Speculating on My DVR Leftovers

So I have been clearing out my DVR of late, and yesterday I finally watched Syfy's Red:  Werewolf Hunter again.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I watched parts of it (mostly the parts with Kavan Smith and the fight scenes) while fast forwarding through the boring or overly dedicated to kind of crappy CGI werewolf transformation parts.  Um, suffice to say, this thing did not hold up well to a second viewing, you guys.  It still had a kind of fun feel, but I no longer want to add it to my permanent collection.

I'll admit, when it first aired, I was so super jazzed about a movie including Kavan Smith, Felicia Day, and werewolves, that I probably gave it a much wider benefit of the doubt than I normally would have.  I mean, I thought the ending was terrible on the first watch through, and that didn't change the second time around.  I still don't know what the hell the grandmother was thinking.  I understand that the writers needed the wolfy Nathan to get free in order to further the plot, but they didn't even try to have the events leading up to the escape make sense.   The grandmother's actions felt completely out of character for her.  They tried to give some half-assed explanation about her husband having gone through a similar situation that ended badly, but it still didn't ring true.  I could totally buy her deciding to kill Nathan in order to spare Virginia the pain she went through, but the way she went about it was just incredibly lame, and didn't at all live up to my expectations of her as a former badass werewolf hunter and the revered and respected head of this family of hunters.  I was literally screaming, "Oh come on!" at the screen when she was trying to shoot him with a silver-loaded shotgun from three feet away and kept missing, repeatedly.  While he was in a cage.  What the heck is up with that?  Again, this is a woman who spent her entire life hunting these things down and from everything that has been said up to this point, she was pretty damn good at it.  Does not compute.

And the movie was completely full of these kind of weird little out of character moments and actions that were the writers simply trying to further the plot.  The other one that kind of irked me the first time around and really got to me the second was that everyone was throwing a fit about Virginia deciding to get married, because other people don't understand their way and they must remain apart.  Um, how the heck has your family line survived for all of these generations to fight the werewolves if they haven't been bringing in new blood so they could procreate?  I mean, Virginia is the last female in a line of what is vaguely shown to be a strongly matriarchal family.  It makes total sense that she would want to go find someone to help her make babies so that her legacy can continue.  It also seems to make sense that she would choose someone she cares about and can put up with so that he can be staying home taking care of the kids while she's out hunting.  But whatever.

I frequently DVR the cheesy Syfy original movies.  If they've got a Stargate actor, dragons, or something archaeological going on, I'm probably gonna give it a try.  At least half the time, I"ll watch the first 30 minutes and then just delete the whole thing and move on with my life.  I can't say any of the ones I watch in full are ever good, but they are at least entertaining enough for me to watch through once.  I don't think there's ever been a Syfy original movie that I've purposely set out to watch twice until now.

But here's the funny thing:  I end up watching a lot of Lifetime movies because they often feature Stargate actors as well (there are a lot of cheesy movies being made in the Vancouver area, folks, what can I say).  But time after time, I always end up engaged enough in the stupid Lifetime movies to watch all of the way through, and there are a few now that I have purposely watched more than once.  Case in point, in addition to having Red:  Werewolf Hunter hanging out in my DVR, I also had The Room at the End of the Hall  (alternately called The Nightmare at the End of the Hall) in my DVR as well, awaiting a second watch (yes, this one also featured Kavan Smith.  There was an abundance of cheesy cable movies featuring Kavan Smith in October, it seems. I am not ocmplaining).  I watched that Sunday evening fully intending to put it on in the background while I was reading a book, and to just pay attention to the bits featuring Kavan Smith.  Except I totally got sucked into the story, even though I had already seen this movie before.

