Culture

For a lot of pretty good reasons, I missed a lot of movies in 2007. But this is why I have a big television in my living room, no? Yes. In no particular order: American GangsterEastern PromisesSon of RambowCharlie Wilson’s WarMichael ClaytonI’m Not ThereThe OrphanageGone Baby GoneDarjeeling LimitedThe King of KongCrows 0 I left off a couple of Phillip Seymour Hoffman flicks. I don’t know. He’s always brilliant, but can you hang a movie around that every time? Oh, hell. ...

Voting seems to have about come to a close, so let’s see what we have. First off, I totaled up our punches throughout the course of the season – five points to the person on top, four to the #2 slot, etc., etc. Mohinder and Matt each got 4.5 points the week they were tied. The sibs each got 2 points once. Our top eight looks like this: West (26) Mohinder (21.5) Bob (16) Maya (14) Elle (11) Matt (10.5) Adam (10) Angela (10) ...

This is the eleventh and most likely the last PITF Index for Season 2 of Heroes, the superhero TV show where punching people in the face didn’t actually happen this episode. Face-punch count: 0. Lotta powers, though. Not your usual PITF Index after the cut.

This is the tenth PITF Index for Season 2 of Heroes, the superhero TV show where punching people in the face will last as long as someone’s writing the screenplay. Face-punch count: 1. It might have been more but you know, it’s not like Monica’s powers could actually help her in a fight or anything. If only she’d seen some old martial arts footage… oh wait. PITF Index after the cut.

This is the ninth PITF Index for Season 2 of Heroes, the superhero TV show where punching people in the face is the raison d’etre, full stop. Face-punch count: 0. Apparently we’ve escalated to more serious forms of facial violence. PITF Index after the cut.

This is the eight PITF Index for Season 2 of Heroes, the superhero TV show where punching people in the face is not always successful. Face-punch count: 1, plus an attempted face-punch. Can’t punch what you literally can’t hit. PITF Index after the cut.

This is the seventh PITF Index for Season 2 of Heroes, the superhero TV show where punching people in the face is what it’s all about. Face-punch count: 2. No quips. Badass episode. PITF Index after the cut.

This is the sixth PITF Index for Season 2 of Heroes, the superhero TV show where punching people in the face is normative behavior. Face-punch count: 4. Counting backhands. PITF Index after the cut.

I paraphrase his remarks on Heroes. What he actually said was “romance isn’t a natural fit for us,” and “We took too long to get to the big-picture story,” and “We made a mistake.’’ I.e.: the Claire storyline sucked, and the meandering around sucked, and season 2 in general has not been good. This is true. I noted a while back that the problem with season 2 was that it’s very much like season 1. That worked for season 1, because they were introducing the world and building our relationships with the characters. But now we have relationships, and we are unhappy to see them neglected while yet more characters are introduced. ...

I’m finding the WGA strike (original) really interesting, for reasons above and beyond the obvious fact that it affects a lot of my entertainment. (Equal link doctrine: here’s the AMPTP home page (original) so you can read up on the other side’s viewpoint.) Perhaps predictably, screenwriters like to write, and that means there’re a lot of screenwriters with blogs, and that means this is going to be a heavily blogged strike. This is only appropriate given that the major sticking point is residual income for Internet-distributed television and film. ...