connielane: (flaming locks)
connielane ([personal profile] connielane) wrote2003-10-04 02:29 pm

So long Citizen Kane . . .

School of Rock is now officially the best movie that has ever been made.

Okay, that's obviously an overstatement. But it really is great. It's my new favorite Linklater film. Well, no - nothing he does will ever top Before Sunrise. But Jack Black is - as usual - fanTAStic. And all those kids were amazing. And, for all you Rent-heads, the stupendous Adam Pascal (aka Roger) is in this movie as well - looking his usual gorgeous self and singing with his usual amazing pipes.

My only problem was the audience. They were way too tame and SO not rock and roll. There were hardly any laughs, and when people should have been whooping and clapping or getting up and banging their heads to the music, they just sat there. Like it was just another movie. I got my ya-yas out on the way home, though, driving with the window rolled down and the radio cranked up. Awwww, yeah.

I'm finally getting some stuff put away in the new house, and I'm in the process of reading Northanger Abbey for the first time. I know I shouldn't pass judgement on characters yet, but I find John Thorpe highly annoying. Every time he appears on the page I am reminded of a certain H/Hr shipper who is also very free with his opinions, and will not support the idea that anyone has any ideas that contradict his own. However, I did love Thorpe's comments on novels - that there hadn't been a decent novel since Tom Jones and that he admired The Monk as well. Having read both of those for an 18th Century British Novel class in college (and having utterly loved both), I couldn't help but admire his taste. His comments, though, were not half so amusing as Austen's own defense of the novel. I love her even better than I thought I did. And her constant pointing out of Catherine as the "heroine" as well as comments on the standard role of the heroine and expected behavior of a heroine are the best parts of the books so far. I feel sorry for Catherine, though. Her attachment to Isabella and, consequentially, her obligatory acquaintance with John Thorpe, is proving to be more trouble than it seems to be worth at present.

And I am finally one chapter away from my second read of OotP. I can't get anything read when I am constantly flipping through trying to find the best new defense for my shipping stance. This is yet another excellent reason for me to abandon the DT altogether, but I doubt I ever will until I've read book 7. But once I read the last chapter, I'll have read all the books twice and can start again with Sorcerer's Stone. Gosh, it'll be strange to read that after all the angst of OotP. And I really don't look forward to re-reading PoA and every mention of a certain character whose days I now know are numbered.

[identity profile] lilac-bearry.livejournal.com 2003-10-05 09:33 am (UTC)(link)
Sorry to spam, Pam...hee hee, that rhymed...but Emily, what is an example of a Gothic novel that NA is making fun of? Did you say "Dracula" the other night? *can't remember* It might help me know what I'm supposed to find funny. Not that it's not funny...but I may be missing some things because I'm not Gothically well-read.

[identity profile] wahlee-98.livejournal.com 2003-10-05 11:13 am (UTC)(link)
Dracula is an example, but think of any scary movie and you've basically got it. Specifically she'e talking about things by Ann Radcliffe-- "The Romance of the Forest" and "The Mysteries of Udolpho." If you want to have a quick read of the type of things she's talking about, try to find an e-text of "The Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole, which is considered to be the first Gothic romance. It's a novelette. I remember what my Jane Austen teacher told our class before we read it (we did a bit of Gothic background reading before we read NA). He said that in the first page, a boy runs into the castle and gasps out "The helmet, the helmet!", referring to a giant helmet that has just fallen in the courtyard and killed the son of the Prince. "And it goes downhill from there." :D

Anyway, our horror genre is almost entirely based on the Gothic of the late 1700's and early 1800's. Frankenstein is another good example. Modern-day examples would be Fear Street and Goosebumps.