Too lazy to write so here's an old drawing.  

Rental Mania!

My boyfriend surprised me this week by paying off our fines at the video store and renting a shitload of movies. Which I have to thank him for cause there are a lot of recent releases I've missed. So we had a movie night and watched:

The Bourne Supremacy- Better than the first. I definitely recommend it if you saw the first one, perfect ending.

Dawn of the Dead- Surprisingly a lot better than I was expecting. It was hella intense and they really found a way to make it relevant to today's social isolation problems. Can't we all just get along? I'm sorry I couldn't help myself. Can I just ask that they quit remaking every good horror movie ever? I mean I'm really disturbed by what I hear about this remake of The Evil Dead that Sam Raimi's producing for newline. Even Bruce Campbell is calling it a bad idea.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind- Despite it's post-modernistic leanings I found myself really involved in the crazy, visually intriguing, story. I especially loved the ending that could really go either way. Brilliant. Hey when did Jim Carrey develop subtlety as an actor?

Sleepover- Hey ya gotta through the absolute bublegum in to make fun of. Unfortunately this one was so bad we couldn't make it past the first 16 minutes. And I saw A Cinderella Story in the theater twice.

Open Water- A pretty good man vs. nature flick, though I really didn't find it as intense as I hope a film like this will be. Still it was very scary and you couldn't pay me to snorkel in my bathtub let alone in the middle of the ocean. Can sharks climb up through the drain?

Becca

Pin-up of the Week Dita Von Teese. 

AVP and the Loathsome 50

So I just got done watching Alien vs. Predator, and let me tell you, the first half is unbelievable crap. I mean imagine the crapiest crap that ever crapped and you have the first half of Alien vs. Predator, but the second half...oh man it's fucking awesome! Not only do you get to see a new alien skill, watch out for their tails, but you get a small bit of insight into the predator hunter culture. It was also well worth sitting through the crappy first half to see all the lame human characters die, and they're all lame, and they don't die soon enough if you ask me.

On another note if your looking for some good laughs check out www.buffalobeast.com 's list of the 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2004. Hey anyone who thinks Ann Coulter should be punished for her crimes against humanity by skull crushed with rock is okay in my book. Some other Loathsome list-makers; Clay Aiken, Condoleezza Rice, and Alan Colmes.

Becca

In honor of the AVP video release. Has anyone out there seen it? I heard it's crap. 

Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack

Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack

1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don’t need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.

For more on surviving an attack by zombies check out, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks.

Becca

A Rant about Modern Fantasy Lit

I was reading an early copy of the Legend screenplay, which by the way is incredibly different and better than the Ridley Scott movie turned out, and it got me thinking, when did they remove the balls of fantasy literature? I mean when you go back and read the original versions of fairy tales they are hard edged tales about things like the dangers of reaching sexual maturity and trusting strangers, now you pick up almost any modern fantasy novel and it’s nothing but drivel, full of lame, clueless, Luke Skywalker-esque "heroes" and dull, simpering, insipid "heroines" who couldn’t reason their way out of a cardboard box.

Bring back strong stories that keep us on the edge of our seats, characters that are real people, and stories that keep us guessing, not just the myriad of Tolkien and R. H. Howard rip-offs. Also a word for Robert Jordan, after 800 books in the Wheel of Time series don’t you pretty much think you’ve said everything that you can about that world? This goes for you too Piers Anthony, R.A. Salvatore and Terry Goodkind.

Genre fans! You are not entirely innocent here! Don’t just keep buying these lame books, using excuses like we have to support our genre. No! Don’t you see that’s part of the problem? You are the ones buying the books, and supporting these hack authors. Send the publishers a message. Tell them that you want to read quality books that expand your mind, not suck the soul out of the genre.

Here are some quality modern fantasy books to get you started.
*The Song of Fire and Ice series by George R. R. Martin
*The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
*The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
*Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Remember don’t judge a book by it’s cover, just because it has an elf or an orc or a dragon on the cover that doesn’t automatically make it good. Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books are written be people who aren’t creative enough writers to sell their own books (believe me I’ve met quite a few of them). Just because there are fourteen, 800 page novels in a series that doesn’t automatically make it worth reading. In fact you should probably turn tail and run away as quickly as possible. Most times, that means it sucks.

