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Ranking The 5 Halloween Specials I’ve Actually Seen: Part 1

There aren’t many Halloween movies...horror a plenty, but very few that actually are about Halloween. It’s kind of a shame. I prefer the kitschy, costume/candy/pumpkin side to the horror side, and so that’s why some specials appeal to me maybe.

Of the Halloween specials, I’ve seen even fewer of those then they actually are. But I am here to count down to the five that I have seen.

#5: Corpse Bride

Okay, I broke my own rule. This film is not about Halloween. But there’s so many ghosts involved that it might as well be, and I was determined for another movie on the list. I don’t even remember TOO much about this one. It feels much more like Halloween than your average horror film does. 

I know that the main character is supposed to be getting married, but due to an unfortunate turn of events ends up having to marry a dead bride (is this movie where the “dead bride” costume craze came from???) 

When I watched it, it resonated with me because a college lit class of mine was currently covering the Gothic period and I enjoyed picking out the Gothic elements. The colors were also unique...scales of gray that contrasted with the partying, dramatic ghost world. (And that was a cool scene in itself.) What else to love? The haunting sounds of the families’ voices in large scenery. The music left a little to be desired, unlike another similar Halloween film...

My overall thoughts? It’s okay. I don’t love this type of content but at one point I feel like most people had known about it, so it was good to check out. And it’s pretty. It’s darkly artistic, basically. Not a film that many young kids will watch over and over again. 2/5 just because of lack of interest in the subject matter. 

I wish I had more to say here, but I had to put it on the list for honesty reasons. 

[morganrecapsthings-blog]

How To Fix The Big Bang Theory (aka a long complaint)

Ugh! I don’t know what’s going on, but Tumblr has misplaced more than one of my draft posts. I had a whole thing written out and it’s gone. I think. So here I am again with a new and improved posting.

So anyway, tonight starts the new season of the Big Bang Theory. Who’s still watching? Who gave up? Who is catching it merely in reruns? But yeah, there’s no question that at least for me, season 10 was basically The Office’s season 8...a significant, often poorly done drop-off from what it used to be. So how would I improve it, you ask? Let’s find out. This post may be a bit lengthy. 

The Character Flanderization

They’re supposed to evolve, sure, but Sheldon is uber-boring now. He used to be the heart and soul of the show and now he’s almost mature. Must they take his personality away, even if he does evolve? I’d also like to mention Penny, who is gradually getting less and less mature. She was pretty levelheaded in the beginning of the show; I’m not sure why she’s turning into someone a little more ignorant.  

The Bad Writing Implementation

For the love of Pete, WHY is Stuart moving in with Bernadette and Howard again? For NO reason? And they just accepted this? With no motivation or reasoning whatsoever? Come on, guys. He’s a big boy who needs to move on now. 

I only just saw the episode where the government takes away their project without reasoning last week. So they’re just going to remove that story, without a reason, from the show? Look, guys. I was an English major. I took many a class on writing in and out of college. That is really lazy writing. Conflicts have to be solved internally for the most part, meaning you can’t just “drop a bomb” on the characters. Not only do I feel bad for the characters who worked hard on a life-changing project, but I feel bad for the viewers who wasted a whole season on seeing something exciting and got nothing from it...again. You can’t just get rid of a plot you’re bored of like that. Note: I didn’t see most of the finale. If this was developed further and I missed it, please somebody correct me ASAP.

That particular instance was unfortunate, because that was a pretty decent episode otherwise. 

Oh yeah. STOP INTRODUCING PLOTS AND FORGETTING ABOUT THEM. Remember when Penny confesses she hates her job to Leonard? What’s she done about that? And where is baby Haley? It’s not realistic that she’s never ever there. 

The Koothrapalli Experimentation (sp? sorry)

Please, please find something new to do with Raj. Every time we see him he is:           a. Intruding on a couple’s romantic time and getting in the way           b. Mindlessly following around Howard and Bernadette the whole time           c. Trying to decide on his dating situation and ultimately not making that            decision by the end of the episode

You get my drift? Raj needs to do something new and that hasn’t been done 100 times before. 

The Doing Nothing Hypothesis

Why does it seem like they just sit around and talk a lot these days? Remember when they’d go on scavenger hunts, watch Howard throw out the first pitch at a baseball game, have dinners together, go on dates, and so on? 

