New Year's resolutions

...are a thing I never do. Or at least I haven't done in the past ten years or so. I get the whole clean-slate idea of the new year, but the problem I have with it is that January is always ridiculously stressful and it's basically impossible to stop smoking or eat healthier or exercise more or give up the television habit. To me the first day of Spring makes a lot more sense for making resolutions. Spring is a time of renewal anyway, plus we're finally shaking off Winter (or at least seeing the sunlight at the end of the tunnel) and all the stress of the holidays has finally worn off. I'll think about some resolutions in March.

So, how's your 2013 going? Lovely, back to me. Mine started with chocolate cookies for breakfast and a good friend from Köln, Germany waking up on my couch. Her time here consisted almost entirely of watching telly, which was the best way I can imagine spending a long holiday weekend. She managed to get me addicted to two series: "White Collar" which stars the luminous Matt Bomer, and "Arrow," which is one of those shows that's so cheesy you can't help but love it... plus it has John Barrowman and (at some point) Colton Haynes, two of my favorite people to stare at.

We also went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which was exactly as amazing as I had hoped. The Lord of the Rings trilogy are collectively my favorite movie not only because they are so incredible themselves but because of the mind-blowing amount of love and joy put into them by everyone involved. As the prelude of The Hobbit began and I watched Ian Holmes!Bilbo and Frodo in Bag End, it was all I could do not to shriek with insane happiness in the middle of the theater. Basically any time Gandalf was on screen I wanted to hug him. And when the travelers made it to Rivendell, my heart soared. I know Peter Jackson has gotten some flack about stretching The Hobbit into three films, but I also know that what he made isn't strictly The Hobbit. It's the gaps filled in by the entire Middle Earth collection and I thought it was gorgeously and sensibly done. Besides, each moment in Middle Earth is a gift as far as I'm concerned, so if Peter Jackson wants to make it, I'm 100% on board.

The new semester starts on Monday. That's also the day my last paper from the first semester is due, so the next four days will be devoted to getting that done. Here's hoping I don't run into the same roadblocks I had a few weeks ago...

Random observation of the day: Movie theaters in the UK (aka Cinemas) are reserved seating rather than general admission. Much like my disproportionate reaction to the folder situation here, this rather meaningless difference between the UK and the US absolutely blew my mind. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Geek Weekly: Growing up geek.

Time for a little nostalgia kick. Once again this is going to be an interactive post... leave a comment with some of the geeky things that you loved growing up!

My mother swears that the first movie I ever saw in the theater was The Empire Strikes Back. I would have been three years old at the time. I'm assuming my first movie would have been Star Wars, but I was still in the womb when that one came out. At any rate, I can imagine my tiny toddler brain absorbing the sights and sounds of Lucas' epic and becoming totally hooked.

As a child of the 80's, I was raised on sci-fi and fantasy movies like The Neverending Story, Gremlins, The Goonies, The Explorers, Willow, and of course the aforementioned Star Wars movies; cheesy but fabulous television shows like “The Hulk,” “He-Man,” “Wonder Woman,” “V,” “The Greatest American Hero,” “Star Trek: the Next Generation,” and “Alien Nation;” and spent lots of time playing with my Transformers and my Atari (favorite game? “Joust”). At a young age I also developed a fascination for classic movie monsters, an obsession that would have had me fit right in with the kids in Monster Squad. I prided myself on my expertise in all things ghost, werewolf, vampire, and the pantheon of Universal movie monsters.

My love of Stephen King's books began at the tender age of ten, when I started reading Pet Sematary by skipping the first 100 pages, and moved directly on to The Shining... and have now read and re-read most of his books.

I became a teenager in the 90's, which was when my focus began to shift towards horror movies. There was a dearth of horror then, but there was some great stuff on television: “Friday the 13th” (not to be mistaken for the Jason Voorhees movies), “Tales from the Crypt,” and “The X-Files” are a few that I loved. Most of my horror movie viewing was stuff from the 70's and 80's, such as the various Freddy and Jason movies, Alien and Aliens, all the Hellraisers and Halloweens, plus every cheesy camp-counselor beach-party prom-night movie I could get my hands on. It wasn't until Scream reminded us just how awesome horror flicks are that the genre began to pick up steam again, and I was in heaven.

Unlike the kids today (please do picture me hunched over a cane shaking my fist as I say that), I had to grow up in the internet-less vacuum of the 80's and early 90's, virtually unaware that there were other kids like me who rejected the possibility of having a life on Saturday nights because ST:TNG was on, or haunted their local video store's tiny horror section (usually located in the back corner, by the curtained door leading to the porn), or wrote stories in the world of their favorite show. Had the internet existed, I would likely be as addicted to it as I am now. But I'm glad I didn't have it, because the movies and shows I loved feel more like discoveries I made myself.

