Five Friday Reasons of Fannish Happiness
1.) Trailer for the Tennant/Stewart Hamlet , which both brings back the joy of having watched this live and the anticipation of seeing it again. I just hope the RSC delivered that dvd I ordered eons ago as promised. Also, once the dvd is available and the film has been broadcast, I hope for lots of screencaps and plenty of icons, hopefully some of which will show both actors I tend to fangirl in the same shot. (The publicity photos by the RSC last year just weren't what I wanted in this department.)
2.) Yuletide Uploading is open. Uploading my story reminded me again what fun it was to write. I've always looked forward to the 25th because Yuletide is such a great ficathon, but this year there is that additional slight nervousness which comes with having made a contribution as well. Let's see how rare that rare fandom is...
3.) Discovered via
vilakins: Pride & Prejudice via Emoticons. Who cares about adaptions with zombies if you can have adaptions via emoticons! :)
4.) Methinks Warren Ellis really hit his stride with his second arc in Astonishing X-Men. #33 is out, that's the third issue in a row which is fun to read, doesn't have wth? character moments and came without any long interruptions in between. If you really want to nitpick, you can argue Storm's role in the Ellis line-up is, the one discussion she had with Cyclops in the last arc aside, somewhat bland, especially compared with Kitty in the Whedon line-up, but that's really not much of an issue. I'm so happy Hisako continues to play a major role in AXM, and Ellis writes her absolutely delightful. He also seems to want Scott/Logan 'shippers really happy with this second arc, seeing as he continues to write their interaction. Also, the art for the second arc is way better than for the first, especially for my beloved Abigail Brand and for Hank McCoy. Speaking of my favourite morally ambigous agent, I still think that either there is a connection between her and this arc's villain she hasn't revealed yet, or she draws that connection to what she allowed Ord to do and what's happening right now herself. Because she's far too low-key and sad about all of this to just feel horrified on Hank's behalf because his research has been hijacked by a bad guy. I mean, I don't doubt she's both concerned for him on a physical and emotional basis, but she also seems to take this very personal on her own part, as if she feels responsible, which as far as we know so far, she has no reason to.
On another note, between Brand having Hisako's cell phone number in the previous arc and Hisako feeling comfortable interrogating her and slipping in a compliment about the coolness of Brand's job in between in this issue, I have decided that fanfic about Hisako and Brand chatting post-Unstoppable is totally canon.
"Kaga" is such a K'immie name. I feel nostalgic for Highlander.
5.) Five Minutes, Mr. Welles. I had heard about this short film (31 minutes) which premiered at the Venice Film Festival 2004, starring and directed by Vincent D'Onofrio, but I had no idea it was available on YouTube until yesterday. D'Onofrio had played Orson Welles before, as a cameo in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, but this time he gets to use his own voice. Which doesn't sound at all like Welles', but that's beside the point here. (Especially since he's great with the body language and the script.) This particular short film is set during the shooting of The Third Man, at a time when Orson Welles had long since stopped being a beloved prodigy and was now in quasi-exile from Hollywood, mostly living in Europe and hiring himself out as an actor to finance his own movies. Quite often, this meant a lot of mediocre films to play in, but occasionally, he lucked out in his quest for movie-financing cash and got a role in a great picture. But you don't even have to know that in order to enjoy this half an hour which among other things showcases some magic of acting, as D'Onofrio-as-Welles goes from memorizing the Ferris Wheel scene in a listless, lifeless manner to injecting a flicker of personality in the lines to finally, at the end, coming up with a complete performance of Harry Lime, complete with the ad-lib Welles contributed to Graham Greene's script. The second character is an invented one, but in complete contradiction to my nagging about the book Me and Orson Welles I shall praise her existence. Katherine, scriptgirl-plus-personal-assistant, played by the classy Janine Theriault whom I've never seen before but now shall look out for, goes from seemingly powerless to actually powerful, and goes the through the full O.W. experience of alternatingly being frustrated, angry, challenged and charmed. There are some lovely visual homages to Welles as a director (the camera angles are obvious, but I clued in the Othello bit one only after I'd seen it; well-done, especially since Othello was the film Welles was needing the cash for). And in case you've never ever seen The Third Man - and what stopped you so far? - this is the scene Welles is rehearsing in Five Minutes, Mr. Welles. One of the all time classics and endlessly quotable. (And imitated and quoted from about a million times.)
