"Nothing makes a smart man stupid like a quest for vengeance."

I cannot believe that it is almost September. I feel like this year is flying by and I am a little sad that summer is already over. The only good thing about the start of Fall is that it also means my TV shows are back! Here is my list of returning and new shows that I will be watching...

Returning Shows:

Arrow
Castle
Elementary 
Grey's Anatomy
Hart of Dixie
Homeland*
How I Met Your Mother
Nashville
New Girl
NCIS
Once Upon A Time
Parenthood
Raising Hope
Scandal
Sons of Anarchy
The Carrie Diaries
The Good Wife
The Vampire Diaries
The Voice
The Walking Dead
White Collar

New Shows:

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Almost Human

The Black List

The Crazy Ones

Dracula

Enlisted
Hostages

Masters of Sex*

The Michael J. Fox Show
Mom

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland

The Originals

Reign

Sleepy Hollow

The Tomorrow People

Trophy Wife

I seem to add a ton of new shows to my schedule every year, but always manage to make it all work. Shows that I have dropped since last Fall include Blue Bloods, Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23, Happy Endings, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Revenge and Suburgatory. Several of those were canceled and the others just lost my interest, but I have plenty more to check out!

"Even though some of you are pretty thin, you all have fat hearts and that's what matters."

2012 is over and I have finally gotten around to completing my list of favorite movies from the past twelve months. These are not necessarily the movies that are going to win any awards, but they were the ones that entertained me the most:

The Avengers
If you are at all surprised that this is on my list, then you clearly do not know me that well or read my blog at all. I adore Joss Whedon and everything he does and this movie just proved that, if you let him do his thing, magic happens. Expectations were very high for this movie and I definitely think the cast and the story exceeded those expectations, at least for me. I just hope that the S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot actually gets turned into a full series, mostly because it brings Agent Coulson back to life, but also because it will be awesome.

Argo
Ben Affleck showed us he was a great writer/director with The Town and Argo proved once again that he continues to be a triple-threat. I enjoyed this movie not only because it was well-written, directed and acted, but also because I learned about a piece of U.S. history that was not well-known. I was not actually alive during the Iran Hostage Crisis, but even my mother does not remember the story of these six fugitives coming home. (And if you know my mother, that is a rarity because she remembers EVERYTHING.) However, even if you do not care for the historical aspects, it is still a great, high energy story. I particularly enjoyed the characters played by Alan Arkin and John Goodman and their tagline: Argo fuck yourself! 

Pitch Perfect
I was really excited to see this movie before it was released. I am a pretty big a capella nerd and the cast is also filled with actors that I love: Brittany Snow, Anna Kendrick, Anna Camp, Rebel Wilson and Elizabeth Banks, to name a few. It is hilariously funny and smart and it is definitely a must-see. I saw it twice in theaters, bought the blu ray for myself for Christmas and have already watched it two more times.

"...And then shawarma after."

My original plan was to see The Avengers on Sunday. However, after sitting in front of my computer at work all day Friday and reading the multitude of comments on Twitter about how good the movie was, I decided that I needed to see it Friday night. Then, because it was SO GOOD, I saw it again on Sunday :o)

Don't worry, I will warn you before I get to the spoilery bits.....

When Loki teams up with an unexpected army, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D) Director Nick Fury must bring together a group of super humans to defend the Earth. This team consists of Tony Stark/Iron Man, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Thor, Dr. Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow and Clint Barton/Hawkeye. After working out their differences with each other first, they then have to figure out how to defeat Loki.

The acting in this movie was all-around fantastic. There was not a weak link in the group, but it was really the supporting roles that stood out to me the most. We know from previous Marvel films that Clark Gregg is a great Agent Phil Coulson, but he was especially fantastic in The Avengers. Although he was not in a majority of scenes, he had his share of hilarious lines. I was also especially impressed with Cobie Smulders, who plays Agent Maria Hill. I love her on How I Met Your Mother, but she kicked a lot of ass in this movie...literally. I was also excited to see other Whedonverse actors Alexis Denisof, Ashley Johnson and Enver Gjokaj.

Of course, it would not be The Avengers without the Avengers themselves. We have seen Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston in their roles as Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and Loki respectively and they all continue to be fantastic. However, this is the first time Mark Ruffalo played the role of The Hulk. I did not actually see the previous Hulk movies (mostly because they did not get very good reviews) but I thought Ruffalo was a welcome addition to the team.