It was a great time to grow up geek.

Geek Weekly: Television review - “Spaced.”

If you've never heard of “Spaced,” I can't say I'm really surprised. Painfully disappointed, but not surprised. A little background for the uninitiated:

“Spaced” was created by Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Jessica Stevenson (now Hynes), and stars Pegg, Hynes, and Nick Frost (along with some other wonderful character actors). Most of the team went on to create the movies Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, so chances are pretty good that if you're a geek, you're familiar with their brand of humor. The series aired in 1999 and 2000 on Channel 4 in the UK.

The show centers on Tim (Pegg) and Daisy (Hynes), strangers who meet over the classifieds in a London coffee shop. Tim has just been kicked out by his long-term girlfriend, while Daisy is attempting to get out of the squat she shares with several friends. They pretend to be a couple in order to get the perfect flat, thus becoming the nucleus of an odd and wonderful little family that includes Tim's “A-Team”-obsessed childhood friend Mike (Frost), Daisy's blonde fashion plate bestie Twist (Katy Carmichael), Marsha the landlady and her ever-present glass of wine (Julia Deakin), and the tortured and socially awkward artist Brian (Mark Heap).

The show is a celebration of geekdom, filled with loving references to everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey to X-Men comics to Scooby-Doo to the ever-present Star Wars movies. One memorable episode uses a theme centered on the “Resident Evil” video games, and gives a sneak peek into the inspiration for Shaun of the Dead before it's even been made.

What this show does so well is balance the goofy humor with genuine heart and just a touch of romance that's compelling without being too heavy-handed. It's the same formula that made Shaun of the Dead so successful and so much fun to watch. The world is familiar yet surreal, filled with human caricatures that should be completely ridiculous but never fail to remind you of someone you know. My personal favorite being Tyres, the raving bike courier.

The series ran for two seven-episode seasons and is available on a DVD boxed set, which includes the 2004 documentary Skip to the End. It's the perfect length for an all-day marathon, with the more hard-core marathoners among us able to tack on the movies to watch the progression of the Wright-Pegg-Frost triumvirate.

Bottom line, if you're a fan of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, you have to see this show. If you're not, what the hell is wrong with you?

The sexuality of “Torchwood.”

Just FYI, this is pretty deeply “Torchwood” geeky, so if you aren't relatively familiar with the show, you may be a bit lost. I highly recommend watching the first two series and the “Children of Earth” miniseries for clarification.

While reading an article online regarding the woeful lack of bisexual characters on television, one of the comments left by a reader got me thinking. He pointed out that the only truly bisexual character was “our beloved Captain Jack.” This immediately rankled, thus necessitating my first ever off-schedule blog post. Thanks, random commenter! (Also, I can't remember if I've already said this somewhere on my blog before, but in case you haven't figured it out by now, I identify as bisexual.)

So here's my argument: the only truly bisexual character on “Torchwood” was actually Owen Harper.

Yes, I mean the doctor guy. It'll make more sense in a bit, just stick with me.

The thing that first attracted me to “Torchwood” was the apparent idea that the characters lived in a world without “straight” and “gay,” where anyone could end up with anyone else regardless of gender. And indeed, each of the five main characters had some sort of romantic or sexual relationship, even if it was as brief as a kiss, with someone of both their own and the opposite gender at some point. However, I believe that there is a distinction to be made between the promised fluid sexuality and the delivered encounters.

The reason I believe Owen is the only truly bisexual character comes from a very brief scene in the pilot episode. When it's revealed that he's using an alien pheromone spray to attract people for the purpose of sex, he initially uses it on a woman. But when her boyfriend comes raging after them with baffled threats of violence, Owen uses the spray on him and invites him along for the night. While the argument could be made that he did it simply to avoid getting beaten up, the look of glee on his face after the man lays one on him and drags him off suggests otherwise. And while it seems like the whole thing is dropped in favor of his varying levels of romance with Gwen, Diane, and Tosh, to me this scene makes him the most honestly bisexual character on the show.

So what about everyone else?

Toshiko Sato did have one lesbian encounter, with an alien bent on manipulating her trust to get into the Hub. While the situation is certainly up for interpretation, my take on it is that it was more about power and control than sexuality. And unlike Owen's casual handling of physical intimacy with either gender, Tosh spends some time wringing her hands about how she's never had sex with a woman before. She's clearly thrown for a loop, which seems pretty unlikely if she were really bisexual. She also goes on to have only same-sex relationships from that point on, with Tommy, Adam, and Owen.

