I’m not a big fan of the summer olympics, but these pictures are gorgeous. There’s not much video on YouTube though. Seems NBC is getting that stuff pulled off the site which is a shame ‘cause the opening ceremonies are usually pretty impressive.

Really funny recap of the first 3 seasons of Battlestar Galatica, in a mere eight minutes, in preparation for the 4th season premiere on April 4th

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-6yL_tMUDps

Cloverfield is, quite simply, a scifi/horror Blair Witch Project, wrapped up in the shell of a Lost episode. Yet as good and entertaining as the movie is , what it says about current American culture is one of the bleakest things I’ve seen in a while and I saw No Country for Old Men, which looks like a Disney musical compared to Cloverfield.

In the movie, New York City is attacked by a giant monster and all hell breaks loose. We see the attack from the vantage point of a group of 20 year old friends, who are filming the attack as they first try to escape the city and then try to rescue one of their own. They don’t know what’s happening or why. No one does, not even the US military as it tries to kill the creature. There are no quick thinking scientists who have a theory where the monster came from or a cool and calm solider who’s determined to defeat menace. One minute people are enjoying a party, the next there’s the chaos and the terror of the unknown. And the characters seem to know it on some level. Though their world is reduced to nothing and they’re thrust into a situation they couldn’t have dreamed of, they take it relatively in stride, perhaps because deep down they know, as we all do, just how close the randomness of life and death can wreak havoc on us.

Watched NBC’s Bionic Woman (the site is slow as hell, so click at your risk), mainly to see how Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galatica fame would do. She was good of course, great actress, but the rest of the cast was pretty lightweight, especially Michaelle Ryan as the main star, Jamie Summers, who gets a robotic implants after a terrible car accident. This first episode was very plot driven, designed to lay out future directions, while giving us a brief hint of the characters. It’s whirlwind of mostly cliche plot lines and characters you don’t care about, except for Sackhoff’s character, who was an earlier version of the Bionic Woman, but now seems to have gone a bit crazy.

Watch it again? Sure, just to see Sackhoff, who can really anchor a scene, and in hopes the rest of characters and show will develop into something memorable.

Stillwater, by William Weld, is short and sweet, a nostalgic look back at first loves, be it physical, emotional, family or home. What stands out are the sharply defined images and characters of a rural town as seen through the eyes of 15 year old boy as he comes of age, only to see his way of life torn apart.

THAT is how you do it! That is is exactly how you do edge of your seat drama. The sheer implications of what transpired between the last 10 minutes and the last 5 minutes is just incredible. There are so many questions left unanswered and they are all GOOD questions, the kind that you’ll ponder all summer and want to know. Just outstanding stuff and feels like the show just redeemed itself from the last luster and poorly done twists and turns its become famous for.

I can’t wait till the fall.

Anna Nichole is dead, ok? Just bury her and move, please. Or at least stop clogging up my tv.

Speaking of TV, it all seems weird to me these days. I’ve stopped watching Lost because the constant jerking around of the storyline was enough. It’s first season was so good, but at this point, it just exists to push and pull you through emotional states without really telling anything. I don’t care who the characters are (and neither does the show, judging by easily it introduces and then forgets them), nor the mysteries piled mysteries. Enough already. End it, finish the story. Every story needs an ending, some closure, and the way Lost went, there can never really be and ending to satisfy you. There will always be some question in the back of your head “But what about this…” and it’s never going to be settled.

Have settled into watching an hour of Scrubs many nights. It’s funny and engaging, without much commitment. Battlestar Galatica is on an upswing after a lackluster 3rd season. It focused too long on Starbuck and Apollo, while doing cheap and sometimes stupid filler episodes. Grey’s Anatomy sucked me in for some of the characters, but it’s like Allie McBeal; whiny voiceovers that try to sound profound. Like McBeal, I can’t stand the title character, but many of the side characters and their relationships are fun to watch. Briefly got into 24 into the silliness of having the superspy’s father try to kill him reared it’s head. On sweet flicking box of flick, why do you try to entertain with such silly stories?

But Black Snack Moan opens this weekend. Can’t wait.

The season premiere for the Battlestar Galatica was “meh”. Felt like Star Trek, with a nice, neat little plot that wrapped everything up in tidy 43 minutes or so. Still too much focus on Starbuck and Apollo and their “sweet, but forbidden love”. The opening gambit of Helo killing Sharon in order to get her on the Cyclon ship was just overly dramatic. Why did he have to shoot her? Couldn’t she just jump out airlock? Were we really supposed to be impressed with the Dee rescuing Starbuck subplot? Wouldn’t Dee mention something to Starbuck about the affair? Why the mystery of the final five cyclons? Shouldn’t we know what the frakking plan is that the show keeps going on about?

This entire season has been “meh” - not bad, but not good either. From the quickly ended New Caprica story-line, to second thoughts on attacking the Cyclons with a biological weapon, to Adama’s changed past and Kat’s completely unsurprising death, the show has been lurching around from one plot to another with Apollo and Starbuck getting too much lead time. it’s still good TV, but the change to 10pm Sunday nights doesn’t make must see viewing.

Next week — More Apollo and Starbuck.

Below is an image of the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle Atlantis crossing the sun. It’s a 1024 wide image, about 350k. The original high resolution and info about the shot can be gotten here.

What’s really mindboggling is that sun is 93 million miles away. It’s a bigun!

Warren Ellis is damn good writer. Which is why I sometimes don’t like him putting images in my head, which happens a lot with Fell.

Ellis seems to look for and find all the messed up crapped people do to each other, which he jots down for use in a story elsewhere. Fell really brings this stuff out because it’s about Snowtown, a part of the city, where all the human trash has been place. Think ghetto on Riker’s Island and you get the idea. It has its own rules and brand of crazy and the rest of the city is only too glad to leave it there.

In Fell #6, the main character, Detective Richard Fell, takes a personal day, since his boss has decided to learn magic to deal with the crime in Snowtown. Yeah, it’s that kinda book, BUT GOOD. He tries to spend with a woman he’s interested in. Naturally he gets caught up a case, a domestic one, involving a mother, a father and a kid. It’s a messed up situation, one of those things you might read about from a social worker’s case notes. Just another slice of human cruelty, served up in well told story.

So yeah, it’s good, like all of Fell has been. But I’m starting to dread it each mouth, ‘cause it likes to linger in dark places.

Here’s a link to the first issue, all online.