What's My Favorite Scary Movie?

Um...not Scream 4, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it anyway. If you've been listening to Extra Hot Great (which...why wouldn't you??), you heard me opine a little bit on Ghostface's return to Westboro. Then my pal Jason went and unloaded a whole bunch of knowledge on the movie -- most of it dealing with who did and who didn't survive.

By the by -- NOTHING BUT SPOILERS in this post so GO AWAY if you don't want to know who the killers were, who bit the dust, et cetera.

Anyway, I needed to get more out about the movie, so I fired off an email to Jason immediately. What follows here is pretty much the sum total of my feelings about the movie -- 80% positive, and for a Part 4 in a horror franchise, that's pretty damned good.

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Joe: Okay, first of all, I want validation about me getting the killers half right! And about how much better the reboot/sequel conceit worked in this movie than Scream 3's "trilogy" conceit did. They really did a great job of making us think we were watching a reboot, with reboot rules, then turning the tables at the last second and BAM! "Don't fuck with the original." As soon as I saw Sydney and Jill (Emma Roberts) in the same frame together, I immediately thought "Ain't no TWO final girls." Only one could survive. From then on it was just the question: are we dealing with a reboot or a sequel?

Also, Mary McDonnell's unfortunate upper lip situation! I was kind of waiting all weekend to talk about this...

Jason: Ack, sorry. I felt the need to sit on my opinion and stew for a couple days. It keeps swinging all over the place, and then I remember they all survived and I just don't care about anything anymore. But yes, like I said in my blog post, it really did feel as if they had a purpose here, a clever way to go about playing with the reboot thing, where the trilogy thing felt haphazard. Completely agree, and it worked really well. Even if they got distracted some here and there.

After the movie, the boyfriend would not stop talking about poor Mary McDonnell's face. I love her too much to speak upon it! I won't do it!

And I know this will piss you off but I don't remember us talking about what the outcome would be, and you half-guessing it. SUE ME. I assume you guessed about Emma Roberts then? It really was an entirely satisfying choice, in that it made sense and was funny at the same time.

Joe: We didn't talk about it before, but I mentioned it in the email I sent you Friday night. The email you clearly TOTALLY DIDN'T READ. Anyway, yes, my guess fairly early on was that it was Emma Roberts and her boyfriend, doing a Bonnie & Clyde thing, with her main motivation being hating Sydney for the exact reasons the movie used. So: half right. But the more important half! And I heroically ignored the Marley Shelton/Hayden Panettiere red herrings.

If I had one major drawback (other than Kevin Williamson over-indulging himself with Jill's final speech, which went on WAAAAY too long on the subject of Celebrity in Modern Times and How Things Are Today), it would be in the style of deaths, though weirdly I'm the opposite of you. This series was never Final Destination, and I always thought the value of the kills came in not the creativity but the brutality (contrasting so well with the comedy). Some creativity often crept in (Tatum and the garage door!), but Drew Barrymore's death, Jada Pinkett's, SMG's -- those were just brutal more than anything else. This movie kind of backed off of that in a few areas (Anthony Anderson and Adam Brody, primarily), but not enough to make me dissatisfied. I mean, she shot out her BF's crotch!

Still needed more Gale -- I thought we got the right amount of Sid in order to make us credibly think they would kill her off. Got the right amount of Dewey (not much). Wish Allison Brie could've stuck around longer (a shadow-Tatum is still valuable!). Wish I understood just what they were going for with Hayden P (too distracted by that haircut!). But mostly had a great time with it.

Jason: I read your first email, but you made it sound like it was something we'd talked about before. And I always forget every conversation I ever have because my brain is riddled with holes. RIDDLED.

Hayden was obviously directed to act like a complete lunatic for half the time as a red herring, I found it distracting. I did like her breathless ranting list of every reboot moment though. She sold me there. But as soon as she went outside it was like a sledgehammer, what was coming. And I loved the scene between Marley Shelton and Sid, I thought it was wonderful the way it was shot and edited, so creepy and weird. The shadows. Ugh, shivers.

