meddow

I dragged flatmate to go see Star Trek. Even though our tastes in sci-fi tend to be the same, it did take considerable negotiation to get her to the one. I am another for whom Star Trek is part of my childhood, although I've always been more Next Gen than TOS – namely because I cannot remember a time when I didn't loathe James T Kirk. Anyway, so I went there with nostalgia and Kirk-hating, and flatmate went in there all cynical about the movie. We both thought it was brilliant.

( Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a…. )

Anyway, flatmate in particular walked out and voted TOS as the next series we should watch once we finish Battlestar Galactica. So mission most certainly accomplished most definitely with the bringing the franchise back to life and opening up to new fans.

Stargate Atlantis won my little 'what should I watch next poll', but then I got to talking about television shows with my mother, and her verdict on Atlantis was not positive so I'm a bit hesitant.

But then I had a better idea: I'd watch the Star Trek movies in order. I'm not really a Star Trek fan but I watched them all as a child as my father's a Trekkie, and with the new movie coming out soon I'm feeling nostalgic, and since I don't like Kirk and I don't like Spock (I heart McCoy though) it's bound to be fun watching them and counting down how many I have to watch until the TNG cast show up (um, yeah, TNG is my favourite). But then my local video store didn't have any of the Star Trek movies, which is a massive level of fail.

So after the disappointment of discovering my awesome Star Trek plan was foiled, I was feeling in need for comedy so I've got out Flight of the Conchords. That, and if I don't have the episodes memorised soon, I'm in danger of having my New Zealand citizenship revoked. (I've watched a few episodes and loved them, it's just I keep on forgetting it's on. Oh, and I get crappy reception of that channel).

First of all, quick vid rec: One Girl Revolution by arefadedaway. Why? Because it's got every awesome female character I have ever idolised in this vid (it's got characters from Doctor Who, Stargate, Firefly, PotC, Harry Potter, P&P, Heroes and many, many more), which is a celebration of awesome female characters in general.

First of all, watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries, which was very good. I can see why everyone seems to be crazy about Roslin/Adama what with those two arguing who is in command. I'm not a fan of Jamie Bamber's American accent. I like him a lot more as poor doomed Kennedy on Hornblower. Is lack of explosions a legitimate criticism? I wouldn’t criticise a period drama for lack of destruction on a massive scale, but in a miniseries in which the vast majority of humanity is killed off, I would expect a few more fireballs. Anyway, I liked it very very much, but can't see myself becoming too fannish about it, but then I know who the final Cylon it already. Next up to watch is the first season.

Also watched Tipping the Velvet which was also very good. For those who've never heard of it, it's a miniseries based on the book by Sarah Water's following the Dickens-like adventures of Nancy as she goes from an oyster girl to male impersonator and then through a few other jobs, and it's a fascinating look at what like to be a lesbian in Victorian London. The voice over bugged me a bit, the direction got a bit weird at times, particularly when it tries to put a music hall spin on dramatic scenes and I wasn’t fully convinced by the lead actress at times, but the rest of the cast was brilliant. I've really got to read the book. I'm part of the way through The Night Watch.

Finally, I've been reading the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman and I’m in love. I'm in love with the universe and the mythology, I'm in love with the writing and the art, I'm in love with Dream and quite a few of the other characters. I've read the first and second 'Absolute' volumes in the past few days, with each book large enough to house a board game. I want to say something coherent about how brilliant it is, but I love it so much all that comes out right now is lots and lots of incoherent gushing so I shall summarise and say this: It say it's freaking amazing and I don't want reading it ever end! (But sadly I know it finished at issue 75).

But it's a pain. I read the wikipiedia entry and accidentally found out some information about the end that I didn't want to know. Damnit. While I'm a bit of a spoiler whore when it comes to television, I don't like to be spoiled when it comes to books, graphic novels, movies and the like. I went out of my way to remain spoiler free when reading Y: The Last Man, which is the last graphic novel series I got into. BTW, has anyone else read to the end of that series? It's been over six months since I read the final volume and I still feel I need a bit of group therapy to get over what happened to one of the characters, and I don't want to say what or who because it will spoil it for others.

Finally, the day is drawing near and I'm still very 'do not want' about the Watchmen movie. Grr. I think I'm going to be one of those terrible snobby people who dismisses all fans that watched the movie before they read the graphic novel. Actually, I think I'm one of those people already. Sorry guys. But after a few years of going on about how brilliant Watchmen is to people and getting funny looks of either 'WTF?' or 'you read comics?!', I'm just a little bit bitter about it becoming mainstream.

Lately I've been on a political movie mood. I watched Recount the other day, which stars Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson and Laura Dern and follows the events in Florida in the wake of the 2000 Presidential election. It was an incredibly good movie, particularly given that was about vote counting and legal challenges and everyone knows the ending.

I have to say, I really love this trend of making movies about relatively recent political events. The Queen I thought was brilliant, particularly as is it has the eventual fate of Tony Blair in regards to his popular support in mind. And while I know films like that have been criticised for not being able to be distanced enough from events to make them useful, I think they're brilliant since it's so hard to keep track of exactly what's happening following the news, particularly if you are, say 15 like I was when the Florida recount happened. And films of that nature are far more useful while the players and issues involved are still alive, than 50 years down the track.

Further, I was browsing through the movie trailers on the apple website and the movie I'm really looking forward to this Oscar season is Frost/Nixon. I'm a bit of a Watergate geek, having read All the President's Men and Katharine Graham's memoir, and the movie looks fantastic. And it's got Michael Sheen, Rebecca Hall and Matthew Macfadyen. W, Milk and Battle in Seattle also look pretty good and are all unabashedly political movies.

However, this trailer broke my brain just a bit. Okay, it's a sports movie about rugby with black jerseys and the haka, that could in some circumstances be okay i.e. if it were a movie about the All Blacks. It's not okay when it's a sport movie about American's playing rugby complete with black jerseys and a haka. I'm sorry, but WTF? I can imagine that in some corners of America, rugby is played, but the wholesale stealing of All Black iconography (which is New Zealand national iconography) for a rugby movie set United States about a teenager with Daddy-issues is just so mind-blowingly wrong. The equivalent would be a New Zealand movie Abraham Lincoln helping a woman from Auckland get her groove back. I really do wonder if they're going to release it in New Zealand.

One of my flatmates and I were watching a movie last night, Fido, which is about a boy and his pet zombie in an alternative 1950s (crackasticly brilliant btw), and as a zombie was tearing into an old woman another one of my flatmates walked in the room, saw it and scolded us with a level of righteous indignation that Mary Whitehouse would be proud of for finding such things entertaining And for the first time in my life it occurred to me that some people just do not find zombies amusing. I always assumed a love of zombies was universal. They're zombies: decomposing people that lumber along and try to eat your brains. What's not to like? Even my mother likes zombie movies (then again, my mother is a Quentin Tarantino fangirl so maybe she's not the best person to drag up). Obviously, if there actually was a zombie apocalypse, I probably wouldn't find them funny. But as long as they remain fictional I shall find them entertaining.

Although, zombies aren't my favourite monster. That prize belongs to killer plants – triffids, krynoids and the like. There's just something so brilliant about people-eating vegetation.

Anyway, I've been at it with the Aaron Eckhart movie watching again:

Neverwas (2005, dr. Joshua Michael Stern)
Assets: IAN MCKELLAN, Nick Nolte, IAN MCKELLAN
Warnings: Britney Murphy (see, now I can't find it within me to dislike anyone who appeared in Drop Dead Gorgeous - unless they happened to appear in Marie Antoinette - but I know quite a few out there don't like her).

( Read more... )

Film Rating: 4 ½
Fangirl Rating: 4 ½

The Black Dahlia (2006, dr. Brian De Palma)
Assets: Hmmmm….Fiona Shaw, I suppose. The Aunt Petunia factor gives a humorous spin on certain events.
Warnings: Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson (The two blandest actors in Hollywood together at last).

( Read more... )

Film Rating: 2
Fangirl Rating: 2 ½

Thanks to The Dark Knight I've developed a fangirl affection for Aaron Eckhart. What's a girl to do but go down to the video store rental-stalk him? I've gotten out quite a bit of his back catalogue and I'm having my very own Aaron Eckhart film festival.

Also I've decided to implement a movie review system for my journal. There are marks out of five for general excellence. But also, since my usual motivation for watching a movie is that there is an actor or actress I happen to fangirl in it, there's also a fangirl rating out of five based on their presence, screen time and general wonderfulness.

Thank You for Smoking (2005, dr. Jason Reitman)
Assets: Maria Bello, Rob Lowe
Warnings: Katie Holmes

( You know the guy who can pick up any girl? I'm him. On crack )

Film Rating: 5
Fangirl Rating: 5

Any Given Sunday (1999, dr. Oliver Stone)
Assets: Al Pacino, Jamie Foxx
Warnings: It's about American Football.

( On any given Sunday you're gonna win or you're gonna lose. The point is - can you win or lose like a man? )

Film Rating: 4
Fangirl Rating: 1

Coming when I find the time: Possession and Suspect Zero

Quick review of The Dark Knight before I run out to work

I'm in love with Harvey Dent

Possibly come clarification of that statement coming later.

I've been watching The Catherine Tate Show lately. I've caught series one and two. I'd really only seen bits of it on youtube before now. I figured it needed investigating, 1. since half the comments about Catherine Tate I've read seem to start with the sentence "I can't stand The Catherine Tate Show…" (and either finish with the comment of "and she's going to ruin Doctor Who" if it's July 07 or the comment "but she was one of the best things to ever happen to Doctor Who" if it's July 08)

And 2. I am a huge Catherine Tate fangirl. I've seen every movie she's made now except for Mrs. Ratcliffe's Revolution which I probably will go see in August when it comes out here even with the 4.0 on imdb (Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 80% so it can't be that bad) so it was about time I watched The Catherine Tate Show.

Anyway, I don't understand the hate. It's not the greatest show ever, but then sketch comedies never are, and it is hilarious in places, particularly the Ginger Refuge and Enigmatic Cop, and ever the characters that initially come off as more annoying than funny like Paul and Sam managed to invoke some laughter from me by the end of the second series. Am I the only one who feels really sorry for poor Lauren Cooper? She's just so tragic. (Well, she never gets away with her behaviour and it seems to be rooted in her insecurities.)

In other DW related actor things, I also caught Bright Young Things which has, among others, David Tennant and Fellena Woolgar in it. Watching that I have decided that David Tennant should never ever ever again grow a moustache (just, no) and Fellena Woolgar should be cast in more things. She was the highlight of the movie and just wonderful. Why is she not more famous?

And I found these screencaps forgotten I'd taken. A couple of months ago I rented the first series of Wild West (Dawn French and Catherine Tate are a convenience-more-than-anything-else lesbian couple in an quirky village in Cornwall), and now I give you:

( Donna gets a happy ending with Captain Jack )

When I was a kid, I wanted to be the female equivalent of Indiana Jones when I grew up. I loved those movies so much. Even The Temple of Doom. Actually, Temple was my favourite of the three when I was seven. It occurred to me yesterday that what with me being in love with academia at the moment, I’m kind of part way there. Indiana Jones was an academic - I’m just missing the globe trotting, grave robbing and the whip. Not to mention awesomeness and Nazis. Okay, so I’m not like Indiana Jones at all, but a girl can wish she fulfilled her childhood dreams, right?

Anyway, getting to my point, I cannot find myself getting all that excited about the new Indiana Jones movies. Even with object-of-many-a girl-crush Cate Blanchett in it. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because Harrison Ford is now old and can’t seem to be bothered with the whole acting lack beyond the paycheque and nobody want to see their idols like that. Maybe it’s because there’s so much potential for it to disappoint. And there’s so much positive hype (and you all know my ability to jump on the positive hype bandwagons) but it’s not happening for me.

I'll go and see it no matter what, but I really want to be excited about it and I’m not. Seven year old me would be so ashamed of myself.

Although I do have a whole bunch of movies I really want to watch: Son of Rambow, Mama Mia and The Dark Knight (Is it true that Cillian Murphy is in it? Because if he is Best. Cast. Ever.)

I’m bored. I am completely and utter mind numbing bored and there’s not much I can do about it and fandom, my usual refuge in these sort of situations, is not helping. All my fandoms either have ended or have no new canon coming for a while. Doctor Who until at least March and Heroes not at any point in the foreseeable future due to the strike. Though with trailers around for both and both look fabulous, but there have been no juicy spoilers for a while and trailers just won’t cut it since all they do is rub salt in the wound. I’m relying on the weekly Heroes graphic novels for all my fandom kicks. I really need some new canon.

I really want to see Cloverfield. Or drink a Slusho. The lack of an advertising campaign/cryptic references in random places advertising campaign has really worked on me. And, you know - Gigantic Monster. Attacks New York. I'm so there.

You know how I’ve been pretty anti the Doctor/Companion romances in New Who and was practically leaping for joy at finally getting a Companion that’s not going to have a crush on the Doctor. Well, I think Ten/Donna’s my current favourite Who ship. What is wrong with me? Promise me no romance and suddenly I want it.

And in cool fandom things on YouTube: A Fake trailer for The Company Man Movie. I want this to be a real movie.

So tonight it's been 'I want' 'I want' 'I want' and I don't think I'm going to get. But I'm an adult which means I'm allowed to behave like a petulant child. Okay, that’s everything on my mind for the evening. I think I shall return to acting on that Heroes plot bunny that’s be bugging me all week.