Ben Curtis/ The Listener/ Fighting

Aug. 27 Ben Curtis: I mentioned that the Kyle Gallner lookalike Mark told me that he looked like the Dell Guy. Today Mark actually stopped by today.

Mark: Hey.
Me: Hey. You know that Dell Guy? Well he actually has a name you know. It's Ben Curtis.
Ma: I cut my hair so I won't get any more comparisons to him.
Me: Really?
Ma: No, I'm just joking. I used to work at Blockbuster and wore a blue shirt, and people always tell me I look like him because he (BC) wears a blue shirt too in the commercials.

Here's an interview with BC. He studied acting in university in NY. He talked about the Dell auditions and how they were looking for a guy from 12- 17 years old. He was like 20, and he was the only one in the waiting room who didn't have his mom there with him. He's a nice, average, fun guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMOFEGkUWcA

The Listener: The above was a highlight of my day. The other was watching The Listener season finale. It was really good. Toby has a telepathic ability and only his mentor Ray knew. Then in 3rd episode, T tells his friend Oz. Oz is happy and asks T if a girl likes him since he can read minds. Then in the middle of the season, T tells his cop friend Charlie about it. She and T then are able to solve cases together with his ability. Now in the season finale. T tells his girlfriend Olivia about it. Now everybody knows about it.

Well there is still mystery. In the middle of the ep, C ends up getting shot when she was trying to protect T and his friend Frank. The Bad Guy then runs. Later, Bad Guy comes at T and F again, this time F shoots BG, and he dies. T, Oz, and Olivia figure out that T's mom is in a car accident. T finds a car covered in snow. T starts digging the snow out with his hands to find his mom that he hasn't seen in years, and thought she was dead. T opens the door and it's empty. I was expecting either for her to be alive or dead. I really like Craig Olejnik's acting. T then leans on the car. Then he falls over in the snow.

Writing: This reminds me of those shows about family. T still has to find his mother, and his little brother. In the show Dark Angel, when Max ran away from the evil company Manticore, she has to find her 11 other "siblings" whom she grew up with there. She manages to find some of them in the first season.

On the show Flash Gordon, Flash travels to the planet Mongo. Of course it's cool to travel to another planet, but there has to be a deeper reason to go there. Flash mainly goes there to try to find his missing father.

Aug. 28: I was thinking about that woman dressing up like a man thing again, and I am reminded of the movie Boys Don't Cry.

I was also thinking about characters as partners. There is Scully and Mulder in X- Files and Castle and Beckett in Castle. Then there are the cop movies where you partner 2 cops who are totally different from each other and they have to solve a case together.

I don't like to write drama for teens because the characters cause drama between each other. In shows like The Listener, there's drama, but they don't start it with each other. A situation arises, and Toby has to help this person. There's drama in that there's a problem like T has to save a life. Or T has to figure out who committed the crime.

As for shows like 90210 it's mainly teen pregnancy and dating drama. Sure, there was a girl who overdosed and dealt with drug addiction, but there wasn't a lot of that.

Fighting: So I finally saw the movie Fighting and got to compare it to my movie. I would give this movie 2 stars out of 5. It was mediocre. I like Never Back Down better and give that movie 3 stars out of 5.

What's wrong with Fighting? Well I like the actor Channing Tatum since I first saw him in the movie Step Up back in 2006. I read reviews that he mainly mumbles his lines in this movie. Yeah well the other reviews didn't mention that so does Terrence Howard's character. The dialogue wasn't really that good. I say that because after watching it, I didn't really have anything to quote from it. If it's good, I would go and quote from it and tell people about it.

It's about Shawn (CT) who is a guy from Alabama who moves to NY. He is selling counterfeit Harry Potter books, and then gets in a fight there. Harvey (TH) sees him. Zulay (Zulay Henao) buys a book from him. Then later, S and H meet again. S gets his money that was stolen from him during the fight, and H tells he should be a fighter to make thousands of dollars.

I actually liked the little guy Z played by Peter Anthony Tambakis. He is H's lackey and part of H and S's entourage. I did some research on him and he's actually 25. He looks like he could be in high school. An interesting fact is that PAT worked a movie with CT before in 2006 called A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. PAT kind of reminds me of when I watched The Matrix and I liked the little guy Mouse played by Matt Doran. MD was 23 and he looked like he could be in high school too.

I did find it realistic how S talked besides the mumbling. He did stutter and stumble through his words. I guess what I don't like about it was that the fights weren't really controlled. I mean that as in a crowd of people watch the fight, and there weren't any boundaries like don't cross this line. In Never Back Down, there were these mats, and they had to stay within the mats. The fight scenes were alright. I wasn't really impressed with it. I like the atmosphere. All the fights are held in different places and they are all very different from each other. The courtship between S and Zulay is average.

This is fist fighting, not mix martial arts like NBD. Due to reading screenwriting books, I thought the antagonists were weak. S's rival is another fighter that was from his hometown in Alabama. Then there are 2 other guys who are the ones who set up the fights. Overall, I don't really find even the protagonists to be well- rounded characters either. The only surprise I liked was between Harvey and Zulay after Zulay spends some alone time with Shawn.

There was a unrated version and the theatrical version on the dvd. I watched the latter and saw the deleted scenes in the bonus features.

News: I read in the Metro that the manager Kevin Walker, of the Thunderbird Motel in Hope had charged camera crews money to tour the room where the body of a alleged killer Ryan Jenkins was found hung himself. KW used some of the money to help clients who lived at the hotel who were on social assistance and have addictions. It's good that he's helping people.

Job search: Today I kind of looked for a job. After I saw Fighting which was 108 min. in the morning, I went and returned it in the afternoon. The Rogers video was right by the Capital Health hospital so I went to the human resources department. There weren't any non- nursing jobs for me. I didn't feel I was qualified for it because they said they needed a few years experience. I didn't put obstacles in front of myself because the applications for these positions have ended on Aug. 25.

Then I went downstairs and ate some fish and chips in the cafeteria. It was good and filling. Then I helped push a guy in a wheel chair to the cafe, and then into an elevator. That's my good deed for the day.

Rant: I don't know, I put too high of an expectation on the movie Fighting and am disappointed.

Here's another rant, I was watching Tosh. O and Daniel was listing stuff that women can't do like math, and lift stuff. I was kind of annoyed and offended by that. Then I felt like watching Maury because that show is so anti- male. All the guys are dead beat dads (paternity tests eps), or cheaters and liars (lie detector eps) or abusive partners (domestic violence eps). I can't really remember the last time I had an urge to watch the show.

Well this is my 100th blog post this year.