bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (RSL neil window)
Pushed through some supremely boring/stupid/taken-from-other-canons stuff to catch up on The Vampire Diaries. The reward: Damon & Enzo. That was perhaps the single slashiest scene I recall from this entire series. Fine, other than Stefan/Damon, because Stefan/Damon breaks my brain. And not counting Damon and Alaric's entire relationship, which had a slower-burn tone to it than the Enzo thing. I swear, even though this is a show that (a) resists poly and m/m solutions to relationship issues and (b) airs on The CW, I really wondered if they were going to kiss.

NBC Dracula: Thomas Kretschmann shackling shirtless Jonathan Rhys-Meyers to a medical platform. A few years ago, that would have been among my epitomes of fannish satisfaction.

Speaking of whom, this casting announcement for the next Avengers movie actually makes me look forward to seeing it.

Crossovers that should exist:

- Riddick & Ronon: two buff fightin' dudes on the (interplanetary) run from evil aliens
- Doctor Who & Dax, reminiscing in a bar about having a longtime-repressed past incarnation

That is all. Because discussing the brilliance of The Act of Killing, which I finally got to see last night, deserves much better than sharing space with the above.
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (RSL neil window)
zulu asked: "What got you into fandom? Does the same thing spark your passion now, or is it something(s) else that keep you inspired?"

The thing is, I've replied to several other questions first because I don't know the answer to this one. I don't know if the same thing sparks my passion now as in my early days of joining the Harry Potter and House fandoms because I haven't felt passionate or inspired about fannish stuff in a while. Meh on TV shows, meh on reading fic, meh on my own writing and vidding; hence taking in so many books and movies lately on my own. Lying fallow, knowing something else will come along eventually. And that's okay, even though it can be sad not participating in what others of you are happy about.

But something might be waking up.

Yuletide used to make me a Scrooge McGrumpypants, which I think was mostly about my own pang of sadness that I didn't -- don't -- feel anywhere near as excited about it as other people because I hardly know any of the sources being written about and I don't find the stories for unfamiliar sources accessible in the way, say, the vids are at Festivids. I skim and try probably somewhere between 1 and 5% of the stuff posted. This year, I liked:
  • I'll Be Right Here (E.T.), in which it is an anniversary of the night E.T. left
  • Bad Day (What Maisie Knew), in which Margo and Lincoln are shaken up but handle it well when Maisie has an accident on the playground
  • Fewer Than Ten Scenes From the Second Coming of Richard III (The Ten Stupidest Things I've Heard Since Richard III's Remains Were Identified blog post) [link], in which ghosts converge on the area as conspiracies swirl; I loved the "Tudor spy" osteologist's way of speaking
  • A Different Kind of Boy (Pitch Black), in which Jack comes on to Riddick and Riddick doesn't say no; contains some unfortunate "the killer kissed him hard" sort of stuff, but the trans* depiction was interesting
I could have sworn I'd trolled the AO3 archives for Riddick/Jack fic after seeing Chronicles of Riddick a month or two ago, but either I did it wrong or the Riddick/Jack tag hasn't been wrangled to match Riddick/[other name Jack goes by that is sort of a spoiler]. In any case, I found some others and fell into reading them for hours in a way I haven't done in possibly years:
  • No Rest by Laylah, 1K, which I'd give the same summary as above and just hits a cluster of my kinks
  • Twin Flames by serafina20, 23K, in which Jack tries to grow up; it's permanently unfinished, and I wish it had warned for past incest/abuse, but it was an engrossing read
  • The Things We Leave Behind by Ratatosk, 100K+, which I've by now mixed up entirely with Twin Flames perhaps because they both remix the second movie, but involves Jack being taken by and escaping from mercenaries trying to bait Riddick and then they meet again trying to save the universe from Necromongers and there's excellent dubious consent stuff; also unfinished but being updated slowly at ff.net
Then I rented The Iron Giant and The Fast & the Furious. So I guess I'm having a low-burn Vin Diesel thing. Ten years after everyone else. Funny because he's not my usual type. Feels good! I am contemplating doing a quick Kink Bingo vid about how Riddick gets chained down and cuffed and gagged all the time. Dilemma: do it now while the interest is still fresh, or wait two weeks-ish until the last movie in the trilogy comes out on DVD (I didn't catch it in theaters)? Advice welcome.

Second, or I suppose first chronologically, the other week I tried NBC's Dracula with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Thomas Kretschmann. I don't know what the hell that show/miniseries is doing (steampunk + villain/hero switch + slow-mo fight scenes + plotline about energy conglomerates + lady medical student + terrible accents + queer subtext that turns into text = ??), but I couldn't stop watching. More on that in its own post.

