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So I had my first free afternoon in about a month yesterday, and I went to see Cloud Atlas because

a.I have a weird completion compulsion about seeing the movies of books even when I didn’t much like the book.
b.I really, really needed to spend 2-3 hours by myself in a place no one could reach me.
c.Ben Whishaw’s hair.

And I’ll tell you what, I actually liked the movie better than the book.

no spoilers, just cut to save your flist )
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I’m still spamming y’all, because I was boy-free last weekend, and that meant I went to the movies and actually finished a book.

I took myself to see Argo, which I enjoyed enormously and recommend to all.

more about Argo, no particular spoilers )

I also finished Kevin Powers’s The Yellow Birds, a first novel (the author isn’t 30 yet) about the Iraq war that’s been getting a lot of press. Seriously, you’d think the book would collapse under its accolades: Tom Wolfe, Ann Patchett and Colm Toibin all blurb it across the front cover, and there's more on the back. It's a slim volume!

But the book pretty much holds up to its praise.

more about the novel, no real spoilers )

Still, a really amazing achievement, especially when you consider Powers came back from Iraq without a college degree, went through college on the GI Bill and then on to an MFA in poetry and then this novel, in about five years.

Besides, even the Iceman is talking about PTSD these days, so there you go.
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Yes, I am quoting from The Expendables 2, because, in the annals of bad parenting decisions, I took my son to see this blockbuster cinematic event (actually, in his book, this goes in the annals of awesome parental decisions, never mind the brain cells melted by senseless violence). Why yes, I was the only woman in the theater. The last time that happened to me, I was seeing Shame in the depths of Chelsea.

more, with minor spoilers )

The school year can’t start soon enough.
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Monday afternoon, when we were still exhausted from travel, the boys and I saw The Bourne Legacy, which we enjoyed very much, though I may have to go back and see it without small squirmy persons who I have to take to the bathroom during crucial character bits.

more, w/ very minor spoilers )

Son #2 and I watched Grimm 2x01 and enjoyed it, though there was so much new story arc dumpage I think I might have to go back and take notes. Monroe, as usual, was the best part, with his running commentary on Nick’s maternal reunion.

I finally finished Generation Kill, both series and audiobook (with the addition of reading Wright’s 2008 afterward in the print book).

my usual grumpiness about such things )

I finished both seasons of The Killing and have only about 15 minutes to go in Blackout. I may have exhausted all TV dramas about corrupt mayors in extremely rainy cities. If you have any suggestions, though, please let me know!

hope everyone has a great weekend!
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I have been remiss about reminders, but RUNNING HOT II is percolating along. [livejournal.com profile] deepbluemermaid has been posting some great H50 WIPs, which you can access via THE MASTER LIST and there are prompts galore in a plethora of fandoms at the prompting post, if you're looking for ideas about what to write this afternoon!

In the meantime, have some previews and sneak peaks.

Tom Hardy-at-Cannes goodness has been flooding tumblr this weekend click the tag and see how you feel about the beard.

and the clip from Lawless looks awesome )

And here is a clip of Ben Whishaw and Patrick Stewart in the upcoming BBC Richard II )

And if for some reason you haven't seen the Magic Mike international trailer, I think you owe yourself the pleasure (linking b/c I can't find one to embad.

In other news, I have seen the season finale of Grimm and 1x12 of the sadly cancelled Awake but I haven't seen the H50 finale or House 8x21 yet, but I'm thoroughly spoiled for all, so feel free to share your thoughts. And I'm off to Hunger Games movie now, so that too!
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In which I catch up with the rest of the world

By seeing Avengers and reading The Hunger Games (okay, listening to it, on audiobook).

y'all already knew that I wasn't a comic book gal, right? )

and there's a reason I don't read much YA fiction )

I know, I know, I'm a grump.

In more important news, there is a masterlist now for Running Hot II, with fics from H50, White Collar, Sherlock and SPN. There are many more fabulous prompts from many fandoms including Avangers awaiting fills at the post. We also have AO3 collections for this year and last year. If you wrote something last year and posted it to the Archive you can edit it to include it in last year’s collection (and please do!!)
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Running Hot II is off to a prompt-tacular start (click banner to go the lj site).

