The Terrible Things I End Up Watching Via Amazon Prime

Hey, remember the early 2000s?

For some reason, when I was desperate for something to play in the background while fiddling around with some electronics last night, I ran out of current shows on Hulu to catch up with and wandered into Amazon Prime Instant Watch.

And rather than watch a show I love but haven't seen in ages like, say, ALIAS. I decided to instead watch the two part Dawson's Creek finale.

For the record: I blame Fringe, Don't Trust the B-- in Apt 23, Cougar Town, the trailer for Oz The Great & Powerful, and all the tabloids at Walgreens that continue to feature Katie Holmes on the cover on a regular basis.

But... holy fuck, my memory was actually being really kind by thinking that the finale was kinda bad.

Because it is fucking terrible.

So bad that you'd swear that it was written by 12-year-old fanfic writers. So bad that it makes all other episodes (even the ridiculous later seasons) look like genius in comparison. Hell, it makes Growing Pains reunion specials look genius and subtle.

Some notes:

• The first half hour is just meta-reference after meta-reference without a single one of them being clever or amusing. No, really. It's all horrible and incredibly lazy. Even if some of the uses of "soulmate" were self-mocking.
• The second half hour is 26-year-old characters reminiscing way too happily about "the good ol' days" and bitching about how great and too perfect (well, except for Jen) their current lives are. 
• Aaaaaaaand then they spend the second hour slowly killing off Jen. Only four seasons after they ran out of plot ideas for Michelle Williams. At least she has spent the past ten years proving to everyone that she had talent and potential to spare all along. 
• Not to mention that, despite being on death's doorstep, Jen seems to care more about Joey's love life than about her death or what will happen to her soon-to-be-orphaned child.
• And I'd complain about the Jack "Being Gay SUCKS!" stuff, but... that was always there. That was the same as ever.
• Also... random Jeremy Sisto. Very small part considering... he's Jeremy Sisto. Did they originally shoot, like, six hours of this finale? Virginia Madsen also has a teeny tiny part.
• Heh, they did their best to stay vague on the details of what life in the future would be like. But they did fuck up on thinking that The WB would still exist in 2007. If they really wanted to seem sharp about what the future would hold, Dawson would've realized that he needed to add vampires to his show.

And yet, in all that horribleness, someone at least knew to pull out the trifecta of heartstring-tugging songs from previous decades for one last hurrah: 

1. "Have a Little Faith In Me" for Joey and Pacey re-connecting. There are few times that song doesn't get me, though.
2. "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan the background of the terribly written monologue Jen records to her baby.
3. Jewel's "Hands" for when Jen dies. Considering the time that I was most loyally watching Dawson's Creek was also the time where my CD of Spirit was constantly playing, it felt especially perfect.

However, the very end montage with "Say Goodnight Not Goodbye" was just trying too hard. Especially when they included a certain face in that montage...

In conclusion: Well, I think I at least managed to make it so I'm not likely to watch any more Dawson's Creek for another nine years. And I caught up on the last few gif additions to the brilliant www.jamesvandermemes.com I'm calling it a successful viewing!

For the Rich Child Within You:

Amazon.com is offering the "Harry Potter Page to Screen: The Complete Filmmaking Journey (Collector's Edition) [Hardcover]" set for 40% off for Cyber Monday. That's making it a cool $600 to purchase one of the 3,000 copies that will be sold worldwide.

$600 for books about the making of somewhat decent adaptations of very good books? Eh. I'd much rather have real versions of some textbooks from Hogwarts myself. I'm sure they'll have no trouble moving these 3,000 sets, though. No problem at all.

My favorite quote I've heard about this sale today comes from the lovely ladies at The Mary Sue, in reference to how The replica Monster Book of Monsters is actually a false book for hiding items:

"Because if you have a friend over, they’re not going to totally attempt to open a replica of The Monster Book of Monsters as soon as they see it on your shelf and then find your Horcrux."

Personally, I've gone to much more troubling lengths to hide my horcruxes than that.

Not that I've made any horcruxes.

Those don't exist.

Ooh, look- shiny books about okay movies!

Still Love Them After All These Years...

Anyone else watching Nickelodeon's new version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I was really prepared to hate it but ended up adoring it instead.

The humor is really spot on (one of the producers is from Animaniacs, if that tells you anything), the characters are super-well-defined- probably the best they have ever been defined, and the animation is actually pretty impressive. I was terrified about it being CGI, as I find the current CGI Green Lantern cartoon painful to watch. But the shading is excellent and the use of 2-D effects in the 3-D environment is pretty impressive.

Also, it seems to grasp a lot more from the title of the show than most of the previous incarnations did. They really at like disobedient goofy teenagers, they're super aware that they're mutants (mutants play a big part in the over-arcing plot of the show), they do a lot of ninja training, and they're very turtle-y. The emphasis is really on them being teenagers, though. As this might be the most true to life portrayal of teenagers currently on any Nickelodeon show. Seriously.

The one issue I have with it so far is April. While the boys have all been very defined and get a lot to do, April still doesn't seem like a whole character. Or, at least, not a whole interesting character. I know that my childhood memory of the classic April is really distorted- but I wanted to be her so much as a small child. This April just isn't interesting yet. Which is a shame because with Mae Whitman voicing her, all they have to do is give her some good lines and plots and Mae will carry it home.

But there's still time to flesh her out beyond "lost her father" and "Donatello has a crush on her"- so I'm not disparing yet. The first six episodes are all on Hulu currently. The latest one is linked above. Check it out.

In the mean time, I've just realized that the movies (all three live action movies, Turtles Forever, and TMNT) are all on Amazon Prime Instant. So, I'm going to be passing some serious time this winter re-watching turtle movies.

Well, and this so-bad-its-good-but-its-so-bad related item: