Nerd Journal: With Friends Like These ...

Thor: The Dark World came out on Blu-ray yesterday, and when I got home from class, I found a copy of it waiting for me, courtesy of those evil enablers Count Chocula and La Parisienne.  I may or may not have played it 4 times in the last 48 hours while helplessly cursing Loki for being so wickedly splendid.  I'm not sure how it could possibly be any worse.

SHUT UP.

Nerd Journal: Exams Are Done!

Or, I should say, the grading is done.  Students panic and procrastinate before exams, instructors after.  Grading is, bar none, the worst part of this whole evaluative process.  Still, it's all over for this semester.  Time to celebrate!  I'm too darn tired to hit the dance floor, so I'll let someone else do it instead.

 

Bust a move.

Movie Review: "Thor: The Dark World"

We're Up All Night To Get Loki.

"Thor: The Dark World"?  No, my darlings.  You know how you eat your boring vegetables just so that you can then have a decadently delicious dessert?  This movie is pretty much the same thing: we put up with a great many idiocies and narrative missteps just so that we can have Loki in the second half.  The title of this movie really should be "Please Tolerate A Lame Villain, a Muddled Premise, a Stupid Love Story, Meaningless Bit Characters, Idris Elba Wasted Again, and Stellan Skargård In Underpants So You Can Have Loki ... Eventually."  The flick is worth the price of admission for (and pretty much only for) the indispensable presence of Tom Hiddleston's irresistible, sinuously feline god of mischief now in his third appearance (after Thor (2011) and The Avengers (2012)).  OK, here's a more fitting poster:

Monday Therapy: Literature Hath Charms ...

It's not just music that hath charms to soothe a savage breast!  Literature can too.  Since Mondays are by nature savage, let's see if we can get some literary therapy to take the edge off the day.

I think a whole lot of people would be much more interested in lit if we got more wonderful people to do more poetry readings.  I don't even really LIKE e.e. cummings, subject of the first reading, but the reading is remarkable.  Reading is a performing art, all right.  Let's start, shall we?

Belated Friday Fun: Who's Better - Thor or Loki?

Right on time for the premiere of Thor 2: The Dark World, Comedy Central riffs on the delightful series of AT&T commercials with Loki, Norse god of mischief himself (played by charming Brit Tom Hiddleston, previously seen here):

Friday Fun Video: Cookie Monster and Delayed Gratification

Well, how delightful! Tom "Loki" Hiddleston stops by "Sesame Street."  That means cookies for Cookie Monster and eye candy for me!

Movie Review: "Thor"

Thunder from Down Under.

The 2011 summer movie season kicks off with color, action, spectacle, and humor as the buff, boisterous, blond Norse god of thunder with his trusty magic hammer Mjölnir storms onto movie screens all across America.  It's a hilariously humorous combination of Shakespearean credentials and comic book action, as Kenneth Branagh (yes, you read that right) directs and Sir Anthony Hopkins takes a supporting role in a tale of, among other things, brothers in competition and father-son conflict on a truly epic scale that still has enough personal human drama to catch your interest in the characters.  I had given "Thor" my stamp of approval briefly here, but I just promised the Cinema-Mad Sibling a real (if quick) review, so here goes.  Note: You don't really need to be familiar with either Norse mythology or the comic book in order to enjoy this colorful popcorn flick, so no worries.