I’m at home today, taking the day off after a few stress-filled days at work. Am I lounging in my house binge watching Netflix or catching up on Outlander (cause the season premier is coming up)? Speaking of which, I should catch up. NO! Focus. So, instead of going into work today, I have refocused the stress ball sitting in the pit of my stomach constantly to writing. I’m going to get some writing done today Even if it kills me. It might too.
Anyway, I’ve been up for two hours now. I’ve dropped my daughter at daycare (cause there was no way in hell I was getting anything done with her in the house), put in a load of laundry, and now writing a blog. So all in all, today is going about how I thought. Two hours down and no writing completed.
Okay, so we all know that Tom Hanks is a fine actor and that Denzel is . . . well . . . Denzel. But, I’m going to make a bold statement here – and stick with me on this one – I think that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson may be the greatest actor of our time.
I know. I know. You’re probably screaming at the screen right now. But Suzanne, how can you be serious? We’re talking about “THE ROCK”! I get it. I really do. And it would be a justified question. However, I’d like to make a case for my assertion.
His body of work doesn’t necessarily preclude one to think “wow, that guy’s a great actor”. He’s not doing period dramas or World War II epics. He’s doing comedies and as anyone who has tried to do comedy and failed . . . comedy is hard.
This clip from Jumanji is a great example. He’s supposed to be playing a skinny white kid embodied in the “superman” form.
Actually, Jack Black was also amazing in this movie, playing a teenage girl.
Dwayne Johnson also has musical talent. Does anyone really need reminded of Moana? Oh wait, clearly you do. Good luck getting this one out of your head.
Honestly, I think Moana might be my favorite Disney movie. The message is great for little girls, the music is incredible (thanks Lin-Manuel Miranda), and it’s completely underrated.
So, comedy and muscial talent isn’t your thing. If it’s a swing toward the dramatic that may sway you, let’s look at Ballers on HBO first.
I’m going to be honest. I’ve never actually seen this show. I wanted to and that should count for something. Shouldn’t it? I just don’t have time to watch. . . ANYTHING. I have to put Outlander and Game of Thrones on my Calendar for Christ’s sakes. You should see my Netflix list. Jessica Jones has been on it for a hot minute. Shit, I’ve had things in the DVR for years. I’ve gone off the rails. My point is that I’ve wanted to watch it from the start but haven’t found the time. Mostly, because of The Rock.
I think my favorite, by far, is Be Cool. This was a crap movie and should not have been made in the first place but there were a couple of standouts. 1. Andre 3000 (aka Andre Benjamin) as Dabu and 2. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. These two are the only reason I ever watch this movie. And I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen it more than once. Actually, I’m pretty ashamed to admit that, especially in writing because John Travolta is HORRIBLE!
I’ve managed to convince Ross of my argument about Dwayne Johnson. Just think about it for a minute. Are you convinced?
I know there are a shit ton (that’s a technical term) of people out there that ADORE time travel. Stories. Books. Movies. Television shows. Whatever they can get their hands on. They eat up time travel in all forms. I’m not one of those people. I watch/read a few time travels In Spite of them being time travel based. Two to be exact. I watch/read Outlander, cause Jamie Fraser and The Flash, cause I was already watching Arrow – which is awesome, by the way. I ♥♥♥♥ Arrow.
Time travel is dangerous. We’ve seen Barry Allen cause ripple effects to the point that people are dead/alive when they weren’t before. Where the gender of a particular person is different than it was in the timeline previously. Every decision we make creates something entirely new, presenting others with decisions that they were not faced with in previous incarnations. Also, can we just talk for a moment about how The Flash’s identity and his secret lair is the worst kept secret in the history of the world. Everybody on Earth 1, hell, everyone on all the Earths knows where The Flash hangs his damned suit. People just walk in there like there’s no security at all. #WorstSecretEVER
The question then becomes, is time circular, linear, or neither? If you change something in one time line, does the original time line still exist or does it vanish? This is the problem I run into with Terminator 2.
Let’s refresh…
Okay. If all the hardware and the chip is destroyed, that damned kid should disappear. There’s no reason for the dude to go back in time and no way for Sarah Conner to get knocked up.
Where Terminator is concerned, Ross likes to argue that the future is inevitable and no amount of destruction of the Terminator would alter the course. Skynet was going to happen, no matter what. BULLSHIT. I call bullshit. You can’t argue that point and then watch The Flash and expect the exact opposite to occur. I get that Barry Allen is a superhero and we expect our superheros to persevere against all odds, but JFC, come on. We are talking about the fundamentals of the space-time continuum here.
I also understand that there is no small amount of suspended disbelief here, because – time travel. But this is not something that can be explained away with magic. #Magic
I like to throw that argument up to Ross all the time because there is no counter argument to magic.
I also understand that I’ve completely left Outlander out of this discussion and that’s not an accident. There is quite a bit of suspended disbelief in that one – independent of the time travel aspect of it. Christ-on-crutches, Jamie Fraser fights a bear with his bare hands in the middle of precolonial North Carolina in his mid-fifties and WINS! HE. WINS. Just let that one sink in for a moment. There are a few more instances that require your willingness to just believe. Clare and Jamie are on two different ships in the middle of the Caribbean (not close, by the way). Both get shipwrecked and find each other in the middle of the FUCKING ocean. Nope. Just no. Doesn’t matter though. #JamieFraserLove
There were plenty of half-naked pics of Sam Heughan out there and they’re worth a peek but this is just as good. I swear. It might be better. #KiltLove
We’ve gotten off topic from my epic time travel rant. Anyway, I won’t read time travel. It just pisses me off. An example is The Time Traveler’s Wife. I’m not going to include a synopsis. You can find that at the link above. Long story short, this guy keeps going back to visit his wife through her life beginning when she was five. He keeps telling her how much she’s going to love him. This is, of course, super creepy and really a little stalkerish. Anyway, by the time I finished this book, I was pissed. I couldn’t tell if she actually loved him or if she’d been conditioned to believe she did. There was a bit of Stolkholm syndrome or brainwashing going on there. I’m not even sure which at this point.