It really disturbs me that I tend to enjoy the cheesy Lifetime movies so much more than the cheesy Syfy movies.  I don't know what that says about my psyche, at all.  I think part of it is that my expectations for the Lifetime movies are pretty low, whereas I always (okay, usually) have high hopes for the Syfy films.  But I also think it is because at this point, whoever makes these movies that Syfy snaps up for their Saturday night time slots has realized that the movies are gonna get bought and aired at least once, so they are just churning them out.  Okay, yes, I am sure Lifetime is just churning them out as well, but theirs are so often "based on a true story" or adaptations of Danielle Steele novels that this seems to require them to go for a slightly higher quality of production than the Syfy flicks. 

So, there you have it, one of my dirty little secrets.    So help me God, I actually enjoy cheesy Lifetime movies (so long as they feature one or more of my preferred Stargate alumni, at least), and while I try, I just can't get behind the cheesy Syfy films.  Go figure.

Also, upon further reflection, the werewolves in that movie just totally sucked, you guys.

That is all.

My Cookie, It Crumbled...

WEEKLY STARGATE REMINDER:

Don't forget to watch tonight's new episode of Stargate Universe on Syfy at 8 pm (CST)!!

Sigh.  Well, the Giants won the world series.  I am sure my sister is very happy.  But still, the Rangers did something this season that they have never done before.  Not only did they make it to the post-season, they made it all the way to the World Series.  They are still the 2010 American League champions and no one will ever be able to take that away from them.  All in all it was a damn good season for the Rangers.  Hopefully they can maintain the momentum into next year and have another awesome go in the 2011 season.  Regardless, I am proud of them.  Well done Rangers, well done.

And congratulations, Giants.  You played some pretty good ball out there.  If you hadn't beaten my team, I'd be a lot happier for you, but still, I tip my hat in your direction.

Monday was a pretty good day of progress.  I finished my last have-to crochet project (aside from my monthly swap squares, of course).  The pattern called for two balls of yarn though, and only used one, so I might make a quick one-skein accessory to go with it though.  I was thinking of setting aside all crochet for the rest of the month so I can focus on my writing--but I'm kidding myself if I think I am not going to need the release of a good crochet project to work on, or that I won't watch any television this month.  So my projects might take a bit longer, but I am no longer in any sort of rush to get any of them done, so that works out.

Speaking of writing, National Novel Writing Month has officially begun!  I made a decent start yesterday and can hopefully keep up the momentum.  I am currently at 3,842 words, out of 50,000.  That works out to just over six pages in MS Word.  I had a brief moment of panic when I started writing yesterday afternoon that my story might not end up being long enough.  By which I mean, I might write the whole thing and find out that the word count falls short.  Of course, the two and a half pages I got written yesterday were all just one of my main characters running around the woods by herself.  Not a lot of dialogue there--and nothing eats up a page like dialogue.  So hopefully it will get better once the characters all start interacting and actually doing stuff.  Worst case scenario, if I finish and it is too short, I should be ahead of schedule at least (as long as I stick to my self-imposed six pages a day requirement) and be able to go back and flesh things out, hopefully rounding out the count.  We shall see.

I am still going to plan to get my Monday-Friday blog posts in here, but they might be a bit erratic, so I apologize in advance for that.  Sadly, it does look like the writing is going to cut heavily into my reading, and I've only made it through chapter ten of The Gathering Storm.  I am still plowing through it (there are a few times a day when I read pretty much no matter what), but it will probably take me a while to get through it, which means I've relinquished dibs on Towers of Midnight to my husband.  I am a little bummed out about this, but if I can write a whole novel this month, it will be worth it.  I will still do a happy dance when the book shows up today, I guarantee you that.

And lastly, Red:  Werewolf Hunter premiered this weekend.  I mostly enjoyed it despite the completely cheesy SFX and some rather stilted dialogue.  I do think the actors all did a really excellent job with the material they had to work with, to be certain.  Though a friend of mine said he thought Felicia's Day acting was not quite up to snuff.  I will admit, as much as I love Felicia Day, I may have been too distracted by the awesomeness of Kavan Smith to notice.  As far as I am concerned there is never enough Kavan Smith on my television screen.  I mean, how can you not be distracted by this?

