allyouhavetodo

[allyouhavetodo]

Previous Film: The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)

Most Popular Actor: Jorja Fox, playing the dying mom of a time-looping teen

Current Film: Unity (2015), where she is 1 of 100 celebrity narrators

Most Popular Actor: Marcia Gay Harden, another of the 100 celebrity narrators

Next Film: The Mist (2007)

What I knew going in: not a goddamn thing

Y’all. I truly suffer for my art. This was a miserable mess of a movie to sit through. I tried to read descriptions to figure out what it was about and I still couldn’t get it-because it’s about everything and nothing.

A documentary that opens with stark footage of cows going down the chute to be slaughtered (you can literally feel the cows fear, and you’re forced to watch as they freak out and try to turn around in the too narrow chute and see their bodies fall through a gap at the bottom of the door of the murder room--I wanted to turn it off right then and there but it’s one of those “you participate in the system so you shouldn’t be able to turn your face away from it” things) that purports to be about how all “earthlings” are linked.

It starts out with a long litany of atrocities committed by humans. Wars, human rights violations, animal cruelty, torture, murder, genocide, ETC. Really makes you feel good about being alive. And then it goes off on a tangent about how the reason humans are so much unhealthier than every other animal species is because we eat meat and dairy and that these foods are poisoning us not just physically but spiritually and mentally as well. (The propaganda pivot.) And THEN it goes into how the solution to it all is to not judge anything or claim anything or have any identity or ownership over anything or thoughts of your own and just be UNIFIED with everything. Because that’s so easy to achieve. And because we didn’t just spend the first half of the film judging the shit out of all of humanity.

The veganism propaganda aside, I think this movie might ham-handedly be going after the message that the The Good Place got to much more effectively--about how fucking hard (read: impossible) it is to make ethical choices in our current interconnected capitalist hellscape of a system. But me believing that Hitler, a new born puppy, and I are all the same because we’re all “earthlings” doesn’t really seem like it’s going to do anything for the world.

This felt like a movie my high school Theory of Knowledge teacher would have made us watch (probably right after What The Bleep Do We Know) and it would have somehow made me hate that class even more than I already did.

Rating: 0/5

Likelihood I would have watched this on my own: ZERO

#unity

[allyouhavetodo]

Previous Film: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Most Popular Actor: Kathryn Newton, playing the dead girl

Current Film: The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021), where she plays a time-looping teen named Margaret  

Most Popular Actor: Jorja Fox, playing Margaret’s Mom

Next Film: Unity (2015)

What I knew going in: nothing, I don’t think I had ever heard of it before.

This movie is about a high school student named Mark (Kyle Allen) who is living in a Groundhogs Day, repeating the same day over and over again. He seems relatively content with the situation, using the day to perform benign good deeds for people around his small town. That is, until he meets Margaret, another teen who is caught in the same exact loop. They start hanging out together and develop a bond (although it’s clear Margaret is preoccupied by things she is not ready to share), deciding to make it their mission to find all the “tiny perfect things” (mundane moments of joy and bizarre coincidence) that happen in their town in the course of the day. Eventually they experience a rift when Mark wants to try to figure out how to get out of the loop but Margaret is not ready to let go. Fortunately, Margaret is able to come to terms with the nature of time, and we get a pretty sweet ending. 

This is such a cute movie! It nicely subverts the threat of falling into a manic pixie dream girl stereotype. (I can’t be the only one who cringes whenever a movie description mentions a girl coming in to shake up a boy’s mundane world--even if, in this case, that mundane world consists of a supernatural time loop.) I mean, he builds her an entire space station/moon landing set out of cardboard, fairy lights, sand, and a projector in one morning and she... teaches him algebra. He starts falling for her pretty quickly, and she takes the time to actually deal with some heavier stuff going on her life before letting it all just get swept away by romance. It actually turns out to be more her movie than his. I approve. And who can argue with the message of taking more time to appreciate the small joys in life?

Rating: 4.5/5

Likelihood I would have watched this on my own: 5%. IF I knew it existed, I probably would have checked it out at some point. I do love a time loop.

[allyouhavetodo]

Previous Film: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Most Popular Actor: Woody Harrelson, playing Han Solo’s accidental mentor

Current Film: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), where he plays the chief of police

Most Popular Actor: Kathryn Newton, playing the dead girl

Next Film: The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)

First of all, it seems impossible that Billboards came out before Solo, but I digress.

What I knew going in: Frances McDormand puts up billboards to hassle the police; Sam Rockwell plays a racist

Those things are essentially true. McDormand plays a grieving mother (Mildred Hayes) frustrated that no arrests have been made in the rape and murder of her teenage daughter, who puts up billboards asking the police chief why. Rockwell plays a racist cop, but not the specific cop being targeted by the billboards.

From what I knew of the movie beforehand I expected the cops to be falling down on the job and Mildred’s actions to be completely justified. But it appears that there genuinely are no leads and that the cops have done just about everything that they can. Though I don’t think she’s wrong to have put up the billboards and keep everyone’s eyes on the prize either.

It really should be no surprise that there have been no arrests for her daughter’s rape and murder, though, because it seems like nobody gets arrested for anything in this town. 

Not for beating up a suspect in police custody.

Not for breaking out all of a local business’s windows in broad daylight.

Not for throwing a guy out of a second story window in broad daylight.

Not for punching a woman in the face in the middle of her place of business.

