Videos and visit
I'm glad they posted the Vividcon panels after I'd downgraded from attending to supporting. So many of them sound excellent, I would have been tempted to spend money I shouldn't spend. Especially Cuts Both Ways, Structure, Feedback, Timing, Use of Clips. And Lyrical Interpretation. And Using Vids in Class. And and.
Someone will take notes, right?
Right?
.
My sister came to visit this weekend, which was lovely. She had not been over since she helped me move in last fall. We saw dogs, friends and movies, cooked, looked up video clips of computer games and screen savers that we used to enjoy from the mid-'80s to the early '90s, and exchanged presents. Got accidentally sunburned. Returned to work today, empinkened.
.
Still have not recovered brain from vacation. Can simply say that I watched these movies recently and they were great:
Remembrance (Die verlorene Zeit) - Loosely based on the story of a couple who escaped a concentration camp in Poland and only found each other again decades later and a continent apart. Very well made, if not exactly a documentary. I liked the understated way it depicted the mercurial moods and fierce privacy of the main character when war-related memories were forced back into play.
The History of Future Folk - Oddball, charming extraterrestrial "backstory" of a real folk duo, with a couple of good songs (especially the Spanish one), a lead who could be James Spader's younger brother, and roles for Onata Aprile from What Maisie Knew and Dee Snider. Though if you are taking this as a rec, be aware that there's a creepy-stalkery scene in the middle that is played as cute but is equally uncomfortable.
Rango - Who knew this was so quirky, thick with intertextual references and beautifully animated? Not to mention environmentally minded. The dream sequence won my heart.
Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender version) - Almost turned it off in the beginning because of the Epic Angst on the Moors -- seriously Epic -- but glad I didn't. I thought Mia Wasikowska did a fabulous job of conveying Jane's hard-learned reticence and inner turmoil. The St. John stuff will never not be boring, the school flashbacks were too short for character development beyond caricature, Rochester switched too quickly IMO from aloof skepticism to adoration, and see above re: Epic Angst, but the rest made up for it. Pretty well streamlined overall.
The Bride - Bizarre and therefore highly entertaining riff on Frankenstein in which Sting is Dr. F., a luscious young Jennifer Beal is the bride, they form a love triangle with Cary Elwes, and the creature runs off to join the circus with a dwarf. Plus feminism. Made all the better by the lack of clarity as to whether the whole thing was supposed to be funny.
Oh, and watched The Lego Movie on the plane home. It was cute and clever, as people had promised, though also mired in its own central contradiction, as some film critic pointed out, being a movie pushing a corporate product that tells you that it's good to break free of corporate control and conformity. "I only work in black and sometimes very dark gray." If only the human kid had been a girl, or they hadn't made the little sister a punchline, however funny the Duplo line was. GIRLS LOVE LEGO TOO, DAMMIT.
I guess Guardians of the Galaxy is next, because Vin Diesel. Sounds like fandom likes it. Based on the trailer, I'm still not convinced it's actually funny. We'll see.
Someone will take notes, right?
Right?
.
My sister came to visit this weekend, which was lovely. She had not been over since she helped me move in last fall. We saw dogs, friends and movies, cooked, looked up video clips of computer games and screen savers that we used to enjoy from the mid-'80s to the early '90s, and exchanged presents. Got accidentally sunburned. Returned to work today, empinkened.
.
Still have not recovered brain from vacation. Can simply say that I watched these movies recently and they were great:
Remembrance (Die verlorene Zeit) - Loosely based on the story of a couple who escaped a concentration camp in Poland and only found each other again decades later and a continent apart. Very well made, if not exactly a documentary. I liked the understated way it depicted the mercurial moods and fierce privacy of the main character when war-related memories were forced back into play.
The History of Future Folk - Oddball, charming extraterrestrial "backstory" of a real folk duo, with a couple of good songs (especially the Spanish one), a lead who could be James Spader's younger brother, and roles for Onata Aprile from What Maisie Knew and Dee Snider. Though if you are taking this as a rec, be aware that there's a creepy-stalkery scene in the middle that is played as cute but is equally uncomfortable.
Rango - Who knew this was so quirky, thick with intertextual references and beautifully animated? Not to mention environmentally minded. The dream sequence won my heart.
Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender version) - Almost turned it off in the beginning because of the Epic Angst on the Moors -- seriously Epic -- but glad I didn't. I thought Mia Wasikowska did a fabulous job of conveying Jane's hard-learned reticence and inner turmoil. The St. John stuff will never not be boring, the school flashbacks were too short for character development beyond caricature, Rochester switched too quickly IMO from aloof skepticism to adoration, and see above re: Epic Angst, but the rest made up for it. Pretty well streamlined overall.
The Bride - Bizarre and therefore highly entertaining riff on Frankenstein in which Sting is Dr. F., a luscious young Jennifer Beal is the bride, they form a love triangle with Cary Elwes, and the creature runs off to join the circus with a dwarf. Plus feminism. Made all the better by the lack of clarity as to whether the whole thing was supposed to be funny.
Oh, and watched The Lego Movie on the plane home. It was cute and clever, as people had promised, though also mired in its own central contradiction, as some film critic pointed out, being a movie pushing a corporate product that tells you that it's good to break free of corporate control and conformity. "I only work in black and sometimes very dark gray." If only the human kid had been a girl, or they hadn't made the little sister a punchline, however funny the Duplo line was. GIRLS LOVE LEGO TOO, DAMMIT.
I guess Guardians of the Galaxy is next, because Vin Diesel. Sounds like fandom likes it. Based on the trailer, I'm still not convinced it's actually funny. We'll see.