Media

I spent the weekend immersed in Veronica Mars and have to say that their season 1 is one of the best written/produced single seasons ever. It was engaging and kept you wanting more and that’s how 20 hours later I was still awake, still watching. And then OF COURSE I had to watch the first ep of the second season and now I’m about halfway through the second season. I’m inconsolably sad that it’s already over, but it doesn’t keep me from wanting to see  how it all shakes out.

I recently rewatched Possession, which makes me want to re-read the book (as it is far more lovely). I also watched Surrogates which is a solid futuretech semi-dystopian view. Plus, Bruce Willis. Last on the list was Scandal, my least favorite. First it wasn’t a scandal with which I was familiar. Second, it was HELLA LONG.

As to the Charlie Sheen situation… I’m waiting to see how it sorts out. Will his seemingly batshit behavior let him off the hook for abusing women.

Great things about the internet

1. Netflix

2. wikipedia, for when a movie is so boring that you aren’t convinced you want to watch the whole thing you can look up the entire plot and make an informed decision

3. Tiramisu pancakes – The only thing better than a breakfast food is one that doubles as a dessert

4. Finding good fanfiction that you first read YEARS AGO and discovering that it’s still good. ahem.

Related:

2011 films

The Fighter – Dude. So good. Christian Bale is creepy fucking talented and if he doesn’t get the Oscar he’s being ripped off – not just for this role but because his entire body of work (except maybe Batman) is just incredible. He INHABITS these people. 5 of 5 stars

Centurion – I liked this far more than I’d expected. Bonus appearance of McNulty as Roman general (how much do I still miss The Wire?). Fairly typical, minus the stirring Gladiator-wannabe speech with a nice surprise of female badass badguys. Just a generally entertaining and solid watch. 4 out of 5

The End of the Affair – Dude. Great plot. SUCH A LONG AND DRAWN OUT PRODUCTION. They could have chopped a half an hour out of this flick and it wouldn’t have suffered a minute. This is the movie I referred to in my wikipedia shout out. Yes, I watched the whole thing. 3 of 5

Conversations with Other Women – I honestly can’t tell you why I watched the entire film. Soft spot for Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter, maybe? Interesting (if familiar) Before Sunrise type plot with a few unexpected twists. Enjoyable but not great. 3 of 5

Dear John – So much less god than the usual Nicholas Sparks film and not his ‘typical’ plot. In other words, I actually liked it. 3 of 5

Unrelated:

Sexy Valentine’s moment #12 – My left big toe, which I ran over with heavy equipment a while ago, shed its toenail. Less gross than anticipated but it turns out I’m probably lucky that I didn’t break the damn toe (having seen the damage).

Further unrelated:

After having a break from Yoga Journal for a while, I subscribed during their crazy $1.99 for 1 year deal and got my first issue today. It is surprisingly… light. Perhaps they’re shifting more content online? Guess I’ll have to check out their website.

In reading notes, I’m currently in the middle of Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest.

More movies from Netflix instant

Creation – I really loved this. Biopic of Charles Darwin starring real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connoly, which rather beautifully covers his internal (and external) difficulties publishing Origin of the Species. This will be familiar ground for anyone who’s wrestled with faith, religion and science but handled deftly, with compassion and honesty. Lovely. (5 stars)

Love N’ Dancing – Oh my god. I wanted to like this, I really did. The dance instructor was one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen. Billy Zane was the absolute highlight. (2 stars)

Women in Trouble – I’ll solidly say I liked this. The name implies it’s a slightly different film – a better title would perhaps have been Women in Turmoil. It’s an interesting vignette picture with women whose lives intersect at contentious points. V. enjoyable.  (3 stars)

Marigold – Ali Larter goes to India. I’m not sure there’s a better descriptor. I was expecting it to be either more Bollywood or less and the middle ground was oddly unsatisfying but I kept watching anyhow. (2.5 stars)

New in Town – Eventually Hollywood will maybe get over the sad and pathetic tropes that 1) anyone outside of a major city is a moron/brain damaged 2) women in business have to be utter cunts to succeed 3) everyone in Minnesota sounds like Sarah Palin. Despite these three super annoying plot devices I actually enjoyed this movie. Maybe it had something to do with Harry Connick, Jr and the phenomenal supporting cast. (4 stars)

Movies

RED – This is one of those movies I knew would be awesome and then it proceeded to exceed my expectations. John Malkovich was fucking HILARIOUS. We loved it. LOVE.

The Descent II – I really liked the first one and this was kind of a great sequel, as sequels go.

Spread – I feel like Ashton Kutcher should pay ME for the 1.5 hours of my life I’ll never get back. Who was the costumer on this flick because despite the gigolo gig, he looks like he’s trying to pick up MEN. Who high cuffs their pants and wears sparkly belts with skinny suspenders ALL AT THE SAME TIME. And that’s not even mentioning the ridiculous scarves. I’m going to spoil you here and tell you halfway through the film, he and a female prossie fall in love. Up until then, there’s a lot of nekkid and Kutcher in bad clothes. After that, there’s less nekkid and more angst. I must have a masochistic streak for watching it all the way through.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – Did a great job of living up to the novel. A fantastic end to the trio of films.

Elsewhere – AWESOME. Small-town mystery with Anna Kendrick and it was excellent.

The Runaways- Joan Jett was my hero from like forever. This movie is just a rehash/reinforcement of precisely how fucking awesome she is.

Movies

Outlander. It was on cable and I recently picked up the free Kindle version of the book, so it was morbid curiosity to watch. It’s like Aliens lands in the middle ages, except in the middle ages they use modern lingo and the spacedude is a Mary Sue. I’m not so sure how I feel about reading the books now.

Movies

Dinner for Schmucks – I found this to be generally… meh. Not sure that it matters I’m a fan of the original but this had some funny and funny/awkward moments but was not the hilarious film billed by all the trailers. Feh.

Mistress of Spices – If I had to describe this film in one word it would be “languid.” Slow paced but a very nice film, romantic without being too heavy-handed and a kind of modern day fairy tale. Aishwarya Rai is gorgeous, obviously, and had good chemistry with Dylan McDermott. Due to her prominence in Bollywood, it’s also very PG but still has some depth. My husband’s review: “The spices are dicks!”

Weekend films

She’s Out of My League- Predictably crass, goofy and hilarious and therefore right in my wheelhouse. Many, many laugh out loud scenes. Many.

Clash of the Titans – No lie, I was kind of thinking this might suck. It actually turned out quite well – missing the classic cheese of the original but with a significantly better story than Avatar. I think that’s perhaps damning with fair praise.

Sickbed films

Trucker – I tried watching this movie about six months ago and stalled. Today I watched the whole thing. Great acting and the story was good right up until it sucked ass. WTF. It had SUCH potential and then pussied out right at the end with some bullshit device.

Paranormal Activity – Surprisingly boring. I’m not sure what all the excitement was about. Elsenet, Caitlin Kittredge called it Cinematic Ambien. I can’t disagree.

Gamer- Another film I started watching and couldn’t get into. Thanks to my severe headcold (that was SO CLOSE to being “severed headcold”) and Netflix streaming, I can say I was surprisingly entertained.

As it’s too early for my spouse to get home, I may tackle another film. Or maybe a book. Related: I can see that keeping track of the films I watch this year is going to be a BAD IDEA.

Sick day

I woke up feeling like crap more severe than the fending-off -cold kind that I’ve been battling. Since everyone and their cousin at work has strep throat (who gets strep when they’re an ADULT for cripes sake?) I’m going to go to the doctor today.

The lousy thing about sick days is crap tv. I mean, there are other things I’ll do besides crap tv, but then when you stumble across something good – as I just did – you’re halfway through it before you found it and there’s no way you’ll find a repeat precisely because you’re home for the day. I Capture The Castle is on, a lovely and tremendous film with a fantastic story and terrible decisions and brilliant acting. Alas, it’s halfway over already and I don’t own it on DVD. Probably I should read the book but given I’ve 20 books on the Kindle that I’ve actually bought but HAVEN’T read yet, that’s not in the works.It’s kind of surprising, actually, that I haven’t read the book.

When I enjoy a film based on a book and haven’t read it (rarity), I usually pick it up. I think maybe because I enjoy this film so much I don’t want another version of it in my head. Ditto The Princess Bride. Hrm. That’s probably a pretty short list if I put any more thought into it.

I did get to watch last night’s Castle which, as per usual, was great. Funny and sharp, plus a surprise with the actress playing Nikki Heat – not who’s playing her but the direction the episode took. The finale (finale? mid-season finale? when the F is it on regularly now anyhow?) of The Closer was good as well. I’m always impressed by Kyra Sedgwick and Jon Tenney. I was less impressed with Tenney (through no fault of his own) in Legion, which was dreadful.

Yesterday’s drive time was consumed by  The Metropolis Symphony. I love it. It’s simultaneously engaging and comic- in the graphic sense, not humor – and energetic storytelling though music where lyrics are rendered obsolete. Fantastic. That’s another great find thanks to NPR.

Added a tumblr feed to the blog (in the right column) so there may be bits and snatches that appear there and nowhere else (of late, quotes).

For now, I think a nap is necessary before a call to the doc.

More new films

Well, new to me.

Young Victoria – LOVELY.

Legion – chock full of suck

No, I really don’t have anything to elaborate.

Firsts of the Year

First novel finished:

Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

(from my review at Goodreads) I’m not entirely sure why there was so much hype surrounding this particular book – maybe there are people who recognize characters in it. For me, it was a caricature of the American family – the kind of American family, in fact, that the Republicans would try to convince you we’re all becoming.

The problem with trying to make a sweeping commentary on our culture is that you’re invariably going to miss. In this case, it was an enjoyable read but nothing earth-shattering or shockingly profound. The moral of the story is that we’re all fucked up. We all make bad choices. We all live with the consequences. Plenty of writers have done better work with this in less pages.

