Just forget the words and sing along

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Bloggity blog blog blog

Let's see...what's some of the news going on that's of minimal interest to my listeners and that I can only share here?


Back when I was blogging in February, and sharing my tale of how Family Day came to be, I shared the fact that Saskatchewan adopted Family Day last year and that Manitoba was thinking about it.

Well, the story came down the wire at work today. Manitoba has declared the third Monday in February to be a holiday now. But this holiday will not be Family Day in Manitoba. After conducting a province-wide poll, this new, Manitoba-only holiday will be called....

Louis Riel Day.

Manitoba celebrates its first Louis Riel Day this coming February.


I don't know about you, but the one summer blockbuster I had the most mixed feelings about this past summer was The Simpsons Movie. And now, I'll be able to re-live those mixed feelings when The Simpsons Movie hits DVD on December 18! For your bonus material, you get....

- a running commentary with the producers, writers, and a couple members of the voice cast.
- a second running commentary with the director and the animators
- 6 deleted scenes
- 5 featurettes about the making of the film.

Sadly, I want more on this DVD. C'mon! Give us an extended edition, with that deleted Sideshow Bob subplot!


Last night, I saw one of the new TV shows I was most eagerly awaiting this season: Reaper.

The premise: On his 21st birthday, Sam discovers that his parents sold his soul to the devil. Naturally, the Devil shows up to collect, and the Devil promptly puts Sam to work capturing souls that have escaped from Hell.

Now, what made this a must-see for me? Well, as you all know, it's become a big thing these days for big-time directors to direct the pilot episode of a TV series, and then be attached to that series as a producer. The best example of this right now would be House. It's pilot director/celebrity producer is X-Men and Superman Returns director Bryan Singer.

And Reaper's pilot director/celebrity producer is the one, the only, Kevin Smith.

When Smith first announced this on his blog, he said that he wanted to do it because he always wanted to try his hand at directing something he didn't write, and he felt more comfortable trying that with a 1-hour pilot rather than a feature film.

It seems like an OK show. Smith is finally learning how to direct action sequences. And the definite scene-stealer is Sam's sidekick, who goes by the nickname of Sock. He's very...Jack Black-esque.

I'll be checking out a few more episodes.

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