here, have some randomness
I decided I wanted a Librarian Action Figure. After checking a whole bunch of sites that wouldn't ship to Sweden, and Ebay that wouldn't even let me in since it's been so long since I created the account (they claimed they'd call but then didn't, meh), I found that it was available in the amazon marketplace. A deluxe model with international shipping would cost me 209 SEK.
I decided I didn't want a Librarian Action Figure after all. :-)
***
I'm a little disappointed (though not surprised) that Nemi is a Sylar fangirl, but I can't argue with the punchline:
(Nemi and guy on a couch, watching TV.)
Guy: Cyan says I look a little like Nathan Petrelli. Who do you think is the sexiest one of them?
Nemi: Sylar.
Guy: SYLAR?
Nemi: Mm. He's doable.
Guy: He's the worst one!
Nemi: And that makes him SEXY.
Guy: But you couldn't date him! What about Suresh? Peter?
Nemi: You didn't ask who I'd start a family with. That's something else. I would boink Sylar.
(Nemi alone on the couch, looking off screen.)
Nemi: Jeez... sorry! I forgot that you like to think that girls and guys are completely different.
***
I've finally listened to the audio commentaries to the Narnia movies and watched some of the extras. It was fun. :-) Extras are the main reason I still buy DVDs, and I am constantly disappointed by bad extras, but these were worth the price.
I particularly liked hearing what Andrew Adamson was like as a director. He seemed so earnest, really trying to do a good job. I think it was Nisse Hellberg from Wilmer X who said that he used to think that mainstream artists were sellouts who were only in it for the money, until he toured with some and realized that they really loved their jobs, they just had a very different taste in music. It was sort of like that. Adamson may not be as talented as the top "auteurs", and some of his decisions are questionable, but he's got the love. I really hope they find someone like that for the third film as well, provided that they make the third film which they'd better. And his way of getting the cast into method acting was fun too: "Will, let me see your sword. Ben, yours too. Hmm... Ben's is longer. Will, how does that make you feel?"
Georgie was definitely the most fun of the children to listen to on the audio - she was a precocious, sometimes obnoxious little girl trying to play grown-up, but because of that she really stole my heart away. The best bit in the LWW audio was when she cried out loud as the fox was turned to stone, and then insisted at the others' laughter: "It's not funny!" In the PC audio, she tried to compliment Barnes on his performance in one of the scenes (as the cast had done to each other on and off all along), but unfortunately her tone of voice was just a smidgeon too girlcrushy, and he sounded quite uncomfortable when he thanked her! Poor Georgie. *laughs* OTOH, I don't know if it was Georgie or Anna who gushed over Trufflehunter: "Oh, look at his little face, he's so cute!" and then added, "Not you, Ben!" in the most awesomely snubbing voice ever.
The Easter Egg of Skandar Keynes' Blonde Cam cracked me up, particularly since, as you know, I can't tell blondes apart. (My sister was quite surprised when I didn't recognize Sanna Nielsen at her New Years Eve performance. But how could I possibly? She looks like any other celebrity blonde ever!)
And, uh, Ben Barnes melts my knickers. It's quite embarrassing. I am still faintly bewildered by reviewers calling him flat and uncharismatic, but then, there's no accounting for taste. (I remember Sydsvenskan's Jan Aghed complaining about Don Juan DeMarco that JOHNNY DEPP of all people wasn't charismatic enough for the role. My reaction was pretty much: "... Yes, because I'm sure he's meant to be appealing to cranky old men like you.")
I may have to watch some of his other films - apart from Stardust, I mean. Dorian Gray, definitely, I'd watch that one regardless of who was in it, and maybe Easy Virtue too considering that I really love Adventures of Priscilla. As I pointed out in the imdb boards (and wow, I'm actually participating in the imdb boards, how low have I sunken), he's now played three separate characters with names ending in "an". Another poster offered a whole bunch of more names, some of which could make pretty neat films. :-)
***
In other watching news, I've seen Lost in Austen. I initially mixed it up with some other Austen-influenced thing, which made me surprised that A) it wasn't a feature film and B) I enjoyed it so much. Fanfic on television! Mary Sue fanfic on television, proving more than ever that fans are too keen on that word! *g*
The cast was brilliant, with lots of faces I recognized and loved, even down to Nancy from Doctor Who's "The Empty Child" as Kitty and little Millie from The Rag Nymph as Lydia, meaning I took pleasure in watching even them for once. (And wow, little Millie has grown up.) The show understood the basic nature of Austen, that she's funny more than romantic. Amanda was very much a modern Austen fan bedazzled by romantic ideas and TV adaptations, and I enjoyed seeing her get her illusions shattered.
