Dear Jennifer Garner
by Muffin Syndrome on Aug.13, 2010, under Others
As a long time fan and a person who pretty much memorized every episode of Alias, I find myself these days questioning your current decisions. Remember Alias? Quite possible one of the best shows of all time? Not only was Sydney Bristow a badass, but she was a relatively real person who had daddy issues, loved a married man at some point (season 3 ring a bell?), and had babies.
RIP Sydney Bristow you have been replaced by Sarah Palin
Why oh why are you making a movie about butter? What did we do to deserve this? butter??? really?? Whatsup with the Stepford wife getup in the movie?? WHO ARE YOU?!
Jennifer Garner: Stepford Wife?
Not to be misunderstood, I love me the chick flicks. Heck I even liked Valentine’s Day (If asked publicly I will deny this). But give us some variety, lady! As I look at your IMDB pade I am horrified by whats to come:
- Arthur (romantic comedy)
- Christmas in Connecticut?
- 3 days in Europe?
I am deeply concerned. Keep the chick clicks coming but at least throw us a bone every now and then. Call JJ up I’m sure he’ll write a movie with substance for all of us.
Come back Sydney, we miss you
The Muffin
Screw reviews!
by Muffin Syndrome on Jul.20, 2010, under Others
Yes. I said it. Screw reviews. From now on I’m just going to write whatever comes to mind so brace yourself. Shits gonna hit the fan.
I’m packin’ my bags and movin’ to Happy Town
by Muffin Syndrome on May.11, 2010, under TV Shows
ABC's Happy Town
As the title might indicate I wanna move to Happy Town. Why you ask? You didn’t ask? It doesn’t matter, I’m going to tell you anyway you bastard because I like to impose my opinions on others if you didn’t get that from the purpose of this entire blog. My reviews are generally awesome though so its ok. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Happy Town.
I’ve been hearing a lot about Happy Town being the new Lost. Being one of those people who believe that Lost is “teh-gr8est-sho-EVAARRR” and nothing could ever surpass or even come close to its majestic glory I was understandably skeptic. I can honestly say that Happy Town is no Lost. Its completely fantabulous and I love it, but its a different kind of majestic glory.
Look! Purdy picture!!( Read on below)
Cast of ABC's Happy Town
If Lost was a ukulele, Happy Town would… also… be a ukulele of different.. umm… shape? Yes, shape. I’m going to stop being random and awkward now, I know you appreciate it.
Why Happy Town is so cool-like:
1) M.C Gainey and Amy Acker: Lost Alum Mr. Gainey and Whedonverse’s loveable Fred/Whiskey. ‘Nuff said.
2) Murder, mystery, intrigue! This show does mystery well, its been 2 episodes and we know who Friddle’s murderer is. They are not stringing us along for the ride.
3) We may know who it is, and TC may know who it is but that right now doesn’t really matter. The moral dilemma of turning in your best friend is captivating. Honestly its more captivating than a who-dunnit.
4) The music! YES!! I love shows that have recurring themes and use music as one of their tools, on their shiny tv writing tool belt. Especially if the song, is played at key moments foreshadowing something or just being plain old creepy.
5) who the damn hell is Chloe? Why the hell did the Sheriff chop his hand off? Why didn’t TC pick up his dad’s ring (not that important)? And what the hell is up with that bird?
Yes I am watching next week’s episode and I will update once that is through. I hope Happy Town producers have cracked the code of having a long running mystery show that does not get canceled due to the overwhelming idiocy of people who can’t keep up. So far, 2 thumbs up Happy Town people, and remember I’m watching you! dun dun DUN!!!
The Magic Man
Muffin Syndrome
The Guild! Huzzah!!
by Muffin Syndrome on Apr.07, 2010, under Books, On the Web
The Guild
Y’alls know I’m a Joss Whedon fan, and if you’re one too you’ll probably recognize Felicia Day. Her Nerdiness, is geek royalty having appeared in Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog and has for a while now starred and written her own web series “The Guild”.
The Guild follows the life of gamer Cyd (Codex), and her guildies; Tink, Clara, Vork and Bladezzz’s awkward real life adventures. Inspired by Day’s experiences , this web series inspired me to go on and start playing MMOs. The show which ended its third season not too long ago, and will hopefully be starting season 4 in the summer is ridiculously hilarious. You don’t have to be a gamer to get the humor that goes into this. The show is well written, and exudes hilarious awkwardness through its main characters.
