And I have a new record for most movies seen in a month. Since I’ve been keeping track, that is. But no more, for school, television, and Xbox360 have stolen my movie-watching time, and October’s recap is going to be fairly thin. Which is good, because then I can get caught up on writing and posting them. After the jump, reactions to Death at a Funeral, Celine and Julie Go Boating, 3:10 to Yuma, Butterfield 8, Breakfast on Pluto, The Double Life of Veronique, Starter for 10, Alphaville, The Color Purple (book and film), The Brave One, Knocked Up, Talladega Nights, Eastern Promises, Two for the Road, A Mighty Wind, The Optimist’s Daughter, Atonement, and more.

Click here to read on!

• My WordPress dashboard is still messed up, more than 24 hours after it started messing up. Getting very annoyed! #

I’m having it up to here with networking right now. Not the interpersonal kind of networking that gets you jobs and things, though I have issues with that as well; the computer kind.

My laptop has a wireless connection to the internet via the cable modems scattered throughout the apartment complex. I can connect my Xbox360 (yes, I bought one) to my laptop via an ethernet cable, which works fine for sharing media between the two (i.e., I can play songs and stuff from my computer through the Xbox360 and thus through my stereo system). It seems to me that I should thus be able to get to the internet from the Xbox360 to take advantage of the Xbox Live stuff, right? Wrong. I figured maybe I had to tell my laptop to share the internet connection, so I went into network connections and did that, but I get an error message saying that there’s an IP address conflict.

I’ve tried Googling the error message, and everything I get has to do with messing with the router. But I don’t HAVE a router. I don’t have a working modem. (I’m not leeching, if that’s what you’re thinking; the apartment complex pays for everyone’s internet, so it doesn’t matter who connects to which modem throughout the complex.) So I can’t do that.

Really bringing this to a head was my desire to poke around on the Xbox website, but they won’t even let me IN unless I sign in with my gamertag. Problem being that I signed up for Xbox Live about two and a half years ago, and apparently that was before the one time my credit card went missing and I got a new one, so it won’t recognize that I’m me (because you have to give the last four digits to identify yourself when you forget your password, which I also did). Helpfully, it says that I can find out the information I used to sign up by signing into Xbox Live on my console. Which I CAN’T DO, because I can’t get it to connect to the internet.

So, someone who knows more about networking than I do, is there any way to fix this in my current setup? Or do I need to try AGAIN to get Time Warner to fix my modem (something I have tried to do unsuccessfully, and it was an incredibly painful phone call just trying to get someone who knew what the hell they were talking about, and even then, as afore mentioned, it was unsuccessful).

The Silent Movie Theatre in LA has become a full-fledged revival house, a cinematheque almost, if you will. It’s not just showing silent films, either.

Here’s the full program for November and December (pdf). Starting with François Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel series, on to a couple of film noir specials, some world cinema and some silent cinema…plus lots of other stuff I don’t care about quite as much. But the best thing? $25 a month gets you UNLIMITED ADMISSIONS for yourself. Dude, I would be there ALL the time. For serious. One of my friends in Wales has a cinema that does this flat-fee-for-unlimited-admissions things, and I’ve always been so jealous. Now I can be jealous of LA people, too. Does anyone know if Film Forum does something like this in New York? Because that’s my other major cinema lust candidate.

Anyway. Yeah. Further solidifying my intent to some day live in a big city that has an equivalent of these rep houses.

Hat tip Karina on Spoutblog.

In unrelated news, my WordPress admin interface is frelled up. Not showing any graphics or anything. It’s like all the css is stripped off it. But the blog itself looks fine to me; does it look fine to y’all? And the admin dashboard looks fine on all the other WP sites I have hosted on the same server, so I have no clue what is causing this or how to fix it, but it’s mucho annoying.

Okay, guys, now that I’ve seen the second episode of Pushing Daisies, it’s moved up to the “LOVE/ADDICTED/OBSESSED” category on my TV breakdown. Easily the best of the new shows. In fact, it’s been ages since I’ve been this delighted by a show.

Let me just tell you a few of the things that made me giddy this week:

• The color scheme. Again. No, I will not get over this anytime soon, what with all the bright green and red and pink in large quantities.