Incidentally, I can see why the FranzenFreude started – Picoult and Weiner have both written more engaging and compelling works (If you haven’t read Good In Bed, you SHOULD) to much less acclaim.

*shrug*

First film:

Ondine

I’d read mixed reviews of this and while Spouse was wrapped up in Bowl games yesterday I watched it on Netflix streaming. 1. It’s odd to hear Colin Farrell with his native accent 2. This was a charming – but shouldn’t have been charming film.

It’s listed as sci-fi but it reminds me more of the work of Alice Hoffman – real but with fantastical elements that add to the story. No surprise, then, that I kind of loved it. A fisherman finds a woman in his net. She brings him luck by singing the fish into his boat and his sickly daughter concludes the woman is a Selkie and works to keep her.

It’s a lovely and delicate film with a satisfying conclusion. Highly recommended.

Post-holiday weekend ennui

I suspect it will lead to a series of top 10 posts.

I’m thinking Top 10 books I read this year, Top 10 albums I listened to, Top 10 films I watched, Top 10 gadgets Top 10 TV shows. I know. Scintillating.

In the meantime, Dave’s dog is howling in my face which makes me think I should go to bed.

Mom has probably landed safely in Detroit (my phone is upstairs) and tomorrow is Hump Day. Saturday begins a new year! Isn’t there something about a year that starts on a weekend being lucky?

No? Fuck it. I say it will be.

Let it Snow

First real snowfall has hit and like most mountain-dwelling Coloradans, I’m happy to see it. I’ve been looking forward to winter – something unique for me and definitely a result of our new locale. While I haven’t missed all the folk who can’t drive well in snow and the Nervous Nellies who make it more dangerous for all of us, during the drive home I got to see the wind shoving clouds over some mountain peaks at close range.  It made it look like the mountains were shaving off bits of cloud with each gust and it was just generally excellent. Immediately I was less annoyed about the painfully slow drivers in front of me and enjoyed the slow cruise home.

The last couple of posts were of the home improvement progress. With any luck this weekend will see us nearing completion on the project.

I’ve got new Kindle skin love rocking right now, too. Since I’m contemplating a NaNoWriMo stab next month I’m trying to wrap up Dreadnaught and not get sucked into any of the ridiculous number of books in my Unread folder.

Random TV notes: I’m still really enjoying The Mentalist, Medium, Castle, Criminal Minds, The Big C, Modern Family, Community and Gray’s Anatomy. I find myself fast-forwarding through Chuck more than I’d like and I’m still utterly on the fence with this season’s Supernatural. To be honest I’m rather wishing they’d actually ended it last season, as this is feeling a bit like Buffy season 7. Related, Lifetime has been replaying old Gray’s eps  (I discovered this as my DVR has its own brain and recorded them) and I had forgotten how much awesome used to be jammed into every episode. This season is feeling like that. I also have to credit the Spouse for making me watch Modern Family. Without fail it is laugh out loud funny in EVERY episode and will invariably leave me chuckling long after. I feel like an idiot for missing it so long.

In film updates, Splice. What a fucked up, creepy and skeevy film. It was engrossing, however, unlike – say – IRON MAN 2. What the hell happened with that? It’s like they decided in lieu of a plot to insert Mickey Rourke and 10x more guns than the first one. Oh, and a whiny nagging Pepper. Ugh. Spouse says: I guess we won’t have to worry about seeing the 3rd one. It’s the second major film disappointment in recent memory (up there with Robin Hood) but made me feel good about not having shelled out cash to see it in the theater. I am, however, still wanting to see RED on the big screen.

So that’s what I get

I wrote a ranty post about Laurell K. Hamilton and how she killed a kind of fantastic idea in a horrifying cold-blooded way, not to mention violating the last truly great character she’d written and then I decided to attempt (again) to import my old blog posts. I successfully killed the blog AGAIN. Luckily this time the only thing I really lost was my anti-LKH post and the epic boring of Robin Hood 2010 but STILL.

So I guess I’m going to let the old yoga-grrl.com posts rest in peace and maybe try to resurrect the LKH rant from LJ.

Days off

Today I spent a perfectly lovely afternoon reclined on a picnic table bench, reading a book. The dog stretched out next to me and alternated between napping and rolling in the grass. I started and finished The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman.

I think the first Hoffman book I read was Practical Magic, which I adored. It’s one of the few novel-to-film adaptations I also enjoy – the movie keeps to the sentiment of the novel, if not the letter, though the book is to be preferred.

When I had to describe Hoffman’s work to a friend last night I said it wasn’t fantasy, it’s more like fantastic fiction. It has every quality of ‘literary’ fiction but each work contains something magical or otherworldly that’s thoroughly woven into the narrative in such a way that it almost stops being fantastic and simply another element in a great story. It bridges genres and never fails to surprise and delight me. There’s never the sense of a re-tread or staleness, no matter how many novels I’ve read (and re-read). She’s one of the few authors whose work I can reliably buy in hardcover or, in this case, kindle.

All in all, a wonderful and relaxing afternoon.