They're remaking Swiss Family Robinson!

Not really much in the way of details yet, but as long as they either 1) get rid of Roberta's character altogether or 2) at least write her as far less insipid and for pity's sake cut out the brothers acting like she's a fragile delicate twee thing as soon as they discover she's a girl, I will be the happiest camper in the world. ((yes, I know it was made a while back and I try to make some concessions for that, but when it's that obvious? Bleh))

Which reminds me, I need to find a copy of the book for Kaylee and the May Baby.

So I run into the rental store to pick something out. Get back out to the car, and there's this:

Chris: "So what'd you find?"
Me: "It's called How to Be a Serial Killer."
Chris: "You do know we're on a watch list now."
Kaylee: *cackles maniacally*
Chris: "And that was your influence."
Me: "Guilty."

"After a terrifying biblical apocalypse descends upon the world, a group of strangers stranded in a remote truck stop diner in the Southwest unwittingly become humanity's last line of defense when they discover the diner's young waitress is pregnant with the messiah."

Post-apocalyptic setting! Strangers joining together to do battle! Angels carrying machine guns! Paul Bettany as the archangel Michael. This movie was made for me, people.

If the world was fair: I wouldn't see Seth Rogen projects unless I searched specifically for them, while I wouldn't be able to leave the TV on for 10 minutes without seeing an ad for a new Oded Fehr movie.

So Alexa Davalos has been cast as Andromeda-- which is great to me; I loved her in Defiance.

My lazy-Saturday question to you guys is, who would you add to the cast if you could? Who's your Aphrodite or Hera or Ares? :-)

*shoos everyone on her flist off to go watch The Reader*

I saw an ad for Observe and Report both times I saw Watchmen, and while there wasn't any chance of me going to see it anyway (since it looked distinctly unfunny) this takes it from unfunny to beyond offensive and disgusting.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

I think my little Greek-mythology-fangirl heart just exploded. 1) the casting in and of itself is insanely awesome, and 2) when I was working on the Gods and Goddesses scenes in WWS (and a few months ago when I started tentatively plotting out a less kid-friendly book solely about the Greek Deities), I always pictured Ralph Fiennes as Hades. This is going to be so. cool.

Yes, I'm going to be poinging around about this for the rest of the day.

Believe it or not, I saw that movie for the first time today. I know, I know, I'm behind.

Haven't seen too many Westerns yet-- I don't remember what the first one I ever saw was, but it had John Wayne in it. The scene was him coming up to this woman's house (I think she was a widow) and she was of course wary of a strange guy on her property, and he looked her over and sneered, "Don't flatter yourself." At which point I delivered a ten-minute lecture to my father about exactly how much of a sleaze the supposed 'hero' of the movie was and then left the room.

The remake of 3:10 to Yuma convinced me that no, not all Westerns are necessarily Like That. So today Chris and I borrowed A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. We rented High Plains Drifter, which seemed to be the next part in the series. Loved the first three, but then the fourth one opened with Female Stereotype #42 saying nasty things to the Eastwood character until he snaps that she needs to be taught a lesson, and so he drags her into a barn and rapes her while this creepy guy from town watches and grins (of course, by the end of it she's stopped cursing at him and struggling, because we all know that even when women say no, they really want it!).

Chris: *turning off DVD* "Soooo, what do we want to watch instead?"

I check imdb so I can make sure to never ever rent anything else that guy did the screenplay for, and one of the first comments I saw about the movie was, "Well I don't know why people are calling it rape, she was obviously looking for attention and--"

Me: "Self, you cannot psychically make people explode through the computer. Unfortunately."

So now we're watching Pinky and the Brain, because it's unlikely to raise my blood pressure and Kaylee likes dancing to the theme song.

In other news-- dinner was chicken with tomatoes and feta cheese, and lunch yesterday was homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (white cheddar and bacon). I think I like this whole learning-to-cook thing. :-)

Earlier, about the only attention Kaylee would pay to the TV was when we were watching That 70s Show and the theme song came on-- she'd crawl right over to the TV, wave her arms around and squeak, and then as soon as the song was over head right back over to her toys. But now if something loud happens she'll pay attention for a few minutes, and whenever a commercial comes on with a dog or a cat, she won't take her eyes off the TV. She's really starting to take those things in, which translates into one thing:

Time to go through our movies.

Chris and I went through our shelves of movies last night and divided them into "things it's okay to watch while Kaylee is awake" and "not unless we want to traumatize her for life".

We'll be adding and taking away things soon based on how she reacts to things once she starts talking. Right now all we have to go on is whether she starts crying or something in response to what's on the TV (which so far she hasn't done). So since she can't give us many cues yet, our criteria is pretty simple: no violence, and not much language. Things like Stand By Me will be added once she's learned the "do not repeat this word" rule. ;-)

Scrubs is okay (the show rarely takes a serious turn, and for a medical show there's very little blood) while M*A*S*H is not (that one deals with some pretty heavy stuff, especially in the later seasons).

RENT is okay (some language, but not nearly as much as the stage show, and what little violence there is happens off-screen) while Man of La Mancha is not (off-screen or not, anything with a rape scene is on the To Wait list).

And after a discussion, we decided that anything with vampires and demons and whatnot would wait until she's older, even with something campy like Lost Boys, just so we can be sure of what she's able to handle/what she's interested in.

