Far · West · of · Outremer

So, recently, I watched "North and South" (the BBC one, not the one I remembered having seen verrrry silly and melodramatic bits from lo those many years ago, which, I must confess, had me horribly confused when people were saying effusive things about "North and South" before I figured out they meant the OTHER one... anyway....), because of reasons, and then was poking about to see what else Richard Armitage was in (REASONS... um... actually, I did have an actual reason for that search, but darned if I can recollect what it was... anyway....), and IMDB cheerfully informed me that he was in Captain America: The First Avenger.

Me: Wait, what? Where... what?
IMDB: He played Heinz Kruger.
Me: Wait, what? Who... wait... random Hydra guy in the suit with the Dramatic Dying Declaration? Really? You mean that character had a name? Richard Armitage played that role? I honestly totally missed that....

And then I had several minutes of sounding like Charlotte from Sense and Sensibility, with "I don't believe it!" (but without threats to plant very tall trees).

Me: Hey, you'll never believe this, but Richard Freaking Armitage was in Captain America: The First Avenger!
Intrepid Roommate: Yeah, he played Heinz Kruger.
Me:...
Me: HOW DOES EVERYBODY KNOW THIS BUT ME?

In my defense, I note that he was in fact wearing fairly heavily-rimmed glasses, which, as everybody knows, render tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed guys completely unrecognizable.

(also, I went back to watch those scenes, because of reasons legitimate curiosity, and I find it hysterically funny that you have a British actor speaking lines as an evil German spy who is pretending to be an American...)

It's fantastic and squee-worthy to hear that the Rurouni Kenshin movie is awesome..... but it would be even better if there was confirmed information on a US release.

OTOH, said US release is never going to be anywhere close enough to actually go see it on the big screen, so I guess I shall just have to obsessively stalk the DVD.

Me: I would just like to say that I appreciate a well-done, female-gaze-focused reverse harem-type story, like "Ouran High School Host Club," "Hakuouki," and the "Avengers" movie.
Rachael: I double-dog dare you to post that on the Interwebs.

*sigh*

Partly due to a love of a well-executed fairytale and partly due to the amazing posters and the costumes, I was really excited about getting a chance to see “Snow White and the Huntsman” on the big screen. This is also part of my ongoing plan to actually, you know, see movies that I want to see in the theater in an actual theater, rather than just ending up trying to track them down on DVD at the library.

So, being in a kind of stressed-out mindspace this evening, where I was not getting any work done anyway, I dragged d_ragondaughter to the theater.

It was indeed visually fascinating—as in, the Evil Queen gets married and has this fantastic dress where there are these decorative shoulder/arm sections that look like cages made out of bird bone , much of the rest of her wardrobe is also amazing, and there were some very cool (or creepy!) visuals involving magic and/or hallucinations... but, on the whole (and with spoilers)....
( Yeah, probably should have just gone to see “Avengers” again...Collapse )

Hmm... I think that I may have figured out the reason for having Random Blond (additional?) Gein as one of the opponents in what I'm fairly sure is Kanryuu's mansion. If the RK movie is going from "You are carrying a sword! Clearly you must be Battousai!" "Sessha wa... okay, yes, fine" to Sano to Jineh to Megumi to Gatling guns to Saitou... yeah, you don't really have time to include "And now we will spend twenty very talky minutes on each Oniwabanshu member, with extra time for Aoshi to explain that he has mad kodachi skills."

On the other hand, you do need fight scenes leading up to the Gatling gun, and you need somebody to be able to kidnap Megumi. Ergo, Gein. And apparently Camo Guy from the Jinchuu Arc as well.

(on a not-unrelated note, I shall be VERY CRANKY if they go the route the manga went and have Kenshin and Sano take Yahiko with them to rescue Megumi, while Kaoru stays behind to heat up the furo and make a complete muck of dinner. Seriouly; the kid has had maybe a month, tops, of kendo instruction at that point; it's the worst example in the entire manga of Watsuki-sensei utterly screwing up the characterization in order to have his author-expy character get to go do cool stuff. The anime fixed it, so hopefully the movie will go with the version that actually makes sense. /soapbox)

I have to say, I've been very excited by what Marvel has been doing with the assorted superhero movies leading up to the "Avengers" movie-- there have been assorted cameos, and references, and other Marvel characters showing up, etc.

Between Marvel and Kenneth Brannagh and a quite excellent cast, you'd think that it would be awesome, but, unfortunately, their version of "Thor" was kind of.... yeah, (Viking) epic fail.

Or would that be 'saga fail'?