• Nor will I get over the narration anytime soon, which is so perfect that I’m pretty much entranced as soon as it starts.
• Emerson knitting. And knitting not just anything…knitting gun holsters.
• Chuck being petulant about not getting shotgun (I just think she’s cute when she’s petulant).
• Ned being adorable all the time.
• Musical interlude!! They couldn’t put Kristin Chenoweth on the show and not have random musical numbers, though, now could they?

• The dandelion-car guy DROVE A HUMMER. Yeah, I laughed out loud.
• Chuck and Ned kissing through bodybags. Aw.

And I’ve heard it’s done well in the ratings so far, which is AWESOME. This is so totally the type of show that I usually fall in love with, only to have it canceled after four episodes (I’m looking at you, Wonderfalls…*sniff*). Hopefully that doesn’t happen here. Thank goodness it’s on ABC instead of Fox, that’s all I’m saying.

(screencaps courtesy of Jennifer on LJ)

Two things I’m really grateful for at the moment.

1 – That I chose to do my short paper/panel assignment on Ellen Douglas’ Can’t Quit You Baby, because of all the books we’ve read so far in Southern Lit, it’s my favorite. Each one we read I like better than the previous one, which either means that I like the newest books the best (which is not usually true), that I’m very fickle (which is true), or that I’m getting better acclimated to the class and materials each week (which is probably true to some extent). Anyway, Can’t Quit You Baby has an awesome intrusive narratorial voice which makes me happy. I hope I can work it into my paper somehow. Or maybe write my long paper on this novel, too, and incorporate it (I haven’t even thought about the long paper yet).

2 – That I had the Harlem Renaissance class last semester, because the article we have to read and respond to in the paper/panel discussion is about the relationship between the white employer and the black employee who are the main characters in the book, and whether Douglas is co-opting African-American culture in the form of the black woman order to “save” the white woman from her detached and superficial life. That idea came up a lot in the Harlem Renaissance class, especially relating to music and the ways that white music producers took over jazz and blues and smoothed them out to sell them to white audiences (often with white performers). I haven’t finished reading the article yet, but I already feel like I have a grounding in the point of view the author is coming from, which is encouraging.

I don’t know what I’m going to write yet, or what tack I want to take in the short paper, but at least I won’t be completely lost, like I would’ve been if I’d had to write about some of the earlier books.

I’m also grateful for having acquired the other two Rilo Kiley albums I was missing (three if you include their first self-produced EP), but I think I’ve already done a fine job convincing everyone that I’m obsessed with Rilo Kiley at the moment. I wonder if that will happen every time I got to a concert, or if as I get more used to going to concerts the desire to listen to the band 24/7 for the next several days will go away. Meanwhile, I did find out that Inara George, the singer in The Bird and the Bee, also has a solo album called Rise Up (actually recorded before the band was formed), and based on the 30-second previews at the Amazon.com store, it’s just as good as The Bird and the Bee’s stuff. I wish there were a wishlist for the Amazon.com MP3 store. This is a problem with iTunes as well…I mean, just because the music is digital and I could have it right now doesn’t mean I have the money right now, and I might like to have a list of MP3s to remember to buy in the future when I have money. Just a thought.

EDIT: Third thing I’m thankful for in relation to the paper–there’s a whole Ingmar Bergman connection I think I can make, which will be AWESOME, because nobody else will do that for sure. The main character actually goes to see Persona at one point, there are some similarities between the Persona characters and the Can’t Quit You Baby characters, and none of the critics so far have even mentioned it or tried to examine what a Bergman-Douglas connection might mean! Plus I may even be able to bring in the Spiritual trilogy and its spider-god. It would help if I knew what the spider-god meant, but maybe I can read up on Bergman some, too, which would be good for me anyway.

Grey’s almost redeemed itself tonight!

Spoilers after the jump.

Click here to read on!

