media consumed-type post: movies and a book or two
1) I read Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex, and I don't have nearly as much to say about it as I did about The Time Paradox. This is not to say I didn't enjoy it; I laughed at least once a page, because Colfer was playing fast and loose with hilarious dialogue and hilarious side characters and even point of view--often he would describe something with a particularly nice turn of phrase, and in the next line have the current POV character think something along the lines of if I'm saying things like that, I must be suffering from oxygen deprivation. The writing and the plot were much, much tighter than TP, like you could really feel his growth as a writer and the editor's steady hand working upon the novel.
That being said, it was almost too short; it felt, like A Conspiracy of Kings, as if we were being handed an incident full of important information that would unfold in the denouement, packaged within an entertaining adventure, letting us spend time with all of our favorite characters but really just setting the pieces for some grander showdown in the future. (Hint: All the even-numbered books in the series have involved Opal Koboi, and the next, allegedly final, book is going to be number 8, if you can imagine it.) I loved seeing Holly and JULIET yay Juliet and Butler and Mulch and Foaly (out of his element!) and Artemis again, and they were all wonderful, and at the end of the book I wanted--more. There were so many little things that still needed exploring--not that the book doesn't tie together, but rather that things are changing and we're stopped before everything really starts rushing to a head.
I do take issue with the fact that Artemis is allegedly celebrating his fifteenth birthday at the beginning of the story, because he was fifteen back in The Lost Colony. Of course, my dad pointed out to me that the target audience of this series is probably still 12-14-year-old boys, despite the fact that the series is ten years old and those of us who were twelve when we started reading are now twenty-two and still shipping Holly/Artemis like burning. And the series has grown up, too, though perhaps not as noticeably as say Harry Potter; the central themes in The Time Paradox were certainly older, perhaps in some ways too old for a fourteen-year-old to grasp; it's one thing to read about a character reflecting on personal change and growth and the choices you make to get there, and quite another to really have a grasp on how that's happened in your life. And the humor has gotten a bit more complex too (see: I-see-what-you-did-with-that-POV), even if Mulch is still around for the fart jokes.
Anyway, it was a fantastic little yarn, but mostly I am just impatient for the next one.
Also, Orion? Has got to be THE funniest thing I have read in a long, long time. OMG. His treatment of Foaly? Priceless.
ANGELINE FOWL, YOU ARE THE BEST.
Turnbull apparently shows up in the AF Files, which I think I have read, but it has been a while; it took me a bit to get a grasp of his character, and I'm not sure if reading the short story would have helped. I rather enjoyed him as a villain, although I have fears about what his marriage means for Artemis/Holly. (Well, not really fears. Actually, it sort of gave me hope, because you know Holly and Artemis wouldn't have to resort to such schemes, and in the end, the Roots did stay together, magic or no. But in terms of whether or not Colfer will go there again...not that there's anywhere else to go.)
HOLLY WENT ON A DATE WITH TROUBLE, I LOL'D. Fandom theory #579, confirmed.
ARTEMIS AND HOLLY NEED TO HAVE A LONG TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALK i just. i want. so hard. I just. I can't even you guys this ship is as deeply embedded in me as Ron/Hermione (okay, so I don't overidentify with any of the characters, but it's been around for just as long) and the more it develops the more I am on tenterhooks of WILL HE OR WON'T HE? Because he has gone there and it is an open possiblity, which was more than I ever would have dreamed of when I was fifteen, but at the same time...I JUST DON'T KNOW, AND THE CONFLICT STILL HAS ME, WELL. CONFLICTED.
2) I rewatched Music and Lyrics the other night, the cute little rom-com with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant that Malone and I started watching at home one night, got about thirty seconds into the music video, and stopped and waited until Mom was around to watch it with us. The whole theme of creation and music isn't as deep as the theme of creation and writing is in Stranger Than Fiction--this is a rom -com, after all--but what impressed me this time around was Hugh Grant's acting job. He is very...adult, in this film--he knows where he is in his life and he's comfortable with who he is and what he's doing, and I especially liked that he is a musician, and he shows it--in quiet little ways, like the way he sits down at the piano in his apartment or in the store, like it's something he's infinitely familiar with. And even though he's "just" a pop music star, he writes his own stuff--he knows how music works, knows how to put it together, and it's all just...there. I just...really liked his character, and thought he did an understatedly phenomenal job of playing it.
3) I started rewatching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon last night but stopped right before the final battle because I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it through without sobbing and because I needed to go to bed (woe, the adult schedule).