Not for kicking two kids in the crotch with many witnesses.

Not for setting fire to three billboards.

Not for setting fire to the police station.

Not for throwing a ceramic deer at someone’s head in public.

Not for scratching the shit out of a guy’s face for no reason.

Not for beating the shit out of someone in a bar fight.

This town has many problems.

Also, everyone in it is SO MEAN to each all the time for no reason. It’s like they all have a kink for it and everyone’s entered into a Phantom Thread-ish pact with everyone else to be as mean as possible at all times so they can all go home and jerk off about it later.

The racism stuff is rough, really doesn’t have anything to do with the plot (there are almost no Black people in the movie), and really doesn’t get resolved in any way. That guy gets a redemption arc that has nothing to do with him addressing his past violent and racist actions. 

Also, Abbie Cornish turns in a bizarrely accented performance as Woody Harrelson’s much-younger wife. And Samara Weaving is very charming and by far the nicest person in the film, even though it’s implied that she’s just too dumb to be on the same level of odious behavior as everyone else.

Rating: 4/5, watching everyone be absolutely depraved at all times is not unenjoyable, but zero points for delivering a consistent message

Likelihood I would have watched this on my own: maybe 15%? I like to know what everyone’s talking about with the awards-y movies, but I don’t like watching Sam Rockwell play racists (please get the message Sam) and I’m not particularly drawn to films that are fundamentally about the misery of the human condition

#three billboards outside ebbing missouri

[allyouhavetodo]

Previous Film: Me Before You (2016)

Most Popular Actor: Emilia Clarke, playing the female love interest

Current Film: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), where she also plays the female love interest

Most Popular Actor: Woody Harrelson, playing Han’s accidental scam daddy/mentor/betrayer

Next Film: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

What I knew going in: It’s the story of Han Solo? People didn’t like it very much.

What to say about Solo: A Star Wars Story? The plot is such a series of things happening that it is exhausting to recount. Let’s just give a few highlights:

In what world does Han Solo last more than 5 minutes in the Imperial Army, let alone THREE YEARS?

I have seen the complaints about the winkiness of Han being given the last name Solo because he is all alone. And, you know what, they almost could have gotten away with it if that was just the name the Empire gives to people without a last name, the way Esposito is a last name given foundlings. But, no, they go the Penn Badgley route, and have the Imperial Officer make up that name on the spot.

I enjoyed Lando’s droid wife and cape closet.

I live for the droid revolution chaos scene. 

My friend Kelly described Han’s vibe in this as a real stumble-into-another-guy’s-movie. And that is very valid. He completely inserts himself into someone else’s criminal enterprise that is already in motion. He also gets sucked into helping out with someone else’s revolution pretty much by accident. (Why does that keep happening to him?)

I don’t think there needed to be a Han Solo prequel movie but one thing it might have been nice to learn in it is how he got to be such a great pilot. And that is not something we find out. And, honestly, how did he when he apparently grew up as part of child crime syndicate on a crime planet??

What Alden Ehrenreich is doing as Han is fine. It’s just an impossible task to fill in for Harrison Ford in the iconic role of one of cinema’s most charming and beautiful idiot assholes. He’s just a shade too squeaky, a little more Marty McFly than Han Solo--though Han is a bit of a scamp himself so I can almost vibe with it. I just really hate to see any young actor get the Taylor Kitsch treatment (I didn’t think John Carter was as bad as most people did and although Battleship is undeniably BAD, I will also stand by it being very FUN; I also think that guy was a lot more serious about his craft than most people would give a former jock who got famous playing a jock credit for--but that’s my Taylor Kitsch soapbox). So, even though he was unremarkable in this, I am rooting for him.

Rating: 3/5, a little too long, ultimately unnecessary, but it has its moments

Likelihood I would have seen this on my own: a solid 20%, I am a Star Wars girlie, but no means a Star Wars completist 

#solo: a star wars story #stop the prequel madness

[allyouhavetodo]

Filmic Adventures

Ever get a really dumb idea and then really commit to it?

Yeah, me neither.

So I’m playing this game with myself where I watch movies in a chain determined by the imdb actor popularity algorithm and the letterboxd film popularity algorithm.

It goes a little something like this: for each movie in the chain (starting a couple months back with Shane--because why not), I pull the most popular actor in the film at the time of viewing according to imdb and then pull that actor’s most popular film that week (that I haven’t already seen) according to letterboxd and THAT is the next film I will watch.

It’s resulted in me watching a lot of films I probably wouldn’t have otherwise--for better or worse. 

I’ve been documenting the process on paper (aside from my letterboxd diary where they are mixed in with everything else I’m watching) but thought documenting them here might be a good gateway to getting me back into writing. Even though I’ve never been a very keen reviewer.

So, without further ado:

Previous Film: Love, Rosie (2014)

Most Popular Actor: Sam Claflin, playing the male love interest

Current Film: Me Before You (2016), where he also plays the male love interest

Most Popular Actor: Emilia Clarke, playing the female love interest

Next Film: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

What I knew going in: it is a romance between an able-bodied woman and a disabled man, and my friend Lisa really doesn’t like it--which probably means it has a bad/sad ending where they don’t end up together.

Spoilers, all of that bears out.

Lou Clark (Emilia Clarke) desperately needs a job to help support her parents and extended family and she finds one as a caregiver (more of a companion) for Will Traynor (Sam Claflin), a rich and handsome young man who was rendered quadriplegic in an auto accident two years ago.

