A Twist of Things to Come

This is the first week of Big Boy's online classroom sessions, which are ungodly early on account of time differences. He is not happy about this, and neither is anyone else.

Finished reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets after school yesterday, and treated the boys to the movie. They enjoyed it quite a bit (we made popcorn), but still insisted the book was better (which made me very happy).

Other things, things pretty much beyond my control, are not going well at all, but there's no use in going into it. Let's just say I could use some positive energy in my direction, if you have some to spare.

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In GeekaChica news, Goddess of All has us looking forward to DragonCon with The Mighty Dragon Lives!!!!!, adorned with some of her own con photos. (She had a bunch more, but only so many would fit with the article.) Looks like fun.

I have about three different articles I've been hoping to get out there, but time management issues have been making that difficult. I worked on it some while the boys watched the movie yesterday, but I really need to find a way to make more time. Hmm.

Things are hoppin' at GeekaChicas again! For starters, I've just got Alpha Lyra's take on The Time Traveler's Wife. Book and movie both, sort of mashed together.

I'm of two minds about going to see it, myself. On the one hand, the book put me to sleep repeatedly. I gave it an honest effort (and I admit it was well-written - can't fault the style at all), but it just wasn't for me. The dude was boring, even naked and traveling through time, and the chick was so painfully dull I wanted to bitch slap her from the beginning. Maybe I just didn't stick with it to that magical place when I would start to care what happened to them. Which it really should have done by 50 or so pages in, if it was going to, IMHO.

On the other hand, Eric Bana. Eric Bana, naked, love-sick and hurtling through time? This must give us pause. Also, I see that Ron Livingston has a part in it, too. Hmm. I might have to give the book another go, because visualizing Eric Bana might help stave off the nap attacks.

(I know -- I'm one of those weirdos who can read Victorian novels with great relish, but gets horribly frustrated with passive characters in modern novels and the modern literary tradition of writing pretty words for their own sake. But I'm a grown up now, and no one is forcing me to read anything, ever again.)

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Went on an early walk with the hubby this morning, which was lovely. Am nearly to the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the read-aloud project with the boys. They are really digging it, too. It was a lot of fun to hear them talk about the first Harry Potter movie. "Oh, they left out..." and "Why'd they cut x or y?" It was like hearing a dramatization of the forums at the time. *g*

See, my big boy was too young to get into the Harry potter books when they started, and by the time he was old enough, he'd seen a couple of the movies and my copies of the books had been moved to storage. He wasn't all that impressed.

But now that they are actually hearing the books read aloud (this is my plot to spend time with them and re-read the books myself) they've been bitten by the bug.

"Never judge a book by its movie," quoth Wee Boy.

So, I saw the new trailer for Alice in Wonderland embedded over at my friend oberonia, and I squeed mightitly. Then I thought, Hey, I'll put this up on GC. So I snagged the embed code, and this is what I got:

It all looks right in the code, I've double and triple checked. It works fine here, yeah? But when I put that code in on GC, it produces a completely different video about games.

Grrr.

ETA: I got it to work!! I'm not sure how or why it didn't work the first 14 times I tried, but at least it's up now! Drink Me: The New 'Alice' Preview Shows Freaky Promise

yourprecious just posted a preview of a movie over at GeekaChicas that has me all excited! In her post called Neill Blomkamp, Bring Us Your Awesome, she reviews the previews for District 9 and links to the original short film on which it is based.

That is so cool. I think I'm in love!

By way of deadcat_vagrant :




I'm falling over with unsurprise. Don't get me wrong -- I'm no conservative-basher, myself. I'm a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, but holy cow, torture is torture. While I admit to being a fan of Jack "I'm gonna need a hacksaw" Bauer in real life, there have to be principles.Besides, torture doesn't really work - people will say anything if you hurt them enough, but it doesn't mean what they say is true.

There just... there has to be a line we don't cross.

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In other news, I'm really proud of myself for fixing some issues with the website all on my own, today. I'm not ready to lose the training wheels yet, but I'm learning.

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Last night I watched Deception and it really was as bad as everyone said. It's like a suspense/thriller for people who were dropped on their heads as babies -- Hitchcock for the short bus crowd. The actors were all great, and I'm not even sure the scrip was the problem. It was either the director or the studio did focus groups populated by people so stoned they had to have badges in order to remember their names.

From emila_wan (check out her LJ for quotes and the links to the articles), here is some good news for Liam Neeson fans-- Taken is still in the top five at the box office, and has had very little slippage. The writer is reportedly working on a sequel. *crosses fingers* Let the sequel have Liam Neeson! Oh, please. Because watching that particular towering sequoia of sex blast his way through human traffickers in Paris was one of the highlights of my entertainment year, so far. (I saw it from a DVD that was not Region 1, and was surprised that it got by with a PG-13 rating, woo-boy.)

So, I went out in search of other Taken related news, and found this:

First, a thingy I discovered by way of oberonia that was pretty cool, I thought.



Hee!

Okay, on to business. Coraline is freaking creepy. I believe my kids enjoyed it thoroughly -- one in spite of the creepy, and one entirely because of the creepy.