Gwen Cooper hardly counts, since her one lesbian experience was with that sex-energy alien. She's straight.

Now we get to the really sticky ones. These are the two whose sexuality I've probably spent the most time wondering about.

Ianto Jones. Before “Children of Earth,” I would have said that Ianto was the one solid representation of bisexuality on “Torchwood.” He clearly had not just physical but romantic relationships with both Lisa and Jack. Before “Children of Earth” I was thrilled by the ease with which Ianto's sexuality was handled, and how successfully they had shown how a character could love a woman and a man equal amounts. But then... then there was “Children of Earth.” Wherein Ianto confesses to his sister, “It's not men, it's just... him.” Essentially blaming his foray into dickville solely on Jack's uniquely charming persona and supernatural ability to circumvent established sexuality. Thank you, “Children of Earth,” for that painfully exclusionary new bit of canon. The bottom line: Ianto? Not bisexual.

And then there's Captain Jack Harkness. Jack has been identified in numerous interviews as “omnisexual,” not bisexual. Jack is a 51st century human, born in a time and place where humans are spread so thin across the galaxy that they are necessarily adaptable. One of the first lines in the pilot of the series has Jack revealing that he had been pregnant at some point, and if you include the Doctor Who Face of Boe mythology (which, since we're going on stated canon here, I think we must), he will become pregnant again at some point when he's a giant tentacled head in a jar. We also find out in “Children of Earth” that he has a daughter and a grandson living in present time. The point being, in my mind, that Jack does not represent a bisexual character because his particular brand of sexuality isn't anything that exists in the real world.

So there you have it. I've yet to be completely satisfied with any portrayal of bisexuality on television, although there have been a few that have almost gotten there, and a few more that still have the potential to. I would write a whole other blog post on that, but Chris O'Guinn already did it over on AfterElton. Go read the article if you're curious about my thoughts on it, because he said it pretty much the same way I would.

Geek Weekly: Television – “The Walking Dead”

Much like my first-Thursday-of-the-month movie reviews, I'm going to be doing a third-Thursday-of-the-month review of television shows. It'll be more of an overall series review, rather than something specific to an episode. Got it? Good. Enough formalities, on to the brain-eaters.

Here's the thing about zombies:

They're slow. They're stupid. They spend most of their time moaning and reaching and stumbling around.

Here's the other thing about zombies:

They scare the hell out of me.

Ever since I first watched a zombie moan its way towards a mouthful of brain matter during an HBO free preview viewing of Return of the Living Dead 3, I've been completely terrified by their shambling relentlessness. Which naturally means I sought out every zombie flick I could find. I would watch with cringing horror as the walking dead slowly but inevitably cornered their prey, nearly impossible to kill and utterly single-minded in their pursuit of BRAAAAAAAAINS. I even fell in love with the new “fast zombies” introduced primarily in Danny Boyle's brilliant 28 Days Later... after all, what's scarier than a horde of nearly unstoppable walking corpses intent on nothing in the world besides cracking your skull open and gobbling your gray matter? Answer: a horde of rage-fueled speed-demons intent on nothing more than killing you in the most violent manner possible.

When I heard there was going to be a television series taking place in the midst of a zombie apocalypse... well, needless to say, I was a tad bit excited.

“The Walking Dead” does not disappoint.

It opens on a deserted road. We are introduced to the main character, a uniformed cop in a police cruiser, as he searches for gas. Within moments, we've also met our first zombie: a little girl with half her face eaten away, keening and snarling as she runs at the hero... who is forced to shoot her in the head. Best first five minutes of television ever.

The iconic hero wakes up and realizes the world has ended scene is delightfully creepy and disturbing, as he stumbles on half-eaten corpses, moaning and bendy-fingered things barricaded behind doors, and carefully-stacked piles of dead bodies. That's before he even finds the still-smoking rubble surrounded by abandoned military vehicles and equipment. Even after all that, the crowning glory of the scene was the zombie who crawls desperately after him, gone below the waist.

And that was just the first episode.

There is nothing particularly original in the storytelling... the characters are fairly standard, but they nonetheless manage to surprise you at times. The show manages gives us just enough lightness and humor to cut the trauma and horror, which is as relentless as the title characters. The fascinating thing about zombie apocalypse movies is watching the haggard survivors fight to stay alive, and sane, and how they waver between ugliness and grace.

My only real complaint about the show is the truncated length of the season at only six episodes. This show is way too good to limit to six hours.

Now please excuse me, I have to make sure the shotgun under my bed is loaded before I go to sleep.