Home, Sweet LJ
Mar. 9th, 2008 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicHad a lovely escape-visit with my long-time friend A. in a suburb of Atlanta this weekend. The summary goes something like:
Movies watched: 5.5
Drool-soaked doggie toys I was constantly entreated to play fetch with: 6
Housing developments shown as part of the local tour: 4
Meals and snacks consumed: Countless
Conversations in which A. tried to convince me to move to Atlanta and/or go on vacation with her in the fall: 5+
Pages of Temeraire Book Four read at the airport/on the plane: 270
Hours spent on the Internet: 0
Words written on stories due: 0
Words beta-ed on stories to beta: 0
Words read of fic: 0
It's okay. It was meant to be a getaway, and that's just what it managed to be.
A. has a very nice, large apartment with plenty of space for her, her excitable shih tzu puppy, and her oft-visiting boyfriend. She doesn't go out much except to and from her job, and when she does, her bf drives and she doesn't pay attention, so she didn't have much to show me. We spent most of the time eating and watching movies, which is about what I expected, and I also got to see some of Atlanta itself (she gave me the Peachtree tour, down past the shopping malls into the city proper, past the Aquarium and Coca-Cola shrine and Olympic Park), which is more than I expected, so that was nice. We're very different, aside from the shared culture and history of having been friends since about the age of ten, but it didn't become a problem this weekend as it's been known to do before.
She and her current boyfriend took me to an Irish pub Friday night because (a) they have a beer menu well on its way to becoming a novella and (b) she thought it would be a nice reminder of the time I spent studying in London. And indeed, I had a delicious Blackthorn cider, which is hard to find around here. The pub fare was obviously a fusion of British traditional foods and the local organic/liberal/collegiate/Jewish community, because alongside stew and fish and chips were turkey avocado sandwiches on challah rolls and buffalo mozzarella/grape tomato/balsamic pasta salads with sourdough bread.
The weather was great that night; I had a sweater and didn't need a coat. Saturday morning, though, we woke up to heavy flurries, and spent the day in the car or indoors. After the above-mentioned Peachtree drive, we debated going to the movies, but the reviews for 10,000 B.C. (my choice) were terrible and the reviews for Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (her choice) were tepid, so we just rented some, and picked up some wine, bread and brie to sustain us in case the movies were all terrible.
- Family Guy: Blue Harvest: Fun. Not as fun as the Robot Chicken Star Wars parody (as Chris-who's-voiced-by-Seth-Green-who-does-Robot-Chicken said at the end), but still a hoot. Great meta and intertextuality moments. Favorites included the Darth Vader-theme elevator (Darth EleVader?) music, the joke about the band in the first bar playing the same song over and over, a stoned C3P0 saying he wanted to listen to "Tattooine, Wind and Fire," and the random Doctor Who cameo. Biggest complaint is that it was too short at 45 minutes; they should have done all three episodes.
- Beowulf: Eight hundred thumbs down. Oh, ugh, ugh, ugh. Gratuitous nudity and intoxication, painful dialogue, and poor people-animation in the not-detailed-enough style of the humans in Shrek (Grendel and the dragon were great, though). Minus ten more points for having John Malkovich in it. Ugh again. Why did Beowulf have to fight Grendel butt-naked? Why did Anthony Hopkins's toga have to keep slipping off? Why did Angelina Jolie have to be all, "Hello, here are my breasts! And here they are again! And from a different angle"? (Yeah, I know there are reasons, but still: WHY?) The biggest reasons I rented this were (a) to see what Neil Gaiman would do with the script, (b) to see Sebastian Roché, who had a small role as Wolfgar, and (c) morbid curiosity as to how they were going to interpret the poem. But no Sebastian, unless he was the character reciting a section of Beowulf's story in Old English midway through (possibly my favorite scene, when they reenacted the fight against Grendel while an aged Beowulf sat at the throne), and they veered in odd ways from the poem, though it made sense for the themes they were exploring. Trying to explore. The first was the most satisfying; even though they didn't save the movie, there were Gaimanesque touches that at least kept us watching instead of fast-forwarding; decent enough psychology behind Grendel and mommy dearest, intriguing and disturbing mythology, neat ideas for the visual depiction of Grendel (huge, deformed and sinewy, like he'd been flayed), themes of the fall of the hero and of the idea of the hero, attention to storytelling within the story.
