I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but I have an Author Spotlight up on Fantasy Magazine. There are a couple of “Light on the Water”-related questions, and then some questions that get right to the point:

What childhood stories scared you the most?

One of the early volumes of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has a story about a girl who wakes up one morning to find that spiders are hatching out of her face. It is not the kind of story anyone should bring to Show and Tell and read to an eight-year-old arachnophobe.*

Read the rest over at Fantasy Magazine!

* Dear author of this story, if you are reading this: That messed me up FOREVER. THANKS A LOT.

Disclaimer: I don’t care about Valentine’s Day except that it gives me a chance to make a list post. I am the Switzerland of Valentine’s day. (Unless people ask me if I’m excited for my “name day,” and then I sigh, because seriously, that joke was old in fourth grade, it’s old now.)

- Michael Fassbender. You inexplicably turn me all caps, big guy. Can’t wait to see you in your disastrous Wuthering Heights next year.

- Star Fleet wallets. I am the bird! (God, did I ever leave the house as an adolescent? Don’t answer that.)

- Family and friends. Dear Mom, I love you so much. Sorry I’m not changing my name. Apologize to Grandma for me.

- Fassbender, my portable computer. It allows me to be rude in public whenever I want.

- My TV. It took away the dialogue track for this week’s Eleventh Hour. It was amazing. Graeme Revell, one of my favorite composers, gave me a little concert, and I got to see the worst arch-enemy arc in recent memory. See for yourself at Tor.com!

ETA: And I never have to watch another episode of Dollhouse now that I turned in my opinion piece to Fantasy, which makes this day practically Thanksgiving!

…especially when the chick is out of his league.

Great lines from questionable movies, first in an ongoing and doubtless sporadic series:

“My name is Ethan. I was first in my class at Princeton, I have an IQ of 187…and it’s been suggested that Steven Hawking stole his “Brief History of Time”…from my fourth grade paper.” – Legally Blonde

This moment brought to you by the dude at the table next to me tonight.

P.S. Dude? She’s not going to call you. I know she said she would. She lied.

(Those ellipses are dramatic pauses, not excises. That actor was a genius.)

This week I am in love with Not Bakula and enjoying the endorphins from discovering something new and amazing. I can’t even bring myself to be snarky about a movie this week; I’m filled with that much love. Today, I am 85% love. (And 15% dorkosity.)

So this week in Questionable Taste Theatre, I present SOAPDISH. Soapdish is more or less the soundtrack to my life; not one day goes by wherein I can’t quote this movie. Having a family of performers, way more theatre experience than is healthy, and a work history that includes working next to soap-opera writers convinced me that this movie, while it may seem to be a comedy, is in fact exactly like life.

Nutshell: There’s a soap opera, which is hilariously bad. Everyone involved? Hilariously bad. Dialogue? Best ever.

Join us for some of my favorite quotes from this movie, partly because the plot defies description, so I won’t bother, and partly because, no joke, some of the funniest lines I’ve ever heard.

(I like the word Peppy, and the word Cheap. Peppy and Cheap.)

[an audition]

Betsy Faye Sharon: Very, very good, Mark. And very true. I love what you’re doing. I just, I think if we could try it one more time, and this time… I don’t know… maybe try one without your shirt.
Mark: Sure.
[Removes it and reviews the script]
Mark: “Will you be having wine with dinner?”
Betsy Faye Sharon: …I think we’ve found our waiter.

*

[Studio head Edwards lays down the law.]

Edwards: I would like to voice my strong concern about this show’s spiraling decline in ratings. David, ever since you took us to the Caribbean, it’s been Jamaica homeless people sucking soup, and a big wave outside that cost a hundred thousand dollars. That’s depressing and it’s expensive, two words I hate. You know the words I like? I like the word “peppy” and the word “cheap”. Peppy and cheap.

*

[Lori Craven, Celeste's "niece", tries to get her start.]

Lori Craven: Hi. Uh, I’m Lori Craven and… I’m an actress.
Betsy Faye Sharon: An actress! Really! How nice for you! I’m Betsy Faye Sharon and I’m a bitch. Now get out of here.

*

[On bringing back Celeste's ex, Jeffrey Anderson]

David Barnes: I was under orders.
Celeste Talbert: So – was – Hitler! Oh, no, I don’t mean Hitler, I mean the other guy, the other one.
David Barnes: Himmler.
Celeste Talbert: No, no, no.
David Barnes: Hess.
Rose Schwartz: Eichmann.
David Barnes: Eichmann.

*

[If you have ever seen a soap opera, you've heard these lines.]

Ariel Maloney: Why, Bolt! I didn’t realize you were here.
Bolt: Well… I am.

*

[Montana and David share a tender moment.]

Montana Moorehead: YOU – promised me you would get rid of Celeste. WE WERE BOTH NAKED AND YOU PROMISED! NAKED!
David Barnes: Hey! We were never naked.
Montana Moorehead: Well, we could have been!