Because I'm nosy curious, for those of you who are parents, how did you handle this one? What are some things that you thought your kid would handle just fine that caused a freakout, or that you thought would cause a freakout but they just brushed it off?

The good: Going for a drive out in the country, seeing a very familiar and very unexpected shape out in a field . . . "Is that a camel?" Will upload pictures once my computer decides to start working again.

The bad: Further on down the road, seeing a sign advertising "Hunting Adventure! No license required; hunt all year round. Deer and exotic game". Mom and Chris agreed that while it would be fun, it would also probably be illegal to add "owner of hunting adventure" to the list of 'exotic' game.

The freaking annoying: Our theater has Bride Wars in, but not Defiance. I foresee a drive to Pittsburg in our future.

Just saw Mamma Mia! the other night. So much fun (huge dance numbers! Brightly colored clothes! Bouncy music! Meryl Streep being awesome!). My only problem with it was I wish they would've cast Ewan McGregor as Sam instead. Yes, I know he cannot be cast in every single musical made, but darnit, they should try. Pierce Brosnan just looked uncomfortable with the whole singing thing.

Also, I added a few more items to my Etsy store. Hoping to put up a new item about every week or so. :-)

Hm. I can never keep track of release dates, but I know that the two movies I'm looking forward to that are coming out soon are Defiance and Watchmen.

As for what I wouldn't go see even if someone paid me: Bride Wars. Ugh.

So my nephew's over visiting for the night, and we rented a few kid-appropriate movies for him (Hellboy and the sequel count, right?). ;-)

We also rented Fred Claus, partly because Rachel Weisz is in it and she is, of course, beyond awesome. Imagine my incredibly pleased surprise when Jeffrey Dean Morgan made a brief appearance partway through as the guy who tries to make a date with her character after she gives him a ticket.

Me-- "Self, your eleven-year old nephew is sitting a few feet away. You are not to make any handcuff jokes. Stop it."

I managed to refrain from my usual perviness, but I did spend most of the rest of the movie writing alternate scenarios of their date and whatnot in my head. See title-- biggest dork ever.

I couldn't help it, though; as soon as they were both onscreen all logic processes were toast.

((movie was cute, btw. Now if I can just have the two of them in a movie together where they share more than a minute of screentime. . .))

Drama and horror and whatnot is all well and good, but when it's 10:30 and Chris is at work and I want to watch something that will not freak me out or depress me . . . yeah. ((this is, by the way, why I'm not currently mainlining the rest of Season 3 of Supernatural))

So I thought, well, maybe I'll read a book instead. What have I gotten recently that I haven't had a chance to read . . . oh look. A Simon Clark, a Richard Laymon, and a Supernatural novelization.

I think I'm becoming predictable.

I need to find some kind of option on amazon.com that'll let me order a season of That 70s Show and get it to me within the next twenty minutes. That'd be useful.

It's at least two hours before Kaylee's going to go to sleep. She's being helpful about the movie search-- she yanks down every DVD in reach and scatters them around the room so they're easier to see. Thank you, kid. At least she's leaving the books alone. For now. . .

Maybe I'll watch Earth Girls Are Easy. Hard to get much sillier than that. :-)

Guess who just got her copy of Dead and Breakfast in the mail? Zombie movie + Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Yays. :-D

Doomsday for Watchmen?

20th Century Fox, if you do this you will make me cry. Do not make me cry. *Bambi eyes*

Oh man do I want to see this. The chances of it not depressing the hell out of me are about .0001 and lower, but oh well.

Now I know what I do when I'm alone in the house for too long with none of my friends online-- blast music and spam LJ. I've grown unused to being completely by myself in here.

((and self, I don't care how restless you get, absolutely no going near any books or movies that could possibly be described as creepy. Do not go down that road again))

Poor Chris-- his work schedule changed again. People keep quitting with very little notice, which means everyone else gets to scramble around in order to get shifts covered. Yesterday's was 6 in the evening until 6 in the morning. Yay fun.

On the good side, Kaylee and I had some mother-daughter bonding time, which we spent watching a classic triple feature of Cry_Wolf, Sabretooth, and Alone in the Dark. Because I want her to start appreciating the finer things in life early. ;-)

The kid loves explosions, whether they're onscreen or actual. You should've seen her on the 4th of July. She was grinning and clapping, and then when she finally fell asleep she slept through fireworks that made the rest of us jump.

And she was happy with my commentary during Sabretooth--

Me: "Look out! The bad special effect is going to eat them! Oh no!"
Kaylee: *giggleclapsqueal*

That. Was. Awesome.

My brother went to our midnight showing, the lucky little freak, but since Chris was at work I didn't have anybody to watch Kaylee, and I didn't think the other theatergoers would appreciate that one. lol

We got home and watched the first one (since neither mom nor dad had seen it yet). Going to watch the second again when Ashley and Amanda visit, so far as I know. And they showed a trailer for Watchmen! I managed to stay in my seat instead of poinging around the theater, so I'm proud of myself.

I can't wait to see it again. It was so much fun, didn't feel like close to three hours at all, and Heath Ledger definitely made me want to play Harley Quinn. ;-) (okay, so I've always wanted to play her because she's a psychopathic hyper mess and I adore her. But you get my point)

And speaking of awesome things, off to see if the third segment for Dr. Horrible is up today. :-)