Third, after reading the Riddick/Jack stuff I went and added 1,000 words to an unrelated story on my computer, which is about 1,000 words more than I'd written since January.

...That didn't answer the question at all -- sorry, zulu -- but it's the best response I've got right now.
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (RSL neil window)
On the phone with my mother a while back, I mentioned how nice German sounds. She said she finds it too guttural. Since I used to think the same thing, I said maybe she associates it with all those brusque, crazed WWII speeches, and she just hasn't heard the right person speaking German. I was thinking specifically of Thomas Kretschmann, who has one of the smokiest, sexiest voices I've ever encountered.

So when [livejournal.com profile] pun, [livejournal.com profile] no_detective and I ended up talking about accents and languages when I saw them a few weeks ago and one of them repeated my mother's sentiments, I went straight for YouTube and we found this interview. Ja? They were convinced.

Last night I went back for more and found a second one for you. (Look, [livejournal.com profile] no_detective, another behind-the-scenes video of a photo shoot.) If you don't have patience for the whole thing, he comes in at about 1:00, 1:40 and 2:50—and his voice joins him about five seconds later. I also enjoyed one of his English interviews, which are more common on YouTube, when he appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show in December and recapped his life story. (Highlights include Kimmel establishing that East Germany is no longer a country and not knowing how to convert kilometers to miles, and Kretschmann saying his hands are girlish but defending the manliness of "other parts.") And so on, blah blah.

Point is—second point is—that after surfing around for more clips and remembering exactly how attractive I find this man, something clicked in my head. Thomas Kretschmann/John Sheppard. Or rather, Thomas Kretschmann character/John Sheppard. Except I can't think of a character he's played who could cross over with SGA; they're all Nazis except for the CGI future sci fi guy and Dr. Frankenstein and the serial killer, etc. Which, God help me, made me seriously consider writing RPS Thomas/Joe Flanigan. Because there's too much hot there not to be exploited.

And similarities! They could connect over sports (TK was an Olympic-caliber swimmer, and obviously still stays fit; JF/JS likes climbing and surfing and so forth) and wearing t-shirts inappropriate for their age and chain necklaces (see also: second interview link) and big watches and being hot and come on, the hair. Rodney could not keep himself from mentioning the hair if he were to see the two of them together.




ETA: Something more serious that was hiding beneath that post.

Being Jewish, I did grow up with a keen awareness of the Holocaust and that the German government at the time was to blame for it. I remember disliking the sound of the German language because of all the recorded speeches we watched in history and religious education classes.

I also remember sitting at the seder table one Passover and deciding that I hated Egyptians because their ancestors had enslaved my ancestors. Or thinking about deciding to hate them, anyway. (Which was hard, because I loved learning about ancient Egypt. But that's beside the point.) But then in the haggadah there was a lesson about not carrying a grudge, about bestowing forgiveness for past wrongs, and about not holding an entire people responsible for the actions of a few -- or possibly I'm mixing that last part up with Holocaust education, but the moral is the same.

So I immediately dropped my half-fake grudge against Egypt, and at about that time, I also opened up to German language and culture. Which is when I found that I liked it quite a bit. Or I quickly learned to like it quite a bit. By college I was watching a lot of German movies and loving how I could pick up words and phrases because of the language's similarity to English. Before, I'd had no interest. And I fell in love with voices and bodies like Thomas Kretschmann's.

Then there comes another problem, towards the opposite end of the spectrum: should I feel guilty that I'm deriving shallow, sensual pleasure from characters who represent the very soldiers and politicians who perpetrated the Holocaust? Do I run the risk of too easily embracing something that caused irreparable harm in the past? Is it a kind of betrayal? That gets into very sticky territory -- perhaps the same kind that you enter when you find yourself "enjoying" reading/watching/hearing Holocaust narratives. I think it's all right, though. I have the history in mind, always. I don't love the voice of a Nazi character without that qualifier. I'm glad to have the dual perspective, mourning the harm that was done but being able to love the culture for what is good.
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)
Tagged by [livejournal.com profile] thewlisian_afer and happy to oblige.

1. List 5 celebrities you would have sex with without even asking questions.
2. Put all of them IN ORDER of your lust for them (5 - 1, 1 is the hottest).
3. Say which movie/show/thing it was that hooked you.
4. Supply photos for said people.
5. Tag five people!


