Update

Went to the fertility clinic. The latest blood test showed almost no change in the progesterone levels, which pretty much confirmed what we already knew. Tracy took the shot to flush the embryos, just to be certain they wouldn't get stuck in her tubes and burst them. She's still down, but nothing like she was the day we got the news. The doctor says we still have a fair chance with the frozen embryos, since medically speaking what happened was just luck of the draw, not a harbinger of a signifigant medical condition.

Otherwise we're doing okay. It helps that Tom has been a very good boy the past few days. Maybe he understands that we've both been feeling rather down.


In other news, I think my catch phrase for this holiday season is going to be, "Hey, b*tch! Where the fragg is my tail?!" :)

Okay, what shoudl I be working on?

A) Continue "A Slight Detour", and getting praise from my four person fanbase.

B) Write more scripts for "Damsels and Dragons", and continue to bury Peta in data.

C) Torture archangels in "Sinking", and disturb one or two people on the INL

D) Revising "Unforseen Consequences", and make Peta happy with elf/beast-kin action.

New Doctor Who trailer - WAAAGHH!

There's finally a teaser trailer for the new Doctor Series up at the BBC's website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/

And I can't SEE IT, because my machine at work DOESN'T HAVE BLOODY REALPLAYER!!!!

Wah!

Review: The Triplets of Belleville

Genre: Animated Thriller
Origin: French-Canadian

This movie is Grotesque.

That isn't to say it's a bad movie, or nessasarily horrifying (though there are plenty of squickable moments), it's just that the characters in it, all human (save for one fat dog) are extreme charicatures, and could probably appear as background aliens in Lilo & Stitch if you just changed their skin color.

Anyway the basic plot, such as it is, concerns the efforts of a club footed mother trying to rescue her son, a champion Tour-de-France bicyclist, who has been kidnapped by the French Mafia. With only her faithful (and fat) pooch, and a set of elderly female jazz singers at her side, will she be able to effect a rescue in time?

That simple summary doesn't cover the bizzarro esthetic of Triplets. Like jazz, there's a certain whimsical, improvisiation to the mother's efforts, which run headlong against the Mafia's careful, controlled plans. The film follows a relatively straight line narratively, but it indulges itself in diversions along the way that make the whole.

Champion, the bicyclist, is a sort of uber-bike rider that would probably make Lance Armstrong switch to a tricycle. He looks like a humanized Greyhound dog, and has basically no existence beyond a driving need to make his pedals rotate (his fellow kidnapped cyclists are even worse, their tongues hanging out and panting like dogs that are stuck out in the sun during the summer).

The titular Triplets are introduced in a wierd little homage to the old black & white Merrie Melodies, singing on stage while a topless Josephine Baker look alike dances, followed by Fred Astaire who tap dances so well his shoes come to life and eat his legs. There's a five minute sequence that involves nothing but the dog, Bruno, laboriously climbing up the stairs of the house he lives in so he can bark madly at a passing train, then climbing back down. The Mafia goons are so uttterly angular that when that when stand together they look the Monolith from 2001 with heads and legs (and very big guns).

There just a so much wierd stuff in the film it's hard to describe, and you just have to roll with it. Bits of the movie I could have done without (when the Triplets rescue the mother and take her to their apartment, the phrase "sh*thole" should be taken literally), but overall it draws you with just the sheer joyous detail of the animation. It's not for everyone, it's not something you want to see for the snappy dialog (the film is nearly silent, save for sound effects and music), but it is worth checking out at least.