Tuesday Has No Phones

Haunting in Connecticut? If you like that sort of thing then it'll be the sort of thing you like.

Though perhaps nobody could like it with a theater packed with high school kids who would not shut up. I think the only reason the manager (who roamed the aisles on a regular basis) didn't throw anyone out was because he'd have to kick out 90% of the audience.

Though the winner for best comment said near me would have to be the girl behind me with "What? Oh hi. Yeah I can't talk right now, I'm at the movies."

Though the best comment of the night would have to be at dinner, with our waiter:

Me: Can I get a brownie sundae?
Friend 1: Me too?
Friend 2: Can I just get the brownie? No sundae?
Waiter: No. We don't have brownies, just brownie sundaes. [walks off]
Me: ...does he maybe not know the recipe? Do you think we should tell him it's just like making a brownie sundae except you skip all the steps that call for getting ice cream anywhere near the brownie part?
Friend 1: I wonder what would happen if someone ordered a root bear float but only with the root beer? Would he insist it only comes in float form?
Waiter: [brings back 2 brownie sundaes]
Brownie sundaes: [are ice cream, with whipped cream and brownies]
Brownies: [are on TOP of the ice cream]
Me and Friend 1: [Take off half a brownie each and give it to our friend]
World: [goes on]

Back from Batman. ( Non-linear reactions under the cut. Also SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!! )

Lifetime's new show Army Wives hits so many of my fic kinks it is NOT EVEN FUNNY. Say hello to my new season pass.

Top Chef returns. After last season I would've written s3 off, but damn it Ted Allen is a judge now. NOT FAIR. Ah well, at least I have good online company to watch it with.

I've ordered a learn to spin kit, complete with drop spindle and a few ounces of wool to practice with. This is all byrne's fault.

And in case anyone was staying up late at night wondering about this: I am now a fan of Vitamin Water. Not that I'd drink it instead of regular water, but it does make a good substitue for those times you'd be drinking something worse, like soda. Though I'm told Diet Coke is going to be coming with added vitamins now. Much like hybrid SUVs I can't tell if this is brilliant or missing the point.

Semi-related, finally saw An Inconvienent Truth this weekend. My urge to slap our current president has never been stronger.

It's a Hat FM kind of day. I think I need a vacation. Sadly I am unable to take one right now as I'm hoarding my days off for things like when my brother comes to town and, if work on my car doesn't eat up all of my savings, going to visit cin1607 in the fall. Wah.

swmbo is eating muffins today. So you just know she's going to snag one with blueberries and her LDLs are going to go all out of whack and bingo, game over! Run swmbo! Run!!!

(I kid because I love.)

justhuman links to this article about Bend it Like Beckham which reveals that there was originally going to be a lesbian storyline which was dropped. I agree that it was a wise decision to drop it (you gotta pick your battles) though it does make me think yet again about how those of us who see the world with slash-colored glasses are considered crazy when really... not so much.

Not that it has to be a part of the text to count, but if nothing else it just goes to show that "Nuh-uh" really can't work as a defense against slash potiential simply because somebody doesn't want to see the characters as gay, or because the subtext never ever gets to count unless one of the characters is wearing a T-shirt that says "BTW I'm shagging this other character who's the same sex as I am" and on the back adds "And I'm not wearing this ironically."

Okay, final Serenity post. Herein is my review of Serenity. If you're looking for an EXTREMELY SPOILER FILLED RECAP of the movie you can go here. If you're looking for a spoiler free review you can go here.

This is now my detailed review of the movie - what works, what doesn't, etc. THERE ARE SEVERE, I AM NOT KIDDING, BIG-TIME SPOILERS TO BE FOUND HERE. I'm talking everything from plot points to camera angles. DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU WANT TO BE UNSPOILED!!!

( The review to be found here, which again has MANY MANY SPOILERS in it. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU'VE ALREADY SEEN THE MOVIE AND/OR DO NOT CARE ABOUT HAVING ABSOLUTELY ZERO SURPRISES LEFT WHEN YOU DO SEE THE FILM. )

Spoilery talk ends.... HERE.