Nice ink, Mr. Smith. 

Sigh.  Um...where was I?  Oh!  Right.  The movie.  Like I said, I thought all of the actors did a pretty good job with the crappy script they were given--so I am willing to forgive Felicia Day a lot.  But I must agree with the Onion's AV Club review--the scene where she initiates a kiss with her guy was just plain terrifying.  Please, Felicia, never ever make that face again!  That was kind of weird in itself, though, because I've seen her have romantic chemistry in Dr. Horrible and on The Guild, and that went off just fine.  Maybe when she's trying to be a badass she can't pull off romantic as well or something.  I don't really know.


But despite a super silly script, and the aforementioned cheesy SFX, this really was a mostly enjoyable flick.  It is definitely in the top tier of Syfy's Saturday monster movies to be certain.  It had a decent mythology, and a fairly solid premise overall.  The action scenes were pulled off pretty well.  Plus, lots of big harpoon guns and silver arrows.

My, what big guns you have.

My only real problem with the movie was the ending.  Highlight the text below for my thoughts on that.

Look, while it made sense for Virginia to kill Nathan--he had made a human kill before the wolf that bit him was killed, also the only way for Virginia to not become a wolf herself was to kill Nathan--I didn't have to like it, alright?  But, my personal preferences for keeping Kavan Smith around aside, that whole scenario could have been handled a lot differently.  The way they did it was just stilted and out of sync with the rest of the movie.  Also, that whole thing could have been avoided if Grandma Stupid hadn't skipped Nathan's tranquilizer dose in the first place.  That was just completely illogical.  It was like she was holding her long dead husband's actions against this complete stranger and basically saying she didn't want her granddaughter to have any chance at happiness at all.  What the heck?  I realize that was just a plot contrivance to get Nathan loose to bite Virginia so she'd have to kill him, but again, it was a poorly handled one.  And finally, the very ending was completely confusing.  Was that Virginia's daughter by Nathan?  By someone else who came after?  She certainly didn't look like a cross between the two--but then, why show her at all if she isn't actually related to the story at hand?  Or were they trying to say that the whole thing had been a story and show that we were back in the real world?  If so, they maybe should have showed Virginia with the little girl at the start of the story too, instead of the flashback to the olden days.  The way it was filmed was just completely confusing and left me with no idea what the filmmakers were trying to tell me had happened.  

And that's all I have to say about that.  Overall, I still give it an A- I would say.  I will definitely watch it one more time before I delete it from the DVR queue, and I do hope it gets released on DVD.  

And now, it is time to stop procrastinating and head on to that other writing I have to do...

I'm Trying to Keep Up With My Brain Today

But really, it's been a bit difficult.  It's just been racing all over the place since yesterday.  This is largely because I got struck with the huge Mallet of Inspiration regarding my Halloween costume (which I need to have ready one week from today).  Until yesterday, I had been thinking that if I ended up dressing up for anything Halloweeny, I would just reuse my peasant/wench costume from a few years ago, because I hadn't felt like getting anything together.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I have been slowly figuring out how to put together a super cute Kaylee Frye (from Firefly) costume.  Here is the look I am wanting to achieve:

The second picture is her "basic" outfit, though I definitely want to complete it with accessories/hairstyle for the scene from the pilot, which you can see in the fist picture.  See, my husband and I have decided we would like to start going to genre/comic conventions every once in a while, and I thought it would be fun to have a costume put together that I would wear to these.  The main requirements of course would be that it be a costume of a character I love, be something that would be comfortable to wear (especially wandering around a convention hall for hours), and be something that I could put together with my limited sewing skills (i.e., that I could find all of the pieces and would need to make limited alterations to).  Kaylee fits the bill perfectly for all of this.  I had thought I might try to get the basics assembled for Halloween as a kind of test run, but quickly realized that I will need to do some serious searching to get this as close to accurate as I would like it to be.

So, I kind of fizzled out on getting Kaylee put together by this Halloween, though she is still very much on the back burner. 

