You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

Catching up in the form of headlines and blurbs.

MOVIE SCIENCE!
I should write something about Prometheus, but I feel like everyone else has beaten it to death already, and I kind of don't like the religious discussions that have cropped up around it. I liked it a lot, will probably see it again, but it had issues (wtf, self-administered abdominal surgery?!). The Fassbender was definitely my favorite thing about it, especially that he was essentially a movie geek who loved Lawrence of Arabia so much that he dyed his hair blonde to look like Peter O'Toole.

HAIR BANDS: THE MOVIE
This past weekend I went to see Rock of Ages, which I loved but which is not for everyone, I dare say. It's a cracktastic 90-minute montage of 1980s MTV nostalgia, and if you're the kind of person who always tends to sing along in full voice with all the metal anthems from twenty-something years ago, you'll probably dig it as a fun piece of summer trash. Another legendary out-there performance from Tom Cruise. I'm not sure what kind of accent (Liverpool?) Russell Brand is trying to emulate - I mean, he's already British, what the heck? One thing that put me off was the constant changing-up of singers on pretty much every song. It's like one person couldn't be allowed to sing a whole song. Every song had to be split up among a bunch of characters. It was just weird. Still a lot of fun, though. I did love that the "Tipper Gores" in the movie were singing "We're Not Gonna Take It," since Twisted Sister was one of the main targets of the Parental Advisory crusade.

PIXAR DOES SCOTLAND
Very much looking forward to Brave this weekend. I'm hearing comments from people who were disappointed with it, but I like everything I've seen and heard so far.

BUYER BEWARE
In other news, apparently Fifty Shades of [Crap] is the fastest-selling paperback ever, outstripping HP. This would matter more to me if paperback (and e-reader versions) were not the only formats for that, errr, work. It's still got nothing on the opening weeks of the latter HP books.

ONCE WAS ENOUGH, THANKS!
In semi-related news, there's been talk of ... wait for it ... rebooting the Twilight films. The studio is denying it, but apparently Stephenie Meyer has been saying in interviews that she'd like to see it rebooted for the five (FIVE) year anniversary. I wonder if she misunderstood and was actually talking about a re-release instead. That makes a *little* more sense (as it's way too late to start developing a reboot for next year). I love how people believing the reboot story point to the fact that the current movies are so bad - as if a remake is going to change that when it's the source material that's so dreadful!

HP BADFIC STILL GOING STRONG
Speaking of dreadful, if you love badfic and enjoy Mark Reads, check out his dramatic reading of a fic called "Hermione and the Pizza Boy". I don't always find his readings funny, but this one is pretty golden. SIR FRANCIS DRACO! COMMAS EVERYWHERE! CLASSIC H/HR RON CHARACTERIZATION!

MARK AND BUFFY
OH! And speaking of Mark, he's getting ready to start Season 6 of Buffy (and Season 3 of Angel). I burned through the whole season this past weekend and will watch it again, interwoven with the Angel episodes, as he goes through them, and I kind of can't wait to see his reaction to Willow's S6 arc. And Xander's hero moment. And Spuffy. And the Trio ("Stop touching my magic bone!"). And just how generally messed up everything is. I know a lot of people tuned out and didn't like Season 6, but I just want to give it and all the characters a big hug.

MARK AND POTUS
ALSO, he's done his watching schedule up through mid-March, and on the (I think) 16th of March, HE WILL BE STARTING THE WEST WING. I am so excited about this, I can hardly stand it! This is pretty much the first non-"genre" series he'll have done, so it should be a nice change of pace. I'm now going through and trying to figure which character(s) he'll latch on to as favorites. I'm thinking Donna. And the beautifully pedantic Sam. And I hope his atheist sensibilities respond positively to something I've always loved about the show, which is the distinction it makes between people of faith and jackass religious agenda-pushers - which it does in the very first episode in one of the greatest scenes ever captured for television (I LOVE YOU, TOBY ZIEGLER!!!).

THEATER TALK
Seeing Harvey with Jim Parsons tomorrow night (or tonight, I guess I should say). Will post about it if I can. My drama class did this play my eighth grade year, so I imagine I'll have *something* to say about it.

Not to be maudlin, but there was a time when this news would have been all up on my flist as soon as word of it was breathed. I'm sure most of you have seen this, but I have to put it here for posterity.

RELEASE INFO AND BLURB FOR JKR'S NEW BOOK

I hope none of you consider titles a spoiler. If you don't feel like following the link, here's the blurb, under the cut, for posterity.

( Read more... )

EEEEEEEE! 168 DAYS! And "blackly comic"? I would expect no less from The Lady.

