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Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
Misfits
An in depth review of this BBC show may be coming (mostly ranting about the writer's idiocy and disgusting didacticism, along with their flashes of brilliance), but for now, I really like this bit of music. Even if the scorers for the show have a tendency to sub in remixed classics (Barber's Adagio, some opera "most famous radio hits," etc). Which is better, I suppose, than the typical TV show, which relies on really ugly ostinatos.
Anyhoo, pretty musics, enjoy.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Afterwards, a Birds of Prey/Batgirl fanfic
Summary:
Stephanie muses on the Birds after their trip to Hong Kong (volume 2 issue 5 and 6).
Work Text:
Steph doesn't know sometimes how to describe Helena to people who don't know her, or have only seen her from a distance. “Statuesque” seems so...inadequate. And yet, having been with her both when off duty to see her teaching, and on missions where her capo persona is called for, the level of sophistication Helena exudes effortlessly, combined with her height, seems to have no other fit.
She's seen Helena in the most unglamorous situations, from the panicked, horrifying days of the earthquake when she was forced to save her rotten dad from a younger, much more violent and willing-to-use-lethal-force Huntress, to learning how to ride motorcycles with Helena breathing down her neck (literally, too) so that she doesn't scratch her beautiful Ducati (the civvie one, not the white-cross-on-purple one which would be...out of place in parking lots awkwardly fishtailing as she tried to make out Helena's instructions between bouts of muffled Italian swearing...at least, she assumed it was swearing, from the tone and rigidity of Helena's body behind her). Despite all this grime, spiritual and physical, Steph knows that there's something bright about Helena, something that shines whether she's gently but firmly instructing students on European history, arguing with others about the appropriate levels of force and actions, jumping across building roofs, or holding someone off those roofs by the neck three stories up and shaking them for threatening children. It's not white or silver, like the passion which you see in Batman or Babs – the concentrated cultivation of righteousness born of personal pain. It's not warm, firm, and yellow like Dinah's, full of the acceptance of experience and the strength of conviction. It's jagged, excruciating, furious, vulnerable – probably violet (which might explain her own draw towards Huntress – she has good taste in costume colors) – born out of the same pain, but without the kind of examples and love that allow Bruce or Barbara to see the better way.
She saw Dinah, Babs, and Helena out walking after the business in Hong Kong. Dinah had a cast and was smiling as usual, Babs was looking a bit frayed but also mysterious (the combined “new internet” thing and faking her own death must have been eating at her), but Helena... Steph knew it wasn't just the fact that Helena towered over her companions. Taped up like a mummy after Shiva's beating, limping, leaning over Babs to tell a private joke while Dinah wasn't looking, tentatively reaching an arm around Dinah's smaller shoulders, Steph thinks Helena has finally found her way back in.
Sometimes, Steph wonders if it's Helena's height that allows her to continue bucking Batman's strictures. Sure, Helena's ferociously intelligent, has access to similar resources and training, and has carved out her own reputation in Gotham. But there has to be something about being only three inches shorter than the scariest man ever that helped.
Of course, Dinah was shorter than even Steph, and she had kissed Batman. Steph shudders just thinking about that. Slapping Bruce for being a jerk is one thing, even if her hand still tingled in horrified amazement and humor at that. But actually planting a big one on that becowled visage (such an appropriate word for Batman's face, that)...that took guts from someone nearly a foot shorter.
Still, the height had to help.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Why
I've been thinking. A lot of the people around me (though not as much when I was an undergrad in a different state) don't see a problem with racist jokes and racist portrayals in books, films, video games, and comics. I've heard people I believe try to live lives of integrity argue that racist jokes help mock the teller's own racism and keep it in check. I've been told I take things too seriously. I've been told many things.
Now, to be completely honest, I do take things too seriously. Especially myself. I have a very limited sense of humor, and often attempt to impose that limitation on others.
But I think there is something wrong with racist jokes and portrayals. I am one quarter Chinese, one quarter Japanese, one quarter German, and one quarter Czech. I often tell people I am German because I don't like being identified as Asian, and I'm not entirely sure why I do that. I know it really bothers me when I'm known as "the Asian one," and that one of the first things many people ask me is "what are you." I'm me. Ian Miller. I'm not ashamed of being Asian. I love eating rice. I am a huge nerd. These things are part of who I am, and if they're related to being Asian, I don't disavow them.
But to single a trait that I have no control over, and identify me primarily as that trait seems extremely devaluing. I know most people who do it probably have no intention of doing so, but I don't think it's the right thing to do.
Even further than that, something that's just occurred to me (and prompted this post), when a racist joke or stereotype is promulgated, even if it's supposedly done in a way that's self-mocking, that idea, that devaluation and denigration are strengthened in everyone who hears or sees the joke or portrayal. And when I see or hear the joke or portrayal, part of me is thinking, "That's what these people think about me." Not because of anything I do (and believe me, I do many things to make people think badly of me), but because of where my grandparents were from and what I look like.
It's a sick feeling. And I wish it could go away.
(Wow, this is starting to feel whiny. Okay, I'm done.)
Monday, May 9, 2011
A Quote, perhaps a precursor
"I made a promise to my parents to rid the city of the evil that took their lives." Batman, Dark Victory, written by Jeph Loeb, drawn by Tim Sale.
I've finally finished the four main sources for the two most recent Batman films - The Man Who Falls, Batman: Year One, The Long Halloween, and Dark Victory. None of them are perfect, none of them are masterpieces - but each of them is incredibly powerful. Maybe sometime soon (after I finish my papers) I shall review them.
Friday, May 6, 2011
So...that was it?
