random incoherence and infantile meanderings

Yesterday I rewatched Queen of the Damned for the first time since I saw it in theaters. I had a great time watching, but I was never able to make up my mind if I wanted to buy a copy on DVD. Everytime I would decide that, yes, I wanted to see Queen again, I would find myself backing out of the purchase when it came down to the wire. But not, thanks to Netflix streaming, I don’t have to make that decision before I can watch and rewatch.

So I’m ambivalent about it. I knew I like it, but my feelings never were on par with Fifth Element, for instance. I dig that movie and, if there is anything wrong with it, I don’t care. This time through, I found a couple of the things that bothered me. Maybe, in a few years, if I watch again, I’ll have even more!

I think the thing that surprised me most was how much I disliked Lestat’s singing. I have the Queen of the Damned album and I love that. I even like how the various artists have made the attempt to sing like Jonathan Davis. But I didn’t like him as Lestat. Too whiny and too vocally wandering. But give me Chester Bennington (from Linkin Park) doing an impression of Davis and I’m happy. What kind of nonsense does that make?

To be just barely spoilery, I have no idea what just actually happened in the latest Doctor Who. At the very least I’ll have to go back and watch the last two episodes, and watch them really closely, to get a feel for what’s going on. I have a feeling, though, that this goes further back than that and I need to start from the begining of the season and actually pay attention this time.

I don’t think this goes back to last season, but then, I wouldn’t put that past the Who Crew.

SPOILERS
The whole is she/is she not thing has been going on for a while. Was it back to the season opener? And the eyepatch lady in the wall? What about the fleshy saying something to Rory about the astronaut growing up? And I don’t remember how the situation with the pandoricum resolved last season. Is Rory still an ancient man? Why was the universe centered around Amy? Maybe I didn’t actually watch the final episodes… That would explain why I am so confused now.

Nuff said.
(via Jack Mangan of the Deadpan.)

I have largely given up on trying to get my Netflix queue setup to please both my wife and I. She likes to see what she wants to see NOW, whereas I have no problem with making a 275 item list of movies that I eventually want to see and just watching them as they come in. It doesn’t at all help that our tastes diverge pretty radically, hers leaning towards bawdy comedy and mine towards twisted scifi. One thing we do tend to both enjoy are movies that are so bad they are good.

Which is the long winded explanation of why I added “Altitude” to the queue. Sadly, while I thought it looked like a bad-enough-to-be-good movie, my better half thought it looked just bad. I ended up watching it by myself and, well, simply put, she was right.

If this had been a short story that I was reading, I think I might have enjoyed the oddball semi-twist towards the end. But only if the utterly generic “teens gather to get killed” horror movie begining was slashed. Even if I hadn’t know what I was getting into in the first place, the beginning was so cliched that it needed have been shown at all.

But back to that twist where the movie goes from bad Cthulhu in a plane horror to something vaguely wannabe-Donnie Darko. If it weren’t for the female lead’s over the top acting (aka screaming) and the male’s ::coughcough:: understated performance, I think that little zinger of story would have me recommending this to at least someone.

I’m not sure who, but someone.

I got the feeling that the filmakers were going for a Cube like feeling of claustrophobia, not to mention lower budget, by keeping almost the entire film inside the plane’s cabin. Except that it really didn’t work for me. It highlighted the constant seat-swapping, which stood out as generally unrealistic. Maybe it’s just me and my kin, but once we pick a seat we pretty much stick.

But that’s just being nitpicky. The problem is that Altitude isn’t very interesting, very scary, very pretty, or very much of anything. I’ll have to look elsewhere for my wonderfully terrible movie fix.

(No, you got that right. The title makes no damn sense.)

Yesterday I got laid off. Technically. Because of our union contract, I have bumping rights. I can bump a mechanic who is the same pay grade as me but then I would have 5 days to learn how to be a machinist or I’m out the door. I can bump a technician in another department who actually was hired the same day as me, but has the unfortunate luck to be one digit younger than me by time badge number. I’d still only have the 5 days to prove I can do the job but at least with this, it is a role I’ve filled before (and, quite frankly, it is a much simpler version of technician than what I do.) Or I could take the layoff, which is expected to run till June.

I will bump the other tech, but both of the other options are so very tempting. I’m really good, but even for me 5 days just isn’t enough time to learn to be a machinist. And I’d love to use this as an opportunity to jump start the process of moving south, but the reality is that I’ve taken loans out of my 401k which would be due in full if I took the layoff.

:le sigh:

I signed on with this company, and busted my ass to get hired here, because I was sick and tired of the instability of being a temp worker. Sadly, it seems that ten years into it, I’m almost back to needing to find a stable job again.