All of which is to say that everything that went into this movie will, I think, have an impact on the audience. I think they will see this and realize this is something very special being put in front of them. It's definitely a movie I would have no problem whatsoever heavily pimping out to people, and you can expect me to do this as time goes on. I wasn't a huge fan of the show when it was on, but I'm also happy to admit when I'm wrong. This is going to sound very arrogant but I don't mean it to be: this has earned my fannishness. And I say it that way not because I'm proclaiming from on high that my attention must be earned, but because I want it to be clear that I'm not loving this movie because Joss made it, or I'm dying for any form of new Jossesque canon now that Angel's off the air, or anything like that. I did not come into this with a pre-hoped desire that this movie would amaze me. If it sucked I would have called it on sucking. This movie does not suck.

And now I get to catch up on LJ and all my deadlines for this weekend. I suppose somewhere in here I should also feed myself. ;)

Hi all! I got back home last night but was so tired I ended up snuggling with the cats while watching a rerun of Numb3rs and then going to bed. (Note to lucifrix it's not that the traffic was bad or anything so much as it was that I took my time and stopped a couple times along the way thanks to the lure of cheap gas and Carvel ice cream). I am now well-rested and ready to get back into the swing of things!

Thanks to all those who offered up Firefly icons. I was able to snag a few thanks to various suggested links, so 'tis most appreciated.

Now for the movie. I'm going to rip a page out of shellmidwife's book and do three Serenity posts: two with spoilers, one without. This is the one without any spoilers whatsoever so spoiler virgins may feel safe here.

The short version is: this is a good movie. I could get into the whys of why it's a good movie but I think that'll smack up into spoilers. So, strictly sticking to the generals, I can say there's good acting, good dialogue (there are the usual Joss Whedon quips and what have you, but it doesn't go over the top as he does from time to time), and a plot I think people can get behind even without knowing much about the show.

I think they made a good call not releasing it now, though, because if we're looking to get more than Joss and/or Firefly fans into the seats then releasing it anywhere near Star Wars would have killed it. I'm not saying it's just like Star Wars, I'm just saying that it's like it enough to a general populace (e.g. takes place in space, Han Soloesque captain, Alliance = Empire, etc.) that nobody would've gone to see Serenity who couldn't have plunked themselves down in a chair for Sith.

But the plus side is that I think a populace that is versed in Star Wars and especially in the stark contrast of why the early SW movies were classics while the later ones are embarassing, will look at Serenity and see that this is exciting stuff. It takes the known genre and approaches it from fresh angles that either harken back to things that made the early SW movies work or were things that you just don't see that often on movies or TV. In other words, everything that people would have noticed about the beauty of Firefly the TV show will be in evidence to them with Serenity and I think the audience is going to respond to that.

Now to give balance to this review I will say that the movie is not perfect. There are some things about it that could be better. However, coming from someone who is not a die-hard Browncoat (or at least wasn't before going into the theater) I can say that the flaws of the film are what keep it from being four stars under the Roger Ebert rating system but do not prevent it from earning three (three stars = if you like that type of movie, you should definitely see this film. four stars = you should absolutely see this film, regardless of whether or not you typically like that type of movie). It's not early Star Wars, it's not Schindler's List. What it could be, though, is the first Spiderman movie or maybe even the second. In other words, it's clearly a genre piece but it has enough uniqueness and energy to it that I could see it breaking out of that genre and becoming something that the population gets behind. The X-Men movies were popular but are not considered classics outside of anybody in fandom. Grab a random person on the street, though, and they'll agree that Spiderman 2 kicked all kinds of ass.

Plus the things that are weaknesses are also things that might be fixed by the time September rolls around. Again avoiding spoilers but it's stuff that could very easily be tidied up with editing, and since editing is part of post production then it's not out of the realm of possibility that these weak spots are only there now because they had to get something together for these advance screenings. So you can use that as your non-spoiled measuring stick as to whether or not the things I'm saying aren't good are very significant. Yes, they are weaknesses, but they aren't so weak that the only way they could be fixed is by completely redoing scenes.

As I said in my phone post, if you are a spoiler virgin you will want to remain a spoiler virgin. You probably already know this by now based on the first round of showings, but trust me when I say that pulling back from anywhere that's even remotely on the borderline of possibly having movie spoilers will be something you will be grateful for. I'm told that there's going to be more screenings before September rolls around and I suspect that as more people know what happens you're going to see more people not only forgetting to care about spoiler courtesy but flat-out abandoning it entirely.

