there will be a fish

So, finally watched the most recent POI.

( spoilers, with bonus Batman )

...which is especially hilarious because the showrunner is Chris Nolan's brother. Probably they have the same kind of incepting idea-infecting conversations that my twin and I do. And I think I need to start describing this show to people as "so basically, they're superheroes, with the aid of some Orwellian sci-fi stuff" because my latest attempts at "it's like a crime procedural, only not, and more awesome!" didn't really work for me.

( and now more spoilers )

(ugh, LJ just did an obnoxious thing and stripped out all my coding, and I'm too tired to go back and fix all the italics tags, so just imagine they're there making my prose even more flaily, okay?)
(also whoops, I posted this last night and then private-locked it because LJ fucked up my cuts and I didn't want to spoil anyone, and then of course I forgot to make it public again. SIGH.)

1. The Hobbit trailer! I'm sure you have all seen it by now. I've seen it many times, including in 3D, because my place of employment is awesome. The song gives me the shivers every time, and MARTIN FREEMAN'S EVERYTHING makes me happy, and god it looks gorgeous. I AM EXCITE.

2. Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING ABOUT IT, OKAY. This is sort of like when Live Free Or Die Hard came out, and it was a huge shock when it was actively good. I want to go back and see it again! Brad Bird's direction is excellent; the action sequences were tight as anything (like, he doesn't just planting Chekhov's gun and then fire it, he shows you the gun and fires it, and then uses it as a hammer, and then five minutes later as a doorstop, and then... and it's all unexpected and realistic and creative), and marvelously innovative. But I love that he's kept the Pixar tendency to keep everything character-based, and character-driven; even when the characters are fighting people in Big Fight Scenes, it's still about them. And I really loved the team! Jane was awesome: kick-ass, vulnerable when she should be and competent when she needed to be, smart and funny and good at being a spy. I want her to come back! Which is entirely possible, since they also brought back Simon Pegg's Benji from #3, and his face is worth the price of admission alone. God, I love Simon Pegg, and the man is a genius comedian. And then there's Brandt, who was awesome (more on him later). It just had such a sense of fun to it, which is what I want in my action movies. I mean, I want be thrilled, too -- and let me tell you, I was clutching Katie's hand until it lost circulation during ( that one sequence, you know the one ) -- but I want it to be in a fun way; I want breathless joy from people throwing themselves through the air in unbelievable ways, and adrenaline-inducing explosions, and fighting people who need to be fought with a team of decent people, and winning. And I think Brad Bird is in agreement with me, and J.J. Abrams as well, so this was just really good for me. ( spoilers! )

3. Jamie Bell. There was a trailer for Man on a Ledge before MI4, and basically Jamie Bell + heist = key to my heart (with bonus Sam Worthington and apparently them being brothers). But then it also appears that he's going to be in a movie with James McAvoy in which they will both be Scottish and cops (and, in James McAvoy's case, batshit crazy) in a story written by the same guy who did Trainspotting. All this in addition to Tintin, which I am super duper excited about. WIN ALL OVER.

Speaking of, Tintin was excellent! It's very much a Stephen Spielberg movie, if you know what I mean -- in the 'teenage boy (and his dog) fight evil-doers and have wacky adventures while uncovering a sekrit treasure!' sense, complete with Rube-Goldberg-like chase scenes and plenty of swashbuckling slapstick. I personally really enjoy that, in moderation, so I had a great time. The animation/motion-capture stuff turned out very nicely, IMO, and it let them do some really cool stuff with the camera (or, "camera") during action sequences; there's one long chase that is entirely one shot, which would've been completely impossible in live-action, and makes for a really awesome effect. Jamie Bell is marvelous as Tintin; I love the "intrepid reporter" character type almost as much as con men and thieves/rogues with a heart of gold, AND the Tintin books were childhood favorites of mine, so it was just really delightful to see. And they curse like The Middleman ("Great snakes!" LOL) and Tintin nerdily talks to himself Snowy while investigating things and being a giant geek, and Haddock is a big, drunk-ass teddy bear of hilarity. Basically, I had a lot of fun. :)

4. Also Michael Fassbender. Is the man in every movie that's coming out? It's like I turn around, and he's in yet another trailer. Or article. Or something. AND he's getting to play with all the cool kids, it's awesome.

For the record, I am totally okay with this state of affairs. :D

THINGS STILL TO SEE (when I am not working and/or staring in despair at my Yuletide story and/or not working opposite schedule to Katie):
- Sherlock Holmes (I KNOW OMG)
- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (once I read the book...)
- Hugo (I hear it's adorbs, plus Martin Scorcese does 3D, I am intrigued)
- Shame (HI MICHAEL FASSBENDER)
- Arthur Christmas (MAYBE. This has nothing to do with me realizing James McAvoy voices the main character, nope...)
- Young Adult (because Charlize Theron. Don't judge me.)

