"You get to drink from... the FIRE HOSE!"

Well here it is Monday night and I am gazing upon the remanants of yesterday's blog entry, which was almost completely and suddenly DELETED due to some crazy internet problems. So now my thoughts from yesterday seem completely out of date and like so 24 hours ago ... Oh well, might as well leave 'em as is anyways. So step into yer time machine, ladies and germs, here were my ...

Pre-Monday thoughts:

I am so impatient with all this page program stuff. I'm ready for the big-time, and I'm ready for it now. Get me into an assignment, get me on a show, get me a writing deal with Warner Brothers.

Ugh, this is one of those Sunday nights where I look at the week ahead and it just looks like total craptitude. I'm sorry, but the thought of working at Carson Daly on Wednesday - my birthday - until 9 pm, standing outside the studio and acting as a human directional sign, just makes me want to cry, vomit, or quit the page program.

I mean, my friend Sean and I sat down today and hashed out this really cool idea for a TV show - we fleshed out some of the characters, the premise - and overall it's a pretty freakin' cool idea. It has a great hook and a ton of potential. But here I am, in Hollywood, and even though I KNOW I am capable of churning out stuff like this on a regular basis, I am going in tommorow to give Tour of NBC # 5,341. Okay, okay, I could be in Bloomfield sitting on my ass applying for jobs at Staples, and the mere fact that that's NOT what I'm doing is in its own way a miracle, so I can't complain too much. But such is the plight of our generation -- the world just isn't ready for us yet.

Moving on from my teenage girl's livejournal-esque rant ...

... and bringing you into the quasi-present ... (ie some of this was written yesterday but most of it wasn't and/or had to be re-written ...) ... here are:

DANNY'S MOVIE AND TV REVIEWS:

CORPSE BRIDE REVIEW:

- On one hand this movie was pretty cool in all the right ways. On the other hand it was no Nightmare Before Christmas. Why, you ask? Let us count the ways: Firstly, the story was overly simplistic and thus stretched out to fill the movie, which led to a SLOW pace and a lot of dragging. Secondly, the music lacked the catchiness and overall quality of Nightmare, despite having Danny Elfman at the helm - no song here compares to the iconic This Is Halloween, for example. Finally, while the stop motion animation was once again brilliant, the visual style lacked the overall uniqueness and flair of Nightmare. The colors were left intentionally drab, but while this is cool for awhile, it eventually contributes to the inability of the film to consistently hold your attention. On the plus side, those visuals are often breathtakingly awesome, and the character design is once again inspiring. And of course, the voice acting was top-notch, with Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Albert Finney, and the uber-voice of Christopher Lee all delivering the goods and bringing tons of life (or in some cases, death) to their characters. There are moments of greatness here, but it just doesn't come together with the combination of great songs, visuals, and plot that Nightmare had. Still, this is a must-see for fans of Burton or Nightmare. And for those who call Burton an overrated Hack - sorry, you're wrong - he may not be as good as his hype, and he may be hit and miss, but few other directors could bring this level of inventiveness and unique visual style to their films. But for those of you who worship the Goth ground that Burton walks on - sorry, but the flaws of this overly stretched out fairytale prevent it from acheiving an elusive "A." The bottom line though is that after weeks of dull, derivative leftovers at the box-office, there is finally something that is very much worth checking out. My grade: B+

FOX SUNDAY NIGHT CAPSULE REVIEWS:

- King of the Hill - pretty decent episode though not as good as last week's premiere, as there wasn't really much of a focus on Hank, and the Bobby / Dale storyline wasn't all that interesting. Still, another solid episode of the underappreciated veteran that keeps on plugging away. My grade: B

- Simpsons - Hmm, it seemed like this episode was really gonna bring on the funny, and I was digging the Milhouse-and-his-family stuff, featuring actual (gasp!) continuity and an actual (gasp!) plotline worth paying attention to. But in spite of being the funniest ep in a while, this one pissed me off simply for the fact that it soon reverted to MARGE KICKS OUT HOMER, THEN RECONCILES WITH HIM, VERSION 5,987, Enough already with this TIRED-OUT plotline that we seem to see every other week now (literally, as it was in the season premiere two weeks ago!). Shame, shame! My grade: B -

- Family Guy - Okay, this show is starting to really jump the ol' shark when every three seconds we get "Hey, this is even more _______ than the time I ________ ..." followed by a quick cutaway. The pacing of this show is getting a little ridiculous, and worse,a disturbingly small number of these cutaways are actually even funny lately. Still just about everything Stewie says or does still amuses me, so at least there was that. Curious to see that DVD movie as well. My grade: C+

TV MISC: Forget if I mentioned this already, but I am totally into FOX's new show REUNION now - that second episode, set in 1987, was awesome - much better than the pilot in my opinion. I kind of watched it in the background while working on some stuff, and suddenly found myself completley sucked in, as there were some great twists and turns. And by the way, THE OC is on life support as far as I'm concerned ... this DEAN OF DISCIPLINE stuff is moronic.

OTHER STUFF:

@ WORK:

- A lot of Tonight Show stuff this week, and that unfortunate Carson Daly-on-my-bday business I mentioned earlier.

- Tommorow: Interview for the much sought-after primetime programming assignment at NBC. The odds are probably not in my favor interms of whether I have a chance of getting this one, but we'll see. Okay, so seriously, this is it. For the most part, this is my last chance at an assignment, so wish me luck that it goes well.

RANDOM STUFF:

- This past weekend some friends and I revisited a pair of 1980's classics, and I just have some quick thoughts, which are: For one, UHF, the Weird Al comedy vehicle, is still pretty damn funny after all this time - well, at least it made ME laugh. Secondly, I am not typically one who likes to mock cherished childhood classics, but as we were watching THE NEVERENDING STORY, it became obvious that some of the scenes, notably the initial dialogue exchanges between Atreyu and the winged creature Falcor, have some REALLY WEIRD AND DISTURBING undertones. Maybe you just had to be there, but I don't know if I can ever watch this movie the same way again ... Anyone else ever notice this ...?

- Dayum, last night in my sleep-deprived daze I had some more pretty good stuff written here that was really pretty random, but I don't know if I'm up to the task of trying to remember and rewrite it all right now. I'm sure it wil lreappear at some point in the future, but for now I'm gonna go watch Arrested Development. Hey, at least I finally have a readable blog entry after last night's internet crash. So choke on that, Slappy.