We need to talk about Game of Thrones, y’all. I picked this thing up LAST JULY, got 200 pages, and put it down. Picked it back up around November, started over because I’d forgotten most of it, got a smidge further, only to stall out again around the holidays.

A few weeks ago, in an effort to finish at least this one dang book of the series by the time I’d be able to get DVDs of the first season of the television adaptation, I picked it back up. I remembered enough from my second attempt to not feel the need to start over, but 807 pages is a serious commitment to a story you’re not sure you’re into yet.

To those of you who have not read A Game of Thrones, it is an EXCELLENT read. HOWEVER, I don’t know that I’d recommend it to everyone. If you don’t like The Lord of the Rings, for example, I suspect you’d have similar issues with this. It has a very medieval feel to it, and it’s “high fantasy,” which tends to mean that the elements we typically associate with fantasy - wizards, magic, etc. - are actually rather minimal (at least in comparison to the overall story), as opposed to something like Harry Potter, where those elements are commonplace and intricately bound with the story and “other”ness of the world the characters live in. If you adore LOTR - the books, not just the movies - I think you’d really love this, even though the tone is quite different (this book is BRUTAL and BLEAK, and I have a feeling the next books are just going to get bleaker and more brutal). It’s just such amazing writing and I can’t quite believe I’d never even HEARD of these books (or indeed anything else from George R. R. Martin, though I recognized his name) until Damon Lindelof had that fake feud with Martin over the LOST finale.

Also, there are like 10,000 characters (it seems like it, anyway) and it’s extremely hard to keep track of everything. Seriously, this book makes The Wire look like My Dinner With Andre.

To those of you who HAVE read it, ( *flexes typing fingers* Spoilers for Game of Thrones ONLY (and a little LOTR); please no spoilers for future SOIAF books. )

BTW, I *have* started watching the television series. I now have access to HBO (long story, but I've had it for a while and only just found out a couple of weeks ago) and plan to watch the reruns each week (until the DVD comes out, that is). Have seen the first two already, and I'm chomping at the bit to see how they did that ... thing that happens at the very end of the book.

I don't know how many of you still read Mark Reads, but he started The Hobbit yesterday and will be going through Lord of the Rings after. He's even more uninformed about The Hobbit than he was about HP, though I suspect he knows a little about LOTR since he hinted at telling everyone what he knew once he started that book.

Chapter 2 is a Bilbo diary post and it is GOLD. Just you try and NOT imagine Martin Freeman holding forth on the smell of trolls. :P

Saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes today, which was way more awesome than I expected it to be. One thing I didn't like was ( SPOILER ) But everything else was great. Andy Serkis is really what makes it fly, and he gives another stunning motion-capture performance as Caesar. I've heard talk about an Oscar nomination, and while that is absolutely not going to happen in a competitive acting category (Academy is still under the impression that VFX people can alter the performance, making it not truly the actor's work), I'd LOVE to see them dust off the Special Achievement Oscar for Serkis's work on this, Kong, and LOTR.

Oh, and yes, Tom Felton is in it, too. He's typecast as the bully, which is to be expected, but he's in a major motion picture that has nothing to do with wizards and that's an achievement by itself. It could be worse - look at "sweep the leg" guy. His conflict with the apes is like Buckbeak all over again, LOL, but he does get to say the CLASSIC Charlton Heston line ("Get you stinkin' paws off me, you damn dirty ape!") which is AWESOME. I was so excited I Tweeted him about it. :P

***

So now the Pottermore early entry challenges are at an end. Is it just me or did the questions (and the quill tasks) get a lot easier as the week went on? Hardest questions were the first three and probably the hardest quill task was on Day 3. I suppose so many people were freaking out that the people designing the challenges decided to take it down a notch. :P

It amused me to see people wondering if they were just letting "everyone" in, because of how easy it's been here towards the end, but I think the audience for this site (and the books in general, as well as the films) is bigger than we're really aware of in our little fandom cocoon. It's certainly far, far bigger than just the people who obsess about HP on the internet. All the helps and alerts are not things that probably most of the fans even knew about, so we had a big leg up there. The last two challenges still maxed out in a couple of hours (first day was an hour and a half), so it was still plenty competitive. I'd say probably everyone who is an obsessive fan, who still checks the fansites and really wanted early entry got in, and I think that's kind of cool.