Let’s go back to Bad Writing Implementation for a sec. Remember when Penny and Leonard are thinking of how to spice up their relationship, and by the end, decide on a Relationship Agreement devised with Sheldon and Amy’s help. Ha ha, funny punchline! Right? *crickets* Well, no. I would have preferred to see them working on it rather than having Penny wonder about what she should do for twenty minutes. 

The Romance Disintegration

Remember when Howard and Bernadette were a cute couple before the baby arrived? Remember when Leonard and Penny liked spending time together? I miss those days? Let’s see them have more fun. 

So yeah, these are some improvements that will need to be made if I want to start watching again. Long shot maybe, but otherwise it’s time for this show to finally end with dignity. 

[morganrecapsthings-blog]

Office Recap: Frame Toby

Coming Soon

Tumblr has been deleting my drafts for some reason and I apologize for this one not being here. I’ll get to it eventually.

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I interrupt my recapping to bring you this post...

Interruptive Quotes of Harry Potter: The Appreciation Post

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Office episodes I skip over

We as fans know that things started going south in season 8…though there were some not-so-good episodes before then as well. And just because you’re a fan of a TV show doesn’t mean you can’t dislike certain aspects. If you get used to quality, you notice when it isn’t there. Some are honestly just not fun to watch. Here are the ones I give a pass when they’re next in line:

 Andy’s Ancestry: Andy finds out he’s related to Michelle Obama and we’re expected to believe this. Also, nothing really happens. Boring and illogical. Although, the Pam/Nellie stuff is fun…

Angry Andy: Oh goody, an episode full of skeevy sexual jokes for no reason. At least when Michael was on the show, they were sometimes clever. The show was a lot less raunchy that I expected it would be, and for that I was glad. This one told me the writers were truly running out of ideas. So what to do? Put in a bunch of “adult” innuendos. That’ll make people laugh! Actually, no, it’s just called “cheap writing.”

Christening: 50% everyone hassling Jim and Pam over a mistake by the church, 50% PSA ad to help kids in Africa, so much so that I wondered if it was part of an NBC event when it aired. I don’t think it was, but episodes shouldn’t feel like PSAs. So for my sake, we’re gonna give this one to Jim and Pam and say that they didn’t invite the office or camera crews. I mean, it really wasn’t necessary.

Get the Girl: Seriously? This episode made me want to throw my screen out the window. If someone tries to make themselves the manager, the CEO can’t sit by and do nothing. Andy and Erin’s issues were hardly the biggest problem here. Still, this episode is up to its ears in problems and was really where I realized the show wasn’t what it used to be.

(Read the critics’ opinions on Wikipedia, they say it much better than I do.)

Mrs. California: I don’t even remember this one that much, but it just wasn’t funny. I do remember that I don’t care to see it again.

Search Committee: When the main character leaves the show, trying to replace them or imitate them is the worst idea possible. This episode proves it. Seriously, having a quasi-normal boss would’ve been fine and much more believable. Ugh, Ray Romano though…another good actor looking bad courtesy of a brief appearance on this show. 

The entire Tallahassee segments: I don’t know quite what went wrong here, but the plots seemed convoluted and out there. Honestly, I was bored. I miss Scranton…

The List: More abuse of characters that do nothing wrong. Why couldn’t Robert pick on Dwight or something? Just..ugh. Jim’s thing was cute but it was the only redeeming factor. 

The one with the brownie cold open: No. Just no. By that I mean, there’s no comedy. Just mean jokes abusing the character who never does anything to anybody by making fun of how fat she looks after having her baby.  This one actually made me sick. Humor doesn’t come from bullying.  Not to sound like an overly offended soccer mom, but yeah, I was sad.)

I don’t even remember what episode this is, but the open was so bad that it deserves a bad score. Sorry. 

 Not an episode, but Kathy Bates’ appearances also did nothing for me. She wasn’t a good fit for the role and the dog thing didn’t help to make her more “real.” It was a good show because it originally seemed real. Also, I find it ironic that D’Angelo was perfectly fine until they tried to make him into a funny character. That’s the exact tactic Michael would use to try to impress people, and it almost always failed. Hmm…

 When they age, shows often: use character flanderization, stick to outlandish plots, or pick sex innuendos over genuine clever humor. The Office was great but sadly wasn’t immune to these issues. Still, I’m glad it lasted to season 9 so we could get that amazing finale. 

What episodes do you dislike?

[morganrecapsthings-blog]

YouTube Recap: Wizard Swears

Yep. I’m doing this.

If you don’t know what this video is, go watch it here and throw yourself into the 21st century. This is a video from the YouTube Golden Era (I consider this to be 2008-2011 when I was in high school and spent lots of boarding school free time escaping reality by watching great YouTube). Also, I believe a lot of “classics” came out during this time so let’s just roll with it. 

I would have started with recapping Mysterious Ticking Noise, the essential PPP short. But what would I say? “Snape says his name in a catchy manner, then Dumbledore joins in, and Ron, and Hermione, and Harry. Then Voldemort blows everyone up and says his name in a catchy manner too.”  Well there ya go.

 In true PPP fashion, each character’s traits are exaggerated to the extreme. That’s what makes the series work so well…they’re based off the originals (for the most part…sometimes they seem OOC but that’s for a later recap). If they were acting totally off-character, they’d just be random people dressed like characters and the series would have flopped on its face. For this thing to work, you have to have some element of normal character, which the series does. So here’s a rundown:

 Harry= angsty adolescent

Ron= Wacky, sometimes airheaded sidekick

Hermione= responsible best friend who isn’t above breaking rules

Dumbledore= eccentric wizard who may or not be responsible enough to lead a school

Snape= grouchy authority figure

Neville= goody goody with a potato face*

Voldemort= villain who pretends to be evil but is really just the cranky old guy from down the street

On with the recap!

Ron and Hermione are happily bouncing around as puppets do when Harry arrives with a very important announcement. Dumbledore, in a rare moment of maturity,  has posted a list of swear words banned from Hogwarts, but these aren’t ordinary swear words! They’re stuff like: “cauldron bum,” “son of a banshee,” and “swish and flicker.” So the gang spews them off randomly, which obviously upsets Snape, who takes 500,000 points from Gryffindor. (This obviously is not taking place in Book One where everyone cared up and down about house points and where Harry got shunned for weeks after breaking some rules until he got the points back. Harry couldn’t care less here.) Snape sighs and does nothing else.

*Then the gang runs into Neville, who is a SQUASH. Yeah, I like calling him a potato as much as the next guy, and I did it all the time. Apparently so did many other people. So if you want to call him a potato, be my guest. But for reals, he is a squash. I mean, when I was at the farmers’ market the other day and saw the baskets full of squash all I could think of was Neville. Just so we’re aware:

So Neville the androgynous vegetable (let’s be politically correct here) gets upset when he sees them cursing and threatens to tell Dumbledore, especially when Harry maintains that he means everything he ever says, ever. Neville says something like, “this is against da ROOLES! *british accent:* oh, noew! noew noew! I don’t want tuh sweah my grandmother doesn’t like me tuh sweah!” Honestly Neville is such a great and even likeable character in the books, but this is just fantastic. For character exaggeration, Neville is probably the most well done. Maybe this takes place in Book One after all before his character development happened? This guy IS Book One Neville.

So Harry shows the Neville the list of swears and peer pressures him to say something. Neville is a Gryffindor, after all, so he goes along with “Hagrid’s butt crack!” Ron and Hermione cheer, but Harry tells him off and says that Hagrid will be ten times the man Neville will ever be. Okay, so I don’t really like Harry here. I get he’s supposed to be angsty but this is kind of over the top. Then Ron and Hermione cheer when Neville walks away…even though they were the ones egging him on before? I guess they were afraid of what angsty Harry would do if they weren’t supporting him. I guess I can see that. Ron also says that Harry is rife with boyish attitude. Okay no, this video definitely takes place in Book Five. It’s official.

So then they make a phone call…to Voldemort! They say a phrase and Voldemort gets angry. He threatens to send them to “wizard jail” (not Azkaban) and kill them (because he’s Voldemort). Funny how a villain like that manages to make himself readily available by installing a phone in wherever the heck he lives. But that just adds to the corny part of what makes PPP so great. It’s like those cheap gags in Patchy the Pirate segments in Spongebob SquarePants, where the parrot is a puppet on strings and the sets are made to look cheap. 

So Dumbledore randomly has a mature moment again and says that Snape wants to speak to them. He gets all serious and proper, going on about how he wants Hogwarts’ traditions to be upheld once Hermione says a wizard swear. Unfortunately for Snape, Dumbledore is back to his true immature PPP self and doesn’t even remember five minutes ago, so why would he remember banning any swear words? Snape skulks off.

            Snape is much too professional for this. He’s going to go away now.