This is a problem we can fix if we band together as fans.
Becca

Pop Tart and Beef Cake Save the World!

So after a night of terrible, terrible TV viewing, my post tonight started off as a scathing criticism of how bland and terrible TV is these days. Did I say TV was terrible yet? Then I channel surfed and half way through my long and whiny diatribe I find there is a Newlyweds marathon on MTV. Suddenly a wave of enjoyment passes over me and I completely lose the rant! It's like prozac or chocolate.
It's frightening, you know, how much I love this show and how many times I've seen each episode. I can't really explain why I love it so much, maybe there's just something about what a sweet, naive, dumb-ass Jessica is and that cheesy, mid-western charm Nick has that makes me smile. In fact I'm trying to write more but I just keep getting stuck watching the damn show. It's addictive.
Do you remember those Coke commercials from the 70's? Those I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony commercials, where everyone's drinking Coke and the Coke is causing everyone to co-exist in peace and harmony. Newlyweds has that effect on me and everyone else I know who watches the show. Maybe using the Coke principle we can use Newlyweds to make the world a better place.
Newlyweds is on til 5:00am this morning guess I know where I'll be til then.

Becca

Nick and Jessica 

Pin up of the Week- Aria Giovanni 

A Short Intro

So how does one officially start one of these things? I guess I just tell you a bit about myself and we'll just go from there.

My name is Becca, I'm 28, and I've been working as a Manager of one of those large bookstores for 5 years this October. (God that's how you introduce yourself at an AA meeting.) I'm an aspiring artist hoping eventually to get good enough at one artistic medium or another to get into illustration. You know follow in the foot steps of N.C. Wyeth or Jaime Hernandez. Of course that one paragraph says a lot about me because everyone who works in retail is an aspiring something or other, they are just too lazy to get off their ass and do what they want. Or maybe they are too tired from serving the sometimes remarkably taxing public to do anything else.

Besides art I am a complete movie nerd. I've seen a lot of movies I am obsessed! I am also obsessed with Hollywood gossip making sure to get the weekly rag mags so I can keep up with whose broken it off with whom, what they were wearing when they did it, and the plastic surgery they had while recovering from their break-up.

Some of my favorite movies:
*The Evil Dead Trilogy (yes Bruce Campell is a god)
*The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (in fact everything and anything by Peter Jackson. If you haven't you must see Dead Alive and Meet the Feebles)
*Labyrinth
*The Last Unicorn (and the book if you like Tolkien, you'll love Peter S. Beagle who wrote the book the movie was based on)
*Spirited Away (Anything by Miyazaki really)
*The Big Lebowski
*Bridget Jones Diary (Yes I am a sucker for a certain kind of romantic movie, oh and nearly anything with Colin Firth.)
*Winged Migration (The score alone is a masterpiece.)
*Contact
*Lost in Translation
*The Thin Man
*Artemisa
*Conspiracy (Great HBO movie about the meeting of prominent Nazi officials to discuss the creation of the final solution for the Jewish people. Kenneth Brannagh is chilling.)

I can go on but I won't. I'm sure I'm boring you but I love lists. If anyone is actually reading, share your favorites with me, I always love to discover new movies!

When I'm not watching movies I'm listening to music. I especially love glam (Bowie, Eno, Roxy Music T. Rex), early punk (Ramones, Clash, Sid Vicious' single version of My Way is a classic), and early Goth (Bauhaus, Siouxsie, Nick Cave).

Some other misc. Interests include, pin up models (modern and vintage), reading (but I guess that's obvious since I work in a book store), comic books, I watch some TV (Simpsons, Carnivale, Newlyweds I'm totally hooked I admit it, South Park).

Okay so this wasn't so short, but who doesn't love to talk about themselves.

Thanks for reading,
Becca

The first thing I did on photo shop. I call it Angelina Crowley since it's made from Aleister Crowley and Angelina Jolie. There's a sex magic vibe to the whole thing that I love.

Dita's Dance 

Hey I figured out how to post pictures! Woohoo! 

Sidebar Pictures