***

I'm finally joining the Battlestar Galactica party. I tried around Christmastime to start with the original series from 1978, but I couldn't stick with it. It was just too cheesy (and I LIKE cheesy). But the new series is wonderful so far - I'm not terribly far into it yet; just the miniseries and the first few episodes. I'd also love to get caught up with Doctor Who before the new episodes start, but that's ... probably not going to happen. Though I'd love to try. I do have the First Series and about 1/4 of the Second watched already, and the seasons are short so ... maybe?

In other fannish news, I'm also reading A Game of Thrones. I wasn't really sold in the first 100 pages, mostly because OMG how HORRIBLE it would be to be a woman in that universe (and yes, I saw Jason Momoa's asshat comment from SDCC)! But Arya's utter PWNage of that little snotrag Joffrey won me over, at least for now. I do like the narrative structure, with the different POVs, though I like some POVs better than others. Eddard, Arya, Bran, Tyrion = awesomesauce; Jon, Sansa = not so much. Again, all impressions are from the first couple hundred pages (or first quarter) of the book, so I may feel differently later.

It's been a pretty long time since we heard anything from The Lady about how her post-Potter writing was coming along, but LOOKEE HERE! (Don't get too excited; it's not news about an actual book - yet; it just sounds like there's at least *something* that's tantalizingly close to seeing the light of day.)

WANT.

Have any of you read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins? Perhaps impatiently awaiting the next installment, Catching Fire? Want someone to gab about it with? :D

( Some comments, not really spoilery. )

Backdated, because (*grumbles*) internet issues prevented me from posting this yesterday. I was so pleased to have kept up with my 2008 list, I decided to do this again.

BOOKS READ

January
1. Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates [N]
2. The Piano Teacher, by Elfride Jelinek [N]
3. Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by William Godwin [N]
4. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Literary Life, by Caroline Franklin [N] - reading


MOVIES WATCHED

January
1. Sex and the City (2008) [R] - dialogue gets worse with each viewing, but this is so much fun.
2. Ace in the Hole (1951) [N] - OUTSTANDING Billy Wilder film I'd never heard of
3. Revolutionary Road (2008) [N] - Jack and Rose 10 years later, if Jack had lived?
4. MST3K: The Home Economics Story (1951) [R] - "Look, look, look at my crotch!"
5. MST3K: Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1957) [R] - "Roger, this is God. Pick up the pace!"
6. Last Chance Harvey (2008) [N] - Delightful.
7. Paris, je t'aime (2006) [N] - C'est magnifique!
8. Romance & Cigarettes (2006) [N] - bizarre
9. Dial M For Murder (1954) [N] - eeeeeeexcellent
10. Aliens (1986) [N] - Ripley vs. Queen Alien = best thing ever
11. Planet Terror (2007) [R] - never stops being hilarious
12. Pineapple Express (2008) [R] - Danny McBride is Love
13. Dinner at Eight (1933) [N] - Can I be Marie Dressler when I grow up?
14. The Woods (2006) [N] - Kind of like Suspiria, only less iconic and terrifying.
15. Zombie (1979) [N] - The eyeball! The zombie fighting the shark! The awesome!
16. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) [R] - "Why was I not made of stone like thee?" Such a classic.
17. The Boneyard (1991) [N] - Holy crap, this is pretty awesome!
18. My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009) - Tom Atkins is positively JAW-DROPPING. *rimshot*
19. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) [R] - Love this movie, but the kidnapping is kind of creepy. :P
20. The Princess Diaries (2001) [R] - Is there anyone more awesome than Julie Andrews?
21. The Reader (2008) [N] - Lovely and heartbreaking.
22. Gabriel Over the White House (1933) [N] - Very strange.
23. The Devil Wears Prada (2006) [R] - Good eye candy.
24. The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) [N] - "Respect! My! Ass!"
25. The Mummy (1932) [N] - Really quite good.