I believe this is a sign of my excellent genes and superior parenting skills.

...

Well, okay. Maybe not. But still, I love a good story that doesn't back away from real peril and horror just because it's for kids (and, to be honest, it is entirely possible that Coraline is scarier to adults than to children). That is exactly the reason so much children's entertainment is unforgivably stupid and bland. (The same is true of entertainment for grown-ups -- nearly all of it is either stupid or bland, and most of it is both. But that is another rant.)

Without spoilers, I will say that certain button-eyed ghosties annoyed me a lot. Not the fact of their existence, which I expected, but their voices and over-all visual presence. I think it may have been a case of not wanting to be too scary tipping the character design into the realm of, well, ridiculous. People chuckled at them. I'm uncertain whether they were supposed to be funny, but I don't think so.

Still, that was the one visual/auditory failing in what was overall a fantastically creepy and original story converted to a fantastically creepy and unusually honest film that I think children and adults can enjoy together. The 3D, which will not be available next weekend, was worth the extra cost of admission, if mostly for the enjoyable depth of field it gave to everything. The "stuff coming out of the screen at you" shots were minimal.

(Plus, there was a trailer for 9 at the beginning, which ,made my eleven-year-old deem it totally worth the price of admission.)

I'm not really sure how I feel about this, but it was too squirm-inducing not to share:



On the one hand, Ewan McGregor is congenitally adorable. On the other, well, Jim Carrey. I mean, I really enjoy some of his movies. The Truman Show was awesome and Bruce Almighty was a lot of fun. But I just can't see where they are going with this. Goofball RomCom? Another movie in the "Gay is Funny" genre? I just can't tell.

Maybe I'm just pissed off that Jim FREAKING Carrey gets to snog Ewan McGregor.

I fear to look, yet I cannot turn away.

First off, I missed you guys!

Second, We're back early because Big Boy had some stuff I wanted him to do for school, not homework per se, just stuff he was supposed to be working on over the last couple weeks that I let slip. He brought everything with us that he would need to do it, except for the Internet. Papa doesn't even have a dictionary! I was stunned. So, here we are. I'm glad to be back.

While we were gone:

It got cold.

BIL fed the cat, but took no notice of him. Thus, Irascible Cat has been keenly affectionate to me, and generally keen to fight and play tag with everyone else.

micehell is an angel of Light and Mercy, assuring that I have Video Crack to come home to, plus pictures of Travis Fimmel, actor and Calvin Klein sock underpants model. I dare you to Google him. I double dog dare you. *chortles madly*

While I have not seen the movie Twilight (and probably will not seek out said experience, though I won't go out of my way to avoid it, either), I have truly enjoyed reading your reviews of it. From narniadear and abrynne who had a good time and fell rather hard for the "wrong" character *wink* to hopeandprey, whose review contained many jewels, such as the following:

If you haven't read the book: don't. It's billed as a squeaky clean romance with supernatural elements, but it's really a how to guide for getting into an abusive relationship. On top of that, the entire narrative is first person from the perspective of a lovesick teenage girl. So, no sex, whiny teen angst, and vampires, the obvious ingredients for an international best seller.

She also refers to the book/movie's narrator/main character, Bella, as "the damned fool cunt at the center of this tale," a salty bit of veritas you are not likely to encounter elsewhere. Go read the whole review. It'll make you long for a theater for grown-ups near you.

(ETA: Since it isn't clear, I should probably add that all the people I mentioned reviewing it really enjoyed the experience of seeing this movie, and really liked the scenery, too.)
These are just a few of the reasons y'all are so much fun to come back to at the end of an exhausting holiday.

I... have a thing for men in cassocks. I also have a thing for Ewan McGregor, bless his heart.

So naturally this:



... twangs the rubber bands that hold my brain together. That SPROING!! noise reverberating through the interwebs is my fault, in case you'd wondered.

Yes, I also like men in dresses. Is that so wrong?

Muahahahahahahahahaha-snort-hahahahahahah!!!

Angels and Demons eh? As upset as Catholics were about The Da Vinci Code, I can only assume that this one will result in someone's spontaneous combustion.

Maybe mine, though not for that reason.

***

Random conversation with my Beloved:

Him (while an old Sting song plays on the radio): Who do you think is cooler, Sting or Bono?

Me, without hesitation: Bono

Him: Really?

Me: Yup. No contest. See, Bono is still cool.

Him: But Sting at his best was way cooler than Bono has ever been.

Me: There is something to be said for staying power.

Him: But Bono has never had a sense of menace.

Me (considering): I'll give you that. But Bono is still cooler.

Him: Same question. Bono or Bowie?

Me: Bowie, of course. I mean, DUH.

Him: Now, or at the height of his popularity?

Me: Both. Always and forever, Amen.

Him: Okay, Bowie or-

Me: BOWIE!! No one is cooler than Bowie. Bowie's what? Sixty? Still cooler than the five coolest 20 year olds on the planet together. In a hundred years, if someone sneezes after having inhaled the dust from Bowie's bones, that sneeze will be cooler than anybody, ever.

Him: Well, okay then. *grin*