Pick your poison. The latter two for me.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
No one could have predicted…
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.
Optimism opens the door to great things.
And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.
Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.
The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.
Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.
“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”
I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.
Not all heroes wear capes.
Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
This blog will pay for itself.
The words do not have to be perfect.
We still have time to mess this up!
Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
Peak wingnut was a lie.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
cathyx
D. None of the above
Violet
“The Big C” is also back tonight. I love Laura Linney.
cathyx
Americas funniest videos with my daughter. It’s her favorite show.
lamh35
none of ’em.
I’m just watching repeat eps of Family Guy and such.
Last night though, I saw “Mirror Mirror” the “retelling” of Snow White with Julia Roberts. I’m no fan of Julia Roberts, but she was really good in this and very good at playing evil.
The movie was way better than I though it would be and 5x funnier than I expected.
It’s only the 2nd Julia Roberts movie that I’ve like without qualifiers or bigger co-stars.
Oh, and I’d def pay to see a movie with Nathan Lane and Stanley Tucci. Nathan Lane is in this movie too.
MarkusR
Trying to catch up on the Game of Thrones. Addictive show.
schrodinger's cat
None of the above. Watching West Wing on DVD.
Alison
Game of Thrones, mais oui, but not till 9 my time (Pacific) so I can watch it in HD :P
PurpleGirl
Saw John Carter this afternoon. Liked it a lot.
There are a number of new documentary-type shows about The Titanic. This evening National Geographic showed one made by James Cameron about his expeditions to the site and some investigation work he’s paid for, with new information and animation. Tomorrow they showcase a new documentary with Bob Ballard. Science/Discovery had some new shows too which revolved around the building of the ship and the engineering and steam room crew members and what they did in the last hours. (Haven’t decided if I’m going to throw some more money at Cameron and see the 3-D version he’s released.)
andy
I don’t get the premium channels but expect I’ll enjoy the second season Game of Thrones box set as soon as it is available.
You know, it is good to be a Lannister.
Frapalinger
@Alison: It’s well worth the wait. In HD, it’s like going to the movies.
Alison
@Frapalinger: Oh, definitely. I already have to deal with my little TV, so non-HD would be extra crappy :)
Frapalinger
Game of thrones is the best show on tv right now. This episode tonight was probably the best one i’ve seen thus far – and nothing big has happened yet. What makes this show so great isn’t its amazing locations with truly beautiful costumes and perfectly detailed sets but the characters. The focus of this series is its characters, who make us care about the plot because we either love, hate or are interested in them. Thats the genius of this series, it keeps us rooted in the characters and builds itself on the performance of its cast rather than on its technical achievements. In that respect, I think it is to another fantasy series, like LOTR, what I Claudius was to Gladiator.
b1naryserf
@Frapalinger: is dead-on. Unbelievable that tonight’s THRONES is only the 2nd of 10 this year and was more dramatic, sexier, funnier and more fascinating to me than even the concluding episodes from season 1. This show is not only gorgeously produced, it’s groundbreaking. Every hope I had in it is exceeded and I’m even harder to please now since I read all the books. Its audience will I hope continue to grow!
texascowgirl
I really think the annual showing of The Te Commandments was moved from Sunday to Saturday so it wouldn’t have to compete with GOT.
Rob Stark or John Snow. I can’t decide who’s hotter.
MikeJ
Dirk Gently is on a thumb drive in the back of my TV. Prolly watch that.
Nick
Its interesting to me the chars the series has done better than the books, at least early on, eg Renly, Theon, and Jaime
Boudica
OK, I’ll be the first Mad Men post. It was good. Loved Peggy’s bargaining with Roger. Don’s Andrea thing was weird. I’ll have to go research the mass murder of nurses story…I was only 2 in 1966.
Joel
I get Mad Men on itunes, Game of Thrones on DVD and probably the same for Borgias. So a day behind, a year behind, and probably longer.
Groucho48
I thought that it was a very good GoT episode. I will say, though, I was a bit disappointed in Asha. Not sure if it was the writing or the actress, but, her scenes felt awkward. Her father, Euron Greyjoy, was perfect.
The main problem with the series is that the episodes should be two hours long.
“We pay the iron price” would make a good logo for BJ.
Mnemosyne
@Boudica:
I haven’t watched the episode yet, but I assume they’re referencing Richard Speck. I was born three years after the murders, but he was still a local boogeyman when I was growing up.