He is a big grumpy grump when they meet but after not too terribly long Lou and her chaotic outfits and expressive eyebrows start to win him over. But then Lou learns that the reason she has been hired to be Will’s companion by his mother, is because he plans to end his life by assisted suicide and she doesn’t want him to. He has given his family six months before the date that he plans to die and his mother is hoping a suitable companion will change his mind and give him hope that life is worth living.

When Lou learns of this she doubles down on Operation: Keep Will Alive and starts planning tons of outings and things for them to do together (essentially dates--even though she already has a boyfriend that she been dating for the past 7 years--the entirety of her adult life). Predictably, they fall in love and she thinks she has convinced him to give up the suicide plans but she is WRONG. He dies and leaves her a bunch of money so she won’t ever have to take a random job just to stay afloat ever again.

Obviously, this movie has problems with the disability narrative when it allows one of its main characters to come to the conclusion that a disabled life is not a life worth living, even with all the resources and support he could possibly want. So that’s a dark cloud over the whole dang thing. That said, the cast is winning and the film is competently made so it’s a perfectly fine watch if you can get over that ending/message.

Rating: 2.5/5

Likelihood I would have watched this on my own: maybe 5%; I had a feeling the disability storyline would be problematic but I’m not above an occasional banal romantic tragedy generally 

#me before you #for some reason i also thought they would get married before he died #but this isn't a walk to remember

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Buttery Glazed Green Beans

On to vegetables! First up, one of my not-favorites, green beans!

Pretty simple ingredients here:

First up, go ahead and toast those almonds. (Had to do some supplemental googling to find the right timing and temperature for this.)

Then, into a skillet goes a cup of water, a quarter of a cup of sugar, and a teaspoon of salt. Boil and stir until sugar is dissolved, then add the beans!

Cover and cook for 7-9 minutes, uncover and continue to cook until the sugar water reduces to a “very light syrup” and the beans are no longer crisp, approximately another 7-9 minutes.

Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with 2 tables of butter, black pepper and the toasty almonds.

And serve.

They came out pretty good! SO buttery and SO sweet that even I could tolerate the beans. Maybe Robert Pattinson is actually on to something with his sugary pasta bomb.

#cooking adventures #cooking monster #cravings #green beans #all the butter #all the sugar

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Lazy Shrimp & Pork “Wonton” Soup

Strap in, y’all, for the most disgusting thing I’ve ever made.

The shrimp and pork together concept had me dubious from the get-go but, you never know, maybe I was missing something. (I wasn’t.)

So, ingredients!

First things first, let’s start the broth.

Chicken broth, ginger (cut into matchsticks), and sliced garlic go into the pot to simmer.

Already looking and smelling like the sad watery soup you get as an appetizer at Asian restaurants.

But next we get into the real good gross part of this recipe: the meatballs!

Lightly combine ground pork, chopped up shrimpies, bread crumbs, minced garlic, minced ginger, scallions, cilantro, jalapeño, salt, oyster sauce, and egg into an unholy concoction.

Then portion out into 4 big monster boys.

Next the meatballs and the mushroom go into the simmering broth to cook.

Still looking like sad restaurant soup.

In the last three minutes of cooking, add wonton wrappers that have been cut into strips to act as de facto noodles. And serve.

This. Is. Gross.

Somehow the shrimp is perfectly cooked at the expense of the pork turning into horrifying grey mystery meat, the sad garlic and ginger broth is both overwhelming and fails to compensate for the bizarre flavors and textures going on in the meatball, and the “noodles” just turned into gluey wet globs.

Big fail. Big, big fail.

#cooking adventures #cooking monster #cravings 2 #soup #fail

[allyouhavetodo]

Let’s Watch The Twilight Zone: Episode Twenty-Three

A World of Difference

Rod Serling voice over introduces us to...an office! Look, there’s a desk, and lamps and a bunch of things that are definitely real in here!

And, oh, here’s Arthur Curtis, a 36-year-old businessman with a wife and young daughter--also real.

But, as we’ll soon learn, there’s a world of difference (get it--that’s the name of the episode) between reality and what is created in the mind.

End voice over. Start Arthur Curtis going over some details of his life with his secretary--he’s got to get a gift for a birthday party, he’s excited to finally go on vacation. It’s all cool. He goes into his office to make a phone call, but the phone’s not working, so he gets up to go complain to his secretary when we hear;

“CUT”

Arthur freezes. The camera spins around. And we’re on a film set. A crew of about 20 people is staring silently at Arthur. He’s confused. They’re mad. The director gets up and comes to talk to Arthur. “C’mon, Jerry,” he says, “is it so hard to make a phone call?”

A look of pure devastation crosses Arthur’s face, followed by confusion. “Is this some kind of joke? Where am I!?” He goes racing around his office to find (the actress playing) his secretary lounging in the other room, and that the view through his office window is a painted backdrop. He hates it. 

The crew decides to call an ambulance for him because they believe he’s having a nervous breakdown. He manages to find a real phone and calls the operator for his home phone number (because he can’t remember it) and the operator informs him that the address he gave either doesn’t have a phone or doesn’t exist. “But I live there!!!!” is the anguished response as he hangs up and takes off running. (A white guy screaming and running in confusion--classic Twilight Zone already.)