5. ...Okay, and also some fanfic things! Nine Eleven Ten updated yesterday, so I feel a great need to press it upon everyone again. But if you like The Dresden Files (or even if you don't; it's a pretty accessible AU, now that I think about it), and have somehow missed the Stars & Scones Bakery AU, hie thee over there now, because she just finished! AND IT IS DELIGHTFUL. The whole wacky ensemble is there, and Harry is faily and damaged and utterly endearing, and Marcone is delightful, and basically it will make you want to curl up with a cup of tea and some spice cookies and sigh happily. It's perfect for cold weather and the holidays, is what I'm saying. GO. READ. *shoos*

Good new article about fanfiction in Time

I saw this when celli linked to it -- I think it's probably the best mainstream article I've yet seen on fanfic/fandom, in the sense of being factual accuracy and even-handed as well as respectful and insightful. I didn't feel insulted even once! And it even made me giggle (the bit about sex pollen, hee). I'm linking here, since I know a few people around here are less clear on this whole fanfic thing (*waves at ersatzemma & co*), and this is a good fic-ambassador piece.

I also learned that Tetris fanfiction exists in the universe. So now I'm going to go find it. :)

This is what happens when I start catching up on Hawaii Five-0, Castle, and Lie To Me all at the same time, and start thinking about how endearing all their prominent father-daughter relationships are.

( the qualifications )

[Poll #1677238]

EXCITING HAPPENINGS OF THE PAST THREE WEEKS:

Okay, so that's misleading. But here's what I've been watching, fannishly speaking:

1. Seasons 2, 3, and 4 of Ugly Betty
2. The delicious mindfuck of Inception
3. Trying to hook my family on Mad Men
4. Banlieue 13 (aka District B13) and its sequel!
5. BBC's Sherlock miniseries

Thoughts (no spoilers, just cut for length/interest):

- Ugly Betty, ( I don't know why I ever quit you! )

- Oh, Inception. How so brilliant?

- Mad Men + martinis + live swing music last Monday = Lindsey is a very happy, thematically appropriate camper. ( swing dancing and adorable old people, yay! )

- Sherlock is a completely awesome modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. I didn't think you could translate them quite so well out of the Victoriana, but it turns out you CAN, and this Watson and Holmes are ( most excellent. )

- Last but not least, those of you who have never seen or heard of Banlieue 13 or its sequel, you really don't know what you're missing. I was idly looking for something to watch when I read etben's recent pimp post, and I am SO GLAD THAT I DID. The premise is a bit silly/contrived, and the plots are all kinds of ridiculous, but they're terribly fun anyway, and the two main characters are awesome and hit a lot of my personal buttons.

One of them, Leïto, is played by David Belle, one of the founders of parkour, who did his own stunts. He's one of those athletic, graceful people who are sheer fascinating joy to see in motion on film – like Douglas Fairbanks or Bruce Lee or Fred Astaire. I think it's beautiful, in a very unironic way. Watch even the first thirty seconds of this video, tell me you're not impressed, and I will eat ALL of my hats. Honestly. The man makes things like "climbing into the front seat of a van" into effortlessly beautiful spectacles of grace and hotness, okay; the movie is worth watching just for that.

But it's not all that's worth watching for! Leïto is ( sort of like a French, dystopian-future Aladdin. ) Leïto also appears to be highly allergic to shirts. This is a-okay with me, since David Belle has a fantastic body (see: everything he can do in previously-linked video, hell-o NURSE is he fit):

( shirtless pictures ahoy! you know you wanna )

Instead of a spirited young Arabian princess, B13 gives Leïto some insanely good buddy-cop slashiness with Damien, our other protagonist. He's an incorruptible, highly competent Parisian cop who Believes In The Law and Helps The Citizenry and Is Very Earnest and Unironically Quotes The National Motto of France. Bless him. Damien ( goes undercover a lot and is totally badass ). And then he meets Leïto, and they are even more fun together than they are separately, with the banter and the mocking and the intense sociopolitical arguments with their faces held inches apart and the joint ass-kicking. They're both smart and capable and quick on their feet, and that makes for a great time.

So what I'm saying is, you should all see these movies! There's awesome fight sequences! Parkour through Paris! Manly eye candy! Dystopian future setting! Idealism! Buddy-cop-like saving of the day! Breaking people out of prison! Handcuffing each other to things! Hugging! Fighting back-to-back! Crossdressing! (no, really)

Seriously, just watch them. The first is on Netflix instant viewing, if you have it (and I'm willing to lend out my account if you don't, plus *cough* help you find the second if you like).

*cough* Okay, enough of that. /pimp

Last night, I saw Enemy At The Gates with Jude Law as a famous Russian sniper in the Battle of Stalingrad. Since it is way too depressing a prospect right now to think serious thoughts about a) WWII, b) the millions of people who died in that battle, c) all the characters who die in the film, or d) melodramatic adaptations of real events, I have some shallow ones for you all instead:

1. Very important observation, this one: Jude Law is a damn good-looking man, even when he's covered in dust/mud/blood/etc. (Maybe especially then, because it makes his eyes stand out all the more.) Also, I don't know how he did it, but he made his face look Russian. I'm not sure how that's possible, but somehow, he made it happen.