There are prompts up for H50, SPN, Sherlock, White Collar, Grimm, MI4, The Unusuals, ReGenesis, The Avengers, Burn Notice, Merlin, Firefly, and probably some other excellent fandoms I'm forgetting. Come by and play--leave a prompt, fill one, or just enjoy!

In other h/c news: I know I've been sporadic in my journal reading for the past few months weeks, but why did no one tell me that the most fic-like on-screen h/c I may have ever seen was going on on House this week? I watched last night, and even though I haven't followed the show for years, I am clearly going to have to watch the last few episodes of the series, even though I'm sure they're going to rip my heart out.

And a question: if I were to take myself to a movie tomorrow, which of these is the most likely to help me forget my troubles/give me have a good cry: The Avengers; The Hunger Games; 21 Jump Street; other.

See you at the meme!
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trailer under cut )

Let's just take a moment to think about this cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce. And others.

Yum.
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I had another free weekend, for ongoing Familial Reasons, and for those same reasons spent a lot of time on Saturday purposefully trying not to think about stuff. You know the drill: run, movie, TV—though I did manage to have a dinner with a friend this time.

Luckily, A Dangerous Method was still playing in town. And you know, I have to say that, despite the fact that

cut for length, not spoilers )

Ann Patchett's State of Wonder )

It does however, often make me think of this:



I watched a couple of episodes of The Unusuals because there it is, on Netflix, and giggled over the fact that one of Jeremy Renner’s very first lines is, “This isn’t a Bourne movie, you know.”

ETA: I love the South, you know I love the South. What I don’t love? The boys’ school being delayed two hours on the strength of an eighth of an inch of snow that only stuck to the freaking grass.
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In case you haven't seen this:



This week has sucked eggs (and it's only Wed.), but the idea of Renner all summer long helps me keep going :)
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I think I can only explain my response to Shame by telling you about the movie I saw Christmas evening with my parents: Pina by Win Wenders, which is a documentary about the recently deceased German choreography Pina Bausch.

Read more... )

Shame )

Hey, girl

Oct. 30th, 2011 10:17 pm
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I think this amounts to my monthly movie post. Since it turns out that what I really like to do on my one free Saturday a month is go to the movies.

This month, I convinced my work friend K. to come with me. We were trying to decide between Moneyball and Drive . Then K. (my work friend!) sent me the link to the feministryangosling tumblr which is pretty much the greatest thing on the internet, and after viewing a bunch of macros like this:



We decided we needed to see Drive.

no real spoilers )

Let’s see, in other news I played hooky from the shows I think I’m following and watched the first series of Whitechapel via download. Because sometimes you just need to watch a good British procedural, y’know? In which people catch gruesome killers and wash their whiskey down with a side of class resentment. I enjoyed the heck out of it. Though it took me forever to figure out where I knew Phil Davis from. And that he’d also been in Merlin 4.04.

And speaking of Merlin:

Merlin 4.05 that is (spoilers) )
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Just back from my book club where we discussed Wolf Hall -- but more about that tomorrow, for now....

[livejournal.com profile] frackin_sweet and [livejournal.com profile] linaerys , I blame you!

I had one of my boy-free weekends, and my friend K. bailed on our plan to see Moneyball. So, I decided take myself to see Warrior at its single showing at the one theater where it was still playing (no, I was not the only person there—there were five of us!)

mild spoilers for the movie )

Also, I saw a preview for a movie in which Matt Bomer and Justin Timberlake inhabit the same screen. 0_0

TTSS spam

Sep. 14th, 2011 10:28 am
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Just passing along some of the (very cuddly) pics and video that have emerged from the TTSS premiere at NFI yesterday in an effort to quell my misery that it won't come out until Dec. here...

pics and vids )
*sighs and goes back to listening to the audio book of Smiley's People in the car*
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I had one of my boy-less weekends, and apparently what I did with it was…see movies. I’m not entirely sure it was time well spent.

the help )

Then, yesterday afternoon, I saw Midnight in Paris with K. Which was pretty insanely amusing if you get a kick out of Hemingway and Dali impersonations. Which I do. But if you haven’t seen it, you can get the gist of it from this voice recording of Allen’s 2-minute stand-up routine on “The Lost Generation” from the sixties.



