Burn your copy of Sleeping Beauty!
And by 'burn' I mean light that sucker up with a can of fuel and a match (or lighter, if no matches are around). Because Maleficent's version is WAY better! :D
(Though I have to admit the color/dress-fight scene in the animated version was pretty funny. I always did like the blue better.)
I'd heard good things about this movie, and I wasn't disappointed. When it was first announced that Angelina Jolie was going to play the fairy/sorceress, I thought, this is never going to work. I mean, Angelina Jolie. But when peeks of the movie began filtering out, I was pleasantly surprised.
st_crispins is a lifelong diehard Maleficent fan and wrote a great review of it (caution, it's heavy on spoilers). I love, love that this movie has such a major feminist theme. Maleficent is basically a misunderstood woman wronged by a dick of a guy who's jealous of her power. (And boy, ever, did they make King Stefan a dick. But you can't say he didn't have it coming when he got his ass royally handed to him.) The mentoring relationship Maleficent eventually develops with Aurora was really touching - I loved the bit where a young Aurora toddles up to Maleficent and *hugs* her, and poor Mal is very taken aback - she just doesn't know what to do. As with Frozen, this movie takes the whole "true love" concept and turns it smartly on its end.
And Maleficent is just freakin' badass. Intimidating horns. Bitchin' wings (a central plot point; I'm so glad she got them back at the end!). Kickass magic. How can you not love her? :D
I liked Diaval too - for one thing, he's nice eye candy. XD But he's also kind of a smartass and a pretty good minion, so points for that. Ayinsan and I LOLed when he whined about being turned into a dog. I can only assume that he found the dragon much more acceptable. >:) (speaking of which, Ayinsan and I briefly discussed the concept of Dragon!Diaval making friends with Hobbit's Smaug, before concluding that as cool as both dragons are, sadly, it would never work out because Smaug does not play (or share) well with others. XD )
Probably about the only thing I found cloying about the movie was Aurora's syrupy-sugary-sweetness - at times it could almost be a bit too much. And I kind of thought Jolie was overacting a bit during the scene where she wakes up and finds her wings have been chopped off by Dick!Stefan. But these are minor bits and don't really distract from an otherwise good movie. There's a certain environmental theme there too, of caring for the earth and all its flora and fauna and stuff; Maleficent is more or less the self-appointed guardian of the magic kingdom and is only aggressive when she's defending it against asshole humans coming to mess it up out of greed.
There's a bonus, too: the actress who played Dolores Umbridge (admit it, we all wanted her dead more than Voldemort, LOL) from the Harry Potter series, Imelda Staunton, appears as one of the pixie-fairies who raises Aurora in the forest cottage. Loved the bit where Maleficent was secretly prank-hexing them for amusement. XD
All in all, a good movie. Adding it to my wishlist of DVDs. :)
--
Bought more plants today. Eventually I'll have pictures, but this has become my newest obsession. That blue spruce I got which is now stuck in the front yard? Now has a friend. XD Even better, I got that second blue spruce *on sale* for about ten bucks less than what I paid for the first one (which was $27). It pays to visit a variety of stores, heh. And I got two more blueberry bushes (to bring my total berry collection to 6), plus, last night when I made a Mallwart run for my dad, I picked up 2 strawberry plants and 2 'burning' bushes - so named because in the fall, they turn bright red. We had one right by the kitchen door in the old house in town; last year a cardinal made its nest in it! We had to be careful for a while about which door we used, heh.
I also have two mini-spruces (now planted in the back, right by my bedroom window) and a pair of yellow daylilies (ditto). And I have a shitload of seeds: cantaloupe, mini-watermelon, red sunflower and mini-pumpkins. Plus God only knows how many OTHER seeds of veggies and flowers that my mom's saved up over the years - though so far, some of those older seeds we planted haven't done anything yet.
I'm kind of skunked as to what to put on K.C.'s grave. I had wanted to stick a small tree there, but most trees need full sun and it's a pretty shady spot. About the only thing that would grow there is ferns, which are nice enough, but I don't want them trampled or messed up, which they inevitably would be given that my dad's talked about someday having the old barn taken down, and the fact that the grave is very close to the chicken pen (and the chickens have been systematically destroying Mom's hostas, until she fenced them off - that would be kind of hard to do for a gravesite). I've thought about getting one of those large patio stones, or a couple of smaller ones, to put over there when Mom gets bored and decides to clear away the load of old wood-logs I stacked on top of it (after the first load got swiped this winter by a guy my dad knows). Will have to ponder this some more.
I WILL PLANT STUFF EVERYWHERE MWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA.
--
Today was also evidently the day for weird license plates. Ayinsan and I spotted the following gems while out and about: "BULLY **", "EMBALM **" (no prize for guessing what that person does), and "HIGH ME **". (** = a number/numbers on the plate; I didn't want to post the whole plate because privacy concerns) Also we got messed-up fortune cookies at lunch: Ayinsan's was something about "an upward movement in time will change your fate for better" while mine was even more bizarre: "Behind every able man. There is always." Seriously, that's it. That's all it said. WTF. In fact, I think I will make my own fortune cookies and call it something like WTF: Weird Trippy Fortunes. Selections will include things like "Put your fucking smartphone down NOW and eat your damn food before I reach up out of this cookie and smack you." XD
And good day is good. ^__^
(Though I have to admit the color/dress-fight scene in the animated version was pretty funny. I always did like the blue better.)