However the flip side to that is that if you're a spoiler whore like me, you'll appreciate being spoiled on the way in. There's levels and foreshadowing that you'll appreciate all the more if you know what's going to happen. So if you're like me and like being spoiled so you can sit back and appreciate how the story's being told, you'll be able to enjoy that with Serenity. But again that is for utter spoiler whores like me. I would never suggest that somebody who is a spoiler virgin should spoil themselves, or that someone who's on the borderline should err on the side of being spoiled. Only those who absolutely positively do not care about knowing ahead of time that the butler did it, so to speak, should rest assured knowing that if they do know the spoilers that the film is not ruined for them.

Basically if you're in doubt, don't be spoiled. Worst case scenario is that you watch the movie twice, which you'll probably do anyway, and pick up on the nuances then. ;)

Now then, off to do the spoiler-filled review.

You know, it's not that Honey is bad - though it is - it's that it's fascinatingly bad. It's like they took every "[boy/girl] wants to grow up to be a [actor/dancer/singer/flooring inspector]" movie ever made a cobbled together a new one that used all of the cliches and didn't even stop to wonder if any of them actually applied in this case. My favorite is the "during the big performance, the back door of the auditorium opens and - gasp! - it's the person who didn't believe in them, but now does believe because of the magic of what they do!" because, actually nobody had done that to Honey to any large extent, but they included that anyway, just so we in the audience could have closure.

Though perhaps the first lesson of the movie should have been don't do a movie about a hot-shit choreographer if you can't find someone to give them hot shit choreography. "It's like jumping rope! But dancing!" Hookay, if you say so.

My Christmas things are staying up until the Epiphany, or more accurately until next weekend when I'll have the free time to take them down. Had a good end of holidays this weekend though. Visited my grandmother yesterday and had a nice visit and good food was eaten and more pressies were had. I am now in possession of a blender, which means only one thing: Crepes!

(What? I don't like smoothies or mixed drinks. And, as always, I make my own food fun.)

Now I just need to get me a Mardi Gras icon.

JH is currently wet and naked in my shower. I leave it to the viewers at home to figure out what happened to influence her to be in that state.

So far the two of us have spent a great deal of time talking about fine literature and politics talking about Angel and Buffy. Though we did stop to watch Alexis getting a blowjob. Now I'm convinced that what we need is beyondcitylimitsverse, which is much like cracktrailerverse, except instead of putting the actors into a trailer park you put them into this movie. We've already figured out who David, James, and Christian would play. We haven't figured out Vinnie yet, but if there's a character James would play obviously there's a character Vinnie would play. The world does not make sense otherwise.

Once JH is done showering we'll head out for some food (Thai, again, just to thwart FM - MWAH HA HA HA HA!!!!) and at some point after that I must release JH into the wild so that she can migrate her way FM-ward.

Then I get to talk about her behind her back. ;)

Oh, and I think I've come to the conclusion that my apartment shall now be called Siam. It's nice to have closure on that.

1) Go to the movies. This I have already done. I went to see Bourne Supremacy, which was good. Though lately I find myself enjoying movies like this on aspects that they probably didn't intend. For example, during the car chase scene while I was aware that it was action-packed and wonderful, my biggest reaction was a desire to have sex with their continuity department. But still, worth the money!

2) BBQ hamburgers. The grill is currently warming up.

3) Write something completely and utterly indulgent, as I am taking the weekend off from writing things which are meant to be meaningful and somehow relate to canon. I did Protocol last night. I keep thinking I'd like to do Pet, but more Protocol beckons. I have no idea which, if any, of these impulses will win.

4) Take care of one of the fannish projects that I have jettisoned in the name of keeping my schedule clean. Possibly break ties with another. Still deciding this. But at least one will be done for me as of later tonight.

5) Watch stupid things on TV, because have I mentioned I'm turning my brain off this weekend?

5a) Glare at those of you who just muttered "And we can tell the difference between your working brain and your non-working brain how again?"

6) Later, for dinner, BBQ cabbage.

7) Occasionally wonder if, earlier today, I really did catch the tail end of an episode of Semi-Homeade Cooking wherein the host actually suggested giving alcohol to children. I don't actually plan to do this, but it's hours later and I still find myself going "Surely I heard that wrong."

7a) Think a rant about Semi-Homeade Cooking as a concept, but not write it out because I feel lazy.

8) Pet and play with cats.

It's a good plan. I feel strong about it. Now, to put meat on the grill.

Feel free to make that statement as dirty as you like.

Just got back from PoA.

...

I'll be in my bunk.



(Boni? You saved me a seat in the special Hell, right?)