I visit Aint It Cool News quite a bit. Mostly for TV-show news. Every year they hold an event called ‘Butt-numb-a-thon‘ where you stay up 24 hours straight to watch old and new (mostly unreleased) movies in December. And I GET TO GO!

Karl is tagging along and we already have tickets and a hotel booked. We fly out of Midway Airport on Friday, December 17th at 7:45 AM, stay overnight on the 17th at a hotel in Austin, and then walk down the street from the hotel to the theater for 24 hours of madness: Noon Saturday until Noon Sunday. Then we stay awake and fly back to Midway at 5:40 PM, arrive (hopefully) in Chicago at 8:30PM, and fall asleep in a cab on the way back to the apartment.

I went to a showing of Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited

I am a fan of Anderson. I loved Rushmore and Tenenbaums but I thought Life Aquatic just bombed.

Anderson has a style of his own. Quirky dialog and stories that are entertaining and funny in their obscurity. When you are watching a Wes Anderson movie, you know it is a Wes Anderson movie. You can just tell.

Anderson reminds me of Kevin Smith. Not that their styles are similar (they aren’t) but that they write mostly dialog, direct themselves what they write, and use the same list of actors in every one of their films. I don’t know that I like the idea, but I am a fan of both.

Anyways, The Darjeeling Limited. You have the story of three brothers traveling through India on their path to reconnect. The title of the movie comes from the train that they are traveling on: The Darjeeling Limited. I don’t want to give away too much, but the story speaks for itself. I found it funny, but if you don’t like Wes Anderson films I don’t think you will like this movie.

I am watching the new TV show Pushing Daisies now. And all I can think, past “This is really entertaining,” is… “This looks exactly like Director/Writer Tim Burton’s Big Fish and Edward Scissorhands”

Big bright colors and sets added onto a very “bright” soundtrack… Cute and entertaining. Romantic and sweeping. Long shots of big bright fields and CGI that is straight out of a cartoon.

But it is really, really, REALLY good. The story is great and the cast choice was PERFECT. Out of five stars I am going to give it a 4.5 . I would give it a 5, but nobody can be as good as Tim Burton.

Someone in the dining hall was having a conversation while I was putting my tray away and my ears perked up when I heard him say “madness.”

Under my breath I said
“Madness? THIS IS SPARTA!!!!”

I think they heard me

I went last night with a friend to see ‘Hairspray’ at the local theater. I figured, well, why not… It was getting great reviews and the buzz around it was huge

Wow. For a ‘PG’ movie it is REALLY funny.

Well, if you really think about it for a second. John Travolta, in a fat-suit, in drag, dancing in high heels, as a woman… with Christopher Walken……..

Worth the price of admission right there…

There are other good points, the lead, Nikki Blonsky, is just great. Turns out that the producers were looking for somebody completely new and they found her. And told her why she was at work at a Cold Stone Cremery with cameras on her.

The one thing that my friend and I said on the way out of the movie is that there really are no ‘plus-sized’ actresses in Hollywood, especially ones that can sing. Sure, you could say that Travolta in a fat suit is something of a cop-out… but the idea of having that character in drag is a throwback to John Waters‘ original movie… I mean, there is really just Queen Latifah (who is in this movie, and is black, so that really doesn’t work out)

So go see Hairspray.

Next week I will probably go see The Simpsons Movie. Sounds like a great time and I have spent $8.50 on a lot worse endeavors…