I'd heard good things about this movie, and I wasn't disappointed. When it was first announced that Angelina Jolie was going to play the fairy/sorceress, I thought, this is never going to work. I mean, Angelina Jolie. But when peeks of the movie began filtering out, I was pleasantly surprised.
st_crispins is a lifelong diehard Maleficent fan and wrote a great review of it (caution, it's heavy on spoilers). I love, love that this movie has such a major feminist theme. Maleficent is basically a misunderstood woman wronged by a dick of a guy who's jealous of her power. (And boy, ever, did they make King Stefan a dick. But you can't say he didn't have it coming when he got his ass royally handed to him.) The mentoring relationship Maleficent eventually develops with Aurora was really touching - I loved the bit where a young Aurora toddles up to Maleficent and *hugs* her, and poor Mal is very taken aback - she just doesn't know what to do. As with Frozen, this movie takes the whole "true love" concept and turns it smartly on its end.
And Maleficent is just freakin' badass. Intimidating horns. Bitchin' wings (a central plot point; I'm so glad she got them back at the end!). Kickass magic. How can you not love her? :D
I liked Diaval too - for one thing, he's nice eye candy. XD But he's also kind of a smartass and a pretty good minion, so points for that. Ayinsan and I LOLed when he whined about being turned into a dog. I can only assume that he found the dragon much more acceptable. >:) (speaking of which, Ayinsan and I briefly discussed the concept of Dragon!Diaval making friends with Hobbit's Smaug, before concluding that as cool as both dragons are, sadly, it would never work out because Smaug does not play (or share) well with others. XD )
Probably about the only thing I found cloying about the movie was Aurora's syrupy-sugary-sweetness - at times it could almost be a bit too much. And I kind of thought Jolie was overacting a bit during the scene where she wakes up and finds her wings have been chopped off by Dick!Stefan. But these are minor bits and don't really distract from an otherwise good movie. There's a certain environmental theme there too, of caring for the earth and all its flora and fauna and stuff; Maleficent is more or less the self-appointed guardian of the magic kingdom and is only aggressive when she's defending it against asshole humans coming to mess it up out of greed.
There's a bonus, too: the actress who played Dolores Umbridge (admit it, we all wanted her dead more than Voldemort, LOL) from the Harry Potter series, Imelda Staunton, appears as one of the pixie-fairies who raises Aurora in the forest cottage. Loved the bit where Maleficent was secretly prank-hexing them for amusement. XD
All in all, a good movie. Adding it to my wishlist of DVDs. :)
--
Bought more plants today. Eventually I'll have pictures, but this has become my newest obsession. That blue spruce I got which is now stuck in the front yard? Now has a friend. XD Even better, I got that second blue spruce *on sale* for about ten bucks less than what I paid for the first one (which was $27). It pays to visit a variety of stores, heh. And I got two more blueberry bushes (to bring my total berry collection to 6), plus, last night when I made a Mallwart run for my dad, I picked up 2 strawberry plants and 2 'burning' bushes - so named because in the fall, they turn bright red. We had one right by the kitchen door in the old house in town; last year a cardinal made its nest in it! We had to be careful for a while about which door we used, heh.
I also have two mini-spruces (now planted in the back, right by my bedroom window) and a pair of yellow daylilies (ditto). And I have a shitload of seeds: cantaloupe, mini-watermelon, red sunflower and mini-pumpkins. Plus God only knows how many OTHER seeds of veggies and flowers that my mom's saved up over the years - though so far, some of those older seeds we planted haven't done anything yet.
I'm kind of skunked as to what to put on K.C.'s grave. I had wanted to stick a small tree there, but most trees need full sun and it's a pretty shady spot. About the only thing that would grow there is ferns, which are nice enough, but I don't want them trampled or messed up, which they inevitably would be given that my dad's talked about someday having the old barn taken down, and the fact that the grave is very close to the chicken pen (and the chickens have been systematically destroying Mom's hostas, until she fenced them off - that would be kind of hard to do for a gravesite). I've thought about getting one of those large patio stones, or a couple of smaller ones, to put over there when Mom gets bored and decides to clear away the load of old wood-logs I stacked on top of it (after the first load got swiped this winter by a guy my dad knows). Will have to ponder this some more.
I WILL PLANT STUFF EVERYWHERE MWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA.
--
Today was also evidently the day for weird license plates. Ayinsan and I spotted the following gems while out and about: "BULLY **", "EMBALM **" (no prize for guessing what that person does), and "HIGH ME **". (** = a number/numbers on the plate; I didn't want to post the whole plate because privacy concerns) Also we got messed-up fortune cookies at lunch: Ayinsan's was something about "an upward movement in time will change your fate for better" while mine was even more bizarre: "Behind every able man. There is always." Seriously, that's it. That's all it said. WTF. In fact, I think I will make my own fortune cookies and call it something like WTF: Weird Trippy Fortunes. Selections will include things like "Put your fucking smartphone down NOW and eat your damn food before I reach up out of this cookie and smack you." XD
And good day is good. ^__^