He exits out the stage door onto the back lot and is immediately knocked down by a car being driven by his (Jerry’s) extremely angry ex-wife, Nora (not Mrs.) Reagan. She came here to collect what Jerry owes her from the divorce and she doesn’t care if he’s drunk or having a mental breakdown or what--she’s taking him away and she’s not bringing him back until she’s paid what she’s owed.

Somehow Arthur/Jerry ends up driving (wasn’t she supposed to be kidnapping him?) and instead of going where Nora wants him to, he starts driving around looking for “his” house. It’s not there. The street isn’t even there. He gets out to ask directions, gets immediately distracted by a little girl he thinks is his daughter, runs up to her, and scares the bejeezus out of a random child.Good one, dude!

Nora is sick of this nonsense, “get in the car, Jerry,” she’ll drive us home.

When they get there the sprinklers are going full bore and, predictably, Jerry is all “this is not my beautiful house” and Nora does not care. All she cares about is where the checkbook is. 

While she tears the place apart looking for it, Jerry’s agent (manager?) arrives to tell him to get it the fuck together. He doesn’t have too many chances left in Hollywood. And if he can’t make this work, he’s done in this town. Arthur/Jerry insists that he can’t, he’s sick, and the agent agrees to try to sell that story for today--but his ass better be back on set by tomorrow.

Arthur/Jerry tries to pull the old phone the operator trick again, this time to give him the number to his office. Once again, no such place, no such number. “But I’ve worked there for 7 years!” (Endless screaming)

Arthur/Jerry ends up overwhelmed or passing out or something because next thing he knows he’s waking up in bed with his agent watching over him. The agent shows him the script of what they’ve been shooting and reads him the character descriptions of Arthur Curtis and his wife, Marion. (I guess this is supposed to be a reveal in case we couldn’t figure out Arthur was the character Jerry was playing?)

The agent is doing his best to convince Jerry that he is not Arthur--that everything he knows about Arthur comes out of this script and that Jerry is just a “sweet, unhappy man, burdened with that harpy (Nora), trying to find some happiness.” (Remember when Rod Serling talked about being accused of not being able to write for women--I wonder why???)

Anyway, don’t worry about it, Jerry, because the studio is canceling the whole picture. “Arthur Curtis is dead” [dramatically throws the script in a waste bin].

Arthur/Jerry doesn’t like that either! He jumps up, “I’ve got to get to my office!” “Jerry, your office is a set, they’re probably tearing it down already!” Too bad! Here’s some high speed footage of Arthur/Jerry driving to set. And, sure enough, when he gets there, it’s halfway to being dismantled.

“Don’t leave me here!” Arthur wails, clutching at his face. He does not want to be stuck being Jerry. 

And suddenly, the office is back. The photos of wife and daughter back on the desk, secretary properly in the other room, wife actually coming in asking where the eff he’s been all day because she’s been trying to call him.

Arthur is so happy. And if he hears a distant echo of a voice talking about getting those lamps and tables of here, so what? Let’s go on vacation right now! We don’t have to wait for Saturday! I don’t want to lose you Marion! 

Begin closing voice over, over a close up of the front page of the script, titled The Private Life of Arthur Curtis. (Hollywood couldn’t have been that done with Jerry if they were going to build a whole movie around him, but I digress.)

This monologue is extremely intense, talking about how the usual way to exit to life is in pine box. But apparently there are other ways. Like for Jerry Reagan, who is on a highway with an exit sign that says “this way to escape.” We watch a plane take off and literally vanish into the sky (not a bad effect for 1960). There goes Arthur Curtis, en route to The Twilight Zone.

--

Do I wish this had been better to women? Yes. Do I wish this had more of the Hollywood setting? I love nothing more than shot of people in costumes for various projects mingling around together on a back lot, so of course.

But, otherwise, it’s a good little episode of the “one guy freaking out” variety. 

#the twilight zone #a world of difference #tv recap #twilight zone recap #twilight zone episode s01e23

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Shit on Toast: Salted Peanut Butter/Caramel/Grapes

Hot on the heels of the last Breakfast is the last toast!

And it’s a weird one, y’all!

Not really anything to cook here. Unless you consider toasting to be cooking.

So, you toast the bread. Then you slather it with a mixture of equal parts peanut butter and caramel sauce, and top with chopped roasted peanuts, sliced grapes, and more salt.

Unsurprisingly, it’s salty, y’all.

Not an especially strong flavor other than the salt. The peanut butter and caramel sauce is actually good on its own. But everything feels like it’s fighting for prominence here and salt is winning.

I’m not sure what the point is. But I’m going to enjoy eating all the leftover peanuts. It’s been a long time since I had any peanuts in the house.

#cooking adventures #cooking monster #cravings #shit on toast #salted peanut butter/caramel/grapes #why

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Salted Maple Granola

I’ve never understood granola. Granola bars? Sure. But just plain granola? What even is that?

But here we are, at the last breakfast recipe from Cravings 2!

So, of course, making granola starts with mixing a bunch of things. First, the dry ingredients: oats, coconut, chopped pecans, sliced almonds, and sunflower seeds.

Then the wet ingredients: vegetable oil, maple syrup, brown sugar (wettish), vanilla extract, and salt (not wet, but sure me).

Then you combine it all, spread it in a baking pan, and bake until golden and crispidy and almost burnt on the edges.

Let cool, pour back into a bowl, mix in the sour dried cherries, and you’ve got granola!

And it’s damn good. Salty and sweet and crispy and breakfasts.

