(no subject)

[nomercles]

I'm finally watching Jupiter Ascending.  I had to wait for people who didn't want to watch it to go to bed.  Unfortunately, that also means that the dishwasher's running and ruining the ambience, but oh, well.  (It is not ruining the ambience, it is simply making it impossible to hear.  Also I moved over to the other couch and that's going to screw things up a bit.  I'm sure in 10 years when I reread this, I'll be utterly fascinated by that factoid.)  I shall be liveblogging, be warned.

• It's got to be hard for movie studios to use musical themes when they show their emblems.  This has a distorted Hedwig's Theme.  (And for years, Regency used the theme from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  I'm a musician--these things stick in my head.  You're welcome.
• Ahhh!  Her mom is Maria Doyle Kennedy!  I love her!  This is something like the 4th accent I've seen her do, and she's really good at them.
• My cat just brought me his stuffed mouse cat toy.  He bothers to mother me--the other one just sleeps on me.  Goose also just climbed on my desk and knocked my mouse off.  As well as a glass.  Thanks, numbskull.
• Nice.  "Benevolent" genocide.  Good job.  But it's alleviated by petty cat-fighting.  (That is some terrible age makeup on those people).
• So, fun fact, my aunt Rachel, may God be as merciful as she is to others, cleans houses for a living.  During summers, I'd help.  I can officially say, that was the single hardest job of my life.  Fucking brutal.  If y'all get your houses cleaned professionally, or a party catered, or anything like that, please, PLEASE tip them and pay them WELL.  And be kind about it.  If your house is particularly sloppy, like mine often is, tip them EVEN MORE.  You cannot go wrong with it.
• HOVER BOOTS.  Also that one guy with the eye just did this beautiful little neck and shoulder roll that just...humina.  Seriously though, hover boots.
• Fair warning--I have a hard time with names.  People are likely to be vaguely described, or I'll remember the actress' name.  (The political people at the beginning are already nebulous to me, which is frustrating, but they're not real characters to me yet.  We have Mumbly Man (with the chariot), Licentious Dude (the one with the orgy), and Blonde Catty Lady.
• Holy crap, the makeup and costuming and set design.  This movie is so PRETTY.
• Sweetie, if you feel like you're going to throw up at the idea that someone asks you to marry them, and you cannot think of a single intimate, personal thing to say at the question whether you want to marry them...perhaps don't marry them.  Either make peace with a marriage for money, or walk away entirely.  (There is nothing wrong with a marriage for money, nothing at all.  Just make sure all y'all know what you're getting into.)
• Oh, I don't like this judgmental prick.  What's your money for.  None of your fucking business.  And keep your greasy-haired, track-suited misogyny somewhere OVER THERE.  EW.  (Also, Jupiter, sweetie, you are surrounded by gross ugly slimeballs.  Your eggs, you keep alll the cash.  He wants money, HE can donate some of his eggs.)
• This...this is not how egg harvesting usually goes.
• Man, forget flying cars, I want those hover boots.  Just imagine the wonderfully graceless dancing I could do then!
• Boys need more eyeliner.  Channing Tatum's eyeliner is a great start.  MORE.  (I am a SUCKER for men who wear makeup well, and also for boys who wear bracelets.  Jesus.)  Gotta say though, on the whole, he just does nothing for me.  I guess he's pretty?  And beef-cake-y?  But...meh?
• Okay, manhandling usually bugs me, but that was actually cute.
• So, the hover boots work off of basically making gravity work against itself.  How does the shield work?  (Also, this is a very cool chase scene.  All kinds of "fuck your traditional" going on, because it's working on so many different planes.  I love a good traditional chase scene, but this is fun.  It's like Tron meets Top Gun.)
• Ah!  They have names now!  Blonde Catty Lady, Titus, and Not-Titus!
• That's a fantastic explanation for alien sightings and such.
• SEAN BEEEAAAANNN.  Oh, this reunion's going well.  This is the guy with the bees!  What a great garden.  Most of those flowers are even pro-bee!  I mean, all flowers are pro-bee, but there are some plants, like snapdragons, that bees particularly enjoy.  And I think he's got some bee balm.  I am totally paying attention to the wrong things.
• Man, it would freak me right the fuck out to go from cleaning houses to being Your Majesty.
• DUDE!  Hover boots and magic energy shield and now skin-healing spray stuff!  It's like a game of WoW!
• Cousin Vlati or whatever his name is deserves everything he gets.  Hope they sieze your car, asshole.
• Hey, look at that!  Even super advanced techno people have troubles with breaking their tech!  That's so comforting!  In the nebulous, magical future, I too shall have a place: I shall keep bees.  (And what IS it with the Super Soldier Keeps Bees thing lately?  SPN, this, a book I just read...)