February
26. Ninotchka (1939) [R] - I love you, Ernst Lubitsch!
27. Night Train to Terror (1985) [N] - So fantastically bad I can't help loving it.
28. Julius Caesar (1953) [R] - Hadn't seen this since high school and had forgotten how good it is.
29. Night and Day (1946) [N] - Not that factual, but charming nonetheless.
30. Rhapsody in Blue (1945) [N] - Also not that factual, but incredible use of Gershwin's music.
31. Fanny (1961) [N] - Fantastic. Leslie Caron was never lovelier than she is here.
32. Elmer Gantry (1960) [N] - Burt Lancaster is brilliant, but I think my favorite is Arthur Kennedy's skeptical reporter.
33. Gigi (1958) [R] - Wonderful; makes me want to go to Paris.
34. Room at the Top (1959) [N] - Fantastic! And sad.
35. Brigadoon (1954) [N] - Fun, but not that great.
36. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) [N] - Hag horror rules!
37. Friday the 13th (2009) [N] - Entertaining, but empty. Even for a Friday the 13th movie.
38. Fiddler on the Roof (1971) [R] - "Miracle of Miracles" gets me every time.
39. The Awful Truth (1937) [N] - Cary Grant's duet with the dog is HYSTERICAL ("Take it!")
40. Divorce American Style (1967) [N] - A few moments of genius, but a good bit of it is meh.
41. Rock and Roll High School (1979) [N] - I want to be Riff Randell
42. Slumdog Millionaire (2008) [R] - *hearts*
43. Heathers (1988) [R] - *licks it up, baby*
44. Grease (1978) [R] - Still the word.
45. Grease 2 (1982) [R] - So bad, but so fun.
46. The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) [N] - STEVE KLOVES LOVE!
47. Music and Lyrics (2007) [N] - Pretty good.
48. Marie Antoinette (2006) [N] - An unpopular opinion, perhaps, but I quite liked it.

March
49. Bright Young Things (2003) [N] - Oh Stephen Fry, how I love thee.
50. Watchmen (2009) [N]
51. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) [R] - Still my fave HP film so far. We'll see if it changes in July.
52. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) [R]
53. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) [R] - Much maligned by fans, but I think a nice streamlining of the book.
54. Lars and the Real Girl (2007) [N] - Oh my. One of the sweetest things I've ever seen.
55. Last House on the Left (2009) [N] - Better than original, except in a couple of key ways.
56. Wings (1927) - First Best Picture winner was super slashy.
57. State of Play (2003) [N] - WOW. Very, very complex and riveting.
58. MST3K: Devil Doll (1964) [R] - "Everyone thrill as I get my own onion dip."
59. Sunshine Cleaning (2009) [N] - I think I may like it better than that other "Sunshine" movie.
60. MST3K: I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) [R] - I kind of like this movie un-riffed.
61. MST3K: Space Mutiny (1988) [R] - Railing kills galore!
62. MST3K: The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958) [R] - "Ah...the sweeping romance of peeping."
63. MST3K: Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1957) [R] - Corman gold.
64. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1997) [R] - Tom, you rascal!
65. The Beyond (1981) [N] - featuring a character named, no kidding, Joe the Plumber
66. Kill Bill, vol. 1 (2003) [R] - "When do you want to die?"
67. Duplicity (2009) [N] - Better than I expected.

April
68. Adventureland (2009) [N] - Bittersweet, nostalgic, and wonderful. Great music.
69. Fast and Furious (2009) [N] - Simple and fun.
70. Tootsie (1982) [N] - V. funny and smart.
71. Observe and Report (2009) [N] - Brilliantly detestable.
72. MST3K: Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983) [R] - This movie just HATES anteaters!
73. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) [R] - *sniff*
74. 17 Again (2009) [N] - Never, ever see this with a room full of tweens.
75. State of Play (2009) [N] - Nice adaptation; I still prefer the original.
76. Putney Swope (1969) [R] - Still ahead of its time 40 years later.
77. The Black Swan (1942) [R] - Such a great, iconic pirate movie.
78. Masters of Horror: Sick Girl (2006) [R] - Even grosser than I remembered.
79. Footlight Parade (1933) [R] - James Cagney is da man.
80. Funny Girl (1968) [R] - A truly fantastic film with a legendary performance.
81. The Lion in Winter (1968) [R] - "I'm villifying you, for God's sake, pay attention!"
82. The Blue Dahlia (1946) [N] - I'd never seen Veronica Lake in a movie before this.
83. Cabin in the Sky (1943) [N] - A BNAT classic I'm glad I got around to seeing.  Ethel Waters RULES.
84. MST3K: Hobgoblins (1921) [R] - "FISH PICKER!"  Man, this movie is hideous.
85. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) [R] - :-D

Do any of you know anything about Naomi Novik's "Temeraire" series (His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, and The Black Powder - and I assume from the link below that this is an unfinished series)?

Peter Jackson has apparently acquired the rights to these books, though he hasn't decided whether he's going to film them or not. I just wondered if there was anyone on my flist who could offer an opinion on them. Jackson describes them as a kind of historical fantasy.

ETA: Thanks, everyone!

Do any of you know anything about Naomi Novik's "Temeraire" series (His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, and The Black Powder - and I assume from the link below that this is an unfinished series)?

Peter Jackson has apparently acquired the rights to these books, though he hasn't decided whether he's going to film them or not. I just wondered if there was anyone on my flist who could offer an opinion on them. Jackson describes them as a kind of historical fantasy.

ETA: Thanks, everyone!