Sunday, May 25, 2008

Soooo much better than the 10th grade

In the 10th grade, I was a slacker. I displayed a lot of the usual 16-year-old tendencies, one being disrespect for authority. My 10th grade English teacher really helped me on that front.

For some unknown reason, she set up her classroom with our desks in groups of four. Each of the desks faced each other with the top edges touching. I think she was attempting a "group participation" strategy, but all she really did was give us an excellent way to pass notes and giggle and flirt with each other.

One of the books we had to read that year was Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. He's now one of my favorite authors, but at the time it was another piece of crap that I didn't want to read. Most likely I skimmed it, and caught up on the rest just before a quiz by passing aforementioned notes to the others in my "group" saying, "What happened after blah blah blah...?"

I remember the day we had to watch the movie. The original, made in 1971, was horrible. I remember laughing - this was the epitome of the "B" movie. Unknown actors, bad special effects, crappy acting. There was a scene with brief nudity - our teacher stood in front of the "TV-on-a-cart" and held a file folder over a portion of the screen.

In retrospect the story was still good. A satellite crashes from outer space and brings with it an alien micro-organism that begins to kill everyone it touches by instantly coagulating their blood. All of it. Turned to sludge. Biggest problem? The organism continues to mutate, keeping scientists from being able to stop it.

Guess what? A&E is remaking it. And, meee-yowww, starring Benjamin Bratt, Eric McCormack and Ricky Schroder. It premiers on Memorial Day, 9/8c.

You'd better believe my DVR is catching that one for me!

2 comments:

Benjing-Benjing said...

Thanks for the heads-up. I liked the book better than the movie.

Mama Smurf said...

OK....I'm still stuck on the fact that you actually remember what books you had to read in 10th grade! Are you KIDDING me!?? I can't even remember the title of the book I read yesterday! Damn girl!