I thought Anthony Anderson's death was pretty brutal. The way it just went on and on and on. It didn't need that lame punchline at the end though. And I agree with you that Scream was never Final Destination - what is? - with its kills, but the murders always took on a more epic feel because of the way they're expertly staged. You didn't get much of a sense of place here, or the cat and mouse routine. SMG's death (in Scream 2) was great because of how tough she was fighting back and how long she eluded the killer for. There was a sense of that with Hayden slowly going to the closet, and that death scene of the friend next door was Scream-worthy. But the Allison Brie death, for example, was all kinds of shoddy and could've been much better. I liked her character too and she did the dumbest things and then stab, dead, blah.

The movies always need more Gale. Even if now I'm always looking for the people standing on either side of CC's head and gripping her by each cheek and pulling backwards.

Joe: I feel like I need to find photos of Courteney Cox from like 3 years ago and email them to everyone, because she looks SO MUCH BETTER now.

I hear you on the Allison Brie death scene, and I did like Hayden P in that one small moment in the closet. But I was never able to wrap my head around these three Heathers being all into horror and genre movies. Because, yeah, THAT'S what happens. At least Emma Roberts looked properly haggard.

The Marley shadow scene was hilarious but I couldn't take it seriously, because they were slamming down on the pedal so hard for her as a red herring.

Your memory of SMG's death scene makes me want to see Scream 2 again immediately. It's the one I've gone the longest since seeing it last, and I really loved it. My first Olyphant!

Oh! Can somebody tell me why Adam Brody did this movie? The most thankless role for a good actor I've seen in a while.

Jason: I def. agree that CC looks better than she did a couple of years ago, it has calmed down some, but the problem is it's settled down into a different face. She doesn't look like herself anymore. I hate Hollywood.

The least Adam Brody could've done was wear some eyeliner for a minute.

Joe: Could not agree more.
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The Week in TV

RuPaul's Drag Race
Leave it to "Drag Race" to perfect even the reality-show clip show. I've very much enjoyed this season (she won't win, but I'll be cheering for Manila until she goes down in a hail of Imelda Marcos shoes), but I can't tell you how delightful it was to see Jujubee and Raven (and, okay, Tyra) join Ru to talk about the season's best moments. And some of those judge outtakes were giddily wonderful.

Cougar Town
Yes, it's back! The special Monday night episode was such a fantastic return, and a reminder that -- along with Parks and Recreation -- Cougar Town is the best comedy on TV when it comes to flat-out laughs combined with honestly earned emotional payoffs. Christa Miller was so brilliant this week -- she's come a long way from the series premiere.

Game of Thrones
We'll be covering Game of Thrones on the upcoming Extra Hot Great, so I'm going to just briefly say: it was fine. I was frankly expecting (dreading?) that I would be totally sucked in and forced to keep coming back for more, but ... none of the characters really gave me a whole lot to latch onto. Also: doesn't it seem like every show/book/movie like this has to include some incest? That development was pretty predictable.

30 Rock
The Jenna plot was kind of a loser, and the Pete plot was one good joke stretched out over 30 minutes, but Liz and Kenneth searching for Tracy was not only the best use of Kenneth in two seasons but also paid off with a scene that hammered home just how much fun it must be to write dialogue for Tracy Jordan. I'll be laughing at that Temple Grandin hug-machine joke for a long time.

Parks and Recreation
I've had a really weird week, so the emotional state I was in on Friday probably played a big part in my decidedly emotional reaction to this episode, but even so: this was kind of a fantastic episode, right? Beyond the fact that I love April and Andy (who wouldn't?), the episode was packed with great recurring characters (Jean Ralphio! Plus I was honestly touched to see April's gay ex-boyfriends show up for her big day), had some truly sweet moments (April/Ron dancing and April/Leslie especially), and the B-plot of Donna helping Ann navigate the singles world was very solid. There is no show that beats Parks and Rec when it comes to pairing comedy and characters who you honestly care about.