This is a must see, award winning series and it won’t take you that long to watch! I spent many a nights minimizing blank word documents to watch Zaboo hit on Codex, Clara ignore her kids and Vork eat something strange. And now it is in comic book form! Yay!!
The Guild Comic #1
The comic book is actually a 3-issue prequel with events that lead up to Cyd finding the world of MMOs and meeting the guildies we know and love. Reading the comic, feels like watching the series, Day’s sense of humor bleeds through any medium and Jim Rugg’s artwork is like skittles for your eyes.
Watch and read The Guild, I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Now I’m off to play World of Warcraft, damn you Felicia Day for giving me something else to waste my time on! Ooh loot!
Muffin Syndrome
(Insert Witty Lost Related Title Here)
by Muffin Syndrome on Apr.07, 2010, under Lost, TV Shows
Desmond "Happily Ever After"
So I haven’t posted reviews for the past couple of episodes because I thought it would be better to bunch a few together every time. It saves me time… and words. So reviews for the last 3 episodes: Ab Aeterno, The Package and Happily Ever After: Awesome, Meh, Awesome. Which seems to be the trend this season, but by the looks of the promo for next episode it looks like the pattern may be broken!
For “Ab Aeterno”, I was really glad to see that we finally got Richard’s backstory, which happened to coincide with the Black Rock’s, two things we’ve been waiting for, for as long as I can remember. I loved the fact that most of the episode was in Spanish, because it made it more of a mystery, something this season’s Lost seems to be struggling with. All in all, although some things were a little off in this episode (How in the hell is a small wooden ship capable of destroying a large stone statue and not sustain any damage?) it was still pretty damn good.
The “Package” was another story. It was alright, I loved the references to previous seasons (Sun hitting her head while running for her life, then getting examined by Jack in a tent? Season 2 anyone?) It was just ok because nothing really happened, the story was not advanced in any way and the sideways didn’t really shock or do anything for me for that matter.
As for “Happily Ever After” on the other hand, it made sense and it followed the “type” or quality that us losties are used to. Any Desmond fangirls in the audience? I’ll pretend I can hear you “Squee!” and move on. The best Lost episodes are Des centric. “The Constant” is my all time favorite. I loved all the cameos in this episode, we saw Faraday, Eloise, Claire, Charie, Penny, Jack (yuck), and Minkowski all in one episode! There were also references to other important scenes in the Lostverse, McCutcheon for example, Charlotte eating a chocolate bar, and Widmore’s painting of a balance in his office. Its all really good stuff.
Keep watching Lost folks, we’re past the point of no return. Only a handful of episodes left, will they kick ass or fail harder than Sawyer trying to open that Halliburton with a rock? Stay tuned.
Muffin
Alice in Wonderland, trippy as fuck
by Muffin Syndrome on Apr.06, 2010, under Movies
Alice in Wonderland
To the one of you whose reading this and wondering why I’m putting this review up to so late, all I have to say is that I’m sorry I totally I forgot. I saw this movie the day it came out, in the fabulous technology we have come to know and love and thusly dub 3d, and as the title suggests I thought it was trippy as fuck. Good trippy, like any Tim Burton movie should be!
I love me some Tim Burton and I love it spectacularly more when it includes Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in ridunkuluos get-ups. The movie was great. It was funny, the visuals were 3d-tastic and for a story that goes beyond the original world of Alice it was pretty believable and followed the original material well.
I loved the visuals, they were all perfect and the Tim Burton appeal to it made it feel more like Alice than it ever did. I always thought that story was meant to be read while on some sort of recreational drug, and if you see this movie it will feel like you are. I found myself thinking the entire time, “how did they do that?” How in the hell did they film this movie? Actually I don’t want to know, it will ruin the story. I know from experience. I saw the “Behind the Scenes” of Avatar,DON’T DO IT! It takes away the movie magic.
To sum up, I’m giving this movie 3 thumbs up (I’m holding my foot up).Can a big toe be considered a thumb too? Nevermind, I’ll borrow someone else’s hand.
Alice in Wonderland, all the tripping without the harmful effects of drug use. Enjoy.