Avatar is super lame.
And they killed the Latina chick. She was the most awesome character in the film, being the only one who wasn't a pathetic nerd, entitled whiner, scientist (okay, Dr. Augustine was cool too), or pathetic whiner's wish-fulfillment.
And they blew her up. Pointlessly. She didn't even accomplish anything.
Oh, and it was very pretty cartoon.
Stupid killing of Latina chicks...
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Not sure what to feel...
Osama Bin Laden is dead.
I remember reading a piece (I think by Peggy Noonan) that we'd hear that he was dead, and we'd stop and cry.
That was well over eight years ago.
I'm not crying. But I do remember being fourteen, my mom telling me that her sister had called her and told her about the attack, and being sick and numb.
I'm not sick, but I am feeling very serious and sad and yet not a little relieved.
I don't think this makes me too much safer. But it is important.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
5 Thoughts on Atlas Shrugged
1) It's...adequate. Rather like my reaction to the book - a blend of truly exciting woman against the world and mystery thriller with the most excruciatingly black and white philosophizing for well over half the word count.
2) The acting is okay - I was hoping for something a bit more commanding from Dagny, but I'm not sure what performance I think might have worked - and the actors weren't helped by the rather less than sparkly dialogue (very reminiscent, again, to that of the book).
3) While the cinematography is not brilliant, it is very colorful and enjoyable, with some nice compositions and lighting. Also not too much handheld indulgence. Helps the film avoid showing its budget. And the vistas, enhanced I assume with CGI trains and bridges, are quite engaging.
4) Unsurprisingly, they made the sex scenes, which really seem to indicate a sort of fetishizing of sex as assault (however mutually enjoyable) basically just the same romantic, slow, emphasizing kissing and PG-13 head framed shots. Part of me is relieved - the sex scenes were very annoying in the book - but it does seem kind of cynical to make it so tame.
5) For all my annoyance with the characters who play on emotions with equal parts earnest speechifying and cynical stock tropes, the ending was quite exciting and moving. My complaints about Dagny's acting were lessened considerably by her performance in the final scene.
Makes me wonder about the next two planned films. The media surrounding the film has been bizzarely polarized around politics. No, the film's no masterpiece. But it's also no worse than many other films which are critically acclaimed - and a good sight better than most blockbusters with 10 times its budget. The cast and crew have been very quiet - perhaps because they're not getting paid a lot to do publicity. I hope they all come back and do the other parts - it is an exciting story, and since they cut a lot of the speechifying (as annoying as the bits they left in are, it's quite admirable how they've trimmed), the other bits should be just as engaging...though I'm not necessarily looking forward to the final speech by the mysterious hero...
Not as enjoyable as Source Code (my favorite film of the past two months, I think), but I liked it. Despite disagreeing with the politics.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
On spilt interests
My interests tend to go in phases, lasting anywhere from a year to a couple of days, but mostly (if I follow my own patterns correctly, which is actually not very likely) about two weeks to a month. Usually they are serial, one following the other in neat lines of obsession. But every now and then they run parallel.
Now is one of those times.
I am currently following up an interest sparked by one of my classes in Little Women, listening to the lovely soundtrack by Thomas Newman from the 1994 film, buying all three books and aforementioned film, going through my collection of movies to check up on how many of the filmmakers I have in there, investigating women-directed film and literary projects, enjoying musicals based on Little Women, The Secret Garden, and Jane Eyre (which is a holdover from my earlier interest in Jane Eyre springing up around the movie release), and generally enjoying a gentle, complex, pretty world of writers and family.
And simultaneously I am following the Game of Thrones television series by HBO, creating a surge of Tolkien rereads, blog hunts, and general interest in high fantasy and its deconstructors.
It's very confusing, to be listening to the ethereally beautiful brass and strings of Little Women while reading about the twisted relationships and violent deaths of imaginary lands.
Odd, said the duck. Very odd.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Two telefilmic things coming on Sunday
So, A Game of Thrones episode one and The Fall of Sam Axe are coming out Sunday. I will probably have to find them some other way than watching them on TV, since a) I have no TV, and if I did I'd be highly unlikely to even pay for USA, let alone HBO. But I am quite excited about both.
A Game of Thrones is based on a book series that is trying, as far as I can tell without reading them (which I have committed not to do, reasons to follow) to be the anti-Tolkien in all but two ways. Full of unheroic protagonists, plot-dependent narrator character deaths, oh, and a lot of really bizzare sex ranging from incestual to underage and all the in betweens, Martin loves being a pain in all those heroic epic fantasy lovers' sides - especially since a) he's writing heroic epic fantasy - just look at the scope and actions that happen within his stories, and tell me otherwise, and b) he's really bad about finishing things.
While I have a magnetic pull to read the books (I do adore epic heroic fantasy, after all), I have avoided them for three main reasons: 1) no one really talks about prose quality, which doesn't seem to bode well; 2) I don't particularly enjoy that kind of content in such quantities; 3) I don't want to get engaged in a series with no definite conclusion (or would take too long to reach that conclusion - see also, Wheel of Time, Lost, etc). However, I may change my mind about 3 if Martin ever finishes his dratted books (7 years is a bit steep for finishing one book, though I think he's been working on other things, so it's probably not as bad as the more annoying fans say it is), and if he upholds his promise to provide a satisfying ending (if his given definition of satisfying is anything close to mine, which, admittedly, is unlikely).
But the series looks like it could be cool. Hopefully they've avoided the kind of ridiculously stupid writing that plagues this kind of cable series (sorry, but Pillars of the Earth was just very, very poorly written, and the bits I've seen of The Tudors, The Borgias, and Spartacus don't dissuade me). The acting talent they've gotten is extremely impressive, though they've probably dropped the ball in casting Sean Bean as the main protagonist...not because he can't do it (he definitely can) but because everyone know that when Sean Bean is cast, one of two things happen to him: 1) he's evil; or 2) he dies. Flightplan doesn't count. Cause it was bad and stupid.
Also, the TV series will hopefully keep things moving faster than they seem to be moving in the later books - again, I've not read them, but I find that when I read summaries of the first two or three books, I get the sense of densely plotted, intelligent, exciting narratives. The last two books seem much more like "and then we raped people and then we used the bathroom and then we killed people and then we slept and then we woke up" kind of stuff that gets praised as "gritty" because of the rape and bathrooms but no one seems to notice that they are as badly written as this run on sentence.
Anyway.
Sam Axe, eh?
Bruce Campbell is a big part of why I'm such a fan of Burn Notice (well, that and the extremely sharp writing, which hasn't dropped in quality like so many of the shows I used to love, like Chuck or Castle). I am extremely excited to see him get a whole movie exploring the character and backstory of his fabulously funny but admirable character. And hope it's good. Cause I just bought the first two seasons, and I don't want to have bought another series that goes significantly down in quality (Veronica Mars doesn't count, cause I knew I wasn't going to buy the second or third seasons when I got the first one).
So, Sunday should be fun. For those who have DVR and cable.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
I have bought a pink book
Yup. I now own all three Little Women books. A nice fat pink Little Women in Puffin edition from 2008 with plenty of helps and stuff, the Signet Classics Little Men I got for last weeks' class, and Jo's Boys in the help-free Puffin Classics from the 1980s.
And the movie is so very darling and sweet. And written by the writer/director of the superb The Jane Austen Book Club. Have some musics!
(Other books recently acquired: Return of the Dapper Men, a decoupage comic book by Jim McCann and Janet Lee, The Host by Stephenie Meyer - actually quite nice, significantly improved from Twilight, a C. P. Snow novel - was interested and it was cheap and pretty, T. S. Eliot's hilarious poetry in Jellicle's Book of Practical Cats, Tolkien's Alan Lee illustrated The Children of Hurin - the story is dreadful, but the pictures are to die for, and two childhood favorites, Detectives in Togas and The Pushcart War. Books are good.)
Friday, April 1, 2011
I want my Gmail Paper!
Dear Google,
Thank you for your hard efforts in the areas of kinetic electronic communication (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html). But you promised a long time ago that you would print out my emails and send them to people (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/paper/more.html). Where's my hard copies!
Sincerely,
Me
Monday, March 28, 2011
A poem
Because I finished my writing early tonight, and am waiting for my totally for grown ups macaroni to cook in the microwave, here is a poem. Please, poet friends of mine, don't kill me? (Also, I like assonance and slant rhymes. Cause I don't want to try to find real rhymes. Also, fixed meter is lame. Er, I mean hard. Yeah. So I don't have it.)
"Inspirational Ode to a Ferrous Implement of Cooking"
Flavor percolating, aroma wafts
Any cook tells you heats best
The frying pan of iron, cast.
Such fancy, I think, and ask
“Why so?” The response, quick, nests,
“Flavor percolating, aroma wafts.”
At skeptic look, quick fast,
offending; an arrival from the west:
The frying pan of iron, cast
at head can hurt, as attest
my head will, concussion bust.
Flavor percolating, aroma wafts
into my nose, and like ships' mast
I bow before time's test,
The frying pan of iron, cast.
Like cat of Egypt, Bast
or marriage true, ipso est
Flavor percolating, aroma wafts,
The frying pan of iron, cast.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Another one?
Madeleine L'Engle, four years ago.
Brian Jacques, this year.
And now Diana Wynne Jones, today.
Though each touches me differently as a formation of literary taste, it's disconcerting.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Movies I am thinking about seeing:
Well, since I read advance reviews of Sucker Punch indicating it has an ending that invalidates any enjoyment I’d get from the cool action and Emily Browning’s and Abby Cornish’s acting, I’ve reevaluated my list of films I’m interested in seeing. Interestingly, after Jane Eyre, there is nothing this year (except maybe Brad Bird directing Mission: Impossible – and only because it’s Brad Bird) that is on my “almost certainly will see” list (well, I will see Cars 2 because it's Pixar. But I'm not terribly excited about it). So this is just my “probably,” “possibly,” and “Absolutely not” list.
Probably:
Thor
Why: Kenneth Branagh
Why not: Marvel movies have not impressed me for over six years. Plus, why do I care about Norse gods as superheros?
Captain America
Why: it looks fun, it sets up for The Avengers, which I’m actually excited about, I like Chris Evans a lot better after he was in Push and Street Kings.
Why not: it doesn’t look great, Joe Johnston likes to make stupid comments about all sorts of things and he directed Jurassic Park III. Which is a bad thing.
X-Men First Class
Why: Matthew Vaughn did Stardust, it has Emma Frost
Why not: Matthew Vaughn did Kick-Ass, it has James Macavoy.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Why: I enjoyed the first movies’ acting and dialogue. Also, it’s Sherlock Holmes.
Why not: I hated the first movies’ directing and plot. Also, it’s Moriarty.
Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol
Why: Brad Bird is directing. And Brad Bird directed The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and The Iron Giant. And I liked M:I 3 decently well.
Why not: I’ve really grown to dislike J. J. Abrams’ work. And Tom Cruise is really hit or miss – mostly miss.
Source Code
Why: Plot looks semi-interesting, Michelle Monaghan
Why not: Jake Gyllenhall looks boring, the plot doesn’t look that interesting
Cars 2
Why: Pixar, I was surprisingly entertained and moved by Cars
Why not: the trailer looks like it’s all Mater, all the time. And that’s a very bad thing.
Winnie-the-Pooh
Why: Animation! And return to classic stories!
Why not: Well, I didn’t see Heffalump. And I hated Springtime for Roo. But I liked Tigger and Piglet’s movies.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Why: Because they’ll have to cut out most of the smoking that wasted half the screentime of the BBC series. And Colin Firth, Gary Oldman, and other fantastic British actors are in it.
Why not: it might turn out to be dull even at such a length.
Breaking Dawn 1
Why: Because I’ve more enjoyed than not the other films. Plus, Alice.
Why not: Because I have no clue about the director, and I’m very upset they brought the guy who composed the rather incoherent and electric guitar full (and ugly) score from the first film back.
Possibly:
Hugo Cabret
Why: because it has a nice cast, Martin Scorcese makes pretty, well-acted films
Why not: Martin Scorcese makes morally troubling films, I know nothing about the plot or characters
Red Dawn
Why: it might be more entertaining and better thought through than the rather boring 80s original.
Why not: it’s based on an 80s movie. And the preliminary stills do not look interesting. Plus, I’ve heard they’re changing the villains from China to Korea…er, what?
Priest
Why: It looks cool. Paul Bettany is in it. It might have some interesting theology.
Why not: It looks like it might end similarly to Sucker Punch. Which would mean it would invalidate all the enjoyment from the cool action.
Spy Kids 4
Why: I really enjoyed the first Spy Kids.
Why not: I really didn’t enjoy the second. Didn’t bother with the third. And Rodriguez does not have a track record of films I think are worth seeing (yes, Sin City, I’m looking at you).
Butter
Why: Ashley Greene
Why not: Jennifer Garner. And the movie itself sounds like it could be quite limp.
Coriolanus
Why: Shakespeare
Why not: Well, I know nothing about this Shakespeare. And I’m not a fan of some of Shakespeare.
Absolutely not:
Pirates 4
Why: I barely tolerated the first film (I don’t like pirates as heros). The second and third were simply bad. And Johnny Depp is not a draw for me.
Transformers 3
Why: I didn’t tolerate the first film. It was an unenjoyable, ugly, stupid, morally vile mess with no intellectual satisfaction from the action. I angrily avoided the second, and will even more angrily avoid the third. Why does garbage like this keep getting made when there are so many better stories to tell? I mean, seriously, you could make an amazing Ender’s Game movie on a quarter of the money they burnt for this idiocy.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Me reading things
So. For school I just read five books in the past two days. The best of them is Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. The worst of them is The Magicians by Lev Grossman. In between are Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics and A Scholar of Magics, and Robert Heinlein's Red Planet. Here are my capsule reviews of them.
5) The Magicians. Best described as "Harry Potter goes to college, then Narnia." But only if you think Harry Potter is the utter jerk I see him as. Lazy, selfish, arrogant, and full of "destiny" and the ability to ogle women, the hero drifts through this nearly plotless novel whining about how he wants to touch women's breasts, then whining about how when he does, it doesn't make him happy. Oh, and he learns magic too. And the author (a book critic for a major news organ...which is almost never a good sign, in my professional opinion as an English major) likes to babble about how God figures in fantasy (which apparently only means Lewis and Tolkien, who were also apparently pedophiles) can be killed by the kids who grew up without letting go of their fantasy...but hey, if you lose your girlfriend (and happen to kill bunches of other people too through laziness etc) you can live your fantasy instead of becoming a productive member of society (helping those nasty grey muggles...)
This book is horrible. Morally, artistically, you name it. The characters' concepts of sex and love are so immature I thought I'd accidentally picked up an Asimov novel. The moral choices given are as sophisticated as a Harry Potter novel - and like a Harry Potter novel, the hero is completely rewarded for being a passive whiner.
When I think of the fantasy books which are being turned out today, like Robin McKinley's Pegasus, or Elizabeth Moon's Oath of Fealty, or the reprints of Gillian Bradshaw's Hawk of May trilogy, or Mary Robinette Kowal's Shades of Milk and Honey, or Orson Scott Card's The Lost Gate, and then look at the blurbs for this kind of pretention, I despair. Until I remember that I can reread those other books.
Which I strongly advise anyone reading this blog to do. Cause they're all what Grossman was trying to achieve - books about flawed but admirable heros and heroines facing both incredible evil and incredibly mundane things with equal parts maturity and grace, told through excellent prose, evoking not only tragedy but hope, not just pain but eucatastrophe, not just darkness but joy.
4 and 3) A College of Magics and A Scholar of Magics. Best described as "Robin McKinley lite." Which is the exact same reaction I have to Diana Wynne Jones. Which McKinley herself would no doubt deplore, but there tis. I adore most of McKinley's works (I've avoided Deerskin and was bored through Rose Daughter and felt Dragonhaven was kind of, well, lazy) for the combination of incredibly beautiful prose, incredibly rich worldbuilding, incredibly consistent humor, and incredibly loveable characters (loveable not because they are "flawed" and therefore "believable" (I am so sick of people telling me Harry Potter is cool because he's an annoying whiner) but because they are mature, moral, and loving towards others, which naturally makes them loveable). Stevermer (and Jones, in my opinion) plays with a magic-infused 1910s Europe in which the balance of the world was messed up a couple of generations ago, and the French and English schools of magic (women and men only, respectively) have to raise up their chosen ones to set things right. Nice bits of romance (though the anti-marriage sentiment is rather annoying) and nice writing - but ultimately, the execution isn't up to McKinley's par. Where McKinley is incredible, Stevermer is fun.
Which is a whole lot more than I can say about any of The Magicians.
2) Red Planet. A Heinlein juvenile. And nowhere near my favorites (Citizen of the Galaxy and Starship Troopers). More along the lines of The Door Into Summer, and a bit better than the rather dull exposition fest Farmer in the Sky. Honestly felt like a redo of Out Of The Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, with more science and less religion. And plucky boy heros. And libertarian politics.
1) Princess Academy. It's funny that my favorite book in this whirlwind research tour is a book about Princesses by a Mormon (recommended by a Mormon, Orson Scott Card, too). I'd actually already read Hale's Austenland, and thought it was okay for Austen paralit (miles better than Lost In Austen, the fanfic-that-got-filmed for no good reason). But Princess Academy, despite the title, is a treasure on the level of Susan Fletcher's Shadow Spinner. A story aimed at children and young adults which nonetheless builds the world and characters so clearly and beautifully that it's worthy of time and tears from all ages.
So, that's it. I'm tired. Going to watch my five-dollar Swan Princess now.
Postscript: I hope to get my Ideal Husband, Kraken, and Jane Eyre blogs up sometime (and since I'm hoping to see The Lincoln Lawyer tomorrow, probably a brief post on that too). We shall see.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Well then, and shopping
So, here's what Robin McKinley, who I'd probably classify as a second wave feminist (very similar in many ways to Tamora Pierce, also one of her contemporaries in YA fantasy lit) has to say about dudes and chicks:
Which is similar, but not really what I say. I think it's often very lonely being me: thinking that men and women are not born thinking and feeling different, but we are born to do different things...
Yeah, have a pity party somewhere else. I just went shopping, bought ten boxes of grown up macaroni and cheese, three dvds (for 15 dollars, too - all together, not each, silly), ramen, and tasty tasty kettle cooked chips! Shopping is win!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Wow
Well, I just had an adventure. I planned, bought tickets for, drove to a parking spot, took the metro, didn't get lost (despite walking quite a ways around DC in various spots), watched a very nice Oscar Wilde play (An Ideal Husband), and came all the way back.
I'm very proud of myself.
Now I must catch up on my work. I have three posts, though - one reviewing Kraken by China Mieville (brief summary - seriously, religion is trying to erase science? Who are you, Washington Irving?); Jane Eyre (new film, pretty, flawed, etc); and Ideal Husband itself (well, since it's an assignment, I ought to do it anyhow).
Now, dinner, sleep, work tomorrow, then much much writing (am so behind).
Friday, March 11, 2011
Dear Hollywood Reviewers...
You are idiots. Just because something is "dark," "gothic," openly "passionate," and "concerned with entertaining and not being faithful to the source material" does not make it a good film.
Now, I have no doubt that Jane Eyre is a good film. I'm greatly looking forward to watching it. But all your sneering asides about "those cozy Jane Austen films" are 1) unsubstantiated; 2) exactly what you were saying about Bronte films when Pride and Prejudice came out 6 years ago (and kinda sexist too); 3) demonstrations of just how thick you are that you can't get the seething hostility, suffering, and purity of emotion found in all of Austen's novels.
Crack a book. By a woman. Sometime this century. Thanks.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
John Scalzi and packaging suffering
So, a bit ago I posted a rather intense blathering about how I thought a Spider-man comic was the epitome of packaging up suffering for consumption, and how this was a bad thing. I tried very hard not to go over the top, treat it as funny, and the post took quite a bit of time, since I actually kept rewriting to get rid of any glibness.
This is not that.
See, that right there is glib.
Yup.
Anyway, since then, I've had two experiences which have provided me with alternate examples of what to do with suffering. The Spider-man comic packaged it up as entertainment, gave a cynical manipulation into convincing readers it was "dark" and "worthwhile" storytelling, and then ritually murdered a young girl in a skintight uniform. That's option one: cynical manipulation. And that's the one I think is worst, because it's subtle and will worm its way into mainstream storytelling.
Option two is Mark Millar. Who wrote something I actually swore about while talking to a stranger in the bookstore. Still not sure about that action. Anyway. Millar wrote two things I've read which exemplify option two: shameless glorification. His "graphic novels" "Kick-Ass" and "Nemesis" gleefully make the "heroes" kill in the most brutal, profane, and disgusting manner hundreds or thousands of innocents. There is no manipulation, there is no justification. There is just sheer, bloody gore.
Sickening, and dangerous (since these things keep getting made into movies, and people think it's cool and edgy when really, everything has been done in ancient Rome...oh, wait, we have TV shows glorifying that too...), but shameless and open about it.
The last option, and the only one I find acceptable, is what I found while rereading John Scalzi's Old Man's War series, an intellectual descendant of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers (quite consciously so, as the characters in the books read those works and talk about it). I've often described Scalzi's work as the equivalent of McDonalds (which I just ate for lunch, so don't think I'm dissing him or them) - quick, cheap, extremely competent, and disposable. He knows exactly where to put his words, his plot events, his emotional beats, everything - and the fact that I keep buying him (at least this series, though I find his other work much less interesting) despite the fact that at every moment I can say "Oh, that's how this bit functions here" says a lot. In other words, I see the skeleton of his books, but I think it's a mighty nice skeleton.