2.) Yuletide Uploading is open. Uploading my story reminded me again what fun it was to write. I've always looked forward to the 25th because Yuletide is such a great ficathon, but this year there is that additional slight nervousness which comes with having made a contribution as well. Let's see how rare that rare fandom is...
3.) Discovered via
vilakins: Pride & Prejudice via Emoticons. Who cares about adaptions with zombies if you can have adaptions via emoticons! :)
4.) Methinks Warren Ellis really hit his stride with his second arc in Astonishing X-Men. #33 is out, that's the third issue in a row which is fun to read, doesn't have wth? character moments and came without any long interruptions in between. If you really want to nitpick, you can argue Storm's role in the Ellis line-up is, the one discussion she had with Cyclops in the last arc aside, somewhat bland, especially compared with Kitty in the Whedon line-up, but that's really not much of an issue. I'm so happy Hisako continues to play a major role in AXM, and Ellis writes her absolutely delightful. He also seems to want Scott/Logan 'shippers really happy with this second arc, seeing as he continues to write their interaction. Also, the art for the second arc is way better than for the first, especially for my beloved Abigail Brand and for Hank McCoy. Speaking of my favourite morally ambigous agent, I still think that either there is a connection between her and this arc's villain she hasn't revealed yet, or she draws that connection to what she allowed Ord to do and what's happening right now herself. Because she's far too low-key and sad about all of this to just feel horrified on Hank's behalf because his research has been hijacked by a bad guy. I mean, I don't doubt she's both concerned for him on a physical and emotional basis, but she also seems to take this very personal on her own part, as if she feels responsible, which as far as we know so far, she has no reason to.
On another note, between Brand having Hisako's cell phone number in the previous arc and Hisako feeling comfortable interrogating her and slipping in a compliment about the coolness of Brand's job in between in this issue, I have decided that fanfic about Hisako and Brand chatting post-Unstoppable is totally canon.
"Kaga" is such a K'immie name. I feel nostalgic for Highlander.
5.) Five Minutes, Mr. Welles. I had heard about this short film (31 minutes) which premiered at the Venice Film Festival 2004, starring and directed by Vincent D'Onofrio, but I had no idea it was available on YouTube until yesterday. D'Onofrio had played Orson Welles before, as a cameo in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, but this time he gets to use his own voice. Which doesn't sound at all like Welles', but that's beside the point here. (Especially since he's great with the body language and the script.) This particular short film is set during the shooting of The Third Man, at a time when Orson Welles had long since stopped being a beloved prodigy and was now in quasi-exile from Hollywood, mostly living in Europe and hiring himself out as an actor to finance his own movies. Quite often, this meant a lot of mediocre films to play in, but occasionally, he lucked out in his quest for movie-financing cash and got a role in a great picture. But you don't even have to know that in order to enjoy this half an hour which among other things showcases some magic of acting, as D'Onofrio-as-Welles goes from memorizing the Ferris Wheel scene in a listless, lifeless manner to injecting a flicker of personality in the lines to finally, at the end, coming up with a complete performance of Harry Lime, complete with the ad-lib Welles contributed to Graham Greene's script. The second character is an invented one, but in complete contradiction to my nagging about the book Me and Orson Welles I shall praise her existence. Katherine, scriptgirl-plus-personal-assistant, played by the classy Janine Theriault whom I've never seen before but now shall look out for, goes from seemingly powerless to actually powerful, and goes the through the full O.W. experience of alternatingly being frustrated, angry, challenged and charmed. There are some lovely visual homages to Welles as a director (the camera angles are obvious, but I clued in the Othello bit one only after I'd seen it; well-done, especially since Othello was the film Welles was needing the cash for). And in case you've never ever seen The Third Man - and what stopped you so far? - this is the scene Welles is rehearsing in Five Minutes, Mr. Welles. One of the all time classics and endlessly quotable. (And imitated and quoted from about a million times.)
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