Now that's good baseball

Man, that was a fun game last night. And former Met Jose Vizcaino briefly was a hero! And then Scott Fucking Podsednik hits a homer off of Brad Lidge? I mean, I hit as many homers during the regular season as Posdenik (seriously).

And no, I'm not counting the 'Stros out. After all, my beloved '86 Mets lost the first two at home agains a 'Sox team, too. Granted, they had the power of Lots of Cocaine driving them, but they also had heart.

Oh, look, by the way: Baseball is upset about the current Got Milk campaign. You know what? If the sport had ever pretended to actually give a shit about steroids, I might have some sympathy for them.

In other sports news, I continue to love my Isles, not just because I'll be an Isles fan until I die, but because they generate headlines like Satan Riding Sudden Hot Streak.

Halloween Countdown, Day 3: Busta, Move

On day three of the countdown, we hit the most recent movie, and one of two films in the series to actually get a decent budget and a cast you've heard of. Didn't help. Probably hurt, actually.

Halloween: Resurrection (AKA Halloween 8)

Concept: So wait -- how did Michael survive being beheaded? Well, that sneaky bastard, knowing that he was likely to die in the near future, grabbed a paramedic, crushed the poor bastard's vocal chords, and put the mask on him. Naturally, no one was the wiser until well after Michael escaped.

Michael then tracks down his sister in the insane asylum she's been in since she tried to figure out how the fuck the above paragraph could make any sense. He finally kills her, after offing two guards. Having accomplished what he set out to do back in the '70s, he, like so many heroes of existential tales, realizes that he no longer has a purpose in life, so he goes to his old house to sit around and mope. As he angsts away, longing for a purpose, suddenly, he finds one! Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks decide to host a reality show in the old Strode residence, and Michael has fresh meat (to steal a line from Freddy).

Body Count: 10. Seems to be a trend with these movies.

Really Bad Kills: How about the death of Laurie Strode? She thinks she's killed Michael, but she's not sure it's definitely him, so she reaches down to pull off the mask? What the fuck? Even if Laurie hasn't seen a million horror flicks, she's Michael's fucking sister! No one knows better than she does that Michael's not always dead. Shit, she saw what happened to the cop in Part II! Needless to say, Michael stabs her and she eventually falls off the building (not before promising to "see MIchael in Hell," because what better way for a character that's been around for twenty years to die than by uttering a cliche?), thus freeing up Jamie Lee Curtis to make Terror Train 2: Snakes on a Train*.

We also get one of my least favorite horror movie cliches -- the person killed in sight of other people, if only they'd look and see. Michael pulled this one off already in Part 2, but it's worse here. This time, the camera guy gets impaled on his own tripod on camera while Tyra decides to dance and make a cappucino in the media van (really, I'm not making this up). Of course, when Tyra looks back, there's nothing on camera but the shot she wanted to see in the first place.

The worst thing, though, is that the eminently despicable Nora Winston (played by Tyra Banks), a character that everyone who has ever seen this movie has wanted to see die painfully (and this was before America's Next Top Coke Snorter), dies off-screen. That's just wrong.

Really Good Kills: My favorite one is probably the death of Rudy, the last on-screen victim of Michael. Aside from the fact that he basically sacrifices himself to save his friend, his impalement on the wall is a direct reference to the killing of Bob in the first movie. Nicely played.

I also quite like the stabbing of Bill. Granted, everyone knew that Michael was going to smash through the mirror and stab him. But still, stabbing in the top of the head was different, and elicited groans of sympathetic agony from the entire audience.

Celebrities: Well, other than the lead female (and that should be a warning sign), it seems that everyone here is celeb. Busta, Tyra, and Jamie Lee were already big names, of course. And Thomas Ian Nichols had already peaked, having done the first two American Pie movies. Other actors included Ryan Merriman, who was in The Ring 2 and will be the lead in the next Final Destination film; Sean Patrick Thomas, who was Jimmy in the Barbershop movies and the lead who wasn't Julia Styles in Save the Last Dance; Katee Sackhoff, Starbuck on the new Galactica series (and a fellow April 8 birthday); and Luke Kirby, who plays Jack on Slings and Arrows (where he's a lot less annoying).

Denouement: Once Michael kills those last three actors in a span of about two minutes, it's down to one reality show contestant, Sara, and producer Freddie. Sara survives with the help of her internet buddy Myles, who is watching from a party via the reality show cameras (because, y'know, all reality shows air live), and sending her text messages saying things like, "he's right behind you," "don't scream," and "show us your tits." She and Freddie get medieval on Michael's ass, but Michael manages to fight back (seemingly killing Freddie, but you can't kill Busta!), until a big-ass explosion finally kills The Shape. But wait -- as a burnt-up Michael lies on the coroner's table, his eyes pop open. Oh noes! Michael's not dead. Play that funky piano music, white boy!

Miscellany: Director Rick Rosenthal also directed Halloween II, which probably explains the stuff he's ripped off from that movie. It's not plagiarism -- it's just a sign that he doesn't have that many ideas.

There are two writers credited. One has written nothing of note. The other gave us Cube 2: Hypercube and The Crow: Wicked Prayer. Or, to make that sentence shorter, "neither writer has written anything of note."

Katee Sackhoff's character is named Jen Danzig. This is considered subtle in the wold of Rick Rosenthal. If he's ever given another film, I bet he kills a guy named Brent Reznor. And maybe Mary-Lynn Mason.

Overall: So how does a film that sucks this much not rank even lower? Two words: Busta Rhymes. As producer Freddie Harris, the man carries the movie on his back. Sure, I'm not sure you can call what he does "acting," but it's pure frenetic fun, and he's just a blast to watch. There are a few more good moments, notable some nice kills, and a nice job of fucking with the audience in the early half of the movie, as we're given false clues that make us think they've completely bungled the origin of Michael, when they're fully aware of it, but lying to the reality show contestants.

That said, there's a lot to hate here. From the opening scene with the silly serial-killer-worshipping mental patient (spared by Michael, of course) to the stupidity of the real-time reality show/internet broadcast that requires no in-house staff and only one dumb woman in a truck (and, since the show runs after she dies, it really required no one), to the genericness of all the victims other than Rudy, to "drugs and sex kill" moments that are so far over the line of "subtle," that they're not even in the same time zone, to the use of "nice legs -- what time do they open?" as a pick-up line that actually works! And don't get me started on the scene in which Freddie, dressed as Michael, runs into the real Michael, assumes he's the dead cameraman and yells at him and even taps him on the forehead, and Michael just does what he's told!

This film is one of the worst of the post-Scream meta-horror flicks (although it's leagues beyond the current PG-13 trend), with too much examination of the nature of entertainment, without any sort of attempt to create something entertaining. Really, without Busta, this one wouldn't be worth spending 1.5 hours on even once.

*Jamie didn't really make Terror Train 2, which is too bad. But she did make Christmas With the Kranks, which proves that you can take the actress out of the Halloween movies, but you can't take the suck-ass scripts away from the actress.

How to deal with an introvert like yendi

Ganked from Gwynraven:

The Care and Feeding of Introverts.

Not 100% accurate (plenty of introverts think by talking, for example), but still some damned true points, especially regarding how we need -- not want, but need -- recharge time.