A New Year, Terminator, and Riddick

We're waiting for the VaTech game to start (who cares who they're playing, it's Virginia Tech!), and Terminator, the first flick, came on. We're glued to it for the thousandth time, no kidding. Everything about it has aged well, from the cyborg's metal skeleton to Linda Hamilton's messy/funky permed hair. Her jeans, however, remind me of the eighties when we all wore our waistbands high and felt fat, no matter how skinny we were. (And I was never skinny, LOL.) I still think it's a little weird that John Connor knows his father's identity and sends him back so he can be conceived. I mean, this whole deal where your father is younger than you and you send him back in time to be a sperm donor is totally sick. But who cares, it's the cyborg and Kyle Reese's story until the last fifteen minutes when Sarah Connor kicks in as an alpha female.

Speaking of alpha females, the women in The Chronicles of Riddick, the first one, kick some serious butt. In many ways, Sarah Connor is their cinematic mother. None of this passive "waiting" for what comes next, like the heroine of The Time Traveler's Wife. (I don't get why the book and flick were so popular. Can anyone explain it to me? The whole dangling-for-love shtick is such a drag.) Get on with your life, for heaven's sake.

Time for the game! Will think about alpha female heroines later.