...seriously: I am still all a-squee about The Midnight Meat Train; I've been adding quotes and trivia to the IMDb. And I would make an icon for it, except I can't find pictures of one character, and the really obvious icon possibility would spoil the funniest line in the movie. And that would just be wrong. (So don't look at the IMDB quotes section, whenever my updates show up, before you see the movie/if you have any intention of seeing it, because I've added it there.)

( Et puis quoi, encore?)

Dark Knight / Midnight Meat Train
After about 5 days of avoiding the internets almost entirely to avoid being spoiled for the film, I finally saw The Dark Knight today, in IMAX, with morganlefae. w00t!

Then I went by myself to see The Midnight Meat Train at the Fantasia Festival, which was a blast! And I took the subway home.

( Et puis quoi, encore?)

Double Vue
Finished reading another book. A reread of Doll's Eyes by Bari Wood. The French translation, Double Vue, from the library, like last time, when I'd read it after seeing the movie allegedly based on it (Neil Jordan's In Dreams, which bears very little relation to the book*), nine years ago.

It's still highly readable. I'd forgotten enough details to relive the suspense, although I think I was slightly less disappointed by the ending this time around. What was new this time, though, was the sense that Dexter Morgan had to have obscurely reminded me of, and/or interested me partly because of Adam Fuller, because of their similarities, and my present familiarity with Dexter Morgan in turn inflected my reading of Adam Fuller. (Certain scenes in the episode "Shrink Wrap", for instance, that are not present in Jeff Lindsay's novel, actually echo Bari Wood's novel.)

And it also reminded me of the New Who ep. "Dalek", albeit less infuriatingly stupid than said episode.



*I read somewhere, I think it was in a magazine, although I haven't retrieved the source to be able to quote it directly, that the screenwriter hadn't even heard of the book, and he'd only written the screenplay based on the outline given to him. Which totally makes sense of the result.

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Wow, does Canadian Idol suck or what? I don't normally watch, but I tuned in -- well, recorded and later watched with much use of fast-forward -- because I'd seen an ad about this being David Bowie week, and they nearly all of them butchered Bowie's material. The house band especially, all screeching generic rock arrangements killing the melodies and nearly downing out the vocals, though that was probably merciful. The only one I thought was kind of passable was Mookie Morris, who did a Nirvana-like "The Man Who Sold the World". Which the judges didn't like! Feh.

( Et puis quoi, encore?)

Flashpoint starts in 1 minunte!
Flashpoint, the new Canadian police drama starring Veronica Mars's dad, Enrico Colantoni, and Hugh Dillon from Hard Core Logo and Durham County, starts in one minute on CTV and CBS!

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we have skunks
or the neighbours do. I've seen them two mornings in a row, and each time I went outside they scampered back to the other side of the yard to crawl under the fence. Yesterday I saw two: a big one and a slightly smaller one, probably parent and kit. Today, just one, the smaller I think. My mother saw them first, the day before yesterday.

Des belles mouffettes avec des queues touffues.

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I tried to avoid spoilers for the New Who season finale for the past week, hoping this might make viewing it more enjoyable. I took the discussion communities off the default view of my friends-list, restricted my internet surfing and so forth, but I got sort of spoiled anyway, in a couple of places I knew I should've avoided, although the topic also came up in unexpected places. Not in detail, though, but still along some broad important lines. *sigh*

Still, and although I tried to forget the spoilers while I watched, and see the positive things in the finale instead of approaching it defensively, I feel rather too indifferent about all of it. But I can read spoilers now, so I might yet get worked up about something, one way or another.

***

I have an unabashed love of several bad SFnal movies. Not uncritical, nor unconditional, but often undimmed by those objections that occur to me on first viewings. If they're memorable in some way, I'll come back to them for those qualities.

Right now I'm pondering the 1993 film Monolith, which I cannot rewatch as the video store has gotten rid of all its VHS tapes, and the movie hasn't been released on DVD in Region 1. And there's scarcely anything about it on the web, except a trailer.

(But I don't have the recul nécessaire on the subject of some things like ongoing TV shows. They require more investment than movies, and are not safely dead to allow objectification.)