The Muffin
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
by Muffin Syndrome on Apr.05, 2010, under Movies
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
I saw this promo and thought “that looks funny as hell! I want to watch that!”. Then I saw it and thought ” godammit, why aren’t I English?”. This movie is like 10 Things I Hate About You meets Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist in the way that it combines mainstream tween romance stories with a tiny dose of reality and a whole lot of quirkiness.
Aaron Johnson (Robbie) + Georgia Groome (Georgie)
The movie based off a series of books follows the oddball romantic mishaps of Georgia and her “Ace Gang” group of friends. Their adventures are endearing, and the accents make it all the much better.
It was an o.k. movie and not much beyond that. It was cute, but not a teen phenomenon and nothing so captivating that we are bound to rewatch over and over again until the day we die. Basically it wasn’t a Princess Diaries or What a Girl Wants. None of those girl night classics.
It was fun nonetheless, and I would recommend it to anyone dying for a girl movie that is not about sparkly stalkers.
A few notes:
- I feel like a cradle robber but the boys in this movie were damn hot
- The music and scenery were great, made me want to go back and visit the U.K. again.
-The movie lacked reality, I know it was going for the cutesie coming of age teen drama love story but I’ve seen kids Georgia’s age in the U.K., in small towns and that is NOT how they act. Their portrayal was very tame. I saw kids her age with babies, and read reports about kids that age knifing each other out of boredom. I really don’t need the nitty gritty, after all this is a PG-13 film, but don’t lie to us Nickelodeon… we know the truth.
Peace Out
Muffin Syndrome
The First 8 Episodes of Season 6 of LOST
by Muffin Syndrome on Mar.17, 2010, under Lost, TV Shows
WERE CRAP!! You would think that a show in its final season, a show that has supposedly been planned out all this time would actually know how to end well. But no, they keep throwing all this crap at the fans thinking that we still fall for the same shit we used to. And with 8 episodes until the finale, they better step this show up, sure they don’t care about ratings anymore since they are in the clear, but don’t they even care about the fans who have been watching intently screencapping every 5 goddamm milli-seconds to catch little easter eggs for SIX years??
I used to be proud to say that I am one of those people, but I’m not anymore. Season 6 does not provide any kind of room for the fans to work with. They won’t be answering everything, according to Team Darlton and thats fine with me. But it seems that the questions that they are willing to answer are “character-based” questions, no not “what is Libby’s backstory”, they mean the annoying outlived-its-necessity, love tetrahedron.
" I'm romatically indecisive, more bubbly?"
Everyone knows that I love me some Sawyer. Hell shirtless Sawyer is even better! Sawyer in bed AND shirtless?? It must be Christmas!! But its not. We were the only people conned in this episode. We were conned into thinking that this episode will be worth watching. The flash-sideways timeline was like watching an episode from an 80’s cop show drama, with the sexy lead character, emotionally distant working on the horrors of his past, and his funny yet loveable sidekick who keeps him sane. This is Miami Vice not LOST! Get your shows straight!
Sure we got some useful bits and pieces of information, and an actually OK episode last week (definitely an Emmy worthy performance from Michael Emerson). We saw dead characters, resolved some issues, killed a few dozen others. Yet it doesn’t feel like anything has happened yet, like all those previous episodes were filler.
Its probably because nothing has happened yet. The flashsideways timeline seems irrelevant, eventhough it should be intrinsic to the storyline. It seems just like a “what if” scenario that just has our characters bumping into each other and on occasion sleeping with each other. Where is the connection? How does LA-X tie in to the actual story? And our original timeline is just as boring, teams have been called but thats basically all thats happened.
Every week goes by and I care less and less about this once amazing show. Can Lost regain its glory once again?
The producers have finally listened to the fans and are doing a Richard episode next week. I’m thrilled and hyped up for it. Hopefully it will be the beginning of a great string of episodes to make up for the past half season and conclude the greatest TV show ever.
Watch “Ab Aeterno” next Tuesday on ABC, hopefully it won’t suck.
Great things about 6×08:
- Rebecca Mader’s return as the sexy Charlotte Lewis, her appearance was probably the only reason I tolerated this episode. That and the shirtless Sawyer thing
- The cameo appearance by Liam Pace looking for his bro at the police station.
- Sawyer’s books are referenced again especially Watership Down, and Little House on the Prairie.