Five Men I Would Not, As The Saying Goes, Kick Out Of Bed )

Bonus List! Five Girls I Would Go Gay For )

Tag, you're it! (if you want to play): [livejournal.com profile] synn, [livejournal.com profile] elynittria, [livejournal.com profile] moonlash_cc, [livejournal.com profile] theninth, [livejournal.com profile] daasgrrl
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)
Apparently this has been making the rounds for a while, but I hadn't seen it and maybe you haven't either: a gorgeous piece of House/Wilson / Holmes/Watson fanart. Someone in the comments made a good point about Vicodin/cocaine too. I think quality-wise it's right up there with this other painting of the TNG crew in Arthurian roles that Henry Jenkins put on the cover of Textual Poachers.

[livejournal.com profile] catilinarian is flying in tomorrow for what will doubtless be a weekend of good conversation and media gluttony, plus "Lestat" on Saturday and -- isn't she lucky? -- our dance competition Sunday at me ol' stomping grounds. It's odd; after and despite that initial string of dreams about the play, and even though we're seeing it on what is now opening night, I haven't been very excited about "Lestat." Mayhap it's protection against disappointment.

For instance, I'm much more excited about "House" lately, especially an upcoming ep in which spoiler, obviously ) The show is FINALLY back next week, with Samantha Mathis guest-starring to boot, and then 7 more non-stop eps to follow which are sure to completely contradict whatever I come up with for my ficathon assignment. (I've already seen on the Fox website that another spoiler, if you count something posted on the official website ) It's been a while since I've been excited over upcoming episodes of a show, and even longer since I've gone in search of spoilers. It's nice.

In other random fangirl news, Thomas Kretschmann has just started filming a new movie in St. Petersburg called "In Transit" with Daniel Brühl, John Malkovich and Vera Farmiga. Kretschmann! Brühl! Farmiga (Sebastian Roché's wife)! It's worth braving Malkovich! It seems TK is the main character in the movie, which is about German POWs (what a novel role for him) from the siege of Leningrad in a Russian camp guarded by women. His soldier/professor is in love with Farmiga's female prison guard. It's a dream match I never would have thought up, and so very nearly TK and Sebastian... who have probably met on set... *Less than a day after her first migraine aura, she drifts off into her first RPS daydream.*
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)
It's too big a subject for tonight, but here goes anyway. 'Downfall.' )

There was something else I wanted to bring up specifically, but it's slipped my mind. There were interviews and an hour-long making-of feature on the DVD in which the actors and actresses discussed the difficulties of accepting their roles, getting into their "characters"' heads and portraying as human ("menschen") people who have been reduced to monsters or religious and political fanatics over the years, as well as their perceived responsibilities in making a film like this. Very interesting stuff.

Oh yes -- it was a line from the book. There are several passages here and there that stand out, sometimes because of a turn of phrase or a joke that reminds you that these were actual people with senses of humor and brains, but one especially in the beginning that I wanted to type here for you.

"...he stood up and kissed Eva Braun on the lips. 'It was the first and only time we ever saw him do that,' [one secretary] remembers. 'EB was radiant. Hitler's eyes were moist and weepy.' The silent valet, Corporal Schweibel, poured tea. Hitler passed the crumpets. There was no more talk of suicide."

Hitler passed the crumpets.

Just a man, having tea. It's so ... absurd. I don't know what else to say. It's far past time for bed.

Das Cinema

Feb. 6th, 2006 08:53 pm
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)
I'm sitting here looking forlornly at the beat-up VHS case of "Das Boot" I picked up from the library, because I really want to see it, but I really don't want to see it dubbed, and dubbed this version is. Yet the tape appears to be the only copy in town. Sigh. On the bright side, the reason the Nikopol comics haven't shown up yet is that there actually aren't any in the entire county (wait for it), so the library is going to buy them for me to borrow.

Continuing the German WWII movies theme, I watched "U-571" last night, which, though it turned out better than I expected from the case and cast, pretty much proved Saturday's point about Hollywood movies vs. world cinema. spoilers and dissatisfaction, etc. )

That's all I'm going to get into, because the rest is more of the same big-budget historical-fiction beef. I will add, though, that Harvey Keitel remains creepy, Matthew McConaughey remains boring, Thomas Kretschmann remains a chameleon, and a scene near the beginning made me add one more category to the post about sexy foreign language-speaking from last week.
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)
Wow. "Stalingrad." (Germany, 1993)

Bloody and tense and unflinching and un-melodramatic and bleak and filthy and horrific and you can tell it wasn't made in Hollywood if only because don't read this if you don't want to know the end. ) No cameras lingering over battlefields, no discomfort with the depiction of the intense relationships between and among soldiers. And it managed not to be about Nazism, really, for all that it was a German film about German soldiers starting to lose Germany's war.

A little like "Saving Private Ryan," only the constant shock of warfare wasn't exploited for an old man crying at a cemetery or used as a backdrop for a love story (as they say "Enemy at the Gates" was, which was apparently also about the Battle of Stalingrad). No time to mourn for fallen friends. Dwindling belief in getting out alive. Cold sores and gangrene and blank stares and the breakdown of hierarchy and de facto personal alliances with enemies. Too cold to feel.