♫ Eragon sndtk ♫ État d'âme : Eragon sndtk

( Et puis quoi, encore?)

c'est dans le temps des fêtes nationales...
Il y a une crue de la production de littérature fantastique au Québec depuis les quelques dernières années, on dirait. Enfin, d'après les étalages de best-sellers dans les pharmacies: on y voit des briques, des suites interminables, des trilogies en puissances, editées ici. Et je n'en ai pas encore lues, pas vraiment, à part le premier volume d'A.N.G.E. par Anne Robillard qui m'a franchement horripilée au bout de quelques chapitres. La popularisation du genre, qui semble avoir suffisemment de succès pour me sauter au visage malgré mon manque total de dévotion au milieu littéraire québécois, m'amène à penser qu'il faudrait que je m'y replonge un peu, histoire de ne pas manquer l'émergence d'oeuvres vraiment intéressantes, et aussi de ne pas mépriser la culture de ma province et de ne pas me priver de modèles salutaires. Et ces oeuvres-là, il y a des chances qu'elles arrivent dans la bibliothèque de mon quartier de bonne heure, contrairement au corpus anglophone/étranger, et donc qu'elles me coûtent moins cher.

Seulement, mis à part mon mal de lecture chronique, il y a quand même le réflexe de rechigner à la tâche qui pourrait être dur à surmonter.

Surtout quand j'entame l'extrait disponible en ligne du premier volume (je vous disais, pour les suites...) de Filles de Lune d'Élisabeth Tremblay, et que je me heurte à la deuxième proposition de la première phrase de son récit qui parle de la couleur des cheveux de l'héroïne à la première personne.

( Read more... )

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videodrome
I watched "Turn Left" on Saturday, and afterwards the RealPlayer software bugged me with another automated "update to our latest version!" pop-up, so I tried installing it, but the install, well, stalled, completely froze, and I risked shutting it down and afterwards RealPlayer just wouldn't open, because the installation hadn't been complete, I guess. I retried this today, and ended up repeating the same actions because it stalled again, but afterwards RealPlayer had somehow finished installing itself because the new version opened correctly when I clicked to see what would happen. I was anxious after the first failure, but I knew I at least had VLC to fall back on if needed. It would probably have been bad for my nerves if I'd been messing with the software before I'd seen this week's Doctor Who episode.

***

I held my nose and paid for another four months of LJ services, because my paid status was close to expiring. This time, the money order went through, a week exactly after I sent it. There's another payment I sent for something else at the same time that I still haven't heard about, though I guess I could ask about it.

***

About a month ago I drafted an entry about two novels I'd finished reading. I haven't read another novel since.

( what I wrote then )

Well, I skimmed through a library copy of an earlier McDermid as a refresher afterwards, and I've laboured through the first few pages of The Well at the World's End (another 50 cent paperback, of part I only) and I've read bits of a novelisation of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and a couple of pages of various book I've got lying around, but nothing cover-to-cover, and I've spent more time on Sudoku.

***

Anne Dudek is in Mad Men? Also Vincent Kartheiser, whom I have trouble looking at without thinking of Connor.

Oh! Oh! and something else, of which Anne Dudek reminds me: Fear Itself (which has been such an utter bore I haven't watched it all the way through since the premiere) this week will star Maggie Lawson and James Roday as Bride and Groom to each other. I haven't been keeping up with Psych, but that is some freaky casting. Also IMDB tells me they're dating each other IRL? Heh.

Swingtown, which plays at the same time as Fear Itself but hasn't managed to interest me all that much either, kind of also freaks me out because of how white the cast is. It's a bit odd, because I don't necessarily notice this as much in other shows that are just as white, but storytelling about the supposedly liberating era of the 70s in the USA showcasing three white suburban families' sex lives, which puts forward a supporting female character who's an ex-union-organising Playboy Bunny turned lawyer (in a scene at the friggin' Playboy Club) feels very reactionary. If one of the sons turns out to be gay and the swinging families aren't all yuppie-supportive, perhaps it will feel less like it's putting a soapy gloss and big fuzzy dice over the rear-view mirror.

***

Monday nights at 10pm, in the same timeslot as the aforementioned Thursday night shows, Global has been airing Durham County, and Séries+ has restarted its airing of The Inside, dubbed in French under the title of Dans la tête des tueurs.

Durham County is the definition of a vase clos, you could say. (I still haven't watched last week's penultimate episode yet, and the series or season ends this week.) Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik's script (with excellent direction by Holly Dale and Adrienne Mitchell) folds in on itself like origami or a paper fortune teller. The coincidences are kind of maddening, but the characterisation that unfolds depending on which points touch at a particular time is surpringly sharp-edged. The general weirdness of the atmosphere is beautiful and eerie, but it's the people who are scary.