The first glimpse I ever caught of the movie was the scene where Jen and Lo are, um, making out in the cave, and Zhang Ziyi pretty much has the most perfect stomach ever--I was, what, thirteen? So the only time I've watched it all the way through I was probably around fifteen, or in other words, not old enough to understand the film. I caught pieces of it--hints of what formed Mu Bai and Shu Lien's relationship, and the aforementioned cave making out--but the plot itself escaped me, and somehow watching it last night by myself I was hit by the entire movie, all of it, and I couldn't watch the ending because I knew how it ended and I couldn't handle it because I was so immersed--every little motion and movement is fraught with meaning (dude, "Sir" Te's guard is supposed to be comic relief), and the scene where Mu Bai takes Shu Lien's hand is heartbreaking and the way everyone fights and it just--everything clicked into place.
THE SCENE WHERE HE TAKES HER HAND. I just. I can't. The subtitles on the film are rigidly formal--sometimes it works, but really you know they're not conversing like that, but oh well. And I have run out of words. Alas.
4) I have started reading The Demon's Lexicon because the library had it (and the sequel), but I am apparently Not In the Mood. Partially because I am reading a book called The Wall of Fame and it contains some truly atrocious metaphors that ought to be taken behind the publishing house and shot repeatedly, and partially because I have trouble getting into "tough" characters like Nick, and mostly because reading about Nick and Alan makes me think about Felix and Mildmay and, well, Felix and Mildmay are a really, REALLY hard fictional brotherly relationship to beat. Like, nigh-impossible. Especially after Corambis and their exchange of brotherly affection. (FELIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIX MILDMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY I JUST WANT YOU BOTH TO BE HAPPY FOREVER AND I FEEL LIKE IT IS OBTAINABLE AND THIS JUST OVERWHELMS ME WITH RELIEF, I LOVE YOU BOTH SO HARD.)
(yes, Jade just said she loved Felix. It--sometimes these things happen.)
Anyway, maybe I should go back to powering through Atrocious Metaphor Book--actually I think I will share one of them with you, because it was truly horrendous. This evening while reading I started a chapter and actually had to call Quark and read the beginning of the chapter to her because it was just that bad, but the real gem is this upcoming one. The book is about the origins and growth of a program called AVID, which helps underprivileged high school students take advanced classes and learn skills to succeed in school--which I am all for (even if one of the tutors asked the teacher "what do I do to avoid giving the straight answer to their questions?" and the teacher said "be Sigmund Freud and ask another question back!" and I went WHAT NO WHAT NO WHAT AND YOU CALL YOURSELF AN ENGLISH TEACHER). And it's a really powerful story, and there's a lot of good stuff, but it's buried beneath the writing and the author's bias (there are worse things than being biased in favor of such a good program, but still, and also he seems to be crushing on the program's founder). Seriously, why would you end a chapter about teaching the children about photosynthesis with this:
Mary Catherine stood back, listening. Sunlight fell on the leaves of the liquid ambar trees. The room heated by the morning sun was warm as a greenhouse. Through the windows the radiant splendor of light from the liquid-moving branches dappled the faces of students. They were absorbing energy through their eyes and ears. They worked together, combining molecules of knowledge. And she saw that the tables were like leaves--the pigmented students were energy converters, synthesizing questions into concepts. The process was organic and natural.
She witnessed a Tree of Knowledge, transforming inquiry into knowledge.
...i just kind of feel like i'm reading a really, really bad romance novel. With lots of smut. Except it's the kind of smut where it's so buried in purple prose you don't ever really get a sense of what's happening.
WHY BOOK, WHY.
eta: This morning I woke up to the following:
"Disseminiate AVID throughout the San Diego County Schools."
This was Mary Catherine's one-sentence assignment from the State Department of Education. The rest was up to her. The job was dauntingly simple. As simple as Johnny Appleseed, planting seeds of learning in frontier soil. But how to purify AVID's essence into a seed? And how to protect the vulnerable new hybrid from indigenous weeds, predatory bugs, exposure to the harsh sun, and funding drought?
You just can't make that kind of thing up. It is a testament to the power of the stories hidden beneath the prose that I still teared up at one point.
5) To end on a positive note: I made myself dinner and ate it and now am full of food! My fish is still alive! (His name is Ron, for those interested. My first dog was named Fred, and then one of my sisters got a gerbil and named it George, and our first betta fish was named Percy, and I think another gerbil was named Charlie, so...he is red and beautiful and I will post pictures.) My apartment is an utter mess! Ingrid Michaelson writes beautiful songs! Quark drew the picture that was in my head because she is awesome! crisium_rising writes THE MOST AMAZING Dragon Age fanfic ever! The libraries here have BOTH Virtu and Mirador (I literally gasped when I turned the corner and saw them both in their hardbacked glory on their shelf) AND they have lots of sartorias's novels (I brought home A Posse of Princesses and am.very excited about reading it! My books fit on the bookshelf! My apartment door locks! There are trees and mountains around!
