I am screaming and punching myself

Giant Sucking Sound: Ensemble acting in "Bram Stoker's Dracula"

Get yer garlic out, it's Vampire Blog-a-Thon time! Nathaniel at The Film Experience will spend the day compiling blog entries on vampire films. Check TFE for updates and more posts as the day progresses. Here, I give you my thoughts on the wretched ensemble acting that is Bram Stoker's Dracula.

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My dad and I had a theory about how to tell whether bad behavior was due to an individual or an organization. We figured one jerk was a jerk, two jerks was a coincidence and three jerks was a policy. A similar parallel can be drawn for bad film performances. One bad performance is bad acting; two is bad casting; three or more is bad directing. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, just about every performance is bad to one degree or another, meaning it's a case of bad acting, casting and directing. Trifecta!

Oh, put it away, Gary.

7-7: Oh no she didn't!

Oh, of course she did. Tyra is nothing if not dependable in terms of dishing out drama, artificially heightened controversy and unnecessary angst. Given the opportunity to axe a critter on the very night that being cut would wound the critter the very most, Tyra almost couldn't help herself.

Of course, I figured Brooke wasn't long for the ANTM world. But I still figured Jaeda and Eugena would go before her. I mean, look at that photo. Eugena is physically on a (strangely drape-y) sofa with Fabio, but mentally, she's standing before a white board, listing her competitors in the order of how much she hates them. Right now, she's thinking, "CariDee? Or Anchal? Or...Melrose!"

Evil in the sun

It's come to this. I promised myself I'd hold out on blogging about the cats, but I'm absolutely out of ideas this week. Sure, there'll be tonight's episode of ANTM, and I might get into Top Chef enough to blog about it, but otherwise, there's precious little to write about. And one of the primary laws of the Internet is: When you don't have anything to say, post a cute critter picture.

Howzat?

Stupid baby shenanigans, part 2

Don't worry; it's not another faked baby or anything like that. In keeping with the celebrity in question, this is just kinda lame and silly. You know how you've been hearing that Britney Spears named her second son Sutton Pierce? Not true, as it turns out. According to a birth certificate posted by TMZ.com, the critter's name is Jayden James Federline.

Coming soon: My entry in the Vampire Blog-a-Thon

My friend Nathaniel has organized a Vampire Blog-a-Thon! Next Monday -- Devil's Night for you Detroit residents -- a host of bloggers will post their thoughts on vampire movies, and Nathaniel will round them up at his excellent blog The Film Experience. Mine will be called "Giant Sucking Sound: Ensemble Acting in Bram Stoker's Dracula." 'Cause, seriously, nobody acquits themselves in that thing.

7-6: What, they have to talk?

I guess it makes sense that the most model-esque contestant would be axed, considering that this week's episode had sweet F.A. to do with actual modeling. Instead, the critters were challenged to shmooze celebrities, impersonate celebrities and survive an encounter with quasi-celebrity Janice Dickinson.

Oh, and cross-dress, and wear the odd padded booty.

"...and by 'great,' we mean 'unwearable' "

I'm still a little confused about last night's crowning of Jeffrey as the third winner of Project Runway. On the one hand, his collection didn't make me shake my head the way Michael's did, and there were even a couple of pieces in there that I thought were OK. On the other hand, even the judges said that Uli's collection was something every woman could wear and would want to wear, and it showed a lot more range than I'd seen in her earlier designs. Plus, she didn't go over budget, nor did she have any pieces disqualified. So of course she doesn't win! I just don't get it.

2-11: South of the Border... of Sanity

Let me apologize for the recap being a day late. There were a couple of external factors (the late air time, my beast of a cold), but honestly, after watching this episode, I just felt drained. It was like the time I watched the "Farting Preacher" videos over and over all afternoon and laughed so hard for so long that I felt emotionally wiped out. However, the finale of Flavor of Love lacks the light-heartedness of Robert Tilton accompanied by an enthusiastic, well-timed whoopie cushion.

Not that a farting soundtrack wouldn't make moments like this a little easier to take.

7-5 The Leggo of Meggo

Yup, the writing was on the wall when Megg got lots of screen time early in the episode. Time for the raspy-voiced be-weaved one to rock and roll on outta there. And in typical ANTM fashion, just as she was booted out, I was starting to like her just a little bit.

Just not enough to overcome that photo.

You belong to COLLAGEN, trout-girl

Yeah, yeah, I'll blog about America's Next Top Whiner later today (sorry it's taken me so long to get around to it), but first, I have to share my head-scratching incomprehension over this null set of a video from my favorite Mensa member, Jessica Simpson: