So yeah, I liked Terminator: Salvation. ( Major spoilers for the movie )

But not in a meme way.

( Spoilers for SCC and the new Terminator movie, reviews and previews only )

( Spoilers for the new Star Trek movie )

So I have seen the new Trek movie. With my flist abounding with spoilers and rave reviews, and me needing to de-friend trekicons that I've belonged to since I joined LJ, it seemed a good idea.

Plus, yesterday I managed to fiddle with my computer keyboard until I found the culprit causing the typing problem I was having, so I fixed that (for now), and could cancel my Genius Bar appointment allowing me to go to an early morning matinee.

So, to make a long story less long, I liked it. I am, of course, not without my issues. ( movie spoilers )

Two Very Cool things I have watched lately:

(1) TNT recently played the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I DVR'd. I haven't watched those movies since my original viewing in the theater. The movies were just way too long and had too many boys, and the boys is all you ever saw on my flist from the LoTR fans after that. Hobbit/elf slash or whatever. But what little you saw of the women in those movies? Was pretty cool. Must use the LoTR icon dherblay made for me. The great thing about DVR is you can stop the movie and come back to it later.

(2) The Rocky Horror Picture Show episode of "Cold Case". Not only did they have slightly over-the-top acting by the guest cast, and use music from the movie for the background in each scene, but the bad guy was played by an aging Barry Bostwick. I picked that up from the first scene. No, I never ever went to see that movie at 2 am in Hollywood as a teen. Not ever.

And why the third movie is canon for me.

The movies, the TV show--Sarah's mission to prevent the war from happening makes no sense. Well, it makes perfect sense if you're trying to stop a war. But if you're trying to build a better future for your son John Connor? It makes no sense at all. If there's no war, there's no reason for Kyle Reese to go back in time (and no opportunity), and John will never exist.

They bit the bullet and started the war in the third movie. I respect that.

ETA: ( SCC2.1 thoughts, spoilers )

Just got home from HP & the OOtP. It was a tad unpolished in places, but I liked it a lot and now I know what I want for Christmas!

Oh, and it really sets you up to be chomping at the bit for book 7. I know they did *that* on purpose.....

gehayi reminds us that today is the 30th anniversary of the opening day of the movie "Star Wars" (now called "Episode IV: A New Hope"). I was one of the little dweebs standing in those lines that wrapped around the block, waiting to see a movie that had dazzling, ground-breaking special effects even in the TV commercials. But it wasn't the special effects that made the movie. That was icing on the cake. It was the use of mythos, of the most ancient story-telling tropes mixed in with a futuristic, sci-fi setting that made it special. Combining religious mysticism, heroes and villians, good and evil, space battles and explosions, intelligent humor, humanistic, personal character struggles, amazing cinematography, musical themes that followed each character (the "Peter and the Wolf-esque theme in the initial scenes where the droids wander Tatatooine was inspired), and a butt-kicking babe who could rescue her own rescuers...what was there not to love?

Just wanted to mark the moment, because it had a big impact on me and still does.

ETA: Oh yeah, and Han shot first. Make a note of it.

So I've been on this noir kick lately. Watching some classic films noir on Netflix, catching up on The Dresden Files series (supernatural noir rocks), embedding noir elements into my TD season 2, even picking some random interesting movies to suggest to a potential date and discovering they're all noirish films (Zen Noir, The Black Dahlia, Hollywoodland, Renaissance). Not sure what's up with that.

Anyway, I'm also enjoying the fluff!noir that is Veronica Mars. Almost done Season Two and the big "who crashed the bus" reveal (don't tell me, the disc is on its way!) I even have a new 'ship, not unpredictably, it's Keith+Veronica (non-incestual--honestly that should go without saying, but LJ is LJ). I love their dad-daughter relationship. VM is never going to be more than a diversion for me (i.e., not a fandom), but I wouldn't mind having a nice Kendall Casablancas bikini Keith+Veronica icon in my collection. Anyone know where I might find one without having to troll through months and months of tedious cute!guy icons to get it?

Lengthy caveat:

I don't do "Top 5/10 whatever" lists. Because any time you say something is "top", someone else comes along and says, "I have you beat, Y is actually more funny/sad/whatever!" and then you realize they're right. Or you argue about it, and it's kinda pointless.

So, anyway, a few months back I was cleaning out my movie cabinet (which isn't actually at work with me, but I found the complete list in an old email 'cause I'm anal like that), and kept promising threatening to do a post about that, but never did 'cause of the being-completely-distracted-by-other-stuff factor.