• Okay, that was not a wolf snarl, that was a cat snarl.  I mean, I can't snarl at all, so I'm still impressed, but let's be honest here.  Lone Wolf guy snarls like a kitty cat.
• Speaking of tropes, what is it with aliens and CORN.
• Oh.  That explains a lot.
• Okay, so Blonde Catty Lady and Mumbly Not-Titus are siblings, yes?  And they're calling Jupiter mother.  If he "harvests" the whole planet so that Jupiter can't have it...won't he be in effect retrograde assassinating himself?
• Jupiter is really handling all of this extraordinarily well.  I would be a blithering mess at this point.
• No, seriously, the costumes and hair and makeup.  SERIOUSLY.
• So they just...Lady Bathory their way through life?  Well, fuck you, then.  Does Catty Blonde Lady really not get how fucking horrible she is?  Yeesh.  Also, Jupiter's not stupid, and Catty Blonde Lady is trying way too hard.  Casual dehumanizing discussions of genocide, catty comments, all around creepy.  I'm totes betting that she killed mommy.
• "I love dogs, I've always loved dogs."  Awww.
• I really, really hope the meta out there talks about her and our immigration processes, and how we talk about the US being a lovely little boiling pot full of everybody and aren't we so inclusive? but really you gotta know someone or be someone or pay someone, and sometimes you have to do all three.  (Also, how much of that bureaucracy was from orders by Mumbly Not-Titus?)
• Stinger!  Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!
• Yeah, Titus still gets to be Licentious Guy.  He's cute, though.
• See!  I told you she was smart!  And a quick study!
• Really, what is Mumbly Not-Titus' name?  Berlin?  Boleyn?  Belay?
• Ahhhhhh, this whole movie is a fantastic treatise about class privilege and ageism and beauty and the beauty industry and commodification of people and aaaaaaah!  My little sociologist heart is fluttering!
• YES COUSIN VALTI OR WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS DO NOT TREAT YOUR COUSIN LIKE A CHICKEN
• See, this?  This is why I do not trust courtiers and politicians.  I am a refreshingly blunt person.  (There's a difference between blunt and completely lacking in grace or tact, however).  I don't have time or patience for poisoned, honeyed words.
• Never has a bride had more dead, saddened eyes since Princess Buttercup.
• "May I kill him?"  So, one thing I like about Lone Wolf Guy is that he has always maintained good boundaries.  He had the opportunity to take her up on her offer, when she was already unsettled and vulnerable, he walked away.  He's been a genuinely good guy the whole way through.  And now this, instead of just taking revenge like most movie heroes, he asks what she wants--and that couldn't have just been because she's royalty--and then he obeys her.  That's so different and I am sad that it's so unusual.  They keep playing and subverting tropes in this.  It's a cracky movie, sure, but it's really smart sometimes.  She gets to both be a pawn and a queen, and she hasn't yet been a Strong Female Character, which, oh God, this movie could so easily have done and destroyed everything with.
• I think Mumbly Not-Titus has been paying a little too much attention to Watchmen's Ozymandius.  Terrible monologuing.  And holy crap I hate his voice.  He can't decide if he's going to be Super Villain or Whiny Child.  (I think that discrepancy is supposed to be alarming and startling and speak to him being unhinged, but really he's just not very good at his job.)
• Look, Mr. Mumble Pants, you really never learned how a proper menace works.  Go back to school.  Are you trying to be Lestat or something?  Part of his thing was murderous charm.  You have none.
• "You're just like her"; you mean in all the ways you've demonstrated she's not?  Of COURSE she's going to pull the trigger!  Don't screw with housekeepers, man.  Underpaid, underappreciated, stubborn, strong people intent on survival.  This is a recipe for pulling that trigger.
• Ohhh, Mumble is the one who killed mommy.  I'm not surprised in the movie arc, but I'm kind of surprised he had the chutzpah.  His ineffectual spoiled brat schtick is too strong and makes me dismiss him.
• AND SHE GOES BACK TO BEING A REAL PERSON!  That's so cool!  Being a princess isn't everything!  She scrubs toilets, she makes breakfast for her family, instead of almost losing everything and bring them up to her new royal level, she stays with them, being human and awesome because there is nothing wrong with cleaning toilets for a living.  Like I said, this movie gives me all KINDS of happy feels!
• And he gets his wings back.
• OH.  It was directed by the Wachowskis.  No wonder it's progressive.  Good job, everybody!

I quite enjoyed that!  I have it for another week from the library, and while I have a few other movies to get through, I'm certain I'll watch it again.  Might drag Ben into it, just to hear him squawk incoherently about how that's not how space works or something.  Now to go find all that fanfic I've been promised.