I think inserting modernity into the story - either directly, like in this film, or with a modern setting, like in Clueless - is probably the only way to get to the core of it. Everyone became real, reacting to Amanda, rather than dolls in a set stage. The characters were deepened, with even Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Lady Catherine and Wickham coming off as three-dimensional people. And of course it makes perfect sense that a headstrong young woman like Lizzie would rather live in the 21st century, given the choice. (I was a little sad we didn't get to see more of her; she was so very pretty.)
***
All this reminds me that I haven't done my TV/film/fic breakdown for December. Oh well, maybe later. It's depressing anyway. *g* And in January, I haven't written anything. I haven't even really felt the urge. Except a bit for my original fic, and I'm kind of reluctant to go back to that, because I've realized that I have to get rid of the dog. I put it in the first scene to wake the protagonist up, and now I have it in a whole bunch of scenes and I have no idea what to do with it and it's more a nuisance than anything else. So I have to edit it out, and that'll be a chore and no fun at all. *sigh*
Maybe when I've done that, though, I can get the story moving again. I do have some ideas of where to take it. I'm a bit concerned that while my protagonist is a man, a lot of my other characters are women - that is to say, it feels perfectly natural for the story, and no one would think twice if it was a female protagonist surrounded by men, but I'm worried that people will find it odd that he's so heterosocial. (So far, there's the love interest, his mother, his housekeeper, an old friend, a cop, and the cop's girlfriend. On the male side, there's the love interest's love interest, another old friend, another cop, a forensic technician, and a little boy. So it's really 50-50. I should probably stop worrying.)
***
In other fun news, the people on the cover of Hexwood don't look like the characters, which apparently is because they're actually hobbits. That's special. Though not quite as interesting as the same illustrator drawing a knight who is most definitely Sawyer from Lost. Sawyer doesn't strike me as the knight type. :-)
***
And on that note, I'm ending this post with six minutes of Sawyer calling people nicknames.
I decided I didn't want a Librarian Action Figure after all. :-)
***
I'm a little disappointed (though not surprised) that Nemi is a Sylar fangirl, but I can't argue with the punchline:
(Nemi and guy on a couch, watching TV.)
Guy: Cyan says I look a little like Nathan Petrelli. Who do you think is the sexiest one of them?
Nemi: Sylar.
Guy: SYLAR?
Nemi: Mm. He's doable.
Guy: He's the worst one!
Nemi: And that makes him SEXY.
Guy: But you couldn't date him! What about Suresh? Peter?
Nemi: You didn't ask who I'd start a family with. That's something else. I would boink Sylar.
(Nemi alone on the couch, looking off screen.)
Nemi: Jeez... sorry! I forgot that you like to think that girls and guys are completely different.
***
I've finally listened to the audio commentaries to the Narnia movies and watched some of the extras. It was fun. :-) Extras are the main reason I still buy DVDs, and I am constantly disappointed by bad extras, but these were worth the price.
I particularly liked hearing what Andrew Adamson was like as a director. He seemed so earnest, really trying to do a good job. I think it was Nisse Hellberg from Wilmer X who said that he used to think that mainstream artists were sellouts who were only in it for the money, until he toured with some and realized that they really loved their jobs, they just had a very different taste in music. It was sort of like that. Adamson may not be as talented as the top "auteurs", and some of his decisions are questionable, but he's got the love. I really hope they find someone like that for the third film as well, provided that they make the third film which they'd better. And his way of getting the cast into method acting was fun too: "Will, let me see your sword. Ben, yours too. Hmm... Ben's is longer. Will, how does that make you feel?"
