Midnight Ramblings

OK, I'd like to make a little rant about television. A really popular plot device right now is using current pop songs throughout the TV show's soundtrack. I'd just like to say....

STOP THAT.

It has now become the most overused plot device in television today. I swear, every episode of Smallville ends with Clark Kent and Lana Lang staring whistfully at each other while the latest "song-of-choice-for-junior-high-lovers-written-by-Dianne-Warren" plays. EVERY FRIGGEN EPISODE.

The worst abuser is Cold Case. You know, the American knock-off of Cold Squad. Because of the basic premise of the show (elite cops investigating cold cases [really old unsolved ones]), the show relies heavily on flashbacks. To help establish the flashbacks, every friggen flashback opens with a period-specific pop hit. And then the show ends with a current pop hit as the lead "sees" the ghost of the long-dead victim.

So, yeah. The use of current pop hits in one-hour dramas has gotten really, really annoying. At least they don't do it on any of the Law & Order shows yet.

And The Matrix Revolutions has finally hit DVD! As I keep saying, don't buy it. Wait for the box set of the whole trilogy. But then, The Digital Bits raised some interesting points. Yeah, it's probably inevitable that a boxed set of the whole trilogy is coming, but it hasn't been officially announced yet. And who knows if it'll even happen? When Reloaded was about to hit theatres, Warner Brothers was all set to release a brand-new 2-disc special edition of The Matrix, and the Wachoskis pulled the plug on that. So, speculation is, the Wachowskis don't like having these films re-released on DVD.

And plus, you've got the whole Wachowski factor. The Wachowski brothers are notoriously camera shy. They did no interviews for Reloaded and Revolutions. They've had no involvement in the Matrix DVDs. No interviews in the featurettes, no running commentaries, nothing! And now, the die-hard fans probably own the whole trilogy. So, the only thing that would probably make the die-hards run out and buy the boxed set is Wachowski involvement in the making of the boxed set.

So, yeah. We're all asuming the boxed set is a given, but the truth is, the Wachowskis have introduced a new variable that makes things...unknown.

And speaking of DVDs...Guillmero del Toro recently revealed that he's planning at least two DVD editions of Hellboy. The first will be a 2-disc special edition featuring the theatrical cut of the film. The second will be a 3-disc edition featuring a 20-minute longer director's cut of the film. Apparently, there was a much more detailed subplot giving a lot more character development on the villains that just had to be dropped.

And the fourth Harry Potter film, ...and the Goblet of Fire, has just been given a release date of November 18, 2005. The original plan of cutting the book in two and making two films has been discarded. We've already been told that Harry's human family, the Dursleys, have been written out of the screenplay. And it'll probably begin at the book's centerpiece, the Quidditch world cup.

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