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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.

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!

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!!)

( 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.

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 :)

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) )

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*

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... )

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 thirdbird_fic

Also, let me draw your attention to the fantastic Five Acts fill 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?

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... )