And now on to the more spoilery parts of my review. If you do not want anything ruined then I suggest you STOP READING IMMEDIATELY.

For those that have already seen the movie, please continue....

"I'm drawing a line in the fucking sand. Do not read the Latin!"

Since I cannot say too much about The Cabin in the Woods without spoiling the movie, I have decided to combine this post with my overdue review of The Hunger Games.

I usually stay away from horror films at all costs. I do not like being scared and, while I can usually deal with the gore, I am more likely to close my eyes than watch someone's throat being slit or guts cut out of them. It is for this reason that I was initially hesitant to see The Cabin in the Woods. However, knowing that it was written by Joss Whedon and hearing all the great reviews it was getting, I figured I had to give it a try. I am happy to report that it was totally worth it and that this movie was fantastic!

To simplify the plot, and without giving anything away, this movie is about five friends who go into the woods to spend the weekend at one of their cousin's cabins. Unfortunately, things do not end up the way they planned. The acting was great, especially from Fran Kranz, Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins, and the writing was exactly what you would expect from Whedon. It was clever, yes, scary in certain parts, but also extremely funny. To quote director, Drew Goddard you go "from high drama to high comedy, from horror to sadness to silliness. And often in the same scene."

If you plan to see this movie, and I highly recommend that you do, I would see it in theaters, if only to avoid any spoilers that might come out and ruin it if you wait too long.

And now, my long awaited opinion of The Hunger Games :o)

Even though I swore I would not go see The Hunger Games opening weekend, I did anyway. After reading all my friends' posts on Facebook and Twitter about the film, I decided I could not wait and ended up seeing it on Sunday morning of that weekend. My initial reaction to the movie was that I really enjoyed it. I left the theater satisfied and looking forward to the next installment. However, after thinking about it some more and talking it over with friends who had also seen it, I realized that I did have some issues.

There are a few spoilers, so if you have not yet seen the movie, proceed with caution.....

"Something sent those things here to get us!"

The big movies that are out in theaters this weekend are: Lockout, The Three Stooges and The Cabin in the Woods.

The Cabin in the Woods is about five friends who go to a cabin in the middle of the woods and very bad things begin to happen to them. Very little has been revealed about the plot of this movie and from what I have heard, the less you know going into it the better. It was written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, directed by Goddard and stars Chris Hemsworth, Jesse Williams, Fran Kranz, Anna Hutchison, Kristen Connolly, Bradley Whitford, Brian White, Amy Acker, Tom Lenk and Richard Jenkins.

Trailer #1
The Cabin in the Woods at MOVIECLIPS.com

"He is really hard to kill"

Since last April, I have added another 10 pages to my quote list word document. I have also started an additional document for Sons of Anarchy quotes and added to my list for The Vampire Diaries. So, I have decided to share with you a few more of my favorites.

The most recent addition was from last night's Castle season finale:
Captain Montgomery: There are no victories. There's only the battle. And the best that you can hope for is that you find some place where you can make your stand. If this is your spot, I will stand with you.

“Great movie quotes become part of our cultural vocabulary...

When you consider that any phrase from American cinema is eligible, you realize this is our most subjective topic to date. We expect nothing less than a war of words as we reignite interest in classic American movies.” --Jean Picker Firstenberg; CEO of the American Film Institute
-----------------------------

I keep a list of quotes in a word document on my computer. It is mostly things from movies and TV (obviously) but some of them are from books and some are from real people. It is single-spaced, size 10, times new roman and is currently 47 pages long.

I also have separate lists for Joss Whedon projects and Aaron Sorkin projects, and the TV shows Friends, Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, The Black Donnellys, Grey’s Anatomy and The Vampire Diaries.

The very first quote I ever saved was from Ferris Buellar's Day Off, said by Ferris to the snooty maitre d':
"It’s understanding that makes it possible for people like us to tolerate a person like yourself."

The most recent addition to my list was from last week's Private Practice, from Sam to Addison:
“You want to have your cake and eat it too, but you know what, you can’t because I’m the cake and from here on out, I’m taking the cake away. No more cake for you. I’m good cake too, double-chocolate, cream-filled with the little raspberries on top, so. No more cake for you, so just shut-up.”

And here are just some of my random favorites:

MOVIES:

Hook
Tinker Bell: You know that place between sleep and awake? That place where you still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you, Peter Pan. That’s where I’ll be waiting.