Scalzi's series is philosophical action military scifi. Good stuff. In the course of his books, soldiers (male and female) are violently killed, children are butchered and eaten, and all manner of aliens wreak havoc and have havoc wreaked upon them. Stuff much worse than the above two examples happens. And yet, I feel like it's justified because instead of cynically manipulating one into thinking it's dark storytelling or glorying in the gore, Scalzi lets us feel sickened, outraged, and horrified, without using extreme descriptions to package the suffering for consumption. Evil happens - but it's seen as evil, not tiltillating or cool.
And that, I think, is how it should be done.
(Note: for some of my readers, er, that is, about three of the four of you - and I love you all dearly - the Old Man's War series has military-fiction style dialogue, so lots of swearing, and a rather free-wheeling approach to sex. Just to get that out there, so I don't push readers towards it without proper warning.)
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Old Man's War: sold to be a movie!
Well, while checking my 15 things I try to check daily, I noticed this: http://www.filmcritic.com/features/2011/03/oscar-wrapup-plus-sales-and-disclosures/
This is exciting news for many reasons.
1) Old Man's War will make a fantastic movie. Though it might have a bit of a lot of sex.
2) Old Man's War, directed by Wolfgang Peterson, would be particularly nice - though I thought Troy was a bit shy of the greatness it reached for, and thus worse than if it'd gone for dumb action thriller - I respected it for trying. Air Force One was fantastically exciting and engaging, though I don't know if I can watch it again (the executions are really hard to take). I have confidence in a sensible, exciting, stylish but not frilly and self-indulgent flick.
3) Old Man's War is very self-consciously in the line of Ender's Game and Starship Troopers. If it gets made well and makes a lot of money, maybe they'll finally see that Ender's Game itself would make a killer film. Funny thing is, at some point, Wolfgang Peterson was attached to direct Ender's Game, but that fell through when Card refused to let them make Ender a sixteen year old with a sex partner...er, I mean love interest, and Peterson had to move to other projects.
So - I recommend everyone read Old Man's War, and read the progressively better sequels, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and Zoe's Tale. Though I describe them as my McDonald's reads, that's not really horrible. Tasty, very well produced, hit the right notes emotionally, raise some moral points, and are ultimately rather disposable. There's worse. Not everything can be Ender's Shadow or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (both of which need movies...)
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Emma 1 of 5, a comic book review in list form
1) When I first read that Marvel was continuing its adaptations of Jane Austen's novels (former entries had been the rather generic and patchy Pride and Prejudice, with fantastic covers by Sonny Liew, and the great Sense and Sensibility, with Liew taking on interiors as well as covers), I was confirmed in my predictions (Emma is, after all, the most adapted Austen novel after Pride and Prejudice, and the one with the highest profile after those two, with a famous 96 film with Gwyneth Paltrow, a recent BBC miniseries with Romola Garai, and constant press comments on how "no one but Jane Austen could like this chick..."), excited (Emma is my favorite Jane Austen novel, and one of my favorite novels of all time), and worried (see previous paranthetical statement).
2) My worries were exacerbated by the announcement that Liew was completely off the series. In my mind, he was the only real reason I paid attention to Pride and Prejudice, and his fantastic blending of chibi-style character design in strategic moments of the story with more normally proportioned figures perfectly captured the wit and intelligence of Austen's satire. Additionally, his angular villains captured the darkness of that spiky and somewhat rough first published novel of Austen.
3) However, when I got a glimpse at preview art by Janet Lee, as well as reading about the decoupage method used to make her art, I quickly became very excited.
4) Now that it's out, I am thrilled. Nancy Butler's scripts have only gotten better at capturing the elegance of Austen's storytelling (with a few blips I wouldn't have used, but quite excellent nonetheless). Such a huge leap forward from Pride and Prejudice, which I felt really relied too much on captions and was hampered by pedestrian, Hollywoodized art. Even more delicate than the very intelligent Sense and Sensibility, the exposition and character notes are balanced between interpolated dialogue and captions.
5) And the art by Janet Lee is wonderful. Delicately colored, with muted yet vivid reds popping Emma herself out from the rest of the pastels and beautiful dress designs which make up Lee and Butler's adapted world, the adaptation is much less grim than the appropriately gritty slate-grey which dominated Sense and Sensibility. The character designs are quirky in a totally different manner than Liew's, but completely in tune with the kind of brilliant, intelligent, loving, mocking, and above all loveable characterizations of Austen's masterpieces.
6) I have great hopes of this series, especially as they've breezed through to Emma and Mr. Knightley's major argument in the first volume of the novel in this first of five installments, leaving more room for the important bits of the extremely tightly plotted yet beautifully detailed final volume.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Feeling intensely sick right now...
Warning: The following link is a graphically disturbing depiction of the ritual murder of a young girl. I do not advise clicking on it without that knowledge. I include it here only for reference.
Second warning: even if you don't click, I'm describing what I find so disturbing.
I am sitting here, late at night, trying to think of words to say that express not only my outrage, disgust, and sadness, but why I have such a reaction. So, I'm going to try bullet points again (note: I find myself constantly pausing, backspacing, trying to erase any sense of the glib or flippant, given how upset I am about this...and yes, I am aware that it's a comic book...but I will deal with that too).
1) I don't like death. As a small child, one of the things that really terrified me was death - in any form, for any person or character. I couldn't even handle The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. These days, I'm a bit better at stuffing my terror down. But it's evidently still there, because certain types of death upset me for days - hanging and crucifixion especially. And now, apparently, young women in spandex (basically nude) tied in a cruciform position electrocuted. Even if it's shown to be abhorrent, I find the kind of focus on it found in films such as the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the Five Little Pigs episode of the Poirot series, or Season of the Witch (which was otherwise mostly stupid fun) generally inappropriate, if not outright verging on death-porn (enjoying, sexually or otherwise, the depiction of death, packaged for consumption).