I still don’t know how to eat it. In milk like cereal? The cherries make that kind of weird. In a bowl like a snack mix? The pieces are so small! How am I supposed to jam them into my mouth by the handful?

But it’s tasty enough. And easy enough, that I’m damn sure going to try to figure it out.

#cooking adventures #cooking monster #cravings 2 #granola #salted maple granola

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Shit on Toast: Cinnamon Toast/Dark Chocolate

More cooking!?!? Yes. Well, toasting.

So, this is simple. You mix up the butter, sugar, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.

And it looks like poo. But that’s okay.

Then you spread it on bread.

And it looks like poo on bread. But that’s still okay.

Then you bake it at 350 for 10 minutes. And then it looks like cinnamon toast!

And what makes this cinnamon toast different than all other cinnamon toasts? You grate some dark chocolate over it. And it’s goooood.

(There is no way that make cinnamon toast look sexy. I’m sorry.)

I went light on the chocolate and, if anything, it added more of an aroma than a taste. But it did add a little something special. I was skeptical. But I’m glad I tried it.

When my lazy ass wants cinnamon toast in the future, I will probably still goal the tried and true toaster, butter, cinnamon sugar method. But doing it this way was not exactly an ordeal.

#cooking adventures #cooking monster #cravings #shit on toast #cinnamon toast/dark chocolate #someone write the fic

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Cheesy Spicy Breakfast Hash

Is anyone still reading this? Probably not, since I’m barely doing it. But I actually cooked one thing during this goddamn pandemic, so let’s celebrate!

Forever and always leaving something out of the onvredients photo. In this case, salt AND pepper.

So, it’s hash. So you know we’re going to chopping up a bunch of shit and sautéing the hell out of it in a big-ass cast iron pan.

Starting with the onion, garlic, bell pepper, and jalapeños—all thrown in together with the shimmering hot vegetable oil.

When those are on their way, add the potatoes (which have already been partially cooked in the microwave—which is the actual first unsexy step), salt, pepper, paprika, and chicken broth.

Cook, stirring as little as possible so that the potatoes have a chance to get some little crispy edges.

Then comes the exciting part. ADD CHEESE.

Cover and cook just long enough for the cheese to get all melty and serve with a fried egg and hot sauce.

Far from the most beautiful plate. But it’s HASH. It’s homey and comforting and warm and savory and all the things it’s supposed to be. Plus CHEESE.

Not actually too spicy if you deseed the jalapeños. It requires a lot of chopping, and mine came out a little on the oily, less on the crispy side. But I’m not mad at it.

And if now isn’t the time to eat breakfast for every meal, when will it be?

#cooking adventures #cooking monster #cravings 2 #cheesy spicy breakfast hash

[allyouhavetodo]

Let’s Watch The Twilight Zone: Episode Twenty-Two

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

Welcome to Maple Street, USA, you guys. It’s a summer Saturday in suburban splendor over here. When m, precisely at 6:43 pm,something with lots of flashing lights that’s making a whoosh whoosh whooshing noise, passes over head (unseen by the audience, but definitely seen by everyone on Maple Street).

That was weird, everyone on Maple Street concludes. But it was probably just a meteor. Extra weird that it came so close and yet we didn’t hear it crash. Oh well.

But not oh well, as Rod Serling pops in to inform us. “This will be the last calm and reflective moment before the monsters come.”

And, yeah, pretty soon after the “meteor” passed by overhead, the power goes out on Maple Street. The phones go down on Maple Street. The radio stops working on Maple Street. Strange things are afoot on Maple Street.

And everyone is puzzled about why all these things would happen at once. One old man sets off to a neighboring street to see if they are also having these problems. And defacto street leader Steve and his chubby Hawaiian shirt wearing side kick Charlie decide to go check with the police to see if they know anything about what’s going on.

Except they can’t go to the police station, because the car won’t start. But that’s okay. It’s the 60s, we can walk to the police station, if we want to. At least until intrepid teen Tommy warns them they “better not.”

What gives, Tommy? What’s your problem?

Well, it turns out Tommy has read a lot of sci fi and has a very specific theory about what’s happening here. It’s probably aliens, you see. And they don’t want us to leave. That’s why they shut everything down. The only “people” who will be able to leave are the ones the aliens sent down ahead to assimilate and trick us. They’ll look just like us. That’s how they always do it.

The adults all try to shout Tommy down at first. It was probably the meteor interfering with radio signals or something, just like sunspots. But by the end of his speech they’re all looking around at each other like they’ve got a confirmed case of The Thing and they don’t know how to go about testing one another.m to see who’s infected.

Meanwhile, another neighbor, Les Goodman, goes to try to start his car. And, guess what, it won’t. Until it does. All by itself. And then stops again. And then starts again. And then all suspicion turns to Les. Les is very calm about it all at first. Like, “gee, I dunno what’s going on,” “y’all know me, I’ve lived here for 5 years.” Until a woman claims she’s seen him outside standing on his lawn in the middle of the night staring up at the sky. At which point he starts yelling about having insomnia and advancing on the crowd, who hilariously back up every time he takes a step toward them.

Les gets it. He thinks you’re all being paranoid. “You’re letting something begin here that’s a nightmare!” he yells. Just what an alien would say!

By nightfall everyone is still standing around outside Les’s house, not sure what to do if he does turn out to be an alien but not satisfied to leave without knowing for sure.

