Sunday Music Dump

Obligitory Thanksgiving Post

I watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving earlier this evening, much as I do every year, and as always I came away with more questions than answers. For instance: Snoopy prepares a lavish feast of pretzels, jellybeans, and enough toast and popcorn to nourish a small country. Why that food? I mean, how much more trouble would it have been to shove a turkey in the oven? Not that hard. And you already had all that toast-add some broth and celery and go ahead and make the damn dressing.

And what's up with those kids? Do they not have homes to go to? That butchy Peppermint Patty just straight-up invited herself and an arseload of other kids to Charlie Brown's house and expected him to feed them and then had the gall to complain when the meal wasn't up to her standards. Then Charlie Brown remembered that he and Sally had to go to his Grandmother's house to eat and got all worried about being a bad host so he invited those ungrateful shits to go with him-which I'm sure they didn't appreciate. Seriously man, no wonder he became a surly heroin addict.

You know what, though? Now that I think about it, Snoopy did make a turkey for himself and Woodstock there at the end, so perhaps he made the crappy meal as revenge for Patty's rudeness. Maybe ol' Snoop is smarter than I thought. 'Course, that brings up a new set of questions, not the least of which is why in the hell Woodstock would eat turkey, since he's also a bird, which would kinda make him a cannibal.

Anyway...

I'm going to be busy the next couple of days, so I figured I'd go ahead and get a holiday post up. I don't have much to say other than my scathing indictment of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and so I bring you This (and this, this, and this-sorry, it's in four parts), which is arguably the most classic Thanksgiving episode of any TV show, ever (and no, it's not a CB Thanksgiving.)

If I don't post anything between now and Thursday-and I don't know why I would-I would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunday Music Dump

That's 2 and a Half Hours I'll Never Get Back

For some inexplicable reason I rented Transformers from Netflix about a month ago, and I finally forced myself to watch it last night. I honestly don't know why I had the urge to check it out, other than the fact that I think Shia LaBeouf has turned into quite the handsome and somewhat talented young man. That doesn't completely explain it though, because it generally takes more than a crush to get me to watch something (case in point: Stephen Colbert had a role in the Bewitched remake, and to paraphrase Meatloaf, I would do anything for love, but I won't watch that.) So, why?

-I don't attach any kind of nostalgic signifigance to the Transformers; I never had any of the toys and I never watched the cartoon, so that wasn't a factor.

-The movie was directed by Michael Bay and as far as I'm concerned, the world would be a much better place if he never stepped behind a camera ever again, so lord knows I wasn't expecting some stellar film viewing experience.

-The rest of the cast was kind bleh, so that ain't it either (in all fairness, I did not know before watching the movie that Hugo Weaving was the voice of Megatron, so that was a nice bonus. And the Buffy nerd in me is always pleased to see Tom Lenk-aka Andrew-in anything, and that helped dull the pain a little as well.) But Jon Voight? Josh Duhammel? Megan Fox, who just may be the shittiest actress alive? No, no and NO.

I'll never know why I rented it, and I'll never know why I forced myself to sit through the WHOLE THING. 2 hours and 33 minutes I devoted to this movie, and that's not counting the days I actually had it in the house before watching it. 2 hours and 33 minutes of Michael Bay fellating the military industrial complex and slobbering over Megan Fox's stomach. 2 hours and 33 minutes of lame jokes (a dog pees on one of the Autobots-TEH FUNNY! No one in the movie can pronounce Shia's character's last name, Witwicky, correctly-OW! My sides!) and overdone explosions. 2 hours and 33 minutes of "Optimus Prime is kinda cool and Shia IS cute, but Jesus Harold Christ, this movie is STUPID!"

Oy.

RIP

I went through an odd phase when I was about 15 or 16, which consisted of me reading every Ira Levin novel that I could get my hands on (I liked This one the bestest). Since then, I'd say I read at least one of his books a year and I enjoy them just as much now as I did all those many years ago. To say that I'm a fan would be a pretty fair assessment.

To say that I'm totally bummed out would also be a pretty fair assessment.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ira Levin, author of the best-selling horror and suspense novels "Rosemary's Baby," "The Stepford Wives" and "The Boys from Brazil," all later made into popular films, has died at age 78, according to media reports.

The New York Times reported that Levin died on Monday at his Manhattan home. It quoted his son Nicholas as saying the death was apparently of natural causes.

"Rosemary's Baby," about a woman who believes she has been impregnated by the devil, was published in 1967 and made into an Oscar-winning movie the following year starring Mia Farrow and directed by Roman Polanski.

Levin's 1972 novel "The Stepford Wives" involved husbands in a Connecticut town replacing their wives with submissive robots. It was twice adapted by Hollywood -- a 1975 film starring Katharine Ross, and a 2004 version with Nicole Kidman.

"The Boys From Brazil," published in 1976, featured the infamous Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele, seeking to clone a new Third Reich. The 1978 film version starred Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier. Levin's first novel, "A Kiss Before Dying," published in 1953, was twice made into movies.

Levin also wrote for the stage, including "No Time for Sergeants," starring a young Andy Griffith, and the long-running "Deathtrap." Both were later adapted to the screen.

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Sunday Music Dump