- I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry: Much better than expected. Then again, I expected nothing. Basically, I thought it would be a farce making fun of gay guys. Some of it was, with the portrayal of Chuck and Larry's lawyer's brother as a flaming fairy (literally) at a costume party, the lawyer's (Jessica Biel) adoption of Chuck as her gay guy friend to go shopping with, and predictable attempts by "newlywed" NYC firemen Chuck and Larry to "gay up" their lifestyle to prove to the authorities that their civil partnership was real (which it wasn't; they did it so widower Larry would have someone to take care of his kids if he died), but it also touched on the ideas that "straight" behavior can be interpreted as "gay" when a guy's sexual orientation is questioned, that friendships between straight men can be as deep and loving as a gay couple's relationship, and that heterosexuals shouldn't abuse the rights that homosexuals have been campaigning so long and so hard to achieve. It also dealt with a casually prejudiced character (Adam Sandler) learning better. Nothing groundbreaking, but maybe it was thought-provoking for its intended audience. Plus, it didn't take most of the easy routes as it went along—they never did become anything but disgusted at the thought of becoming physically intimate with another man, even to kiss each other—although it would have been cool if there had been a gradual realization that they could love each other "like that" at the end—except to wrap up like most comedies do, coupling everyone up and whirling each character by the screen in the last scene to remind you that they're there. Steve Buscemi (as the fraud investigator) is always a treat, and Rob Schneider as the Canadian "minister" was hilarious. Also hilarious was casting Richard Chamberlain as the judge at Chuck and Larry's hearing. I do wish that they had shown the scene where Chuck went with Ving Rhames's character to tell Ving's parents that he was gay, instead of just saying they were going to and forgetting about it.
Yesterday night and this morning, we also watched:
- Open Season: Cute! And I'm so wary of animated movies. If only I'd known there'd be bunnies used as ammunition, and a grizzly bear with a cuddly blue stuffed teddy bear, and a cute porcupine who kept randomly showing up, I wouldn't have held out so long.
- Return of the Vampire: Bela Lugosi plays the vampire known as… Armand Tesla. With a Wolf Man, a.k.a. Andreas something-or-other, as his minion. Also starring the Blitz. No, I don't know either.
- Half of Air Force One, until Ivan (Gary Oldman) died and there was no point anymore.
Not much else of note. Oh, except![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
krisdia and I saw Rock 'n' Roll on Thursday and it was great. Need to write that one up. I recorded the SGA season finale and hope to watch it tomorrow. Need to call the Birthright Israel people because they're not responding to my emails. And, oh, so much LJ to catch up on!
Movies watched: 5.5
Drool-soaked doggie toys I was constantly entreated to play fetch with: 6
Housing developments shown as part of the local tour: 4
Meals and snacks consumed: Countless
Conversations in which A. tried to convince me to move to Atlanta and/or go on vacation with her in the fall: 5+
Pages of Temeraire Book Four read at the airport/on the plane: 270
Hours spent on the Internet: 0
Words written on stories due: 0
Words beta-ed on stories to beta: 0
Words read of fic: 0
It's okay. It was meant to be a getaway, and that's just what it managed to be.