Steve turns back up to try to be the voice of reason. Are we really turning on each other so easily? Is anyone with any kind of idiosyncrasy automatically suspect? This is some kind of madness.

Until someone else calls out of the crowd that actually Steve’s own wife has been going around town blabbering about his particularly suspicious idiosyncrasies. Particularly the weird radio device he’s got in his basement that he’s never invited anyone in the neighborhood over to see. Who you talking to on that thing, huh Stevie?

Steve yells at them all sarcastically that duh he’s spending all his time talking to little green men, when his wife turns up to proclaim that it’s just a stupid ham radio and she wasn’t trying to sell her husband out as an alien, you losers.

At this point someone starts walking down the street toward the mob. They can’t see who it is in the distance but they are pretty convinced it’s “the monster” (a monster they, again, have seen no evidence actually exists), and someone goes to get a shotgun, which Charlie (paranoid in chief) quickly takes possession of.

With the walker still far enough away that no one can see who it is and without anyone even attempting to call out to them, Charlie blasts away with the shotgun. Turns out it was that old man from before who went off to see if anyone else had power. And now he’s fucking dead. Jesus Christ, Charlie! What’d you go and do that for?

And just when everyone’s already getting mad at Charlie, the lights go on in his house. And you know how we feel about one person’s something working when noone else’s is! Everyone turns even harder on Charlie who hilariously backs himself into a bush before people (not hilariously) start throwing rocks at him.

But Charlie’s not just going to stand here with his head bleeding and let you call him an alien. In his opinion, terrible teenage Tommy must actually be the one at fault. He’s the one who started this whole thing! How come he knows all about what the aliens would do!? (A+ theory, Charlie.)

But before anyone can kill this teen, the lights start going crazy all over the street. And the residents start going even crazier. Everyone grabs a weapon! Everyone starts throwing things and breaking things! Gun shots start going off everywhere!

And the camera pans out to reveal pure chaos. People running around everywhere. Screams and bangs. All the way out to two (alien) dudes talking about how easy it is going to be to get humanity to destroy itself. Literally all we had to do was make one person’s car act weird and soon Maple Street will be no more. And, don’t worry, there are Maple Streets all over this stupid planet. All we have to do is go from one to the next, putting in minimal effort wherever we go and soon the planet will be ours.

Pan now to the sky as Rod Serling returns to remind us that the tools of conquest don’t always have to be bombs and guns. That paranoia and prejudice can kill and destroy even unborn generations. And that, unfortunately, these concepts are not confined to the Twilght Zone.

Be careful out there folks!

—

I had heard of this episode. At least by name. And I don’t think this is what I was expecting. It’s a good one, though. People lose it extremely quickly. Which is a great Twilight Zone hallmark. And the concept still works. Timeless stuff here for a bunch of human idiots.

#let’s watch the twilight zone #tv #recap #the twilight zone #the monsters are due on maple street #classic tv

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Shit on Toast: Raspberry/Taleggio

a.k.a. jam again

On toast this time.

So, once again, making jam is just heating up fruit and sugar for a long time and mashing on it until it seems jammy and then adding some lemon juice and letting cool.

Pre-jamming:

Post-jamming:

In this case, what we do with the jam next is spread it on bread, top with a piece of taleggio (or brie) cheese and broil.

Pre-broil:

Post-broil:

I’ve never broiled anything before. It was slightly nerve-wracking.

Top with lemon zest if you’re fancy.

The finished effect is tasty and much easier to eat than the popovers of my last jam-related project. I’m less of a fan of the raspberry jam than my blackberry concoction. But I’ve never been the biggest raspberry fan to begin with.

The premise, at least, has potential.

#cooking adventures #cooking monster #cravings #shit on toast #homemade jam #raspberry jam #weird how the two jam recipes ended up right next to each other

[allyouhavetodo]

Let’s Watch The Twilight Zone: Episode Twenty-One

Mirror Image

Ah, the “one about a woman” we were promised last week!

This episode starts off on a dark and stormy night at a bus depot in upstate New York. A young woman is waiting on a bench inside. The bus is late. Over thirty minutes late. She goes up to the man at the counter to ask when the bus will arrive and he gives her a very unhelpful answer about the rain and the bridges and “it will get here when it gets here, lady.” He also takes the opportunity to berate her about her obsessively asking about the time. “I don’t know any more information than the last time you asked! Every 10 minutes you’re up here asking!” But this is the first time she’s asked, she insists.

At this point, she also notices a suitcase behind the counter that is identical to her own. Pay attention to the suitcase. We’ll be talking a lot about the suitcase.

She goes to sit back down and Rod Serling chimes in to introduce us to Millicent Barnes, a 25 year old career woman known as being a “girl with a good head on her shoulders,” practical, not prone to flights of fancy. But, of course, since she’s in the twilight zone, she’s about to be subjected to “a chain of nightmares” that in precisely one minute will start to make her wonder if she’s going mad.

As the voice over ends we get a small piano sting and close up of her suitcase beside her on the ground.

She goes up the to counter man again to ask about the bag behind the counter. “It looks just like mine, down the to broken handle.” His answer is predictable: That is your bag, you ninny! (He doesn’t literally say this--but his tone definitely implies it.) You checked it earlier. Now please stop bothering me. Millicent insists that she didn’t check her bag, that her bag is right back there by the bench. But when she looks behind her, her bag is gone! 