ETA: Sorry, forgot the important detail that I grew up near Chicago, which is what made him a local boogeyman for us.
maurinsky
I watched GOT and then Mad Men, and tonight, Mad Men gave me the “hell yeah!” moment, when Joan kicked her raping husband out.
Meanwhile, I’m not looking forward to the festival of rape that GoT becomes – hopefully they won’t show all of that in the series. I’m loving Lena Headley as Cersei. Can’t wait to meet Brienne.
rob!
Don Draper killed Laura Palmer!
Nate Dawg
GoT was the best episode tonight of the entire series. Loved when Asha revealed she was Balon’s daughter…amazing. Great storytelling, writing, & acting.
Amazing.
FridayNext
I’m assuming no one cares about The Killing anymore? Yeah, me neither.
Diana
@PurpleGirl:
Yeah, well, I too saw John Carter this afternoon and was deeply appalled.
Let me explain: I loved the books. However, the books were of their era, i.e. immediately pre-WWI: a man had to be ready to fight, and he better be fighting in the service of democracy, freedom, and, in the end, universal peace. John Carter was always first and foremost a gentleman, although the incomparable Dejah Thoris always came across as a bit of pretty wallpaper.
Fast forward to the modern version, in which the incomparable Dejah Thoris really is incomparable (not least because Lynn Collin’s the only non-CGI character capable of acting) but John Carter is a modern American douche, unstirred by compassion, chivalry, or any impulse to do anything other than to get back to his Arizona gold find, for most of the movie. It’s almost enough to make you sign up for the Republican Party: if a modern American is as vague, selfish, and incapable of wonder as this guy, why shouldn’t we go back to the American hero of Burrough’s 1912 book? John Carter of the novel was astonished but not idiotic to find himself on Mars, and more than immediately ready to fix the problems, help other people (even if they were green and six-limbed), and rescue the damsel he found there. Etc. Etc.
But apart from infidelity to source material, this movie betrays the flaws of an incomplete execution: the giant earth-mauling machine has no known purpose in this film, the final fight scene is dark and murky, a variety of scenes are useless either in terms of plot or character, the good guys mislead each other (!!) and and the fact the film was shot in 2-D but redone into 3-D makes it look like a bunch of cardboard cutouts stacked on top of each other. I really think what’s going on is that the director is just not in tune with his source. It’s like Kubrick directing Spartacus: he’s not unsympathetic to the idea, this is just not the kind of movie he’d make if he had the choice.
Andrew Stanton has only directed Pixar films before this. It may be telling that the only good element is the director’s handling of the CGI-scripted Tharks and then only in the sense that the director is sympathetic to the characters (visually they are as washed-out and colorless as anything else in this film).
If the source material doesn’t move you, then you don’t get what the story is about. And there are a lot of little details that indicate that Stanton never really liked Burrough’s Mars books. We never see the Tharks in all their soundless splendor, moving through the silent mossy fields of Mars in scintillating color. We never see the Martian cities in all their defensive, barbaric fury. The river Iss and the journey to the Goddess are presented as new ideas, which may have been how they felt to Stanton but which certainly wasn’t the case on Barsooom. Etc. etc.
James E. Powell
@FridayNext:
Actually, I am watching The Killing with the goal of trying to figure out why I keep watching The Killing. I am getting a similar feeling to the one I had during the fourth season of Lost. Also too, it’s on right after Mad Men, so my lazy self just keeps watching.
Raenelle
@Groucho48: Euron’s a brother (uncle to Asha and Theon), I believe. The father is Balon. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.
Steeplejack
@Diana:
Good rant. I will probably end up seeing John Carter, but I’m not in a rush (obviously). And I want to go back and reread at least one of the books, which I haven’t done since the ’60s.
Mnemosyne
@Diana:
Except that you seem to have blocked out one vital piece of Carter’s character from the original book: he fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. It was still acceptable in that period to be romantic about “The Lost Cause” (see also Buster Keaton’s film The General, not to mention the ultimate apology for the Confederacy, Birth of a Nation), but audiences today would not accept an unrepentant Confederate soldier claiming to be the epitome of gentility and nobility as their hero. Like it or not, it’s no longer acceptable to present someone who fought to preserve slavery as someone who fought in favor of democracy.