Life is good. :-)
That being said, it was almost too short; it felt, like A Conspiracy of Kings, as if we were being handed an incident full of important information that would unfold in the denouement, packaged within an entertaining adventure, letting us spend time with all of our favorite characters but really just setting the pieces for some grander showdown in the future. (Hint: All the even-numbered books in the series have involved Opal Koboi, and the next, allegedly final, book is going to be number 8, if you can imagine it.) I loved seeing Holly and JULIET yay Juliet and Butler and Mulch and Foaly (out of his element!) and Artemis again, and they were all wonderful, and at the end of the book I wanted--more. There were so many little things that still needed exploring--not that the book doesn't tie together, but rather that things are changing and we're stopped before everything really starts rushing to a head.
I do take issue with the fact that Artemis is allegedly celebrating his fifteenth birthday at the beginning of the story, because he was fifteen back in The Lost Colony. Of course, my dad pointed out to me that the target audience of this series is probably still 12-14-year-old boys, despite the fact that the series is ten years old and those of us who were twelve when we started reading are now twenty-two and still shipping Holly/Artemis like burning. And the series has grown up, too, though perhaps not as noticeably as say Harry Potter; the central themes in The Time Paradox were certainly older, perhaps in some ways too old for a fourteen-year-old to grasp; it's one thing to read about a character reflecting on personal change and growth and the choices you make to get there, and quite another to really have a grasp on how that's happened in your life. And the humor has gotten a bit more complex too (see: I-see-what-you-did-with-that-POV), even if Mulch is still around for the fart jokes.
Anyway, it was a fantastic little yarn, but mostly I am just impatient for the next one.
Also, Orion? Has got to be THE funniest thing I have read in a long, long time. OMG. His treatment of Foaly? Priceless.
ANGELINE FOWL, YOU ARE THE BEST.
Turnbull apparently shows up in the AF Files, which I think I have read, but it has been a while; it took me a bit to get a grasp of his character, and I'm not sure if reading the short story would have helped. I rather enjoyed him as a villain, although I have fears about what his marriage means for Artemis/Holly. (Well, not really fears. Actually, it sort of gave me hope, because you know Holly and Artemis wouldn't have to resort to such schemes, and in the end, the Roots did stay together, magic or no. But in terms of whether or not Colfer will go there again...not that there's anywhere else to go.)
HOLLY WENT ON A DATE WITH TROUBLE, I LOL'D. Fandom theory #579, confirmed.
ARTEMIS AND HOLLY NEED TO HAVE A LONG TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALK i just. i want. so hard. I just. I can't even you guys this ship is as deeply embedded in me as Ron/Hermione (okay, so I don't overidentify with any of the characters, but it's been around for just as long) and the more it develops the more I am on tenterhooks of WILL HE OR WON'T HE? Because he has gone there and it is an open possiblity, which was more than I ever would have dreamed of when I was fifteen, but at the same time...I JUST DON'T KNOW, AND THE CONFLICT STILL HAS ME, WELL. CONFLICTED.
2) I rewatched Music and Lyrics the other night, the cute little rom-com with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant that Malone and I started watching at home one night, got about thirty seconds into the music video, and stopped and waited until Mom was around to watch it with us. The whole theme of creation and music isn't as deep as the theme of creation and writing is in Stranger Than Fiction--this is a rom -com, after all--but what impressed me this time around was Hugh Grant's acting job. He is very...adult, in this film--he knows where he is in his life and he's comfortable with who he is and what he's doing, and I especially liked that he is a musician, and he shows it--in quiet little ways, like the way he sits down at the piano in his apartment or in the store, like it's something he's infinitely familiar with. And even though he's "just" a pop music star, he writes his own stuff--he knows how music works, knows how to put it together, and it's all just...there. I just...really liked his character, and thought he did an understatedly phenomenal job of playing it.
3) I started rewatching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon last night but stopped right before the final battle because I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it through without sobbing and because I needed to go to bed (woe, the adult schedule).