Millicent goes back to sit down. And, just when I’m starting to think there aren’t actually going to be any mirrors in this episode, she decides to go to the bathroom to freshen up. She runs into the cleaning lady in there who asks her if she’s okay, because wasn’t she just in here a minute ago...? No! Millicent starts to leave but turns around to look at herself in the mirror again with the bathroom door standing open and sees both her own reflection and the reflection of a woman who looks just like her sitting back on the bench inside the terminal. She slams the door back behind her and hides for a moment. When she gets the courage to open the door again, the woman is gone but her suitcase is back beside the bench where it belongs.

She sits down again and we start to hear her thoughts out loud. Wondering whether she’s sick or something. Maybe she has a fever, because she’s definitely having delusions. But she doesn’t feel hot or sick. What’s wrong with me?

Just then, a very wet man, who introduces himself as Paul Grinstead, comes and sits right by her. They get to talking after he explains that his taxi ran into a tree and so he had to walk the rest of the way here. Millicent confides that she is moving to Buffalo to start a new job. But also that she thinks she’s been seeing things. She proceeds to tell him everything that just happened in the episode so far.

Paul, to his credit, helps her try to think through it rationally. Maybe there’s someone here who looks a lot like you and that’s what keeps confusing people? But that wouldn’t explain the bag, would it? Hmmmm. No.

Anyway, they wait together until the bus finally arrives. As Millicent is about the board the bus, she sees something that makes her gasp and run back inside the depot. Paul goes after her and as the camera pans over to follow them we see “Millicent” sitting on the bus already, smirking to herself. 

Meanwhile, the real Millicent has full on fainted on the bench back inside and the bus can’t wait for her anymore. Paul decides to stay with her, even though the next bus won’t be here until the morning.

As soon as the bus is gone, Millicent rouses herself and starts ranting about something she read once. About how there are parallel worlds and that we each have a counterpart in the parallel world and sometimes our counterparts come into our world and when that happens they try to take over our lives. The only way they fit into this world is in our places so they have to take over our lives so they can live.

At this point, literally everyone thinks she gone round the twist. The cleaning lady mentions it. The counter man mentions it. Paul offers to call a friend to pick them up and take them somewhere to stay for for the night but it’s all just a cover so that he can call the authorities and get her to go with them quietly. Since he doesn’t manage to trick her he just decides to straight up call the cops. (Not cool, Paul!) And they come and take her away.

Now stranded alone in the bus depot, we see Paul very purposefully put his briefcase down at the end of the bench. (Not another bag!) He then goes to get a drink at the water fountain and when he lifts his head back up, the bag is gone and he glimpses a man just running out the depot door.

Paul gives chase (and here we’re on extremely solid Twilight Zone footing--a white man running and yelling--actually two of them), while his doppleganger runs and grins ahead of him.

Goofy!

Rod Serling cuts in here to remind us that the mind will make up all kinds of obscure explanations for what it doesn’t understand. So parallel universe or insanity, it’s all the same in The Twilight Zone.

---

Not a huge fan of this one. Not a lot happening. And it plays a little too much on the hysterical woman trope. Even though The Twilight Zone is almost always about people running around not knowing what’s going on, this one involved a man calling the cops on a woman and then being instantly proven wrong (not that there’s anything he can do about it now.) Humph. 

#let's watch the twilight zone #tv #recap #mirror image

[allyouhavetodo]

Let’s Watch The Twilight Zone: Episode Twenty

Elegy

a.k.a. The Mannequin Challenge: The Episode

This episode starts off, as so many do, in space. We are treated to a very cheesy rocket model while Rod Serling introduces us to the 3 man crew who are lost in “the day after tomorrow, a far corner of the universe.”

Do these 3 men have names? Yes. Did I learn them? No. Are they any different from one another? Also no. But please enjoy their shiny space boots while they take an apparent space nap during landing.

Once landed, they run a scan on the outside atmosphere and discover that it has the same chemical makeup as Earth air. Pretty fuckin lucky considering they’re out of fuel due to tooling around the universe trying to find Earth for the past SIX MONTHS, and they have to stay here forever regardless of whether it’s habitable.

So they barrel on outside and see.... A farm! Featuring a barn, a stack of hay, and very still dog. So still. Very still. Almost...frozen. These guys are so confused. It looks like Earth, but we’re 655 million miles away from Earth! (A distance that seemed ridiculous to me, but is actually only about three times the distance from the Earth to the moon. Space, it’s big!)

But this place doesn’t look like just any Earth. We can tell from presence of a tractor, which all died out in the “total war” apparently, that it’s Earth (or pretending to be Earth) from sometime in the early 20th Century. All good. Except for the two suns in the sky and the fact that we thought this was an asteroid when we landed on it.

Our dudes then wander around meeting a bunch more frozen people. A frozen farmer. A frozen fisherman. A frozen band. A frozen mayoral inauguration. And these scenes are a delight to watch because all the frozen people are just... people.. standing still. Watch the band members sway ever so slightly! Watch that guy on the stairs blink! Everyone is doing a great job!

So our heroes stop to talk about what the hell could be going on here. Maybe... time... is bad? Wrong? Maybe we’re going really fast and they’re going really slow? After all, you can’t see the hands of clock moving and yet they do move. But the clocks here don’t even have any hands, so who knows!?

They decide to split up to do some recon and meet back in an hour. How will they know it’s been an hour? Big shrug.