2. Rachel Weisz is a damn good-looking woman. I think I would like more films where she is a sniper, thank you. She's also exceedingly likeable; I have yet to see a film in which I didn't like her character, even when there were things I didn't like about the character. That's a great quality.

3. Holy shit, ( that one scene ). *fans self*

4. Ed Harris's character was a bastard, but I do love me a competent antagonist. I sorta wish ( that one spoilery thing hadn't happened ). But then again, I'm biased toward making villains a little sympathetic, thereby to make their villainy the more awful.

5. I admit...I am now left imagining Afghanistan-era Dr. John Watson. And it's not even all Jude Law's fault; the same thing happened to me after the "Bastogne" episode of Band of Brothers, because, well, Doc Roe (♥ he's my favorite!).

( long tangent about Watson's self-narration and his time in the Second Anglo-Afghan War )

All right. I'm off! Katie and I are visting gingerwall for the next couple of days. I am leaving my laptop and bringing books. There will probably be drinking, movie-watching, and general town-painting of the crimson variety. \o/! We drive back in the day before our birthday (Wednesday the 10th), then claudiagray is in town on the 11th, and then SXSW STARTS ON THE 12TH WHOOOOOOO!

It's looking to be a good week, is what I'm saying. :D

So, I wrote up this whole post about my week/the last few days, and then realized I didn't want to be that "Hi! How are you? Good? LET ME RAIN ON YOUR PARADE" person while everyone's having a happy holiday, so I private-locked it.

Anyway. Hi! How are you? Good? Great! Hey, you wanna talk about fandom? I'm having trouble accessing Yuletide, but that's okay. Let's see, what have I been up to recently? Well, I watched all of Generation Kill while packing, and it was fabulous. And then a couple of weeks ago, I saw all of Lie To Me! That was fun. I may go see Brendan Hines play on the 30th. I hooked my sister on Fringe while she was visiting. *insert evil laugh here* Hmm, what else...oh, I just watched two Bond movies -- On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever. Man, Diana Rigg is gorgeous. George Lazenby too, for that matter, but the man can't really deliver his lines; DR was acting circles around him (but still managing to do him favors). Tiffany Case (in DAF) really made a terrible Bond girl in comparison. Also that movie was in 1971; Doctor No was in 1962, which means Sean Connery went gray in less than a decade. He aged fast -- well, but fast.

Yeah. I dunno. I've been taking Nyquil...

My inability to focus has been epic today (WHY GOD WHY? the deadlines approach with the inevitability of zombies...), which tends to result in my opening a million tabs in Firefox because I'll be reading a fic and suddenly need to look up the definition of a Turing test, or check the weather, which might tangent off into looking up the etymology of petrichor (the smell of rain on dry ground), or something. Anyway, I need to clear some tabs, so, links!

A theory on why "bad" fics can be so popular, with handy graph

President Bartlet calls the Butterball Hotline

Some Biologists Find an Urge in Human Nature to Help (NY Times)

Mirrors Don’t Lie. Mislead? Oh, Yes.

The graph is really quite cool, and readily applicable to any form of popular form of storytelling and not just fic. The President Bartlet clip is adorable in that unique way TWW pulls off so beautifully. Both NYT articles are very interesting, but the mirror one in particular was really freaking cool. I mean, do you know how big the reflection of your face actually is on the mirror? I didn't, before I read this. :)

Hey, you know what's awesome, in a really ego-stroking kind of way? Running across your own fic [eta: and meta apparently!] bookmarked on delicious when you're looking for something completely unrelated. Especially when you're pretty sure they're people who didn't leave comments.

*beams*

*sigh* Don't you hate when your suitemates, with the best of intentions, move your large pot of slow-cooking beans to a smaller burner without telling you, thus totally throwing off the cooking process? Yeah, me too.

For some reason, I'm really in the mood for "Oh No, My Loved One Is Dead! But Wait, Not Really!" cliche fic. You know, with the grief and the angst, and the tragic separation, and the realizations of how much X meant to Y now that X is gone -- and then the realizations that Loved One is not dead! And Y can save them! And have a dramatic reunion! etc. You know what I mean. It's subtly different but close cousin to the rescuing-the-Loved-One-from-mortal-peril trope (see Bones' Gravedigger episodes, for example), but with added angst before the determination kicks in. Good times.

Suffice it to say, I've been reading a good deal of Man From UNCLE fic. :D

Unfortunately, it's mostly re-reading, because I've made my way rather thoroughly through the recs in that fandom. More's the pity. But I'm easy! Rec me your favorites of this cliche, please? Any fandom works, pretty much. Even if you think I don't know it, I actually probably do. I'm just that good. :)

I feel like there is untapped potential for this cliche. It obviously has great amounts of play with close partnerships, as well as in, say, spy genre fandoms, or where someone might have an enemy holding a violent grudge and the capacity for kidnapping, or whatever. But imagine it bent a little for less obvious fandoms: Criminal Minds (team rather than partners, but still emotionally affecting), or Sports Night (they don't really live lives of danger, so death is more unexpected), or Merlin (if everyone thinks Arthur has died, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish on top of the personal issues). Tell me your ideas! :)