The Dotted Logline

One of my most anticipated Christmas presents of 2005 was the Battlestar Galactica season one DVD set. I started watching the show (very reluctantly) about halfway through the first season. Having missed the very beginning, I was interested in seeing how the whole shebang started out.

Now I can handle marathon viewing sessions longer than most people (probably due to ten years of watching far too many addictive anime series.) And to be honest, I tend to multitask during marathons of shows that I’ve seen previously, which makes my having gotten through most of the BtVS and Angel season sets in two days much less impressive (if that sort of thing impresses you, which it really shouldn’t.)

But I’ve found I can only watch two, maybe three episodes of Battlestar Galactica at a time. It’s beautifully filmed and well acted and has (with the exception of several recent episodes) some very strong writing. But it’s SUCH a damn depressing show.

It’s not the genocide of the human race or the ongoing war or even that the older episodes are full of characters that have since died in tragic and often painful ways. It’s the fact that the majority of the tiny surviving remnant of the human race seem to be complete douchebags. All the infighting and betrayal and sheer arrogance and stupidity and utter disregard for life when it has become such a precious commodity really makes me think that the Cylons are the ones we should be cheering for. The fact that the humans are pagan followers of the Greek pantheon of gods while the Cylons believe in the more traditional (to us) Judeo-Christian-type God makes me wonder if that is what the writers are actually going for. I suppose it all depends on what the true cause of the first war really was.

As much as I was looking forward to getting these DVDs, I’m seriously considering putting the set on eBay after I finish watching it. It’s a fantastic show, but not one I see myself really digging into again.

(I almost didn’t use the word douchebag because this is a “serious” journal. But the effect was too good to pass up. Plus, I ruined the whole thing with “shebang” right off the bat.)

A friend of mine brought up the topic of Gary Oldman tonight, someone whose work I’ve long admired but whose existence has always frightened me just a little bit. See, Gary Oldman never looks the same twice. And I’m not just talking about his film roles. If you look at his public appearance photos on IMDB, he looks different in each of those too. Personally, I have no idea what Gary Oldman actually looks like.

I’ve had a theory for a while that there is no such person as Gary Oldman. Instead, there is a sort of Gary Oldman Collective, a group of talented actors who all share the name between them. If you think about it, it’s the only logical explanation. If Gary Oldman was a single person, he’d have to be a shapeshifter. And that’s not logical at all.

I have a favorite prose piece that I wrote a number of years ago. In a way, it’s one of the most personal pieces I’ve written, drawing loosely on what was probably my most unpleasant year of high school. An unpleasant but very formative year, as that was the year I first became interested in theatre, an interest that in many ways led me to where I am today.

Of all the short stories I’ve written, I’ve always felt this one to be the closest to publication quality. However, it’s a highly experimental story, which made it difficult to find suitable markets to submit to. Although to be honest, I never put a huge amount of effort into the search.

I just found out that the person reflected in that story, the person who inadvertently drew me into theater, someone I had first met back in second grade, passed away almost two years ago. Unfortunately, I can’t say he was a friend. Probably more of a symbol in my life than anything. I doubt he had any idea what an impact he had on me. Quite frankly, he probably wouldn’t have cared very much.

But I think I’m going to start looking for a market for that story again. And this time, I’m REALLY going to look.

I finally saw American Psycho last night, which has been on my must-watch list since I discovered what a fantastic actor Christian Bale was. I must say, he blew me away far more than he did in Batman Begins. As a character, Patrick Bateman was all over the map and Bale was just spot on throughout.

As for the rest of the movie, I thought it was hysterical. Not really in a laugh out loud way, but I found myself laughing out loud anyway. The business card pissing contest, Bateman’s music diatribes, the almost date with Jean, and so much more.

One thing that really struck me was that every time Bateman went through his morning routine, he was wearing a different kind of underwear. In a society where “boxers or briefs?” holds an absurd amount of meaning, what better way to showcase a character’s indecision about who he really is and how he fits into his world by having him alternate between the two, and boxer briefs, and silk boxers?

Of course, I noticed this strictly as a party interested in the artistic choices made in the film. I was not staring at Christian Bale’s ass. Much.

So Yahoo had a totally unsurprising article announcing that there will be another Harry Potter movie AND another Narnia movie. What was surprising was this throwaway sentence in the middle of the article:

“Rowling released the sixth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, last July, while the seventh and final installment is expected by the end of the year.”

Of course, it’s probably completely wrong; I’m sure we would have at least heard a title by now if it were the case. Still, I wonder how many people reading the article caught that and how many of those went into a foaming frenzy.