So, this is my basic issue. Time travel creates more problems than it solves. More questions. More circular paradox possibilities. And, just downright confusion. So, in conclusion, I live by the statement that time travel is stupid.
You may disagree. I know plenty of people who do. Ross is one of them. Time travel has caused more than one lively debate in my house. I’m sure it will cause more in the future.
That was back before I had a stressful job, a house that needed cleaned, and a toddler running amuck every waking moment. Now, when I watch the award shows, I have no idea what any of the movies are and probably never will. I’ve been to the movies exactly twice in the last six months (which was a Herculean feat in and of itself), and that was to see one of the Marvel movies (can’t remember which) and Rogue One.
If the movie doesn’t make it to HBO or Showtime, I’m not seeing it. Especially if it’s rated R, I’m definitely not seeing those movies. I have a limited window on the weekends. Basically, a possible two hour break when Scarlett naps. This isn’t long enough to watch anything! It’s barely enough to get a complete load of laundry done.
So, last night I sat and watched the Golden Globes. I’m not exactly sure why. Mostly from a sense that I should, instead of a real desire to do so. It was clear from the start that I had no idea what any of the movies were. The television shows were basically the same thing. At least those, I’d heard of. The only one I could root for was Game of Thrones. I watch that religiously. If you don’t, you should. It’s AMAZING!!!
I also rooted for Caitriona Balfe from Outlander because I LOVE that show. I might be having an imaginary love affair with Jamie Fraser. Ross is completely aware of my obsession and is fine with it, by the way. Don’t judge. But the voters for these awards never give anything to paranormal/Sci-Fi/Fantasy shows, so I knew she wasn’t going to win. I also knew Game of Thrones wasn’t going to win, but I was hoping…
Not having a horse in the race really took all the fun out of watching it. By 10pm, I was just waiting for the Memorial segment (aka The Parade of Death). I’m not sure why I love this so much, but I do. Anyway, it got to be 10:45pm and it still hadn’t happened. I turned to Ross and asked, “Where’s the Parade of Death?”
When he said that he didn’t think the Golden Globes did that, I shouted, “What?!? You mean I could’ve been asleep an hour ago? For fuck’s sake!”
I promptly rolled over, took my glasses off, and turned off my light. This is what my life has become. Those of you who aren’t parents don’t understand. I’m not holding it against you, I’m simply pointing out a fact. Sleep is precious and becomes more so when there’s a toddler in the house. As a point of fact, after I went to sleep, this is what my night looked like:
My kid was up at 3am and wanted to crawl into bed with us. Over the three hours that she was in bed with us, I got head butted, kicked in the back, and slapped in the face. Not to mention the fact that my daughter is one of the loudest sleepers I’ve ever seen; snoring, whimpering, heavy breathing, and talking. She actually called out Mommy so clearly, I thought she was awake at 4:30am.
This is why I don’t have time for this shit anymore. Now, awards season comes and goes and most of the time, I don’t even notice. Sad, but I like sleep better.
I’m not complaining, not really. I love my daughter and I wouldn’t trade her for the world, but there was a time I knew all the pop culture references and who everyone was. Last night, Ross kept asking me who people were and I kept saying, “I have no idea.” I can’t tell the difference between Jessica Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard. I secretly think they’re the same person. Can you tell the difference??? I sure as hell can’t.
The thing is…I used to care. Now, not so much. The pressure of being in the know is gone and quite frankly, I look at awards season now as an extended trailer. I get a much better look at the movies with which I might want to waste a precious two hour time span on a Saturday afternoon. I don’t feel bad about that at all.
I don’t normally review books on this blog and I’m not necessarily reviewing a book or a series of books here. I’m really just having a discussion now that I’m almost caught up.
I’m “reading” the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. When I say “reading”, I really mean listening and I’m not sure that I could actually sit down and read these books if I was turning pages. I just don’t have the time to put into it. They are big. Huge. I would place these books in the category of fucking gigantic. I’ve spent so much time listening to these books that I refer to them as Scarlett’s British Mommy. The narrator is British and I let it play while I’m doing housework or playing with her so she hears quite a bit of it. I really hope that when she starts talking, she says things like “I ken” and “Aye”. That would be fantastic. To make my point about the size of these books (I have no idea how many pages they are but they are quite frankly in the George R.R. Martin realm), below is the running time for each audio book.
Which means that after completing all 8 books, I will have spent 15 days and 2 hours listening to these books and that doesn’t even count the Lord John Grey Books. Who are we kidding? I’m going to listen to those too.
I’m not complaining. I’m truly not.
These books are a strange mix of history, romance, sci-fi, and melodrama. Nothing can happen for hours upon hours on end and then, BOOM! Jamie is thought to be dead, Claire is accused of being a rebel spy, and Jem gets kidnapped by some idiot who thinks Brianna and Roger have a stash of gold. And that’s the book I just finished. That doesn’t even count the time Jamie fought a bear with his bare hands. Or the time that Roger survived a hanging. Or when the house burned down because a jar of ether exploded. What was that, you might ask. That’s right. Claire concocted some ether and it blew up.
I LOVE THESE BOOKS! Love. Love. Love. I can’t even really explain why. I asked Ross if he would dress up as Jamie Fraser for Halloween with a kilt and everything…he declined. Too bad. Maybe next year.
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