Now that nearly all the shows I was interested in have premiered, and most of them have gotten a couple of episodes out, here’s what I’m liking so far. Pretty much in order of how much I like them. There’s going to spoilers for all of them, just fyi. The few shows that I’m planning to look at but haven’t premiered yet are Women’s Murder Club (which I won’t actually be able to watch unless ABC puts it up on their website, or I obtain it via, um, other means, because of scheduling conflicts) and The Next Great American Band, which is American Idol for bands, and which has one of the Australian Idol judges on it! I was really excited when I saw that in a promo tonight. I might try Cashmere Mafia when it starts in December (I think), because Lucy Liu is in it, but I decided against Christina Applegate’s amnesia sitcom Samantha Who?, because the more commercials I see for it, the stupider it looks.

LOVE/ADDICTED/OBSESSED

Ugly Betty
This show is so close to perfect right now, it’s not even funny. The very first scene of the opener, spoofing telenovelas? Loved. And the way they did Hilda dealing with Santos’ death was so great–they had me fooled, but it was niggling in the back of my mind that if they really had Santos recover from being shot in the chest from a foot away, it would be really bad from a narrative point of view. But what they did worked really well. And America Ferrera, as always, great (she won an Emmy, you know). And Mark, and Amanda, and Christina (apropos of nothing, I just discovered that Ashley Jensen is on HBO’s Extras, which you should totally watch), and Wilhemena…I had no idea how much I had missed the show over the summer. Please, please, watch it if you’re not.

The Office
I’m not hugely loving the hour-long format; I think that’s short-lived, though. Some shows are just half-hour shows, and that’s the pacing that works for them, and The Office is one of those shows. The opener was pretty good, but the second ep really hit the stride, as Ryan comes back fresh from his promotion and starts overhauling the business and being generally douchy while Michael complains that the changes represent ageism. Brilliant. And Jim and Pam. SO ADORABLE. Please let them be happy and adorable for a long time without making them angsty. Let others deal with the relationship issues for a while, and just let Jim and Pam be adorable.

House
First three eps this year were brilliant. House and Wilson getting into a kidnapping war, House bouncing ideas off the janitor, actually interesting cases, the search for the new team members is cracking me up… I honestly don’t mind if they keep Cameron and Chase off House’s team for a while–as long as they’re around somewhere–and some of the new team possibilities interest me. I like the really annoyingly pushy chick, because I can see some entertaining explosions coming out of the fact that she’s just as ruthless and pigheaded as House, and I like the old guy. And I also like the woman who ended up killing the guy this week (ooh, someone died on House! That never ever happens), but I guess the fact that she killed someone may not bode well. We’ll see. But I’m not sure about Foreman getting fired from his new job…that whole subplot wasn’t really well-integrated, and that leaves the door open for Foreman to come back or something, and he was the one of the team that I didn’t mind leaving.

Friday Night Lights
I finished S1 on DVD on Friday one hour before the new season’s premiere. Yay! There’s something so fresh about the show, even though it’s about a small-town high school football coach and his family and his team, which doesn’t seem like a very original, innovative subject. But the writing is really good, the characterization is really good, and the camerawork is uncompromising (though the handheldedness of it can get a little annoying at times). Mr. and Mrs. Coach are the best adult couple on television, no question about it. And if I can fall in love with a show about football, as much as I dislike sports, you can too. So come on. The premiere went a number of interesting directions, a few of which had me screaming at the TV, so really, this season could go anywhere.

30 Rock
There’s only been one episode so far this season, but it left me wanting more immediately. 30 Rock is sort of one of those shows that sneaks up on you with how good it is. I watched it for weeks last year before I realized that I didn’t just casually enjoy it, but I honestly loved it. And I say that about so few sitcoms. Seinfeld-vision is brilliant, like most of 30 Rock‘s other comic indictments of consumerism and mercenary motivations of television execs. And poor Liz Lemon with her wedding dress! And Alec Baldwin is better than he’s been in years.

Grey’s Anatomy
Okay, so I’m really mad at Grey’s right now. But it still legitimately counts as an obsession, since obsession includes the idea of being unable to let go of something that no longer really lives up to expectations. And I can’t let it go. I still love the characters, even though they’re being stupid, and I still love the music, and I still love the show. And every once in a while there are flashes of goodness, and for an obsessed person, sometimes that’s enough. Plus, Becky and I spent the whole show last week arguing through text messages over whether or not Lexie is annoying enough to merit Meredith’s bitchiness toward her, and anything that provokes logical argumentation has value, right? Right?

More after the jump.

Click here to read on!