Friday, September 02, 2005

Funny column from San Francisco Weekly

I found this article hysterical, not only because my right-wing Christian dad loves Christian speed metal, but because I went to a high school where we were all forced to watch Hell's Bells, a three-hour documentary about how ALL secular pop and rock music is influenced by Satan. Of course whenever they'd show it, we'd all sing along with the songs. Hail, Satan!

The premise of the article is that the columnist, called The Infiltrator, gets himself booked on a public access TV show where they interview people who had transformative religious experiences. He pretends to be a speed metal guitarist who used to be in a drug-using, headbanging, non-churchgoing speed metal band but after a stint in rehab got religion and turned to playing speed metal for Jesus.

Some of the best lines:

"After much consideration, I decide to name my fictional Christian metal band Pray-er (rhymes with Slayer). The reason: It allows me to get indignant when people mispronounce it. ("It's not Prayer, it's Pray-er!")"

"'Wait, the Lord called you 'dude'?!'"

But if you read the article for no other reason, read it for the original lyrics he wrote and introduces thusly:

"I pull out a piece of paper and begin reciting, in classic Dio tradition, the genre of metal that's all Dungeons & Dragons-y and full of juvenile, execrable junior high school poetry. It's my original Christian-metal composition,'Crush Satan's Skull!'"

He's not kidding about the Dio-ness. The song has "sin goblins", for crying out loud. And a winged horse named Malachi. Like a rainbow in the dark.

Can't Stop the Signal

So we went to the screening of Serenity last night, and it was fantastic. I can't say much because I don't want to spoil anything, but I loved the movie. I've had a pounding headache since yesterday morning and it didn't even manage to detract from the experience. The screening was packed with hardcore Browncoats who spent the half hour or so before the movie started singing Firefly-related songs ("Jayyyyne! The man they call...Jayyyyyyne!") and passing around a giant card for Joss Whedon that folks could sign. It was pretty much Geekmas in there, which was fun. There were some people there who were Firefly virgins though. You could tell who they were because they were the ones looking at their oddly dressed fellow moviegoers and asking, "Why are you guys wearing those stocking caps/blue latex gloves/brown coats? It's September and HOT outside!"

One of the guys in our group had never seen Firefly before, but he loved the movie and borrowed our DVD set immediately after the movie because he was dying for more. It's great how satisfying the movie is for new viewers, and yet it doesn't spend a ton of time repeating stuff fans already know. In the space of two hours, they establish a somewhat complicated setting and maybe ten major characters and make everyone understand and care about all of it. They even manage to deal with complex and very relevant political themes without being heavyhanded about it.

The movie is funny and sad and exciting and suspenseful and all the things you want it to be. I laughed, I cried, I was thrilled to see Good triumph over Fox Broadcasting. I can't wait to see it again when it opens September 30th, and I'm going to make everyone I know come see it with me. This movie has a chance to be very successful commercially and hopefully they'll get to do a whole series of movies. I think the cast is signed for three, and I'll be sad if they don't do at least that many. GO SEE IT. And AVOID SPOILERS.

Attached to the print we saw was a trailer for Doom, starring The Rock. That trailer got almost as positive a reaction as the movie did. It looks like a total blast, and it seems to be filmed largely as a first-person shooter just like the game, so you're looking down the barrel of a gun/chainsaw/whatever while monsters occasionally jump out right in front of you. I think it will be a lot of fun, but I don't want to sit to close to the screen. I don't like scary things jumping out at me.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

So very busy

I haven't had much posting time recently. Work has been busy and Monday and Tuesday I was offsite at a training class all day. Now I know the basics of using Dreamweaver. Yay!

We're still watching 5-6 movies a week, so my at-home posting time is short as well. Tonight we have passes to a special advance screening of Serenity, so I'm extra super pumped about that. It's weird; I haven't seen any references to the screening on any Browncoat sites, so I don't think it's a normal public screening. We got passes that specifically say "Retailer" on them, so I think this audience may be targeted specifically for maximum word-of-mouth promotion at geek hotspots.

I bet this movie will be much better than last night's home video selection, Gleaming the Cube. More on that as time permits.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Absurdity is so money, baby

A link from McSweeney's:

Trent, from Swingers, performs an exorcism

The execution is only okay, but the concept tickles me to no end.

"You know it's not so much me as it is the priestly garb I'm wearing. She's a freaky baby that is digging the outfit. I'm performing an exorcism in Georgetown, so guys like me gotta kick it old-school."

As a woman who did more than her share of time in Catholic churches, I'm digging the mental image on Vince Vaughn in a priest outfit too, baby.