Dumbledore does one better for the kids and tells them a really old swear once they beg him for it. What’s interesting is that he might actually have done something like this before he caught himself. There’s an instance in one of the books where Dumbledore almost starts a joke exchange with the Weasley twins after everyone’s arrived in the Great Hall when McGonagall stops him that everyone seems to forget. This moment is like that.

It’s called the Elder Swear and it’s filled with presumably real swear words as a lot of it is bleeped out. But in between the long censoring bleeps, we get words like “Daniel Radcliffe,” “Republican,” “in a castle far far away where no one can hear you,” etc. The gang watches as Dumbledore moves himself around wildly, because apparently it takes a lot of physical effort to say the whole swear. He only promises them to never repeat it to anyone, so we all know what that means…they do, to poor Neville. The poor guy gets stuck in between the trio, who is moving around rapidly like Dumbledore had done, doomed to hearing swears contaminate his sensitive squash ears.

 Characterization: 8/10 (mild obnoxious flanderization, esp. with Harry, but otherwise great, especially Neville and Dumbledore)

 Gags: 10/10 (it’s all good from Neville the squash/potato to Voldemort’s lines + phone and building up to the Elder Swear)

 Storyline: 9/10 ( Not much of a plot but still an unexpected way for the gang to spend their day.) 

Quotes: 9/10 (I mean, the Elder Swear. And Ron. And Neville. The dialects make this what it is too)

 Final score= 36/40 

Basically, watch it. You are missing out. 

[morganrecapsthings-blog]

The Office Recap: Crime Aid (season 5)

Yeah guys, I’m starting with season 5. To be honest I didn’t really have an idea for this blog until now, and I’m currently in the middle of season 5, so that’s where I’ll begin. I’ll talk about earlier episodes eventually.

 Main premise: The office is robbed overnight, leaving Michael to hold an auction to raise money to replace the lost items.

Side hustles: Dwight asks Phyllis for advice about Angela…in secret. And Jim runs into Roy at a local bar.

 So yeah, Michael’s up to his old “raise money to help silly causes” thing again. Only this time, it’s to help the office after they’ve gotten robbed…because he forgot to lock the doors after a late-night makeout session with Holly. Surprisingly, people go for it. Now if it were me, I’d be wondering why I’d have to give away my personal money, made while working AT that company probably,  for the benefit of the rest of the office, but people don’t seem to think this is odd in any way…? Even David Wallace shows up for some reason, but mostly to serves as a plot device that will shape the next few seasons. I’ll get to that later. Michael’s antics aren’t even my favorite thing in this one.

Meanwhile, Dwight is doing Dwight things in the break room while making a knife out of a knife. Phyllis knows that he’s upset about the situation with Angela and asks Dwight if he wants to talk about it. In Dwight fashion, he rejects this offer, but finds ways throughout the episode to sneak in his vent sessions, including talking into the refrigerator door with Phyllis nearby (”I’m talking to myself!”).  He probably doesn’t want to be caught discussing his problems with another woman. We do learn Phyllis’ theory on why she is with Andy: because Andy isn’t a risk, and Angela isn’t a risk-taker. That’s the most plausible explanation yet, especially when I think it’s pretty clear they don’t belong together. 

Other stuff happens on the side as well: Jim and some warehouse guys sneak out for a drink where they run into Roy. Very brief words are exchanged and it’s just as awkward as you’d think. When Jim tells Roy that Pam goes out with her friends late at night, he points out, “You were a friend.” This prompts an insecure Jim to start heading to New York, but he turns around saying that they just weren’t the couple to do those things. When this show wants to emphasize distance in a relationship, they do it. 

I like this episode, too, because it shows that Jim and Pam aren’t the only romantics. Bob Vance pays $1,000 just to hug his wife and that’s pretty awesome. What’s equally cool? Seeing Dwight overbid everyone by a penny to give Phyllis the thanks she deserves. Had he won, he would have been able to thank her for the advice under the guise of that hug, without having to expose himself. Still, Phyllis seems to get the idea (she looks pretty happy). Of course, he is still Dwight, and gets her away from the crowd by saying her tires had been slashed (and then actually slashing them). But maybe there’s a heart of gold hidden somewhere…

But then the tides turn. David Wallace spots Michael and Holly kissing and doesn’t look happy after the fiasco with Jan. You know that action will be taken, and taken it is in the very next episode. The two were perfect for each other, so I guess we should see it coming. Still, doesn’t that measure seem kinda drastic?

I give it an 8/10. Good premise, but I still don’t get the auction thing…why make the employees essentially pay for the damage? It’s still a good episode with great laughs.