? Possibly, but since when is that a first for me? :P

Will try and record some of my thoughts here, but there's no way I can do it "Mark Watches" style. Maybe I can muster a paragraph on each episode, though. Starting with ( the first four episodes. )

Okay, this is a full-on SPOILER-tastic post about Cabin In the Woods. I'll be talking about almost everything I can remember about the movie, including the ... it's not really a twist, because it's dropped right up front, but it's the crux of the movie and you might not want it spoiled if you're planning to see the movie eventually.

If you're NOT planning to see this movie, read away. Though I should warn you that finding out more about it might make you more interested in seeing it after all, EVEN IF you don't like horror.

( Why do the cut tags look like this now? )