Brideshead Revisited )

The weather was gorgeous, and I did manage to swim outside and run in my excellent new Vibram five fingers, so all was not lost to dark cinemas.

Hope you all had a good weekend!
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So I finally managed to convince the boys to see Captain America this afternoon, and I have to say one thing right away: I loved the Cap's outfits.

Read more... )
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Just in case you missed this floating around the interwebz this morning: the trailer for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I'll sum up the cast of this movie so you'll know not to blink when you watch it: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy, John Hurt (& etc.). Don't blink.



I may have mentioned (several hundred times) how much I like the novel and the 1970s BBC miniseries. But this one looks pretty spectacular--and beautifully cast. I didn't think I could really accept anybody but Alec Guinness as Smiley, but Gary Oldman seems to have inherited the commemorative Guinness frames, so I'm prepared to be convinced. I recently listened to an audio version of it in the car, and I got worried that they would cut the character BC plays down to nothing. But that also doesn't seem to be the case.

And, if case you haven't seen the trailer for A Dangerous Method, here it is. This movie stars Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung and Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud. No. Really. And Keira Knightly as Sabine Spilrein. The movie looks slightly OTT (there is caning), but the story is OTT, and fascinating, so I have hope.



Both boys are in outdoor camps this week, so I have been spending a lot of time in the car delivering them and fetching them back. It has cut into my work/writing time, but it's also given me a chance to listen to Smiley's People and the first new Gillian Welch album in 8 years. It is awesome--it was worth the wait.

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So there was some talk of the boys and I going to see Thor on Sunday, but in the end we went to see the G-rated Rio, which is about a blue macaw boy chick stolen from the Brazilian rainforest, and reared by a bookstore owner in Minnesota, who is then brought back to Brazil to mate with a girl macaw (to preserve the species, you know!). Adventures ensue, and Blu, the boy macaw, who never learned to fly in Minnesota, eventually finds his wings through love. As one does.

It wasn't the best plotted animated movie I've ever seen, though pretty to look at, what with the tropical birds and all. Still, we found it endearing because it reminded us of our pet Cockatiel, Gerry, who also had a hard time learning to fly (and still doesn't do it right)--though he was hand-raised in North Raleigh, rather than being snatched up by the illegal bird trade.

The funniest thing about the movie is that Blu, the boy macaw, is voiced by Jesse Eisenberg, so I kept imagining a different movie in which Jewel, the girl macaw dumps him, and he goes off in a huff to invent "BeakBook" in revenge. But birds apparently don't get hung up on those sorts of things, so Blu and Jewel flew off into the Brazilian nature reserve to make babies instead.

It also reminded me of this awesome Sherlock bird!fic I read recently. I am not much for pet stories, but, obviously, I have a big soft spot for birds, and this story works like a charm. Even if birds aren't your thing, it's still a wonderful John-Sherlock-Lestrade friendship fic.

The Case of the Unexpected Guest by [profile] thirdbird_fic

Also, let me draw your attention to the fantastic Five Acts fill [livejournal.com profile] brighteyed_jill wrote for me--the acts are fever, touch and dancing, and it's John/Sherlock (gen)--do I really need to say anything more?
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Oh, y'all, I finally got to see Jane Eyre yesterday!

Read more... )

Extremely short responses to the other things I watched over the weekend.

A Game of Thrones 1.1 (haven't seen 1.2 yet):

Read more... )

Supernatual 6.18

Read more... )

Is there new H50 tonight?
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I was going to wait and see The Eagle with my boys, but they aren’t here this weekend, and on impulse, and out of the fear that it wouldn’t be around next weekend, I took myself off to see it this afternoon.

And you know what? Aside from a few really annoying things, I enjoyed the heck out of it. There’s enough mud and shirtlessness to satisfy anyone, and, yes, the surgery scene is worth the price of admission alone. Plus, I am a sucker for windy heaths and snowy mountains.

Plus, there is a rat scene right out of an episode of Merlin

If it is around next weekend, I expect I’ll take the boys and see it again, if only because they will get such a huge kick out of hearing someone actually say “Formate testudo” and people actually making the famous Roman battle tortoise with spears and axes flying all over the place. Not to mention the moat of burning pitch.

**spoilers for the book and the movie** Read more... )

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