The character of Sadie Sweeney makes me think of Jordan Black. Not because Jordan would necessarily have grown up to be like Sadie Sweeney, particularly since Jordan had a supernatural gift, the world-building for Millennium was different, etc., but their situations: daughters of fathers who hunt serial killers, mothers who have had a brush with death (although the mother survived in Durham County!), being an outsider because her parents have just moved, etc. again.

(There's an interview with Finstad-Knizhnik and Mitchell online here I've been listening to as I type this. NB: that page will likely resize your browser window.)

I'm finding that The Inside is more approachable as a finished object. It's stopped worrying me that they'll have to top themselves in their sordid exploration of whacked-out killers (new shows have taken up the lead for that purpose, with considerably less carnival whimsy) and keep exploiting Rachel-Nichols-in-peril scenarios, not to mention the victims of the week (so I find it easier to objectify them). The gutsy OTTness of the drama reminds me of Torchwood, but with infinitely more self-awareness of the team leader's excentricity and unethical practices (and 100% less world-in-peril stakes in play). But Rebecca Locke is probably the polar opposite of Gwen Cooper as a focus character. Heh. Which is no doubt why they had Paul Ryan as a moral point of view (much more like Gwen's supposed role in Team Torchwood), though he lacks Eve Myles's woobie face. The split subjectivity of The Inside would have been interesting to explore at length, in spite of my reservations about the show.

To play with Torchwood similitudes some more: The Inside didn't give its secondary characters much background, but I could compare the characters' functions. Carter Howard, the one black character, could be the counterpart of Toshiko Sato (underused and even more desk-bound), whereas the one other woman (besides Rebecca) on the team, Melody Sim, would be a little closer to Owen Harper and Ianto Jones, with her off-colour humour and her naming of things. Danny Love is harder to place; actually his American military background would make him closer to Jack Harkness, prototypically, but he is better-natured, and Virgil Webster is the edgy, mysterious boss. And Torchwood doesn't have a Rebecca Locke; her traumatic past and lack of personal life would parallel her with Jack in some ways, but they put him in charge as an unreconstructed mess, whereas she was a survivor in a narrative position designed to chart her growth as a person.

En passant, Lost's Michael Emerson had an interesting guest spot on the show.

( Et puis quoi, encore?)

twofertuesday
I saw The Incredible Hulk, and it was SO MUCH BETTER than I expected.

OTOH, The Happening was just dumb.

glasses!
I got new eyeglasses today, as a (very) belated birthday present from my parents. I'd acquired my last pair six years ago. My prescription hadn't changed, but the old lenses were getting scratched and hard to clean. I'm trying to get used to the new pair. It's always an adjustment: putting them on made me a bit dizzy, and I'm not used to having the new frame in my peripheral vision or to the slight difference in the angle of the lenses. They're also more rigid and a little bit heavier, and the nose pads are different, although the optometrist adjusted them so that they would rest on my nose at approximately the same angle as the old pair's nosepads. My old glasses' nosepads were getting quite worn: I can see cracks running through the plastic, and since they had an unusual nose pad design, the opticians aren't sure whether they can order replacement cushions. I think I might go back to the store and ask anyway: better now than later when they definitely won't be able to find them, so I won't get stuck with spare glasses without cushioned nose pads if the plastic breaks. (I had to wear them for a week with the plastic missing one one side a couple of years ago until they could replace it at that time, and it was very uncomfortable.)

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Jewelry that has names.
elisem is having a June Shiny Clearance Sale this week-end, continuing until this Tuesday. It is very, very tempting, although the lower-priced items that I could actually afford tend to go fast. But she's updating the entry with new items regularly, so not all is lost!

This is the artist who made a necklace of award pins for Lois McMaster Bujold. (The Cetagandan Order of Merit!)

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New Who episodes 4x08-4x09: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
( spoilery -- eyeroll -- mutterings )

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What makes Kissed boring
Lynne Stopkewich's first feature film, Kissed is a pretty cool movie, but it's also ultimately rather boring. ( here's why (with spoilers) )

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serendipopcorn
Fun thing about going to the video store *just* before closing time (I had one minute left exactly): they gave me free popcorn! The woman behind the counter said they were just going to throw that last bag away otherwise, before she locked up behind me. Hee.

Aaand it makes me feel less silly about impulse-buying a dumb Hollywood blockbuster for shallow reasons, because: hey, getting free popcorn at the same time is surely a sign it was a good decision. (And I bought a small Canadian indie film at the other video store just before that.)