The first glimpse I ever caught of the movie was the scene where Jen and Lo are, um, making out in the cave, and Zhang Ziyi pretty much has the most perfect stomach ever--I was, what, thirteen? So the only time I've watched it all the way through I was probably around fifteen, or in other words, not old enough to understand the film. I caught pieces of it--hints of what formed Mu Bai and Shu Lien's relationship, and the aforementioned cave making out--but the plot itself escaped me, and somehow watching it last night by myself I was hit by the entire movie, all of it, and I couldn't watch the ending because I knew how it ended and I couldn't handle it because I was so immersed--every little motion and movement is fraught with meaning (dude, "Sir" Te's guard is supposed to be comic relief), and the scene where Mu Bai takes Shu Lien's hand is heartbreaking and the way everyone fights and it just--everything clicked into place.
THE SCENE WHERE HE TAKES HER HAND. I just. I can't. The subtitles on the film are rigidly formal--sometimes it works, but really you know they're not conversing like that, but oh well. And I have run out of words. Alas.
4) I have started reading The Demon's Lexicon because the library had it (and the sequel), but I am apparently Not In the Mood. Partially because I am reading a book called The Wall of Fame and it contains some truly atrocious metaphors that ought to be taken behind the publishing house and shot repeatedly, and partially because I have trouble getting into "tough" characters like Nick, and mostly because reading about Nick and Alan makes me think about Felix and Mildmay and, well, Felix and Mildmay are a really, REALLY hard fictional brotherly relationship to beat. Like, nigh-impossible. Especially after Corambis and their exchange of brotherly affection. (FELIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIX MILDMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY I JUST WANT YOU BOTH TO BE HAPPY FOREVER AND I FEEL LIKE IT IS OBTAINABLE AND THIS JUST OVERWHELMS ME WITH RELIEF, I LOVE YOU BOTH SO HARD.)
(yes, Jade just said she loved Felix. It--sometimes these things happen.)
Anyway, maybe I should go back to powering through Atrocious Metaphor Book--actually I think I will share one of them with you, because it was truly horrendous. This evening while reading I started a chapter and actually had to call Quark and read the beginning of the chapter to her because it was just that bad, but the real gem is this upcoming one. The book is about the origins and growth of a program called AVID, which helps underprivileged high school students take advanced classes and learn skills to succeed in school--which I am all for (even if one of the tutors asked the teacher "what do I do to avoid giving the straight answer to their questions?" and the teacher said "be Sigmund Freud and ask another question back!" and I went WHAT NO WHAT NO WHAT AND YOU CALL YOURSELF AN ENGLISH TEACHER). And it's a really powerful story, and there's a lot of good stuff, but it's buried beneath the writing and the author's bias (there are worse things than being biased in favor of such a good program, but still, and also he seems to be crushing on the program's founder). Seriously, why would you end a chapter about teaching the children about photosynthesis with this:
Mary Catherine stood back, listening. Sunlight fell on the leaves of the liquid ambar trees. The room heated by the morning sun was warm as a greenhouse. Through the windows the radiant splendor of light from the liquid-moving branches dappled the faces of students. They were absorbing energy through their eyes and ears. They worked together, combining molecules of knowledge. And she saw that the tables were like leaves--the pigmented students were energy converters, synthesizing questions into concepts. The process was organic and natural.
She witnessed a Tree of Knowledge, transforming inquiry into knowledge.
...i just kind of feel like i'm reading a really, really bad romance novel. With lots of smut. Except it's the kind of smut where it's so buried in purple prose you don't ever really get a sense of what's happening.
WHY BOOK, WHY.
eta: This morning I woke up to the following:
"Disseminiate AVID throughout the San Diego County Schools."
This was Mary Catherine's one-sentence assignment from the State Department of Education. The rest was up to her. The job was dauntingly simple. As simple as Johnny Appleseed, planting seeds of learning in frontier soil. But how to purify AVID's essence into a seed? And how to protect the vulnerable new hybrid from indigenous weeds, predatory bugs, exposure to the harsh sun, and funding drought?
You just can't make that kind of thing up. It is a testament to the power of the stories hidden beneath the prose that I still teared up at one point.
5) To end on a positive note: I made myself dinner and ate it and now am full of food! My fish is still alive! (His name is Ron, for those interested. My first dog was named Fred, and then one of my sisters got a gerbil and named it George, and our first betta fish was named Percy, and I think another gerbil was named Charlie, so...he is red and beautiful and I will post pictures.) My apartment is an utter mess! Ingrid Michaelson writes beautiful songs! Quark drew the picture that was in my head because she is awesome! crisium_rising writes THE MOST AMAZING Dragon Age fanfic ever! The libraries here have BOTH Virtu and Mirador (I literally gasped when I turned the corner and saw them both in their hardbacked glory on their shelf) AND they have lots of sartorias's novels (I brought home A Posse of Princesses and am.very excited about reading it! My books fit on the bookshelf! My apartment door locks! There are trees and mountains around!
Life is good. :-)