A. has a very nice, large apartment with plenty of space for her, her excitable shih tzu puppy, and her oft-visiting boyfriend. She doesn't go out much except to and from her job, and when she does, her bf drives and she doesn't pay attention, so she didn't have much to show me. We spent most of the time eating and watching movies, which is about what I expected, and I also got to see some of Atlanta itself (she gave me the Peachtree tour, down past the shopping malls into the city proper, past the Aquarium and Coca-Cola shrine and Olympic Park), which is more than I expected, so that was nice. We're very different, aside from the shared culture and history of having been friends since about the age of ten, but it didn't become a problem this weekend as it's been known to do before.
She and her current boyfriend took me to an Irish pub Friday night because (a) they have a beer menu well on its way to becoming a novella and (b) she thought it would be a nice reminder of the time I spent studying in London. And indeed, I had a delicious Blackthorn cider, which is hard to find around here. The pub fare was obviously a fusion of British traditional foods and the local organic/liberal/collegiate/Jewish community, because alongside stew and fish and chips were turkey avocado sandwiches on challah rolls and buffalo mozzarella/grape tomato/balsamic pasta salads with sourdough bread.
The weather was great that night; I had a sweater and didn't need a coat. Saturday morning, though, we woke up to heavy flurries, and spent the day in the car or indoors. After the above-mentioned Peachtree drive, we debated going to the movies, but the reviews for 10,000 B.C. (my choice) were terrible and the reviews for Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (her choice) were tepid, so we just rented some, and picked up some wine, bread and brie to sustain us in case the movies were all terrible.
- Family Guy: Blue Harvest: Fun. Not as fun as the Robot Chicken Star Wars parody (as Chris-who's-voiced-by-Seth-Green-who-does-Robot-Chicken said at the end), but still a hoot. Great meta and intertextuality moments. Favorites included the Darth Vader-theme elevator (Darth EleVader?) music, the joke about the band in the first bar playing the same song over and over, a stoned C3P0 saying he wanted to listen to "Tattooine, Wind and Fire," and the random Doctor Who cameo. Biggest complaint is that it was too short at 45 minutes; they should have done all three episodes.
- Beowulf: Eight hundred thumbs down. Oh, ugh, ugh, ugh. Gratuitous nudity and intoxication, painful dialogue, and poor people-animation in the not-detailed-enough style of the humans in Shrek (Grendel and the dragon were great, though). Minus ten more points for having John Malkovich in it. Ugh again. Why did Beowulf have to fight Grendel butt-naked? Why did Anthony Hopkins's toga have to keep slipping off? Why did Angelina Jolie have to be all, "Hello, here are my breasts! And here they are again! And from a different angle"? (Yeah, I know there are reasons, but still: WHY?) The biggest reasons I rented this were (a) to see what Neil Gaiman would do with the script, (b) to see Sebastian Roché, who had a small role as Wolfgar, and (c) morbid curiosity as to how they were going to interpret the poem. But no Sebastian, unless he was the character reciting a section of Beowulf's story in Old English midway through (possibly my favorite scene, when they reenacted the fight against Grendel while an aged Beowulf sat at the throne), and they veered in odd ways from the poem, though it made sense for the themes they were exploring. Trying to explore. The first was the most satisfying; even though they didn't save the movie, there were Gaimanesque touches that at least kept us watching instead of fast-forwarding; decent enough psychology behind Grendel and mommy dearest, intriguing and disturbing mythology, neat ideas for the visual depiction of Grendel (huge, deformed and sinewy, like he'd been flayed), themes of the fall of the hero and of the idea of the hero, attention to storytelling within the story.