Three scenes I liked best. )

In short (well, a little late for that now), if you're into World War Two movies that don't feature Americans or Britons saving the day, put this one on your list.
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)
Does anyone remember this exchange from Brave New World, where everyone is medicated to want little and get everything they do want immediately? --
"Has any of you been compelled to live through a long time-interval between the consciousness of a desire and its fufilment?"
"Well," began one of the boys, and hesitated.
"Speak up," said the D.H.C. "Don't keep his fordship waiting."
"I once had to wait nearly four weeks before a girl I wanted would let me have her."
Because that was running through my head all day as I planned to run by Blockbuster and pick up "Immortal," which I feel like I've wanted to see for a long time when really it's just been 36 hours. Utter lack of ability to delay gratification. [livejournal.com profile] synn and I watched it tonight along with "Enemy Mine." Both great. Thomas K. remains German sex symbol. Beautiful Man/God/Blue Mutant slashiness was enjoyed. Details when it isn't bedtime.

For now, today's memory. I went to a funeral this afternoon, so in that vein:

27. Middle School )
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)
Whoever decreed this to be Random Celebrity Cameo Appearances In Dreams Week can be thanked. This morning's adventures began with attacks on vampires and concluded with my co-worker M. and me running from a green-eyed Gary Oldman-turned-Thomas Kretschmann, catching him in the attic, trying to shoot him with three successively empty guns (his face turned against the hardwood floor under my knee, eyes squeezed shut, he winced at each click), pistol-whipping him when that didn't work, and then trying to figure out how to take down the remaining two burly Russian mobsters guarding the front door using a bullet and a half-full bottle of beer.

Er, yes. So I looked for photos of Thomas K. today to check his eye color (blue) and found a movie of his that looks pretty cool: "Immortal (Ad Vitam)," a washed-out CGI sci-fi extravaganza directed by Enki Bilal based on his Nikopol Trilogy comics (apparently the crowning achievement of the apparently quite famous Yugoslavian/French artist/writer, though I admit I hadn't heard of him before today). The movie looks like "Mirrormask" with all the crazy animation and sounds like a slashy hybrid of "Stargate," "The Fifth Element" and "Blade Runner": in a dystopian future, Horus possesses the mortal Nikopol (Thomas K.) so he can mate with a mortal/hybrid female to ensure his immortality via offspring. You can see the trailer here.

The doubts I'd had at the questionable quality of the CGI are being overriden by that plot (and the pretty people!), especially when reviewers say things like:
It is, in essence, a buddy piece: a fugitive, arrested 30 years before for protesting his government's eugenics program, forms a grudging friendship with an alien. [... T]heir friendship is consummated when Horus' spirit invades Nikopol's body... and there's a girl -- a ravishing eugenics guinea pig with blue hair and lips -- who's clamped to the pair in an awkwardly kinky love triangle. (Guy Leshinski, Eye Weekly, 12/2/04)
There are half a dozen copies of "Immortal" in the county, and [livejournal.com profile] synn! -- one is at the Blockbuster by where you work. Interested?

Meanwhile I've ordered the comics from a nearby library in case they're any good. People seem to say the movie is better. Has anyone come across them before?
bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)

First of all, how cute is this picture? Voldie & Harry from the Goblet of Fire premiere in NYC this weekend.

 

I watched a movie called “Frankenstein” today. Gothicism, sexy Europeans and MPREG! )

 

Is there any “Frankenstein: The Ending” fanfic out there, or do I have to do this myself?

 

Last night [livejournal.com profile] synn & I watched a flabbergasting movie called “Red Riding Hood” that just defies description.  Suffice it to say it involved a psychotic twelve-year-old American girl living alone in Rome who lusts after her British tutor by day and performs vigilante justice by night along with her imaginary friend in a wolf mask. When her grandmother arrives to take the girl back home to America, she keeps the woman hostage by drilling her kneecaps and tying her to the bed; when her dentist reveals he’s having an affair with the hygienist, she kills them both with a nail gun; when a homeless man tries to blackmail her, she whacks a wine bottle through his face with a shovel. The motivation for all this is apparently rage that her father died and left her alone. After a showdown in their apartment the girl is relegated to a psych ward in New York. But the movie doesn’t end there. No, a tap-dancing delivery guy gets his legs chopped off at the knee by the Big Bad Wolf wielding a katana, the wolf reveals himself to be her dead zombified father, they have a conversation worthy of Shaun of the Dead, and the two of them sing a duet.

 

No words.

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