Empire Records
Gina: Attention Rex Manning fans, to your left you will notice a shoplifter being chased by night manager Lucas. This young man will be caught, deep-fried in a vat of hot oil and served to our first hundred customers. Just another tasty treat from the gang at Empire Records.

Liberty Heights
Ben: If I knew things would no longer be, I would have tried to remember them better.

Notting Hill
Anna: Happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat.

Ratatouille
Linguini: Ratatouille. It's like a stew, right? Why do they call it that? If you're gonna name a food, you should give it a name that sounds delicious. Ratatouille doesn't sound delicious. It sounds like "rat" and "patootie." Rat-patootie, which does not sound delicious.

Life As A House
George Voiceover: I’d always thought of myself as a house, that was always what I lived in. It didn’t need to be big, it didn’t even need to be beautiful, it just needed to be mine. It became what I was meant to be, I built myself a life, I built myself a house.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Sam: It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The one’s that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But, in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But, I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now, folk in those stories had lots of chances of turnin’ back, only they didn’t. They kept goin’, because they were holdin’ on to somethin’.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fightin’ for.

The Boondock Saints
Priest: We must always fear the wicked. But there is another kind of evil that we must fear the most, and that is the indifference of good men.

The Hours
Laura Brown: What does it mean to regret when you have no choice?

Velvet Goldmine
Brian Slade: Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth.

Boys on the Side
Elaine: That’s what you get in life, you know? You get whoever you end up with. Whoever is willing to stick by you, and fight for you, when everyone else is gone. And it ain’t always who you expect. But you just have to make do.

Pirates of the Caribbean : At World’s End
Captain Barbossa: You have to be lost to find the places that can’t be found.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
Penny: Sometimes people are layered like that. There’s something totally different underneath than what’s on the surface
Dr. Horrible: And sometimes there’s a third deeper level and that one is the same as the top surface level
Penny: Huh?
Dr. Horrible: Like with pie

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Buffy: All I want to do is graduate from high school, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die. Now it may not sound too great to a sconehead like you, but I think it's swell. And you come along and tell me I'm a member of the hairy mole club so you can throw things at me?

Serenity
Wash: This landing is going to get pretty interesting
Mal: Define interesting
Wash: [dead-pan] Oh God, oh God, we’re all going to die?
Mal: (on loud-speaker) This is the Captain, we have a little problem with our entry sequence so we may experience some slight…turbulence and then…explode



TV:
Good Morning, Miami
Jake: There’s something about your eyes and your smile. It’s not just that they’re beautiful and it’s not just that they light up a room. They’re like a gateway into a world that I want to be a part of.

My So-Called Life
Angela: This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received instructions on where to go and what to do.

Battlestar Gallactica
Number Six: Life has a melody, Gaius. A rhythm of notes which become your existence once played in harmony with God's plan.

NCIS
Ziva: It’s like shooting fish in a pond
John: Haha, I think you mean a barrel
Ziva: Why would fish be in a barrel?
John: Uhm, I-uh, that’s a good point, I never really thought about it before

Accidentally on Purpose
Davis: Dude, you were born to be a chef, okay?! When the stork brought you, you grabbed that bird and cooked it into something delicious!

Ugly Betty
Betty: I’ve had to say ‘good-bye’ more times than I would have liked, but everyone can say that. And no matter how many times we do it, even when it’s for the greater good, it still stings. And though we’ll never forget what we’ve given up, we owe it to ourselves to keep moving forward. What we can’t do is live our lives always afraid of the next ‘good-bye,’ because chances are they’re not going to stop. The trick is to recognize when a ‘good-bye’ can be a good thing, when it’s a chance to start again.

How I Met Your Mother
Barney: (After blowing his nose) I’m fine. My nose is just over-flowing with awesome and I had to get some of it out.

The West Wing
President Bartlett: I was watching a television program before, with a kind of roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends - apparently, because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends' mothers. And they brought the boyfriends out, and they fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me: these people don't vote, do they?

Sports Night
Isaac: If you’re stupid, surround yourself with smart people. If you’re smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.

Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
Wes: Living where there’s free speech means sometimes you get offended

The Black Donnellys
Tommy: We’re gonna need some scotch, and a lot of it, but we’re not gonna be able to pay for it, you see
Store Owner: Get outta here
Tommy: I think you’re gonna wanna give it to us
Owner: Oh yeah, and why’s that?
Tommy: Because your daughter has a crush on Kevin, he’s gonna date her if you don’t

Friends
Rachel: C’mon, Daddy, listen to me. It’s like, it’s like all my life everyone has always told me, “You’re a shoe. You’re a shoe, you’re a shoe, you’re a shoe” and then today I just stopped and I said, “What if I don’t want to be a shoe? What if I want to be a-a purse, you know, or, or, or a hat”….No, I don’t want you to buy me a hat! I’m saying that I am a hat - It’s a metaphor, Daddy!

Gilmore Girls
Sookie: Jackson’s sleeping with the zucchini tonight
Lorelai: What’s that? Farm jargon?
Sookie: No, he’s sleeping with the zucchini
Lorelai: But what does that mean? “Sleeping with the zucchini”?
Sookie: It means he’s sleeping with the zucchini
Lorelai: Uh, Sookie, fill me in here. Where’s Jackson?
Sookie: Well, he checked the weather forecast today and there’s a potential cold front coming in from Canada and he knows how important the zucchini is for opening day menu, so..
Lorelai: Are you saying that “sleeping with zucchini” means…
Sookie: He’s sleeping with the zucchini
Michele: She said it four times, you are very slow tonight
Lorelai: Oh, my god!
Sookie: Well, you said to do whatever it takes to make sure we have fresh zucchini
Lorelai: Within the realm of reason!
Sookie: Oh, now you add that!

Grey’s Anatomy
Meredith: We're adults. When did that happen? And how do we make it stop?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Giles: So we have a threat against the students on their big night. A hellhound trained to attack people in formal wear
Cordelia: Oh, are we all catching up now?
Giles: This Tucker is planning to attack the prom tonight
Oz: Once again the hell mouth puts the 'special' in 'special occasion'
Xander: Why do I even buy tickets for these things, I ask you!
Willow: I wonder if I can take my dress back
Buffy: Don't you dare!
Willow: But Tucker's gonna...
Buffy: No! You guys are gonna have a prom, the kind of prom that everyone should have. I'm gonna give you all a nice, fun, normal evening if I have to kill every single person on the face of the earth to do it!
Xander: Yay?

Angel
Angel: What’s going on?
Wesley: We’re being attacked
Angel: I thought you had double-protection sanctorium spells!
Lorne: I do and they work. It’s a thing with the door and the stairs and the world and a thing. Never mind!
Gunn: Apparently, you can be outside and chuck stuff in
Lorne: I just said that

Firefly
Mal: Zoe, why do I have a wife?
Jayne: You got a wife? All I got is that dumbass stick, sounds like its raining. How come you got a wife?

Dollhouse
Topher: I am obsolete. This must be what old people feel like…and Blockbuster

The Vampire Diaries
Tyler: Look, there’s Elena and her new boyfriend. Oh, what are they doing? Oh, they’re walking…walking…walking…yup, right into the sunset.

Veronica Mars
Veronica Voiceover: I think we all learned a valuable lesson about faith. You give it to the people you love. But the people who really deserve it are the ones who come through even when you don't love them enough.

REAL PEOPLE:
"During your life, everything you do and everyone you meet rubs off in some way. Some bit of everything you experience stays with everyone you’ve ever known, and nothing is lost. That’s what’s eternal, these little specks of experience in a great, enormous river that has no end." --Harriet Doerr

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.” --Conan O’Brien

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” --Robert Byrne

“We should never separate the lives we live from the words we speak. To me, the most important goal is to live a life consistent with the values I hold dear and to act on what I believe in.” --Senator Paul Wellstone


I usually save things that make me laugh or make me think or mirror things I am feeling at the time. It is one of the many reasons that I love my DVR because as soon as I hear a line that I want to save I can rewind it as many times as I need to get the words right.

I am not really sure why I keep the lists, I guess it just gives me something to do :o)

xoxo
c

------------------------------

"There are some things I can just smell. It's like a sixth sense."

Primetime Emmy nominations came out this morning. Here is the list of nominations, courtesy of TVGuide.com :

http://www.tvguide.com/special/emmys/nominations.aspx

Of the shows nominated, I watch the following: How I Met Your Mother, Ugly Betty, Mad Men, Grey's Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters, Top Chef, The Daily Show, Dancing with the Stars and Project Runway. I don't get HBO or Showtime, so I Netflix Entourage and Weeds once the lastest season is on dvd.

I felt like I should post something because this is a "TV and movie blog" but I don't really know what to say. I don't really watch the Emmys, mostly because the same shows and actors win every year. I also usually don't agree with the winners.

As I was trying to figure out what to write for this, I was checking my twitter (cmswim13) and found this interview with Joss Whedon thanks to his brother Jed (drhorrible) and sister-in-law Maurissa (MoTancharoen):

http://scifiwire.com/2009/07/joss-whedon-on-emmys-dr-h.php

And it got me thinking.....

I was a little behind on the Joss Whedon train. I had seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie but had no interest in watching the TV show when it started. (I actually didn't realize until awhile later that Whedon had written the movie as well as created the show.) I was more of a Dawson's Creek girl in high school and I remember saying to my friends who watched Buffy, "At least Dawson's Creek is realistic, why would I watch a show about vampires?!" Clearly, I had no idea what I was missing.

Freshman year of college, while avoiding studying, I started watching the reruns of Buffy on FX. They would play two episodes a day, every week day. I very quickly became addicted and within a few months had seen most of the series. Then, because of a few crossover episodes, I started to get into Angel as well and soon got addicted to that. Both shows have a very different feel about them and I even know people who watched one but not the other.

I did not even know Firefly existed (way to go FOX marketing) until the movie, Serenity, was due to come out. I was looking through Entertainment Weekly's Fall Movie Preview one summer and found the article on Serenity. There was a picture of the cast and right off the bat I recognized Alan Tudyk from Patch Adams, 28 Days and A Knight's Tale. I also knew Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin and Gina Torres from Angel and Buffy but couldn't have told you their names. As I started to read the article and realized it was from the same guy who made Buffy and Angel (Joss's name still wasn't stuck in my brain yet) I decided I wanted to see the movie. After reading further and learning that Firefly had first been a TV show, I knew I needed to watch the series before I saw the movie. Onto the Netflix queue it went and after watching it, I was hooked. I was mad that I had never seen it when it was on TV and mad that it had gotten canceled because it was so good! Unfortunately, I missed the movie in theaters but saw it as soon as it was on dvd.

And then the Joss obsession started.....

I started to pay attention to projects he was working on and following his career. I had already seen Toy Story (tho I didn't realize he had written the screenplay at the time) and was very excited when he made a guest appearance on one of my favorite shows, Veronica Mars (another show that was cruelly canceled too quickly, but that's another story for another time). There was also a website for a movie called Goners that he was writing but that had little to no detail about what it was about an according to IMDb is not set to come out until 2011 but still has no cast or any sort of description. I then heard about his next project when he did an interview with TVGuide.com around the time of the writer's strike (or just after, I can't remember exactly). The project was called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along blog.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along blog sprung up during the writer's strike because people were trying to figure out how to create things without the studios dictating their every move. As you can read in the above article, it starred Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day (another Buffy alum and star of The Guild which can be found on youtube and which you should be watching) and Nathan Fillion (who I had seen in Firefly and then pretty much fell in love with after seeing him in Waitress). It was released on the internet last summer in three parts, each around 15 minutes. And it was just nominated for an Emmy (which is how this whole rant started in the first place). It's FABulous and if you haven't seen it we're clearly not very good friends :o) Seriously, go to www.drhorrible.com right now and watch it...RIGHT NOW!!!

Joss's current project, Dollhouse, is just as awesome as the rest of his work and I am very excited that FOX realized it in time to bring it back for another season. It involves several Buffy/Angel alum including Eliza Dushku, Amy Acker, and Alan Tudyk, as well as Tahmoh Penikett (who I loved in Battlestar Gallactica - and I've now solidified my standing as a huge nerd), Harry Lennix, Fran Kranz, Miracle Laurie, Dichen Lachman, Enver Gjokaj, Olivia Williams and Reed Diamond . He also has another movie coming out next year called The Cabin in the Woods with Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford.

I will probably watch the Emmys this year, if only for the fact that NPH is hosting, and I certainly don't base my viewership on who wins awards, but it makes me sad when good talent doesn't get recognized...as I've clearly stated before. That being said, I really really hope Dr. Horrible wins...and maybe a few other underdogs.

Alright, I'm done ranting.....for now.

xoxo
c