( I don't actually have a problem with the 'Viking pan-dimensional space god' part...Collapse )

So, various other DVDs watched by El Presidente Intrepid Roommate and myself over the past.... um... however long an amount of time? I dunno?... anyway. Various DVDs, they have contained the trailer for Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole, which is basically a giant computer-animated fantasy movie with Australian* samurai-Celtic-LoTR-looking-whatever-warrior owls** It is based off a series of best-selling (I think? I mean, there are many and many of them) children's books, and looked extremely cool. Intrepid Roommate has been looking for it for a while, based on the impressive trailer and the general prettiness, and she finally found it today at Target, when she was in to buy more fun socks.

And so we watched it.

It was... very pretty, with a somewhat odd tendency to have bullet-time slo-mo-action sequence bits and Dramatic Wing-Flapping Action. As Intrepid Roommate pointed out, it was also REALLY OBVIOUS that this was a movie that had been put together from several books in a series. You know that phenomenon where a movie does something or shows something and you're just kind of, "Wait, what? When did that happen?" Yeah. That. Like.... the hero's brother gets Corrupted By the Evulz, and it seems like there was not nearly enough time for that sort of thing (although, dang, the evil owl queen was impressively evil). Not to mention the climactic battle where a large part of what's going on hinges upon a very large forest fire that just kind of... appears, out of nowhere. Seriously. There is suddenly a giant section of the scenery which is engulfed in plot-relevant flames, FOR NO REASON. And nobody seems to find it odd that there is this massive forest fire.

And then at the end, there is a dramatic reunion of the plucky main character owl with his parents, who are thrilled to see him, and happy to be reunited, and everything is all smiles and happiness and heroism.... and there is NO mention, not a hint of an expression, about the fact that, you know, their eldest son went over to the side of Evulz and has most likely ended up dying a horrible firey death in the inexplicable forest fire. And I was kind of watching that and thinking, "You know, possibly, Evil Owl Boy had a point when he said that the bad guys were the only ones who ever actually cared about him and respected him...."

*Are there that many types of owls in Australia? And, if so, are any of them poisonous?
**And also ninja bats.

Ever since I heard that Studio Ghibli was doing a Tales of Earthsea movie, I have been really, really excited about it. I lamented the fact that I couldn't get to see it on the big screen, and gazed wistfully at the posters on Amazon and wondered whether I should try to get the DVD or not.

And then, when I was in one of the local branch libraries last week, I saw the DVD! Yay! Much rejoicing.

And so, having saved Friday night for Earthsea and pizza, I present a very, very spoilerish discussion ( of the movieCollapse )

Ooookay... I just saw the very first "ohnoes there's a disaster that's going to Destroy The Planet" movie I can remember in which the end of the movie involved actually destroying the planet. None of this wimping out with "well, we've wiped out millions, but there's a stalwart group of survivors on boats and they can go hang out in the Himalayan Archipelago" or "well, everybody who could make it out of glacier range is A-Okay and rebuilding civilization" I mean: entire planet. Destroyed.

With, btw, some REALLY REALLY bad dialogue coupled with over-the-top acting, which Dad and I gleefully snarked. Seriously; there was a scene where the hero and... um... female character who had more dialogue than other female characters, even if it mostly consisted of freaking out and crying and panicking... right... ok... anyway, they were talking on the phone and clearly not in the same room, so there was about five minutes of "I'M ONLY THINKING OF THE CHILDREN!" "YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME!" "THE CHILDREN! I HAVE TO GET THEM TO SAFETY!" "NOTHING CAN SAVE US NOW! WE HAVE TO GO TO THE SECRET LOCATION I'VE JUST FIGURED OUT BECAUSE I'M THE MALE LEAD AND CAN THUS DO MATH"

*ahem*

Oh, and apparently the film had no lighting budget, because aside from the characters running around in the dark with flashlights (including in scenes where they were in a building and the logical course of action would be to, you know, hit a light switch, there were all sorts of scenes in the house in the dark, and in the yard in the dark, in the woods in the dark.... and once, for a change, in a dimly-lit museum.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all of this, there are dark-colored trenchcoat-wearing aliens running around in the dark. And, aside from Freaky Whisper Noises on the soundtrack, the other sign of alien presence was... these black rocks. Adorable child actor is in touch with aliens? Gets handed a black rock. Want to show that the crazy whisper-hearing lady from earlier had been frequently visited by aliens? Piles of black rocks all over her Room of Crazy. Dramatic moment where Our Hero finally goes to the location where the puzzles are telling him to go and finds the secret treasures of the Templars random stealth bunnies the aliens? Whole entire path through the very dark forest, covered in black rocks.

Dad: So... ok, any idea why there are all of these rocks all over the place?

Me: Um... I dunno, Dad. *resists, resists, resists saying, "Rocks fall, everyone dies!"*

(That was, btw, very, very difficult)

(Not least because I seriously suspect that SOMEBODY on that film knows that phrase and was totally using it, giggling gleefully the whole time)