Belated Memorial Day Thoughts

While I was in Washington D.C. this April, one of my top priorities was getting to see Arlington National Cemetery. When you're a taphophile and aerophobic (a.k.a. afraid of flying), if you can psych yourself into getting on a plane and flying someplace with a major, historical, important cemetery nearby, you make that trip count. Mine ended up counting even more than I expected.

Film review-ish: Scream 4

During lunch at a recent library training event, somehow the topic of the SCREAM trilogy came up in a somewhat disparaging way. As always, I was the lone weirdo who halted the conversation to say, "But... I like the SCREAM series!" One of my colleagues backed me up on the first movie, but... only the first movie.. Okay, okay...

I don't believe in guilty pleasures, so anyone hoping I'm going to back down and admit that two and three sucked and I have bad taste for liking them is going to be more than a little disappointed. I try to avoid judging other people's tastes, even though I might not be perfect at it, and I hope that others will allow me the same courtesy in return. My theory is, looking down my nose at what someone else likes accomplishes nothing except possibly making that other person feel bad. I don't want to be responsible for that!

So let's address SCREAM.

10th Anniversary of Buffy TVS's "Chosen"

Usually when we say "I remember where I was when..." it's a reference to a historically important event. I could never compare something like an episode of a television show to an event like that, but I can't deny that I have strong, vivid, emotional memories of media that has touched me on a deep level. Many of those memories are about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

American Mary

As of today, AMERICAN MARY is officially out on VOD! You can see it through Comcast, Cox, Cablevision, Verizon or iTunes. The film will also have a limited release in the U.S. starting May 31st. The best way to find out if it's coming out near you is probably to keep an eye on the film's Twitter feed or Twisted Twins Productions' Facebook page.

However! If you're in the Chicago area you're in luck...

Oddities

Since ODDITIES is already in their fourth season, I feel I'm a little late to the game on singing their praises. I had been meaning to take a look at it for a while, but finally started over the weekend after an insane night of coolant dumping out of my car, fumes inside the car, getting the car towed, getting a ride back home, etc. As my sister and I sat eating a really late dinner of Mexican food, she brought the show up again and I popped it on. It would be no exaggeration to say that I was hooked from the very first episode. It's like crack for nerdy weirdos. 

King's Chapel Burial Ground (Boston, MA)

This is the third cemetery in a series of photos I've taken at various Boston cemeteries. Today, we're moving on to King's Chapel Burial Ground. Most of this will look pretty similar to the other two cemeteries I've talked about, but they play around a bit with those common themes and symbols. Believe me, I could have stacked this post with winged death's heads- they're absolutely everywhere (and my favorite)- but that doesn't give you a good idea of the variety of artwork this cemetery has.

Film review: The Innkeepers

THE INNKEEPERS has been out for a couple of years, and my most recent viewing was not even the first time I had seen it. But I feel compelled to write about it for a couple of reasons: one, I think it gets a bad rap for the pacing. Two, my opinion of it has evolved over time. I feel better about discussing it now, rather than writing some review back when it first came out without the benefit of hindsight.

Hide Your Stick Figure Family...

I laughed really hard at this the other day. Weird things really do follow me everywhere I go-- or in this case, drive right in front of me. Get 'em, Jason!

I'm taking the day off to work on my non-blog writing (at least I'd better be doing so right now as this posts, or I'm going to kick my own ass!) and I've had to slow down to catch up on non-bloggable books and movies and projects, but fingers crossed, I might have a couple pretty exciting things happening within the next month or so!