So, that's a problem for me, personally. Though I think the death porn thing is something for most people.
2) I think there's a serious problem with gender here: a girl, brave and noble, is killed. Yes, there are in-universe reasons for it. But, honestly, the way most of the Spider-man stories have gone makes it quite clear that it's a committee of writers and editors getting together and trying to think what will sell most. And clearly, what they think will sell (and I pray that the rumors of it not working are true) is cruelty, shock, and vicious misogyny. Packaged up to play with emotions in the cynical writing of a manipulative, entirely male writing staff, and the extremely skilled pencils of professional artists (I don't really blame the artist based on my knowledge - the scripters and editors are telling him to do it).
3) Yes, clearly the writing committee have succeeded in getting emotion from me. But I don't think abomination for them as human beings is the emotion readers should have towards writers. I may dislike Philip Pullman for his work, but other than his rather stupid coyness about kiddie sex, I don't have difficulty not hating him. I have extreme difficulty refraining from hatred of the men responsible for this story.
4) Underneath my horror at this specific story is my hatred for the entire moral thrust of the last four years of Spider-man stories. Four years ago, Spider-man was a hero. He was married, happily but not perfectly, to a woman who loved him and was a character in her own right. He'd made mistakes, was under pressure, but was still someone I admired and thought was a great hero. Then, by editorial mandate, he made a deal with the devil, selling that marriage for the life of someone he loved. And the reason given? Not that the person needed to live for others (they had actually said they had made their peace). The reason Spider-man gave was "I can't live with myself otherwise." A completely, utterly selfish reason. The antithesis of heroic.
Not to mention it was all done with magic. And the magic made it so that CPR could heal a dying, elderly woman from a gunshot wound to the chest.
Yes, on top of morally contemptible manipulation, the writing committee decided to trample, defecate on, urinate on, and then flush down the toilet any respect they had for readers. Because that's just a very, very stupid story there.
I liked it better when it was all magic.
Since then, we've had rape, casual murder, sexual manipulation and betrayal, torture, one-night-stands by our hero, and the glorification of the most immature, idiotic behavior by a 28-year-old "hero" I've seen outside of Tony Stark. And I don't actually think Stark's behavior is glorified.
5) So, we have death porn, on top of bad (morally and artistically) stories, combined with my personal reaction to this kind of thing. So, why should anyone else care? Yes, Spider-man isn't that wide-spread as a seller. But I think the fact that we live in a culture which thinks that this is the best way to sell stories to people is not a good sign. I don't think it's okay for us to want stories of brave, noble girls tied up in spandex (basically nude), tortured with massive bolts of electricity and stabbed in the abdomen so that they slowly bleed to death. I think such things happen. But I don't think they need to be packaged up in loving, manipulative detail for us to consume. And, in any form, that is what has happened here.
Yes, it's only a comic book. But it's a comic book that over 50,000 people paid money for. That's a lot of money to see a girl murdered sadistically.
6) What should we do? I think we should, when we see this kind of thing in a movie, or book, or comic book, or video game, not say "Oh, that's okay." "Oh, it's necessary for the storytelling, to make it more intense, to raise the conflict level, to increase the stakes, to make it personal, for the hero to achieve anything." I think we should not just say "It's only a movie/book/comic, it's not real." These things come from attitudes in our culture's values. I don't think we should value such things, and I think we should seek out works that condemn such behavior and hold out noble behavior instead.
7) For anyone who's stayed long enough for this, thank you. I've been comical about Spider-man and my anger over what's happened recently. This is not that. This is me trying to show why I think it's important that people pay attention to what they read, watch, and spend money on.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Two Stories of fun
Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette KowalAfter the disappointment of The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett, I was dubious about this "What if Jane Austen wrote fantasy/Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell substitute." Especially given the recommendation of Cory Doctorow, who's Little Brother left me furious for two days for its shameless glorification of immaturity as selflessness. The first three quarters didn't fully allay that trepidation - a typo in the first chapter, and distinctly uncomfortable relationships between the heroine and her sister, not to mention the unadventurous nature of the plot (completely cribbed from Austen in terms of event and situation, not that that's necessarily bad). However, the final quarter, where the character show their mettle and the action wraps everything up in a glamour of delight, more than made up for it. Not up to the "masterpiece of the past ten years" level of Susannah Clarke's Norrell, but quite diverting, and more than superior to Beckett's series. Easy Virtue, by Noel Coward (film, starring Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristen Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, and an awesome butler)Well, I must give Coward a try now. Delightful, if saddening, with very strong performances (Biel making up for the rather dull performance in the lackluster Illusionist).
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Gadgets!
So, my monitor, which had built in speakers, died two days ago. Much frustration. So I trekked out to MicroCenter, bought me the second cheapest monitor (the cheapest was out of stock, and now that I have something this large, I'm already very happy - even if it's cheap, it's a huge step up from my last monitor - plus being much prettier). My speakers weren't quite so cheap, but on the recommendation of my sister, I bought them anyway, and they are very, very nice sounding. Not to mention being tiny tiny tiny so they don't take up space on my poor desk/two-bookcases-shoved together. Yay for new gadgets! My desk, now cleaned of all that dreck, is nice and techie looking with the new screen, new speakers, tiny tower and extra hard drive all piled around on it. All black. And pretty!Okay, that was very silly. But what I really wanted to say is this: the number of volume controls is very confusing. I mean, I have the two computer volumes, Wave and Master, and then the media player volume, topped off by the physical volume controls of the speakers. Why so many?