Then, yesterday, I found out that the Halloween party tomorrow night that I couldn't go to has been moved back to next Friday, when I can go.  And I found myself suddenly in need of a costume.  I considered just recycling the peasant costume, but it's just a cheap store-bought ensemble.  It's got some potential, mind you, but I get the impression that the people throwing this party are a lot more serious about their Halloween costumes than I normally am.  So I was sitting on the couch thinking maybe I'd just check out the costume aisle when I go to the store next week and see if there was anything there that I could combine with my existing costume for something more interesting, when a little thought flickered through my brain.  I blinked, went "huh," and tried to go on about my life, but the thought turned around and came back for another, slower, pass. 

Amy Pond. 

For those not in the know, Amy Pond is the newest companion on the wonderful series Doctor Who.  The most recent season of Doctor Who has gotten a lot of scrutiny because there's been a new companion AND a new Doctor.  And both of them are portrayed by exceptionally young actors.  But I am in the group of fans that have absolutely loved Matt Smith's performance as the good Doctor so far, and that is at least in part to his companion, played by the amazing Karen Gillan.  Together they are just extremely adorable. 

But, back to costumes.  Amy wore a few different outfits throughout the season, naturally, but here's the one that stood out for me:

And I realized this would probably be super easy to put together in a week.  So since that thought occurred to me, I've been doing research online, tracking down items, making lists, and all of that.  It has paid off so far.  I have found the sweatshirt she wears (forum consensus is that it is this one), and there is a store in Dallas that carries it.  My husband has a gig in Dallas tomorrow and offered to head out early and pick up the shirt for me, so they already have one on hold for me!  I love my husband, he is truly awesome.  I've found a few good candidates for the miniskirt online (one of which is from Old Navy, so I can go to the store and actually try it on first), but I am first going to hit up some thrift stores today to see if I can find one there.  Given that it is Halloween time, I have high hopes that I can track down a decent and not too expensive red wig.  Other than that, it is just picking up the pantyhose, socks, and a headband, and hoping that I can track down some blue hi-top Chucks in an actual store so I don't have to pay the ridiculous price of express shipping.  Huzzah! 

I am not going to worry too much about accessories (i.e., jewelry) right now, but once the I get the season on DVD next month, I can keep an eye out for any other pieces I'll need to pick up down the road to perfect my costume.  That way I'll already have one con costume in the bag, and I won't have to feel any kind of pressure on taking my time assembling my Kaylee costume.  I am really quite pleased with myself, I have to say.  Part of me wants to use this as an excuse to justify getting that sonic screwdriver I've had my eye on, but technically that wouldn't be part of Amy's costume, so I will have to make myself wait on that. 

And yes, I do know that it is unlikely anyone at that party next week will recognize my costume.  But I'm okay with that, because I will know. 

Let's see, I have a few more tidbits for you before I let you go for the weekend.  Flick Filosopher linked to this amazing "intro" for Star Wars using the Macgyver theme music.  It is beautiful.  Check it out. 

Also, here's some more behind the scenes dirt from the making of the original trilogy for you. 

And in a slightly Star Wars related item, Joel Watson has a new shirt up in his Hijinks Ensue store, based on this comic strip.  Ewok Stare, I love it. 

Here's a sneak peak at the upcoming Syfy original movie Red:  Werewolf Hunter.  It's a re-imagining of Little Red Riding Hood starring Felecia Day and Kavan Smith.  I don't care if it's a cheesy made for TV Syfy flick, I am super stoked about this.  Felicia Day.  And Kavan Smith.  'Nuff said. 

Oh, and the web series Riese, that I wanted to start watching forever ago, but couldn't because they pulled it off the web for retooling, is coming back via Syfy.  That's pretty spiffy.  Plus, it now has added Amanda Tapping.  Never a bad thing, IMO.  

And lastly, it's Friday, so you should go check out the new Gronk strip. 

Now, go forth and enjoy your weekend.