Views after watching Nick & Norah’s

So I just watched this flick, and I must say I enjoyed it.  Several things came to me as I watched it and I felt I wanted to share these thoughts with you, my reading audience (of which I think the population is … can you have negative numbers in viewing audience sizes?).

Anyways, I felt there was some great parallels in this movie and another recent Michael Cera hit (Scott Pilgram vs. the World – which I still have yet to read the comics of) that I felt it required me writing out a formula:

 

 +  +  = Michael’s future career

Has he been type cast so quickly?  I also thought it might be worth mentioning that there were some gay characters around for both flicks as well (Michael plays in a band with 2 other gay guys in NNIP, and room with a gay guy in SPVW… also there’s a lesbian too in SPVW), but I didn’t want to really bring up the gay card – too controversial a topic for me.

Just found it interesting that both great movies had him dealing with being in a band (playing the bass no less), dealing with breakup.  Maybe I just look for patterns too hard.  But it doesn’t make me lose the forest for the trees, as the saying goes.

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One other thing that came to my attention while watching the movie (coupled with a recent trip to Toronto with friends and the other movie mentioned above) was that there must be an ENORMOUS amount of great music out there, just outside my grasp.  I enjoyed not only the cinematography of NNIP, but also the soundtrack.  It’s rare that I do like soundtracks, it’s just something I notice (another favourite soundtrack was for another Michael Cera movie – Juno… it’s almost like Zach Braff using good music in his movies/shows – using mass media to further good music).

When I went to Toronto with work, Devon dragged us to this band called “Tin Star Orphans” and they were… well a joke at first.  But by the end of a few days, I was finding myself on their myspace page to listen to their music online (doing so right now as I haven’t bought their CD yet).

Was a bit of  a wake up to me that “I’m getting” old, and I haven’t been keeping up with the music scene.  Not that I was ever bleeding edge for music.  But I liked indie stuff.

Music was also predominant in SPVW, and I’ve been meaning to download it’s soundtrack.

So, my point of this is that I think there’s a great amount of ‘culture’ just below me, and my radar is totally off in terms of being able to find it.  So – anybody out there, in my large reading audience, please recommend to me some good music to listen to.  My playlists lately consist of:  Collective Soul / Jeff Martin / Tragically Hip and Pipeband; it could use some varying.

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Oh, and I also wanted an excuse to use this clip as it’s something that Adam and I recently talked about.

The Bass Player (Kids in the Hall)

Maiming the main character

So why is there such a trend with the books I read for the authors to maim the main character?

I've come late to the Walking Dead comic series (thanks michelle), and I'm really enjoying it up until -SPOILER ALERT- our main hero gets his hand chopped off.

Kind of a pain to get invested in a character and then have to see them go through that.

True, the point is probably to have them suffer and allow us to feel further pity for them... But come on, that is something that I cannot identify with.  (sure could I identify with walking zombies?)

Also this is a permanent change to the character and how he'll adapt to life... I can feel that frustration.

I've almost stopped reading for that reason alone.

But it's happened so often in sorties and it is so annoying.

Wheel of time - rand gets his hand chopped off (I have yet to get back into that series, but that is another story)

Star wars - all sorts of people losing limbs there

Dune - Paul is blinded

Robocop - enough said, but this was the point of the whole movie

Evil Dead - and this was only so he could put a chainsaw in it's place, so it's forgivable.

Lost - Boone had a leg amputated before he dies... So at least we don't have to worry about our character living with the maiming.

The Dark Tower - Roland loses much of his main shooting hand.

And I'm sure there's more... But I think it's highly frustrating for a reader.

Especially as I'm not even half way through The Walking Dead, how is Rick going to be as an effective zombie killer...