Georgie was definitely the most fun of the children to listen to on the audio - she was a precocious, sometimes obnoxious little girl trying to play grown-up, but because of that she really stole my heart away. The best bit in the LWW audio was when she cried out loud as the fox was turned to stone, and then insisted at the others' laughter: "It's not funny!" In the PC audio, she tried to compliment Barnes on his performance in one of the scenes (as the cast had done to each other on and off all along), but unfortunately her tone of voice was just a smidgeon too girlcrushy, and he sounded quite uncomfortable when he thanked her! Poor Georgie. *laughs* OTOH, I don't know if it was Georgie or Anna who gushed over Trufflehunter: "Oh, look at his little face, he's so cute!" and then added, "Not you, Ben!" in the most awesomely snubbing voice ever.
The Easter Egg of Skandar Keynes' Blonde Cam cracked me up, particularly since, as you know, I can't tell blondes apart. (My sister was quite surprised when I didn't recognize Sanna Nielsen at her New Years Eve performance. But how could I possibly? She looks like any other celebrity blonde ever!)
And, uh, Ben Barnes melts my knickers. It's quite embarrassing. I am still faintly bewildered by reviewers calling him flat and uncharismatic, but then, there's no accounting for taste. (I remember Sydsvenskan's Jan Aghed complaining about Don Juan DeMarco that JOHNNY DEPP of all people wasn't charismatic enough for the role. My reaction was pretty much: "... Yes, because I'm sure he's meant to be appealing to cranky old men like you.")
I may have to watch some of his other films - apart from Stardust, I mean. Dorian Gray, definitely, I'd watch that one regardless of who was in it, and maybe Easy Virtue too considering that I really love Adventures of Priscilla. As I pointed out in the imdb boards (and wow, I'm actually participating in the imdb boards, how low have I sunken), he's now played three separate characters with names ending in "an". Another poster offered a whole bunch of more names, some of which could make pretty neat films. :-)
***
In other watching news, I've seen Lost in Austen. I initially mixed it up with some other Austen-influenced thing, which made me surprised that A) it wasn't a feature film and B) I enjoyed it so much. Fanfic on television! Mary Sue fanfic on television, proving more than ever that fans are too keen on that word! *g*
The cast was brilliant, with lots of faces I recognized and loved, even down to Nancy from Doctor Who's "The Empty Child" as Kitty and little Millie from The Rag Nymph as Lydia, meaning I took pleasure in watching even them for once. (And wow, little Millie has grown up.) The show understood the basic nature of Austen, that she's funny more than romantic. Amanda was very much a modern Austen fan bedazzled by romantic ideas and TV adaptations, and I enjoyed seeing her get her illusions shattered.
I think inserting modernity into the story - either directly, like in this film, or with a modern setting, like in Clueless - is probably the only way to get to the core of it. Everyone became real, reacting to Amanda, rather than dolls in a set stage. The characters were deepened, with even Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Lady Catherine and Wickham coming off as three-dimensional people. And of course it makes perfect sense that a headstrong young woman like Lizzie would rather live in the 21st century, given the choice. (I was a little sad we didn't get to see more of her; she was so very pretty.)
***
All this reminds me that I haven't done my TV/film/fic breakdown for December. Oh well, maybe later. It's depressing anyway. *g* And in January, I haven't written anything. I haven't even really felt the urge. Except a bit for my original fic, and I'm kind of reluctant to go back to that, because I've realized that I have to get rid of the dog. I put it in the first scene to wake the protagonist up, and now I have it in a whole bunch of scenes and I have no idea what to do with it and it's more a nuisance than anything else. So I have to edit it out, and that'll be a chore and no fun at all. *sigh*
Maybe when I've done that, though, I can get the story moving again. I do have some ideas of where to take it. I'm a bit concerned that while my protagonist is a man, a lot of my other characters are women - that is to say, it feels perfectly natural for the story, and no one would think twice if it was a female protagonist surrounded by men, but I'm worried that people will find it odd that he's so heterosocial. (So far, there's the love interest, his mother, his housekeeper, an old friend, a cop, and the cop's girlfriend. On the male side, there's the love interest's love interest, another old friend, another cop, a forensic technician, and a little boy. So it's really 50-50. I should probably stop worrying.)
***
In other fun news, the people on the cover of Hexwood don't look like the characters, which apparently is because they're actually hobbits. That's special. Though not quite as interesting as the same illustrator drawing a knight who is most definitely Sawyer from Lost. Sawyer doesn't strike me as the knight type. :-)
***
And on that note, I'm ending this post with six minutes of Sawyer calling people nicknames.