*eats popcorn*

(The shallow reasons were: the pretty psychopath characters and the desire to see it without all the curse words blanked out as they had been when it last played on TV.)

♫ my name is ide & i'm an addict ♫ État d'âme : my name is ide & i'm an addict

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House
( spoiler )

( Et puis quoi, encore?)

Aluminum Man
Bit of a lightweight movie, really. I know it's superhero fare, and in all of its seriousness it tackles "real-world" issues about as straightforwardly as its product placement hamburgers. Robert Downey, Jr. has plenty of charisma, but his character doesn't take to the joy of flight quite as infectiously as Tobey McGuire, and he fights war crimes with the same kind of methods as Christian Bale's Batman fights the organised crime festering in Gotham City's underclass in Batman Begins. Tony Stark's change of heart (sorry) fails to connect him with the population living in war zones (other than briefly sharing their victimisation as a prisoner, he only relates to one of them personally); his detachment and insulation perdure afterwards, and, unlike Batman, he doesn't even live in the same country as is oppressed by his industry.

(I saw a trailer for The Incredible Hulk before the screening. That's one movie I am not going to see, for, as wonderful as Edward Norton's angst could be, the sight of two bloated CGI beasts rushing at each other does not stir anything in me but eye-rolling indifference. I was mildly, fleetingly curious about the perspective of the poor bystanders on the narrow, car-crowded city street in the beasts' path, but it's not going to be their Cloverfield, is it?)

Back to Iron Man: the which really fails the DTWOF test, casually objectifies women and gives us yet another hero with a nonexistent motherline, and is racist in all the expected ways, killing brown people in the Middle East instead of black people in the United States; on the one hand blaming American arms suppliers for the carnage wrought by foreigners though without on the other examining the causes for the demand for those supplies, or the cost of their use by the "good" guys.

The villain, probably unintentionally, reminded me of Profion's lackey in Dungeons & Dragons, and I found myself thinking of Scorpius and Sikozu during one particular scene between Tony Stark and Pepper, though it stayed camera-shy of its body horror charge. (Also, the robots were skutters. Heee!) There were a couple of Superman Returns-esque moments inflected with borderline slapstick which made the movie's CGI refreshingly emotionally appealing, but also others that made me wonder why they'd treat the flesh-and-blood actor's part as a target for cartoonish bodily harm.

(I found most disquieting the scene of the first press conference. Aside from the obnoxious product placement, it demonstrated a chilling example of psychological cue-switching.)

The film was entertaining, though. Good actors in the leading roles, better good guys for characters than its bad guys, situational humour, and cool special effects which only slightly and occasionally detract from the story's acknowledged stakes. Aluminum rather than iron. Lighter than steel, shiny though not quite as noble as gold.

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BSG 4x04
prolix_allie summed up this episode perfectly by saying: "God, I hate Espenson for taking a crappy Jacob recap and putting it on my tv." (Though I'll add that Edward James Olmos directed it.)

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quick TV notes
I watched Lost for the first time in ages, and it turned out to be a Women in Refrigerators ep.

Supernatural gave me flashbacks to the ending of The Sandman's "A Game of You" storyline. That's how progressive it was. 16 years ago.

Grey's Anatomy: Anyone else spot the sign in the elevator behind Derek and Mark? :-D

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meme
fannish5: What are the five best tv opening credits sequences?

Some of my favourites, rather than The Five Best, 'cause I can't say I've seen all opening credit sequences in the history of TV (though I watch too much TV already).

Millennium, created by Ramsey McDaniel. All three seasons. Beautiful, atmospheric, and with haunting music by Mark Snow.

The Odyssey, Canadian kids' show, which came to mind because it explains the premise pretty well, without a voiceover. (Kid falls down, goes into coma, has parallel universe adventures, while mom tries to wake him up.)

Farscape, season 3. Gives me shivers. The other versions are cool, too, but this is my favourite. (Look upward! Beware!)

Revolutionary Girl Utena: I haven't seen all that much of the series, but this is lovely. Stirring, hopeful, dreamy and subversive.

Chocky: simple, yet scary.

The Collector, season 3: when they ditched the cheaper special effects of the first two seasons (and the Devil's smug voiceover) and went all symbolic. (Maya, with the hourglass of souls! Aaaaah!)

Doctor Who, McCoy-era. It's probably a large part of the reasons I started watching the show in the first place.

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