Now, it probably could have been gotten around if Carter had started as an unrepentant Confederate and been changed to a supporter of democracy and freedom by his experiences on Mars, but I don’t think that would have been acceptable to fans of the book, either.
sherparick
I am really enjoying GoT, particularly the way they depart from and shorten the plot from the books (which definitely tends to meander). Martin, in writing the HBO series seem to see this as chance to redo some of his mistakes in books (the first mistake was making Joffrey, the Stark kids, and Daenery’s to darn young). The actor playing Theon is doing a job of showing the vainity and insecurity that is his character’s greatest weakness. Ashsara/Asha is not quite how I envisioned her, but we will see.
By the way, Martin still has 2 books to write (and frankly, the way he is going and what he has to cover, I don’t know how he is going to do it in two books) and the guy is now well into his sixties. And he is one of the writers for the HBO series so that tends to fill his days. It appears after this year that they will split the books up into two seasons per book from what I read and the producers have the outline of how the story ends so they can finish the series even if Martin does not.
Groucho48
@Raenelle: You are right. I should never rely on my memory.
Michael
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, I’ve neither read the books nor watched the movie, but am familiar with the conceit. I’d say their are two issues with the source material being of its era and not really translatable.
(1) As you said, not really OK to make your hero an unrepentant to Confederate soldier anymore
&
(2) All the mystery Mars must once have held has long since dissipated, as we have detailed images of its surface, rovers taking samples, etc etc. To the extent any mystery about Mars, its whether century-old river beds once could have been home to single cell organisms, or something like that.
Put aside the books; if someone had told you they wanted to make a movie about a Confederate soldier involved in a war on Mars, what would you say? It just doesn’t work anymore.
kindness
Better Game of Thrones episode than last weeks. Still building up to a bunch of things but less setting the storyboard than last week. I almost wish they would have less plot lines going at the same time so they could explore a couple of those threads more deeply each week. maybe it should be a 90 minute show in stead of an hour. Alas, who am I to complain?
Frapalinger
@b1naryserf: Did you get all the books to read after watching the first season too?
DFH no.6
@sherparick:
I think Martin can and will finish A Song of Ice and Fire in 2 more books (as he’s indicated) and he could do it in 6-7 more years. He could wrap up the whole story in those two books, and I see the thrust of book 5 leading in that direction.
Whether he actually does is another thing, of course (though he says he has a good portion of book 6 already written).
I have more doubts that HBO will stick with the series to the end, but instead pull a Carnivale.
I don’t see HBO needing to do book 4 across two seasons, but certainly book 3 (Storm of Swords) will need two seasons to do it any justice.
I’m guessing (if they get that far) that HBO could do book 5 in one season, even though it has about the same number of pages as book 3 – unlike book 3, there is a lot in Martin’s latest book that could be condensed or winnowed out for the HBO series without harming the narrative at all.
I’d love it if HBO did take it all the way, of course. They’re doing a bang up job on Martin’s story so far.
Likely take about 9 seasons all told. The Sopranos and Oz went 6, The Wire 5. HBO’s longest running so far is the half-hour comedy Entourage at 8 seasons (though it looks like Curb will pass it by). They cut both Rome and Deadwood short after only 2 or 3 seasons (though they did “finish” the stories). Carnivale was killed on a cliffhanger very early after only 2 seasons.
Can Game of Thrones really go 9 seasons (probably across 10-11 years) on HBO? Fantastic if they do, but I highly doubt it.
HBO should have done Poul and Karen Anderson’s King of Ys instead – great (and somewhat similar) story based on a Breton legend from Roman days, been done for over twenty years, could be done in 4 seasons.
Diana
@Michael: here’s the thing about the books: John Carter has no past in his former life as an American, either as a calvary officer or as anyone else. Burroughs makes that quite explicit – there’s no more of an explanation about where Carter comes from than there is about how he gets to Mars. Now I quite agree the *both* of these flaws represent a level of deliberate amnesia that no-one could get away with now (although I suspect it was due more to a lack of either knowledge about the Confederacy or outer space or any willingness to do any research, than anything else) but all the civil war stuff and all the hocus-pocus transportation in the movie is completely the filmmaker’s. In the books, Carter has as much past as nephew Ned does in the movie.
They’re not great books, ok? But they’re beautifully imagined, down to how the throats hold their tails when they run.