*

[Lori has found out she's Celeste's daughter.]

Celeste Talbert: I never said I was the best mother in the world. Give me a little credit, will you, credit for being someone who tried… to love you the only way she knew how?
Lori Craven: I know that speech.
Celeste Talbert: You do?
Lori Craven: Yeah, it was the, uh, the Thanksgiving show, when Maggie meets Bolt’s blind nephew.

*

[Their live episode goes all to shit.]

Mr. Edwards: There’s a nurse in the restuarant…did I miss a meeting?

*

[Best movie conversation ever. No joke.]

[Reading unrehearsed lines off the TelePrompTer]
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Dr. Randall, what a surprise! Are you having lunch here?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] I will if it’s that sample. Huh… I wish it was that simple.
Edmund Edwards: [offstage] This guy never heard of contact lenses?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] The test results have come back.
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] And?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] And I’m afraid the results are very disturbing. It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid…
[pause]
Jeffrey Anderson: Bran… fluid. Bran flavor.
Burton White: What the hell?
David Barnes: [offstage] Brain fever!
Edmund Edwards: [offstage, loudly] Say it!
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Brain fever!
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Yes. Brain fever. Or what we call in Austria…
[they both goggle at the word]
Jeffrey Anderson: Kopfgeschlagen. At the current rate of inflation, her brain will laterally explore the…
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Literally explode?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Exactly, within the next three houses.
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Hours?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Yes, will literally explode within next three hours. I would suggest leaving the restraint.
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Restaurant?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Restaurant, yes.
Celeste Talbert: [as Maggie] Her brain will actually explode?
Jeffrey Anderson: [as Dr. Randall] Yes, yes, I’ve, um, seen it happen. It’s a dreadful, dreadful thug. Thing.

I dare you to find a situation in which the suggestion “Peppy and cheap” is not useful. You can’t! There isn’t one!

Say what you will about the enduring artistic merits of this movie, there has not been a movie before or since with dialogue like this. I love you, movie.

Never has Emma Thompson’s judgemental glare been so painful to me.

Yes, it’s Her Alibi. The movie with a 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. FIFTEEN PERCENT.

Sure, the majority of it is a stinkfest, but there is not a day that goes by without at least one line from this movie being directly relevant to my own life.

(From a scene where a reluctant Phil goes to a book launch for his British writer-nemesis.)

Nemesis: so what are you working on these days? I love that character of yours, that Peter…Swine?
Phil: Swift.
Nemesis: Of course!…he’s so populist.

Plot: Mystery writer Phil Blackwood has writer’s block. His career is threatened until he runs across the beautiful Nina, who’s accused of murder. Because she’s hot he becomes her alibi, and as his career heats up with his fictionalized account of Nina’s mystery, his life is threatened. Repeatedly. Once he gets an arrow in the ass. This is not Oscar Wilde, what can I say.

Does it suck?: It was 1989. Of course it sucks. Like, “the house blows up and five minutes later not only is it fully rebuilt but the computer still has the novel draft on it” sucks.

AND YET: every time I watch it, I laugh. Not the arrow-in-the-ass part, or the “America is much nicer than Romania!” bullshit that pervades the movie for no good reason. The (only) funny parts of this movie are the mocking-writing bits, such as when his novel excerpts are VOed over the actual situation.

If these moments have never happened to you, then YOU SHOULD WORK HARDER.

Scene: At a lawn party, Phil’s nephew gets stuck on top of a barn. Nina nimbly climbs up a rope, swings onto the roof, walks the ridgepole to the kid, guides him to safety via some jungle-gyming, and swings back into the barn. Phil stands and watches, baffled.

From-memory (probalby not exact) excerpt of VO: “Bracing himself against the punishing Alpine winds, Swift edged along the roof towards the terrified child…the desperate screams of the assembled women rose like prayers from far below.”

Seriously, someone just loved mocking the crap out of writers. List of novel titles as seen in the opening credits:

Guns I’ve Loved (cover image: a tree on a hill)
Death of a Critic (cover image: a desk and typewriter)
Death Came Formal (cover image: woman in a red dress)
Looks Like Curtains (cover image: Sam Spade at the opera)
The Dying Position (cover image: cheerleader standing atop a football helmet)
Bullets Never Forget (cover image: zoo elephant)
Computer Virus (cover image: Atari with ASCII naked-woman)
The Dying Habit (cover image: stained-glass nun window)
One Down and Two Dying (cover image: crossword with a dagger in it)
Sayonara, Cyanide (cover image: geisha standing atop a skull)

It also contains the line, “Nah, the woods will be full of Romanian virgins swapping recipes.” Which, COME ON.

In fact, random Friday challenge: write the back-cover copy for any of those books! You know you want to.