- I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry: Much better than expected. Then again, I expected nothing. Basically, I thought it would be a farce making fun of gay guys. Some of it was, with the portrayal of Chuck and Larry's lawyer's brother as a flaming fairy (literally) at a costume party, the lawyer's (Jessica Biel) adoption of Chuck as her gay guy friend to go shopping with, and predictable attempts by "newlywed" NYC firemen Chuck and Larry to "gay up" their lifestyle to prove to the authorities that their civil partnership was real (which it wasn't; they did it so widower Larry would have someone to take care of his kids if he died), but it also touched on the ideas that "straight" behavior can be interpreted as "gay" when a guy's sexual orientation is questioned, that friendships between straight men can be as deep and loving as a gay couple's relationship, and that heterosexuals shouldn't abuse the rights that homosexuals have been campaigning so long and so hard to achieve. It also dealt with a casually prejudiced character (Adam Sandler) learning better. Nothing groundbreaking, but maybe it was thought-provoking for its intended audience. Plus, it didn't take most of the easy routes as it went along—they never did become anything but disgusted at the thought of becoming physically intimate with another man, even to kiss each other—although it would have been cool if there had been a gradual realization that they could love each other "like that" at the end—except to wrap up like most comedies do, coupling everyone up and whirling each character by the screen in the last scene to remind you that they're there. Steve Buscemi (as the fraud investigator) is always a treat, and Rob Schneider as the Canadian "minister" was hilarious. Also hilarious was casting Richard Chamberlain as the judge at Chuck and Larry's hearing. I do wish that they had shown the scene where Chuck went with Ving Rhames's character to tell Ving's parents that he was gay, instead of just saying they were going to and forgetting about it.
Yesterday night and this morning, we also watched:
- Open Season: Cute! And I'm so wary of animated movies. If only I'd known there'd be bunnies used as ammunition, and a grizzly bear with a cuddly blue stuffed teddy bear, and a cute porcupine who kept randomly showing up, I wouldn't have held out so long.
- Return of the Vampire: Bela Lugosi plays the vampire known as… Armand Tesla. With a Wolf Man, a.k.a. Andreas something-or-other, as his minion. Also starring the Blitz. No, I don't know either.
- Half of Air Force One, until Ivan (Gary Oldman) died and there was no point anymore.
Not much else of note. Oh, except
krisdia and I saw Rock 'n' Roll on Thursday and it was great. Need to write that one up. I recorded the SGA season finale and hope to watch it tomorrow. Need to call the Birthright Israel people because they're not responding to my emails. And, oh, so much LJ to catch up on!
no subject
Date: Mar. 10th, 2008 03:46 am (UTC)You and I had different reactions to Chuck and Larry :-) My sister and I went to the movies with nothing specific in mind, and this was the only movie available at the time. We went in, and five minutes later walked out, during the scene where the fat guy rolls down the stairs farting, remembering just what kind of humor some of Adam Sandler's films have. We went into a different movie instead :-) It's different, though, if you don't actually spend the time and money to watch it in the theater.
Grrr, Birthright. Those guy are ticking me off...
no subject
Date: Mar. 12th, 2008 05:39 pm (UTC)Anyway! Heh, yes, I probably would've been thinking about Gone with the Wind if I'd seen it since the age of, like, six. There was a major road called Peachtree that went from my friend's office right into the city, which was the only reason I got to see the downtown area.
I think Chuck & Larry had a lot to do with expectation. Having none, it was a little easier to be pleased with the tiny good bits. But, agh, yes, that guy in the fat suit! Ew ew ew. So un-PC. I guess it set the tone for the whole film.
no subject
Date: Mar. 12th, 2008 09:42 pm (UTC)Okay, I'm not saying anything more until you get in. But if at any point you want to discuss your trip or options or whatever, gimme a nudge.
no subject
Date: Mar. 12th, 2008 09:59 pm (UTC)There are trips in July and August as well, which I could also switch to, I believe. I just chose June because I figured it would be less unbearably hot. (Ick, heat.)
no subject
Date: Mar. 12th, 2008 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Mar. 12th, 2008 10:57 pm (UTC)The July one runs Jul 26-Aug 5. Out of curiosity, would that be better for you?
no subject
Date: Mar. 12th, 2008 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Mar. 13th, 2008 02:19 am (UTC)Hee -- not to get ahead of ourselves or anything.
no subject
Date: Mar. 14th, 2008 08:33 pm (UTC)