random and unrelated bits

[meganbmoore]

1.  While I was out and about, I saw the DVD for Good Luck Chuck.  I had heard of the movie before, but dismissed it because it was The Boys talking about how it was an awesome comedy.  Now, I am very fond of and respect The Boys, but if you remember the work movies posts, it can be safely said that we have Very Different tastes in movies, most of the time.  But anyway, it had Jessica Alba on the cover, and I've liked her ever since Dark Angel, even if she did need to seriously work on her acting the first season(the difference between S1 and S2 is very notable in that regard, but I digress.)  The movie...is about a guy who, right after women sleep with him, women find their True Love.  He meets a girl he actually likes and tries to make her fall for him.  Presumably by not sleeping with her, while simultaneously fending off other women.  Uhm...WTF?  First of all:  manslut.  It's the rare manslut who works for me as a lead(though I tend to like them as supporting characters, for whatever reason.  Second of all:  uhm...ok...I'm not a guy, so maybe it's different, but if I learned some guy slept with a "good luck" girl, figuring that he'd meet me right after, he would be dumped amazingly fast.  "Oh, honey, I slept with someone I couldn't care less about just so I could meet you...oh, and everyone sleeps with this person, so really, it doesn't mean anything."  Err...would this movie appeal to any but the "OMG...HOT PEOPLE WANTING NO STRINGS SEX WITH ME!!!" wishfulfillment crowd?  That's an honest question, btw.

2.  I also saw(either DVD or book...maybe both) P.S., I Love You, about a man who dies but left his wife a very, very detailed life plan to "get her through it."  It's  so touching that he had such faith and respect in his wife that he thought she'd never make it five minutes without him.  Even better that she seems to agree.  And it's a chick lit book.  Seriously, I don't read the genre(I've tried a few and just could not get into them) but isn't that genre supposed to be about female empowerment and independence?  Not about how women can't survive without their man to guide them?  The souls of feminist die over that one, I swear.

3.  And on the third (and final) ranty point:  Dear random checkout woman, I realize you want to look attractive and at your best.  I respect that.  I did not, however, want a unexpected view of everything straight to your bellybutton today.  I realize it's a pain that all the bags are under the counter, and once had to put up with that annoyance myself when I worked at the bookstore.  However, I know that you are well aware of the fact that you practically flash people when you bend over because you very, very carefully knelt when getting the bag for the man in front of me.  For me, however, you just bent right over and showed me most of things I really didn't want to see.  Now, as I am heterosexual and female, I wasn't exactly going to be ogling you(not that everyone attracted to women automatically would stare) but if you know bending over is going to border of indecent exposure...DON'T DO IT!!!  If you shouldn't almost flash a guy, you shouldn't almost flash a girl, either. 

(and if you think you've seen that rant before, it's because it's a very common problem in this town...maybe everywhere...but pretty much everywhere but Wal-Mart and Target here seems to keep the bags under the counter)

4.  Anyone read/heard of Muhyo and Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigations or  Ral Grad?  Ral Grad sounds interesting, but was shrinkwrapped, so I couldn't investigate.  It also(though I didn't actually compare) looks like it's by the same people as Death Note.  While I am the rare person who has no issues with the Great Fandom Dividing Event there (well...as a plot point...it made me sad, but I approve of it as a plot point) the last few volumes tacked on and neccessary plotline centered around uninteresting characters and just dragged it out to the point where the ending lost the impact it should have had by forcing the story to last longer.  Muhyo and Roji has a few volumes out and looks like it could be great fun...or just weird, and it's hard to tell just glancing through it.

I realize I could probably find scanslations of both pretty easily, but...well...I'm lazy(and if I'm reading scanslations, then I should tackle some of the unlicensed stuff waiting for me to get to it, or catch up with latest chapters of the few licensed series I read ahead on, or those Gundam Wing books I DLed because I couldn't find them to buy anywhere...but not on new stuff.)

(How did this get to be so long?)

Comments

[carrielh.livejournal.com]

P.S. I Love You is a book and a movie, although I think the movie is either still in theaters or just left them. I actually liked the book. It's not so much that her husband left her detailed instructions, but he wrote one letter per month for the first year after his death, with just little things like "buy yourself a bedside lamp" because they would always argue about who had to get out of bed to turn out the light, stuff like that.

I love Dark Angel, and I agree about JA's acting, but I'm not a huge fan of S2. She just looked so sad and mopey all the time. I preferred sassy, snappy Max.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wish we'd been able to keep the sassy snappy Max when we got the better acting one. There are a lot of really good elements in S2(like Alec) and it ditched the 2 S1 characters that annoyed me(the roomie and Herbal Thought) but it also changed things that I ended up missing.

P.S, I Love You does sound better than everything I've heard, based on what you say, though.

[(Anonymous)]

Dane Cook is my youngest sister's current "OMGSOHOT" crush, so I have, unfortunately, been exposed to his movies. "Good Luck Chuck" is exactly as dire as you think it is.

I've heard you complain about #3 a few times now, this seems to be a recurring problem for you. *patpat*

[kingcrankycat.livejournal.com]

I don't know why it logged me out on my laptop again...

Also, I know it wasn't Dane Cook in "Good Luck Chuck", but for some reason the two are related in my sister's mind.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It's just that most of the places I got shopping have it set up with the bags under the counters around here...it saddens me...

I am deeply saddened that plots like "Good Luck Chuck" get sold as romantic comedies...

Esp. when they have an actor or actress I like.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

If Ral Grad is Blue Dragon, then it's the same artist but a different writer and the three or four chapters I read in scanlation were craptastic. Not recommended, even for the awesome art. Because art by Obata Takeshi is by definition awesome.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Let's see what I remember - in this war-torn fantasy world, people can be taken over by Shadows. The son of a king is born with a powerful Shadow, and is raised in total darkness - no light, no Shadow - in isolation, except for his hot, bookish, female tutor, who sits next to the egg he's been trapped in and teaches him. When the palace is under siege, the king gives the order for the boy to be released, because somehow the Shadow is under the boy's command, not the other way round. (Hey, it was, like, three years ago I read it. I've slept since then.)

Boy, naturally, doesn't really see why he should be grateful to the king and kingdom for raising him in isolation instead of killing him at birth, as is normal in these cases, but the massive boobs of the tutor convince him that something, at least, is worth saving, and thus the main plot of the story begins, as he starts questing to save the world's boobs from the Shadows. I am not kidding about that.

He's in control - or, actually, more like in cooperation with - his extremely powerful Shadow, the Blue Dragon of the Japanese title.

Lots of breast-gropage and fanservice.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

SDK is proof of my tolerance of breast gropage and fanservice...though more the exception. Uhm...except Bastard!!!...and an odd fondness for Ken Akatmatsu's stuff. *whistles and moves on*

But yeah, that's the one I saw. I shall take your word on the craptasticness, as we seem to usually agree on crap and crack and such.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It's one of those setups where it makes sense for the kid to be totally socially clueless, and to have a teenager's rampaging hormones, but it somehow comes across as just skeezy, instead of clueless.

I think I tolerate it in SDK because Kyo comes across as more "I'm doing this in good part because I know it annoys the hell out of you, Yuya!" instead of slimy and the manga doesn't expect her to like it, or forgive him because he's so sweet when he's asleep or because she feels sorry for him. It seems to be the difference between treating Yuya as an actual person, albeit one he's deliberately trying to annoy or anger, and treating her as an object there for his gratification.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think SDK manages to do a good job of portraying Kyo as being mentally 5 in certain areas, and you just end up looking at it the same way you look at a 5 year old pulling the cute girl's pigtails and calling her stupid on the playground...it secreatly means "I like you...can we date when we're 16 and horny?" except he already is horny...plus she tends to give him hell over it, instead of cowering and blushing. Sure, she doesn't get very far with that, but she doesn't just take it either.

[smartycat.livejournal.com]

I have to second the craptasticness of Ral Grad. SDK gropage and fanservice is amusing. This is more along the lines of "Was that really necessary? You could have used that panel for something else!" every few pages. It's quite lacking in humor to balance out its stupid, and it does indeed come across as quite "skeezy."

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think every SDK fan ever just does massive handwaving so they can still like Kyo.

And yeah, humor really is necessary to balance fanservice out. It also helps when the fanservice victim doesn't really put up with it.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

The only Chick Lit books I've ever read were Shanna Swendson's Enchanted, Inc series. Which may not qualify as Chick Lit due to the fact that it's set in an awesome magic underground of New York. Well, sorta sideground. And the female lead gets along quite well without a man.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Sounds more like urban fantasy, only without the stupid "unnecessarily complicated love life involving multiple vampires and/or werewolves lusting after the heroine" part.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

Well, there was one guy she had a crush on and hooked up with for a while, but they're both actually pretty shy when it comes to relationships. Battles or business meetings, they hold thier own.

[zaza-tk87.livejournal.com]

I don't read Ps, I love you. well,I don't really read nowadays.

but a lot of my friends read it, and LOVE it. I even have a 'guy' senior who really love the book.

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

As I was reading rant #3, I was wondering why I was experiencing déjà vu. Sorry you have to deal with that.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I've heard some other women complain about it, too. If it were one woman in one store, it'd be one thing, but it's in a number of places here. If it were one place with one employee, it'd be easy. I know it has to be difficult for the workers, but I wish there was another way to go about it.