Saturday, January 8, 2011
I am amazed
So. I find it sad that:
a) while trawling the net for Lord Peter Wimsey fanfic
b) as a result of Jill Paton Walsh's Windows 7 (in other words - not good, but not nearly as bad as the last thing - the last thing being either A Presumption of Death or Vista) profic The Attenbury Emeralds
c) I get linked to Sayers posts on LJ
d) finding said posts to be of high quality (not to mention quite obviously a trained litcritter) I
e) look at the profile
f) ta da! PhD in English Lit...
g) wait, she writes books? What books? Melusine?
h) oh, she's THAT English Lit PhD - the one who got her degree and got married and writes gay erotica fantasy novels
i) and I realized this without reading her name...
j) she writes about C. S. Lewis?
k) woah, and about that viciously upsetting Gaiman story?
l) and there's a link in the (ginormous) comments of that post to a much, much better version of what happened to Susan
m) and I still have a billion tabs of Wimseyfic open unread
n) and now I'm posting
o) and well over half the alphabet
p) so I'll stop.
Postscript: In happier news, I am the proud owner of a new copy of the reprinted Hawk of May, from Borders (with the kind gift cards and coupons of my buddies and Borders Rewards, respectively). For once, Sourcebooks is doing something with it's amazing book design staff other than printing Jane Austen fanfic. Not that I hate Austenfic. I love it. I just don't think the stuff they're publishing deserves the lavish presentation they give it.
Wow, that afterthought was more thoughty than I thought. ;-)
Friday, January 7, 2011
Man...
Beethoven rocks! You know, ever since I got hooked on the 5th symphony after mistakenly thinking the Peter Pan soundtrack by James Newton Howard was imitating it - the second movement has a cadence to die for, it is that poignant - I've had a sneaking love for that German/Austrian/whatever deaf guy. But just now, listening to the King's Speech soundtrack, I found out that the credits music I loved so much in the film and thought was Alexandre Desplat (of New Moon fame, and yes, I'm going with that, since it's the first time I really loved one of his scores, cause Golden Compass was boring) doing his "imitating classical orchestration but with modern, easily emotionally accessible chord progressions" thing - yeah, that turns out to be some dude who's been dead for almost two hundred years. Dude. I love that guy!
Sadness and Woe: Gaudy Night edition
So, have been doing a bit of googling, and discovered that J. R. R. Tolkien and Q. D. Leavis both really, really hated Gaudy Night. And cast aspersions on its author. Maybe it was their shared prediliction for initials instead of names?
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Speaking of the King...
Well, I finally saw it - alone, since I couldn't get hold of any of my buddies who wanted to see it. But that's okay - it was pretty funny sitting as the only under-50 person in the theater at 10 in the morning. There was much eye-wiping, as the film provokes a lot of sympathy and poignancy from an isolated, frightened public indentured servant and the people who care about him as much as the audience comes to.
Tom Hooper, the director, provoked my interest first with the brilliant Daniel Deronda miniseries adapted by Andrew Davies for the BBC and starring Romola Garai, Hugh Dancy, and Hugh Bonneville. I was unable to finish John Adams due to the annoying use of handheld camera and pointless closeups, so my only real reference for his work was Deronda. And to me, it's quite plain they are directed by the same eye - the constant use of fisheye lenses, formal compositions, the manipulation of color (though I preferred it in Deronda, as in that one he popped the blues and reds and whites, while in King's he muted everything to a subtle contrast in greys and bluey greys), and a real richness of period objects. If Hooper continues in this vein, he may become a more emotionally mature version of Joe Wright, who began making excellent miniseries for the BBC (Charles II) and graduated to making feature films which shared characteristic camerawork as well (vivid colors, a real physical isolation, a penchant for incredibly dramatic shots, and brilliant long steadicam scenes) - only hopefully without the more maudlin sensibility Wright can't seem to escape.
One of the few flaws in the film's casting was the age difference between Guy Pearce and Colin Firth, the latter supposed to be several years younger than the former, while in reality being ten years older - a gap which to my spoiled eye was very evident. This does nothing to diminish Firth or Pearce's performances, however. Firth's tortured, gentle soul shines with technical and physical control as well as incredible depth to the relational choices he makes, while Pearce (who I just found powerfully amazing in LA Confidential) again pulls a new character from his hat - instead of Memento's amnesiac, disciplined, rage fueled yet ice cold antihero, or Confidential's straight-laced but bursting at the seams cop, we have an aging playboy under the thrall of a gold digger, who nonetheless possesses great charm and power over his younger, more conscientious brother. Helena Bonham-Carter, in a non-quirky role, shines (though they took her best line from the trailer out of the film - "I intend to be a very good queen - to a very great king." Tim Spall as Winston Churchill is suitably bluff and funny while maintaining the type of gravity necessary for the other great leader who led Britain through her darkest hour. A hilarious and touching moment for me was the meeting of the King and his speech therapist's wife - played beautifully by Jennifer Ehle. Ehle and Firth together made the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice a thing of glory - and when Geoffrey Rush as the therapist says "I believe you have met..." I laughed out loud, and am rather curious to know if it was intentional.
The King's Speech isn't perfect - I've noted some dialogue moments which ring a bit false - but it's very, very good. Much in the same vein as "The Queen," which I think has less missteps, it could possibly be seen as a prequel to that earlier work - as the tiny princess Elizabeth sees the pressure on her father which later comes back to haunt her during Diana's death in Stephen Frears and Peter Morgan's treatment of 20th century British royalty under pressure.
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