Trisha's Blog

Syfy, has a new twist on a classic tale. Alice is now a mini-series on the Syfy network and airs this Sunday and Monday at 8PM.

So what is the twist? Well it is not suitable for children. This is not to say that the show is overly sexual, graphic, or even worthy of a PG-13 rating, but rather the content is just more centered on Adult situations. Watching it as a child, would simply be boring.

The characters are modern beings. Alice is a karate instructor and the rabbit is a man in a suit with a rabbit helmet/mask on. The characters are pretty eerie on Alice, but they’re the same as the characters of Syfy’s other twisted classic tale, Tin Man (a miniseries based on The Wizard of Oz, which aired last year).

After watching the first episode, I’m not a fan, and honestly, I do not even think I will follow up with it.

Check it our for yourself.

It finally feels like the Winter holiday in central Texas. With the snow fall last Friday and the continuous cold weather, I’m in the mood for Christmas movies.

As classes wrap up to an end this week, I will begin to watch these Christmas movies to embrace the holiday break.

• Home Alone Teaches every kid not to wish to be alone for the holidays.
• Home Alone 2: Lost In New York Teaches every kid that if you do happen to be alone for the holidays, a four-star-hotel could be nice.
• Love Actually Love is always illuminated for the holidays, everyone needs someone to keep them warm.
• Scrooged Even if you’re a comedian, don’t be a scrooge.
• The Muppets Christmas Carol The holidays bring the child out of everyone, and so do muppets.
• Elf The best family-friendly, Christmas film made in the past 10 years.

Now that Christmas is only three weeks away, Christmas trees are everywhere. Tree stands, artificial trees in retail stores, artificial-decorated trees in businesses, huge lit trees outside, and real trees outside, trees are everywhere!

So for the past two weeks, I’ve been snapping pictures at almost every tree I see.

The first tree I saw this year was on my way to Frisco, Texas. I’m not sure what the shopping center was, but it was visible from IH35W. So visible, that I pulled over to get a picture.

After “buying” an album off of  iTunes today, I clicked on the “Purchased” list, scrolled all the way to the bottom, and thought, “Wow, this is a long list!” 535 songs. That means that within this past year I have spent a little more than $535 on digital downloads, and I can’t sell nothing back.

With iTunes, there are no buy backs. If you make a mistake like, “Oh, I really like this single, maybe I’d like the whole album. Oh, I’ll buy the whole album,” then you’re screwed. You can’t sell it at a yard sale, you can’t take it back to the record store, and you can’t even watch it collect dust. I thought of this the other day when I accidently purchased a ringtone instead of the song version.

By purchasing digital music rather than CDs or vinyls, it feels like I’m taking bigger risks. The accessibility of iTunes allows me to purchase a song at my desk while I slack of from doing my homework or to purchase a song on my iPhone when I’m driving to school. Yes it’s great. You don’t have to buy a whole album for one song. You don’t have to worry about the song skipping. And you don’t have to worry about the device collecting dust. But you do have to think twice before you click. You do have to think, Do I have enough money in my bank account to buy these albums? Do I at least like five songs from the album?

If you don’t, you might end up with more “guilty pleasure” songs than are really “guilty pleasures.”

For the biggest star of the film, Zac Efron, and the director, Richard Linklater, Me and Orson Welles was unlike anything they had ever done. So how did they do? Capturing the 1930′s and playing a youthful-first-time-actor looked like a breeze. 

Set in 1937, the film, based on the novel by Robert Kaplow, begin with an upbeat teenage boy walking through a busy street. By the end of the day that teenage boy, Richard (Efron), was hired as an actor by an egotistical Orson Welles (Christian McKay) and interested in a girl he could never have.

The film paralleled the lives of Welles and Richard by having one be young, inexperienced, and with just enough confidence and the other being older, well-experienced and with too much confidence. Within the film, Richard’s life drastically changes. At one point Richard’s hired, then he’s interested in a girl, perhaps interested in another girl, first girl breaks his heart, and then Welles breaks his career. On the other hand, Welles is at the threshold of boosting his career and having his affairs busted by his pregnant wife.

These two characters are very different, and Efron and McKay did an excellent time emphasizing that. Efron captured his romantic scenes with Claire Danes and his youthful, ambitious attitude. McKay captured Welles’ wit and charm. 

Before the film, McKay had acted as Welles in a previous New York play. From the moods, to the accent change, to the facial expressions, McKay reflected an egotistical Welles who no one could argue with. 

The film was an overall escape into the 1930′s theater scene. With romance, laughter, and despair, Linklater gave a film of drama and fulfillment.

The cold, wet weather Monday night held no one back from the chance to meet Zac Efron at Austin’s Paramount theater. The red carpet was lively because loud shrieks and cheers lasted until a couple of minutes after Efron’s last step into the theater. While Efron entertained the recorded interviews and his young fans, Richard Linklater and Christian McKay talked equally throughout the line of press.

On Monday, November 30, 2009, the Austin Film Society will be premiering Richard Linklater’s new film, Me and Orson Welles. Teenage heartthrob, Zac Efron, will be present at this screening as well as Richard Linklater and Christian McKay. The red carpet walk will begin at 6:30PM and will be followed by the screening at 7PM.