Day 95 - Pop culture and me

"I am leaving in the morning, Lady Grantham."
"Do you promise?"

With that exchange in the last episode of season 2 of Downton Abbey, I laughed a lot.  Season 3 can't come soon enough.  There's something about the characters on this show that fills me with amazing amounts of empathy.  I feel sad when the characters go through bad stuff, and I find myself constantly hoping for happy endings (even for the reprehensible Thomas).

As of right now, I'm loaded up on pizza, chocolate, and a mission to get writing (again).  If I do this right, I'm going to try to at least give a little commentary on random pop culture things that I've read or watched in the last day.  For example...

Chronicle - The story of three teenagers who get superpowers and what it happens when one starts his descent into villainy.  Done on a shoestring budget, this is such a triumph of comic book filmmaking.  There are a ton of little moments that do nothing but create life into these characters, and the movie is all the better for it.  It's strong throughout, and doesn't spoon feed the audience with explanations of how the powers work.

Between Gears by Natalie Nourigat is a graphic novel that is essentially a drawn journal of Natalie's life starting in her senior year of college.  It's a massive collection, and while I've only gotten through about 20 pages so far, it's a fun read.
But a great read is Derf's My Friend Dahmer.  Cartoonist Derf went to the same high school as serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, and, in fact, hung out with him.  Dahmer may not have been a friend, but he was definitely an acquaintance.  And reading the story of his high school experience is sad, terrifying, and sometimes funny.  It never feels exploitative, and the story, combined with Derf's striking artwork has guaranteed that I'll read this many times (just like I have with his previous works, Trashed and Punk Rock and Trailer Parks.
I still really like Raising Hope, and I love the fact that actors from My Name is Earl keep appearing.  And yet, with no new characters appearing on the poorly named (and oft made fun of title) Cougar Town, I find that perfectly fine.  Besides, it would take someone of incredible fortitude to keep up with the lovable lushes of that show.
Join me tomorrow (hopefully), as I wax poetically about Survivor, Archer and The Mentalist (amongst others)