So these are strictly movies I actually own, and they're not top anything, they're in no particular order (well, alphabetical, actually), and the list is incomplete and random. And remember, I grew up in L.A.

By request of c_mantix:

( Movies to watch while drunk )

And a couple other lists I thought I'd throw in:

( Movies to watch while high )

( Movies to just watch )

It's amazing when, if you can tape any movie that comes on cable (or worse, independent stations and networks) or make copies of any movie that you rent from the video store, what kind of *crap* you'll keep for no conceivable reason. The price of DVD movies annoys me, but it does keep me from adding gems (not) to my collection like "Weird Science." Ugh, what dreg that was! Taking up space in my cabinet (and my moving boxes) for fifteen years!

The VHS collection is slowly being wittled down to the good stuff, or the guilty pleasure stuff. I just can't pitch out "Valley Girl". I can't. The story is cheese, but the music is awesome! You can take the California girl out of the '80's, but you can't take the '80's out of the California girl.

Others I'm wishy-washy on. "Heathers". Yes, no?

While my flist gags over their new Prime Minister, I'm happy to find I can sit through my second-favorite movie trilogy without giggling at the "Govern-ator". Or being *too pissed* at the sight of his ugly mug to enjoy the movies.

Must be Linda. She makes everything good.

So I'm digging through the old VHS and come up with a dusty nugget from my youth:

David Bowie
Ryuichi Sakamoto

A Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in WWII

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Just call it a "slash from the past."

Lord, I love this man!

Two years ago, I finally came to grips with the post-traumatic stress I experienced after the AtS episode "Home" aired enough to watch Vincent Kartheiser in roles other than Connor, although not actually playing Connor himself (O.K., so I have issues. Like *you're* so non-neurotic?) The Vincent Kartheiser-a-thon was born. Since then, I have gathered together quite a collection of films featuring this amazing actor. Not quite the full oeuvre; no one could have the full oeuvre given the mysteriously *bad* luck VK's films have had with distribution.

But I have done mini-reviews for the ones I have or have seen:

The Indian in the Cupboard, Alaska, Masterminds, All I Wanna Do, Another Day in Paradise, Crime and Punishment in Suburbia, Luckytown, Bad Seed, The Unsaid

Heaven Sent, Ricky 6

So, continuing in this vein, I give you

( Dandelion )

warning: Spoilers above for the movie and its ending.

Additional thoughts added since I first posted.

TD 20 is going to take a while. As if it already hasn't. I'm having plotting quagmires. It's the time sync-up of all the different story threads. One takes a while to work out while the other one necessitates a quick pace. Hard to interweave that sort of thing. Oh, and of course TDs 20-22 are turning out to be one episode in three parts, so of course I have to plot out all three if I'm going to know what properly goes in 20.

*bangs head*

And it's the time of year when nothing gets done fast, because people expect you to be places other than at your computer. This weekend, I'm going to the movies twice. Aeon Flux (oooh...bendy!) and HP again, at the IMAX. I'm trying to arrange a regular group of sci-fi/fantasy movie-goers amongst my acquaintances for a monthly movie night event just 'coz I'm bored with the other social offerings out there. But getting everyone to agree on a time/place/film? I heard a quote about herding cats recently.....

; )

Want to know what my pet peeve is? When a bunch of icons featuring actors walking down a red carpet are (mis)represented as "Goblet of Fire" icons. Who gives a fig about the actors? OK, I guess we wouldn't have the movies without the actors and their fine acting, but I've never been a celebrity ogler.

For me, it's all about the story, and in the case of TV/film, the realizing of that story in picture and sound. So enough of my whining about how I can't find a *single* icon of ( GoB spoilers ). On to the realization bits.

( Read more... )

I was going to title this post "Why I like Harry Potter"--meaning the book series, not the character, although I like him, too. Just to put forward why this particular book/movie series, despite its overwhelming popularity and annoying commercial tie-ins, is actually worth my time (snob, snob). At the moment, I would call it probably my only still-current fandom. There's just nothing out there right now that's still in production that catches my interest to the degree this does. Doesn't mean I'm an active part of the on-line HP fandom, I'm not. The Buffyverse burned me out. I can't take all the pointless kerfluffing you have to wade through just to get a moment of true, enjoyable insight from another fan.

