Empire Mags Best Movie LIST &Spike theme songs for each Season of Buffy/Angel featuring Spike.

1. Empire Magazine's 500 Greatest Films of All Time - is a fun little quiz to take - check to see how many you've seen. I've 370 of them or 75%. I also don't agree with a lot of the choices on the list.

Honestly, as much as I enjoyed the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, the only ones that belong on that list are Star Wars - New Hope, Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Arc, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. All the others? Not so much. And seriously, "The Transformers" , "Grease", "Superman Returns" and "Batman Returns"??

Also where are "Peggy Sue Got Married", "Body Heat", "Beckett", "A Lion in Winter", "Guys and Dolls",
"West Side Story" (yes, Grease made the list but not West Side Story), The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Red River (which is actually a better film than The Searchers), Strangers on a Train, Shadow of a Doubt, and they ranked Howls Moving Castle above Spirited Away???

2.) Hmmm, was reading londonkds's posts on songs that fits Buffy villains, and he chose a rather good one for Spike S2 -Till the Following Night" (properly titled "Big Black Coffin", until the record label objected) by Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. .

So I was thinking, in regards to Spike, who seemed to become a different character for each season of the series, what songs would fit him for each season?

* S2 - Till the Following Night by Such and The Savages is perfect. (or I can't come up with a better choice.)

* S3? (Lover's Walk) -- I'm thinking a ragged breakup song -- going with Billy Idol's White Wedding.

( Vid of Spike with White Wedding )

S4 Buffy and S1 Angel? Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol

( Spike Dancing with Himself - S4 )

S5? The Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated

S6? Two possibilities:

* Florence and the Machine's "A Kiss with a Fist"

( video of Buffy/Spike with the song for S6 - a Kiss with a Fist )

or

* Bad Romance by Lady Gaga -- but sung by someone else.
( Spike Buffy vid with an interesting rendition of Bad Romance )

Personally, I'm swinging towards Kiss with a Fist.

S7? - Pavlov's Bell by Aimee Mann

Pavlov's Bell

Angel S5? -- My Way by the Sex Pistols

( see vid )

or maybe...

Carry on My Wayward Son by Kansas

What do you think?

(no subject)

1. Lynn Shepard's article on Huffington Post on how JK Rowling shouldn't write any longer so that writers like herself can get half-a-chance - is just weird. I can't quite decide if she is being satirical or serious?

It's hard to do satire well on the internet, mainly because a lot of people write the same thing and ahem, mean it.

So unless you know the writer, you've no idea if they are being sarcastic. I've noticed my dry wit or sardonic wit flies over folks head on the internet. I sort of need a sarcasm icon.

Here's an excerpt:

When I told a friend the title of this piece she looked at me in horror and said, "You can't say that, everyone will just put it down to sour grapes!" And she does, of course, have a point. No struggling but relatively ambitious writer can possibly be anything other than envious. You'd be scarcely human otherwise. But this particular piece isn't about that.

I didn't much mind Rowling when she was Pottering about. I've never read a word (or seen a minute) so I can't comment on whether the books were good, bad or indifferent. I did think it a shame that adults were reading them (rather than just reading them to their children, which is another thing altogether), mainly because there's so many other books out there that are surely more stimulating for grown-up minds. But, then again, any reading is better than no reading, right? But The Casual Vacancy changed all that.

It wasn't just that the hype was drearily excessive, or that (by all accounts) the novel was no masterpiece and yet sold by the hundredweight, it was the way it crowded out everything else, however good, however worthwhile. That book sucked the oxygen from the entire publishing and reading atmosphere. And I chose that analogy quite deliberately, because I think that sort of monopoly can make it next to impossible for anything else to survive, let alone thrive. Publishing a book is hard enough at the best of times, especially in an industry already far too fixated with Big Names and Sure Things, but what can an ordinary author do, up against such a Golgomath?

I hope she's being satirical or sarcastic here, because if she's being serious? She should hang up the towel and not be a writer. I was told long ago by my creative writing Professor, James Yaffe that if I wanted to be the next Stephen King, or make a lot of money or be famous? To not be a writer. But if I had something to say, and the drive to say it - and the need to write - to write.

Also, this does not appear to be the smartest way of obtaining readers. If anything I think she may have alienated many potential readers. She alienated me.

You have to be careful as an artist - you are promoting your work constantly. If you put negative vibes out there - you risk alienating people who may have loved your work, but won't try it - because you put your foot in your mouth and pissed them off royally.

2. Yet another 100 Best Novel List - this round by someone that I've never heard of, named Robert McCrum.

He discusses it here:

I don't know, these lists tell me more about the one creating them then anything else. I don't really believe in best lists for novels, music, art, or film - mainly because it's subjective. And if people are honest with themselves, it most likely will change based on their mood and where they are in their lives. There's no way to objectively critique art - outside of technique, even that can be subjective. Some folks love slang, some hate it. Some love minimalist, some prefer adorned text. Some prefer plots, some character driven. Some people like really dark stories with anti-hero characters.
From the list below? I'm thinking this guy likes adorned text, formal, and male leads. Also adorned, or verbose. He's not into minimalism.

I certainly can't create my own best list - I've tried. I can't rank them. I've no idea what my favorite books are or which ones are the best. There's some I adored in my 20s that I'd hate now, and vice versa.

I've read a smattering of the books on the list. Some, I've never heard of. The list also slants towards 19th and 18th Century literature - which I'm not overly fond of, basically the books you are forced to read as an English Lit major because people have decided they are amazing and the best things ever published. And you wade through the thing, analyze it, and convince yourself that yes, this is the best thing ever. And feel so proud for reading it. Now, over 20 years later? I find it all rather silly. My favorite courses in English Lit - were the contemporary literary courses, including one in which we read science fiction. My least favorite were the 18th Century novel.

At any rate - he picks Emma over Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. I'd have picked P&P, there's more going on. Emma is rather limited in characterization. Also the hero is boring.