So this is an excuse for some more frozen vignettes. One guy goes to a frozen diner. Another busts in a frozen couple dancing to a private string ensemble. (He apologizes to them. It’s great.) Another explores a frozen beauty pageant. And here he starts to exhibit classic Twilight Zone protagonist symptoms (e.g., lots of yelling!). He screams at everyone, “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you move?” (Like, no, dude, they probably can’t. Now stop ogling those ladies it’s time to meet up with your bros.) And as he runs out of the beauty pageant (because of course he runs--that’s another symptom), we see one old man in the audience turn and watch him go and smile while the score goes absolutely wild.

The 3 bozos meet back up on some random street to discuss their findings as they walk past a frozen man pushing an ice cream cart right in front of another frozen man delivering a giant block of ice from a truck. Technically four frozen things! They’re like, “well, we live here now, so everybody pick a frozen house, I guess,” and walk up to one house with a frozen man reading a paper on the front porch. But, psych!, he’s not frozen!, he’s the old guy from before! His name is Jeremy Wickwire (extremely fake) and he invites them in to explain some things while they (literally) stand there going, “buh, buh, buh, you’re real!”

Wickwire tells them they can have this house if they want it. It was built for someone else, but he decided he wanted to be a knight instead so he’s off in the medieval section slaying dragons. (Oh, so it’s Westworld!) Other sections include Roman, Egyptian, and Wild West, if you’re interested. (Literally Westworld.) Most people prefer “this” section though, as it provides the maximum human creature comforts from a time before the end of peace on Earth. Not ominous at all. 

Wickwire then veers off to ask the crew about current events. “Hey, did Earth ever have that atomic war, btw?” Yes, it did. In 1985 apparently. Which was 200 years ago to our space guys. 

Space crew still really want to know where they are, though. And Wickwire placidly tell them they’re in a cemetery before wandering off to get refreshments or something. He offered them coffee, but comes back with sherry, which they drink in a toast to “everlasting peace.” The peace doesn’t last long, however, before space crew is yelling again. One of them literally pleads, “we’re very confused, we need help!” (extremely obviously so).

Wickwire can’t be bothered with any more explanations at the moment, though. He needs to know what each of their “dearest wish” is and he needs to know right now. If they could be anywhere in the world, where would they be? They all agree that they would like to be back on their ship, headed to home. (Bad move, dudes. You should have just wished to be home.)

With his curiosity satisfied, NOW is the time for explanations. You see, Happy Glades is the world’s greatest mortuary and it set up this cemetery on an asteroid for its richest clientele so that they can spend eternity in the everlasting peace that is wherever they want to be. (So it’s not Westworld, it’s San Junipero.) It was built in 1973 and old dude here is the caretaker. He is not a real person, but can “turn on and off like a machine” as he describes it, only activating when needed. He thinks he must have been off for the past 200 years. I guess people stopped having lavish funerals when everyone died at the same time because of nuclear war.

Having listened to this strange tale, our men are... not doing great. Gasping for air and falling to their knees and becoming paralyzed. Realizing they’ve been poisoned. Begging for an antidote. But there is no antidote, you guys. You silly billies must know that you can’t LIVE in a cemetery. This a place of everlasting peace and... “where there are men, there can be no peace...” (Oh snap!)

The last scene is of the frozen space crew re-positioned back in their spaceship home while Wirewick dusts them with a feather duster. (Solely to torture the actors by challenging them not to move whilst being mercilessly tickled, I assume.) And Rod Serling explains that well...at least they got their dearest wish. Sorry about the cosmic joke.

(THEN there’s a weird “next time on The Twilight Zone” type feature that I’ve never scene before where Rod Serling appears in the flesh, admits to be bad at writing stories for women and invites you to tune in for the next episode, which is about a woman. Weird!)

---

So, I liked this one! It is mostly sight gags involving people standing still. But, hey, that’s pretty good. And there was a benevolently evil old man robot. A lot of good stuff happening here.

#let's watch the twilight zone #tv #recap #the twilight zone #elegy

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Fluffy Popovers with Melted Brie & Blackberry Jam

Time to find out how that jam is!

But first! Popovers!

This recipe involves doing a lot of things quickly, so from here on out my pictures aren’t so great.

First you combine warmed milk with melted butter, eggs, salt, and flour to make the popover batter. Your supposed to whisk until smooth, which mine was while in the process of whisking, but once the batter settled down it would get lumpy again. It was also quite a liquid batter.

Then you grease a muffin tin with butter and heat for a couple minutes in the oven before scooping in the batter a quarter cupful at a time.

I think my butter got a little too brown. But oh well.

Bake all that for 20-25 minutes and in the meantime melt the brie so that as soon as the popover come out of the oven you can poke a hole in them and fill them with hot cheese.

(I was wholly unprepared the separate the brie from its time, btw. Warmth is not your friend there.)

The popovers came out pretty much puffy and weird like they’re supposed to. So that’s a good sign.

Stuffed with brie and topped with jam they look a treat.

The popovers themselves were pretty tasteless. Other than the undersides where the burnt butter was which almost tasted like eggs. And the brie didn’t come through especially heavily. But the jam was pretty dang good! I’m shocked! Lemonier than I expected, but I think that really helped to brighten up the blackberries—which aren’t my favorite.

I doubt I’ll ever make this composed dish again, but the jam might be something worth subjecting my friends and acquaintances to. Who knows.

#cooking adventures #cooking monster #cravings 2 #popovers #brie #blackberry jam