The Real World
I realize that I'm one of, like, six people still watching this show. But I feel obligated to mention how much this season especially makes me feel creeped out. Which I guess should be no surprise considering they apparently set up casting calls at parole hearings and gay-for-pay porn sets. I'm not sure this show has ever gotten trashier than Adam, the straight-outta-juvie wall-punching sociopath, and Nany, the enabling, defiant doormat. And this show has featured TONYA.

Fringe
I don't have enough to say about last Friday's "Fringe" to fill up a proper blog post, but I do want to talk about it a bit. I have really enjoyed the "Bellivia" arc, but once this episode went animated, I totally lost interest. I like that the show is confident enough to experiment like this, but there's an investment I have in the real characters on the show that gets lost in translation when everything goes A Scanner Darkly.

Friday Night Lights
Oh, the final season. I'm not sure I can do this, but I guess there's no choice. I just went and bought the whole final season on DVD, but I'm going to try to ration myself to one episode a week and see how long that lasts. (I'm not giving myself very long.) So Landry saying goodbye to Grandma Saracen was the sweet/saddest thing I have ever seen, Billy Riggins on Coach's staff is pretty perfect, and most important of all: Hellooooo, secretly soulful new East Dillon wide receiver Hastings? Yes, this will do:

It's a New Lyric Quiz!

I went and put together 30 songs lyrics (all tied up under a secret theme that you should try to guess!) for Roommate Mark's latest Friday Lyrics Quiz. I'll get you started with a few sample lyrics, but go on over to The Critical Condition to read the rest and make your guesses!

1. “Even your emotions had an echo”

2. “Don’t try to find me, please don’t you dare”

3. “Look at this face, I know the years are showing”

4. “I’m taking it back to the old school, ’cause I’m an old fool who’s so cool”

Guess these and 26 more at The Critical Condition!
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Quick Movie Reviews

I updated the sidebar last night, but if you want to talk about either Hanna or Insidious -- two excellent options if you're going out to the movies this weekend -- have at it here:

Insidious
You have to be willing to let it do its thing, but I felt some serious gut-level terror watching this thing. It breaks a few cardinal rules here and there (we see something just a few more times than we should see that something), and the actors have to walk a very thin tightrope, so the performances occasionally wobble. It all seems so silly in retrospect -- like as soon as the spell is broken, you see it for the goofy shit it really was. But I really liked the way the movie doubled down once Barbara Hershey showed up.

Hanna
My pal Jason at My New Plaid Pants is an asshole. He went and got his review of Hanna up first and pretty much said every single thing I was going to say about it. Except for how he still bizarrely hates Atonement, which is strange because that movie is awesome. Anyway, this is the best mainstream movie I've seen thus far this year, and I would be SHOCKED if anything released this summer tops it. Who knew Joe Wright was such a referential director? I spotted nods to Tarantino, Haneke, Fassbinder, Tykwer, and that was just on first pass. It's funny, because watching the trailer, my biggest worry was that there'd be a flashy beginning, a flashy end, and then boring middle part where Hanna lies low with a regular family. But thanks to Olivia Williams and especially young Jessica Barden, those scenes were my favorites of the movie. Well, maybe tied for favorite with everything Tom Hollander does in his sinister sportswear. Again, click on Jason's review for everything I might have had to say about Hanna before he got to it first. Particularly the stuff about Saoirse Ronan, who reminded me that I pretty much always loved her, even if I didn't know it.
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1 Girl 5 Gays Power Rankings: April

Back again for another shuffling of the 1 Girl, 5 Gays rankings. Once again, LTG, Jeff Long, and John Ramos have joined me in ranking our favorite guys of the last month. It was not a month without controversy (just...don't bring up Gaelen or the word "promiscuous"), but it was also a month that saw the boys in drag, the return of Juan, and taught us all the value of properly assessing the merits of the Kardashians.