So I keep this pretty much to myself, but the truth is, this is the first film/book/TV series I've found since Trek, Star Wars, or the Buffyverse that has its own fully-realized, ever-expanding and detailed World, complete with its own metaphysical rules and social customs which it sticks to with fair consistency. ALONG WITH an entertaining story, an intelligent story, and likeable, complex characters. It has heroes and villians and folks in between with real motives and flaws, causes worth fighting for, and a fair bit of action and fun.

And it has that element that gets to me every damned time--it's a story of the supernatural or sci-fi that pretends to happen in the real world. Harry's world is *our* world, not an alternative universe or a galaxy far, far away. So every moment of magic and mystery has to be carefully hidden from us ordinary folk, which is why we see no evidence of it. It's a hidden subculture and its story. I always love that.

So I immerse myself in that story with much pleasure. But if I do have a meta-perspective at all, where I pay attention to the men and women behind the camera and behind the books, it's my utter, complete envy of J.K. Rowling. I WANT HER LIFE. O.K., maybe not the husband part of her life, but the rags-to-riches fame and fortune because she wrote an entertaining, complex fantasy series. You can learn a lot from envy, and that's what I wish I could do. I know after a year plus of struggling with The Destroyer and Angel Season 6 that it's not beyond me to write a fantasy series. Of course, I'd have to come up with own Fully Realized World, rather than borrowing Mutant Enemy's, but there you go. I could be her if I wanted.

Hey, I can dream. ; )

He's an uncontrollable dishevelled romance novelist moving from town to town, helping folk in trouble. She's a chain-smoking mute fairy princess who inherited a spooky stately manor from her late maiden aunt. They fight crime!

I'm still sniffling and coughing, but I have a quiet weekend planned, which is always of the good. Last night I had dinner and a movie at my friend Gloria's, who is recovering from surgery after a recurrence of her breast cancer. We saw "Batman Begins", which I hadn't seen yet. I liked it. It's the kind of movie I'd love to own if I could pirate a VHS copy. The beginning was a little slow, IMO, all that stuff in Tibet or Nepal or whereever it was supposed to be.

But the rest of it? Gave TD plot bunnies.

What is it with television having so many reruns in the Fall? Used to be, you got maybe one rerun around Thanksgiving and the rest was all new, and then the entire Spring was riddled with reruns. Or maybe it's just the shows I'm watching are in reruns. I gave up on Supernatural, which is a deadly dull X-Files wannabe. I realize X-Files wasn't much more exciting in the early stages of its first season, but at least it was fresh and original and its main characters had some charm. Also gave up on BSG. It's a lot like Babylon 5--all gritty and full of depressing "realism". If I wanted to see that, I'd watch the news. They seem to mistake "the worse news" for an accurate representation of reality, too. And I just got so bored of the tedious Gaius and Six stuff. I miss Starbuck, though. *sniff* Maybe when it comes out on DVD I can just fast forward to the Starbuck parts. ; ) ; )

Happy Birthday, cooldecade!!

Netflix now has an availability date for "Dandelion"!!1! It's December. Annoyingly, though, Amazon does not yet show a listing for "Dandelion", even for pre-order, even though when I search on the word "Dandelion", it gives Vincent Kartheiser as a "related search".

*puzzles*

Well, now you all know what you can get me for Christmas.

*bats eyes*

So I had no Friday night plans and decided I had better just go see Serenity since everyone on my flist and my board would be talking about it for the next month and a half and I don't like being spoiled. You can thank tyreseus for talking me into it; he assured me there would be no hoop-skirts or horses. Plus, you know, Gina Torres in that outfit (the one she wears through most of the movie; not the end sequence one, although that's nice, too). And it was good, I liked it. Much more with the traditional sci-fi stuff than the series, although there's still something about the politics of the whole show that makes me uneasy.

The Metreon had it in their IMAX theater. ::cough::geeks::cough:: I ended up going there even though I don't like how busy that place is because they had a 6:40 showing. It seemed most theaters were showing it either at 4:40 or 5, which I couldn't make, or 8 pm, which...no, I'm not fighting opening night crowds at the dating hour. 6:40 was doable though. A good excuse to have dinner at the most awkwardly-placed but only Del Taco in town, then wander down the street to the theater.

I'm bummed there was no Harry Potter preview, though. That would have been COOL in IMAX.

Weekend plans are mostly trying to wrap my brain around TD 19. This one I'm growing from the seeds on up, 'coz I don't have any kind of big-picture handle on it. Oh, and down-loading and watching Lost season 1.

My whole flist has gone "Firefly".











*hides*