Muffin Syndrome
Time-off
by Muffin Syndrome on Mar.17, 2010, under Others
Hey there one-person-who-is-reading-this-because-they-got-to-this-webpage-accidentaly! Welcome to MuffinSyndrome.com!
As you might have noticed, or not, I’ve been off for a couple of weeks. Sorry about that folks, Lost has just bummed me out so very badly that I really couldn’t handle talking about it for extended periods of time. Anyway, Lets get on with the reviewing!
Muffin Syndrome
Flashing Sideways, the final season of LOST
by Muffin Syndrome on Feb.09, 2010, under Others
WARNING: SPOILERS AND THEORIES AHEAD!
Lost: Season 6
mmmmmm… Sawyer…. I mean, oh, sad… She’s dead
I know this review is a little behind, since the premiere aired almost a week ago, but Lost is timeless. Pun intended. Moving on:
We were all stunned when Lost first aired at its narrative style, something no one was able to manipulate this well before on TV; the use of “Flashbacks”. We were slapped in the face, a couple of seasons ago when they started using “Flashforwards” as a game changer showing us glimpses of the future of our characters. In all honesty I never saw “flashforwards” coming, as a huge Lost fan, I was as jolted as anyone when Jack whimpily yelled out his famous line ” WE HAVE TO GO BACK, KATE!!” (probably because I was focusing my energy into trying to manipulate a car to hit jack in the face, if you can’t tell yet, I hate Jack). And again, in all honesty I was flabbergasted by “Flashing-sideways”. Flashing sideways, a term coined by my friend Rob G., refers to the narrative style of jumping between two timelines.
It sounds like someone should have seen this coming. I mean it makes sense, flashbacks, flashforwads, what other direction do we have but sideways?? Maybe someone did predict this, it sure as hell wasn’t me.
On to the actual episodes:
I’ve spoken to a lot of people, mainly hardcore Lost fans (my comrades who spend most of their waking hours looking at freeze frames of every frame of every scene) who generally approved of these episodes. Many gave it 10/10. They were surprised when I said that I did not agree.
I HATED these 2 episodes. Yes, hated. Almost as much as I hate Jack (I’m exaggerating, its physically impossible to hate something as much as Jack-a-douche). Where is Lost? (no pun intended) Where is the show I fell in love with? I approve of smoke monsters, temples, resurrections whatever. Just do them well!!
I really don’t think the writers understand how big of a hole they dug themselves into! The special effects are crap and look like something from a 1979 sci fi movie. The writers are trying to answer the questions they brought up but not without keeping a little bit of the mysetry they have going. Well heres a tip Darlton, its not working. The mystery you are giving us is crap. Its all too obvious and you are spoonfeeding your audience!! Let us figure some things out on our own!! Don’t pull a Fringe and tell us Peter is from the other dimension FIVE times, like we already didn’t know! Richard was a slave?? SHOCKER!!! Sayid lives?? FOREALSIES?! Cut the crap people, this fake drama doesn’t work, bring back actual emotional turmoil like back inseason one. please?
Right now, I am disappointed with the best TV show on earth. Hopefully tomorrow they will make up for it. The way its going now, I expect riots in the streets when its over. They will either end it as the best show ever, or the worst in history.
My predictions for the next episode/episodes:
-
Sawyer will attempt to kill Kate to spite Jack. I will cheer him on because I hate Kate too. I used to like her, but then all that Jack/Sawyer thing got too annoying. She needs something else to live for. I started liking her again after she comes back to the island for Claire and not Sawyer.
-
Juliet is still alive!! but only for like 10 seconds. She wakes up Sawyer digs her out they hug, plan another coffee date and then she dies, again. or does she?
-
I actually think that Sawyer and Juliet will end up on a coffee date in LA X (the alternate timeline) since thats what I think she was talking about when she was dying.
-
Someone will ask Jack if he has any gum. Jack breaks down in tears and tells this story of when someone asked him for gum as a kid and he didn’t have any. He swore from that day onward he would carry gum with him always. When they ask if they could have any, Jack picks an irrational fight that leaves him bloodied, sans gum and once again, in tears.
I’ll post the review for episode 3. Tomorrow night after it airs. I hope you enjoyed reading.
Muffin Syndrome