The process: We all ranked our top ten (and bottom three) guys, I made a composite list, and we all made comments. Previous month's ranking in parentheses (NR = "not ranked"). NOTE: Only guys appearing in new episodes (airing on LOGO) in the past month were considered.

Previously: February, March

1 Girl, 5 Gays April Power Rankings

1. Juan (previously NR)
You guys, how great was it to have Juan back this month -- both in AND out of drag? He pulls off this kind of couture queen affectation in a way that lets us know he thinks its ridiculous too, and then he'll veer into appreciating some really low-culture celebrity or something. It's so grossly Millenial to give someone props for being "real," but Juan is. Plus his outrage over being deemed a pina colada was really funny.

"I almost feel like there should be a 'boyfriend material' award. He'd win for me. So funny and thoughtful." -- Jeff

"Juan won drag night for me with his 'Am I super-conservative in thinking that you need to work to see my dick?' and his mortified gasp when Aliya-Jasmine said she didn't know who Tim Gunn is." -- John

2. Jonathan N. (9)
Big month for Jonathan Nathaniel. Not only was he the standout panelist for two shows in a row, but he also has kind of taken over for Dean as the panelist most talked about in awed and appreciative terms when not on the show. Considering where Dean placed on our list this month (uh...keep looking), we're in agreement with that tendency.

"Jonathan N. was funny! It made me so happy, especially the part about him blacking out to Britney and waking up having broken his hamper. More stories like that, please." -- John

"I love it that this beautiful man is comfortable positioning himself as this perpetual bridesmaid sort. The one-night-stand story? Frankly, that could change lives. If this gorgeous guy is comfortable saying that he gets attached to boys who sleep over on the fly, who's to say that more Canadian gay marriages won't be happening? Maybe that's not actually great, but I'm still loving it. Demystify the allure of the love of strangers- that's what Jonathan did." -- Jeff

"Jonathan N. killed me with his vibrator story. (And that question also prompted A-J to share something about herself! It was so funny, the way she wouldn't look at the camera while she made her remark about a good right hand.)" -- LTG

3. JP (2)
Kind of a hide-and-seek week for JP, not showing up until he returned in drag, rocking some space-grandma realness. Still, it's really hard to suppress his inherent intelligence and decency. Even if Jonathan N. put him on blast for still having Grindr.

"JP continued to fuel my crush when he said he doesn't like hurting people's feelings -- I found that moment adorable. I don't know if he'd handle a comedy roast quite as well as he thinks, but he does seem fairly Zen about a lot of things." -- John

4. Jonathan S. (3)
Jonathan S. still has my favorite sense of humor of everybody on the show, and he can be very quick with his wit, but his appearance this month did begin to betray just the slightest hint of pre-fabricated shtick. You're better than that, JS!

"Jon S. had the best lines -- 'First World Problem!' and the story about wearing the witch fingernails had me on the floor." -- John


5. Yerxa (1)
Yes, Yerxa dropped from his two-month perch at number one. We'd like to say it's not entirely because his drag resembled something out of Wynonna Judd's Labyrinth, but ... that's the only explanation we got.

"There was a moment [in the drag ep] where it felt like Dean was being really mean to Yerxa -- basically saying that the moment when Yerxa felt most sexually confident was the time he came on to Dean. That felt like a really mean slam, which made me wonder about the dynamic of their relationship. I like to think of Yerxa is the stable one and Dean as the slightly flighty one -- I don't want to learn that Yerxa has been pining after Dean for years. That would just shake my whole world view." -- LTG

"I wouldn't be totally surprised to hear that Yerxa spent a while pining for Dean, but he seems pretty happy with his boyfriend now." -- Jeff

"In this Yerxa-Dean narrative that we're probably mostly making up, I feel like maybe Yerxa used to have a crush on Dean, and now they joke about it, but Dean secretly views him as The One That Got Away. It would explain why Dean's so bitter about everything! I also liked the part where Yerxa admitted he would have hate sex -- it validates my theory that he would make Matt Barker cry in bed, and not about emotions." -- John

6. David (4)
Of anybody on the show, David has the widest range of opinion, being that I can either be 100% onboard with what he's saying or 100% against it, and pretty much anywhere on the spectrum in between. I like that unpredictability, but it does lead to moments, like his hair-trigger responses to Gaelen, where I kind of want to flick him between the eyes. That said? LOVED the dark-lady Angelina drag.

"David was the only one who seemed to take the drag at all seriously, with his dark emo look. (Although do emo girls wear scary finger claw things?)" -- LTG

"I know David LOATHES Andrew (as he should), but he was still completely correct that being mean for 'honesty's' sake is still just being mean, and I was very glad the more levelheaded Juan backed him up." -- John

"David seems like he is probably the best friend to have around- always kind and upbeat and ready for a good time but also able to engage on a real level." -- Jeff

7. Alex (NR)
I believe this was Alex's debut week (if he's been on the show before, I haven't seen him), and I like that he represents something fairly different from all the other guys. Like the funny, hipster, genial gay. Like if Dean took himself waaaaaaaay less seriously.

"That story about having the runs over at his date's house was horrifyingly relatable, plus 'guy-arrhea' was hilarious." -- John

"Alex is a star. I love him. He is exactly the kind of guy that I would have wanted to know existed when I was coming of age. A super queer, engaged, smart and sexy guy. I love him. Seriously." -- Jeff

8. Thomas (7)
I know Thomas technically dropped in the rankings this week, but he really shot up the charts of my own estimation. That story about the guy who wanted to rail him for a 6-pack of beer was so bizarre but also made me imagine Thomas as the star of his own dark-sexy-night-of-the-gay-soul Gregg Araki movie. Plus, I have to say? He was working that six-o'clock shadow.

"Thomas was adorable, though I'm not even sure if ultimately I understand that story about the guy saying he'd rail him. Was the price of a six pack of beer supposed to symbolize his desire or lack of desire?" -- Jeff

"I'm with you, Joe. I think in addition to the stubble, he did something minor to his hair that had a major effect. He had some great deadpan moments, too." -- John

9. Ian (NR)
Ian doesn't really stand out for anything he particularly said or did this month. He's just a guy we generally like well enough, and he didn't say or do anything too annoying like the guys who missed the Top 10 entirely.

"I thought Ian was funny -- the bits about the morning being Hammer Time and hanging up on his friend to watch Jersey Shore got me laughing. I don't know if we're going to get any rocket science from him, but at least he only tangentially talked about his junk, which I understand is an improvement." -- John

"Ian was awesome. I'd been kind of over him because of the incessant penis stuff, but he really turned it around for me. First, I think maybe his religious nature gives him a lovely empathetic and kind nature that I hadn't noticed. Also, he kind of bags on himself with the 'two pump chump' thing, which is disarming. Also, his face his just the cutest. He's like Tom Cruise in Far and Away." -- Jeff

10. Matt Barker (NR)
I'm as shocked as you are. But the flecks of self-awareness are showing on young Matt, bit by bit.

"Matt was more tolerable than last time, and I have to wonder what the other guys are on that they think the Kardashians are good role models. But once again, the Grindr story and the part where he claimed not to know who Anderson Cooper is sounded like such lies that I expected his pants to catch on fire." -- John

"Matt Barker was trying really hard and I appreciate that. I think, maybe, he's this super young guy who wants to talk about his feelings a lot, but they're kind of half-formed; so he ends up sounding like an ass a lot of the time. I appreciate that he stuck up for his idea of being in a relationship and the loyalty implied. That said, I love that, after all of his slamming of Juan as a bottom, he was unanimously declared the bottom in a Yerxa/Matt Barker hook-up." -- Jeff

Also receiving votes: Gaelen, Dean, Santos

Dropping out: Philip (5), Dean (6), Santos (8), Jake (10)
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