Of the good: Veterans Day edition

[bironic]

- Working on festivid. Nothing fancy (yet?) (or am I lying to throw you off the scent?), but I think I like it.

- Chicken stock cooling on the counter. Smells lovely.

- My mom came to visit this weekend. On Saturday I took her to Nordstrom for a lingerie fitting; she hasn't had an easy time finding things she likes since her lumpectomy left her a bit mushed a couple of years ago. After a rocky start (our fitter was 45 minutes late because of traffic) it went really well and she has gone home with three bras that made her smile, no insert required.

- We saw Ender's Game. Even though it rushed a few important developments and turned the only two female characters besides Valentine into emotion-soaked stereotypes who get pushed around in a man's logical world, given that it kept the themes that really mattered at the end, I'll call it a decent adaptation.

- Before the movie, the I, Frankenstein trailer showed. Oh, dear God. I'd already resigned myself to seeing the movie in January because a) Frankenstein and b) Aaron Eckhart, but seriously, could they have made a more ludicrous contemporary Hollywood version? I don't think so. It looked like a parody. I wish it were a parody. I will enjoy it as though it were a parody. Frankenstein's creature punches a gargoyle monster mid-air while drums crash and orange bursts against teal. Nothing more needs to be said.

- Who knows how these things happen? I've been getting into these Jesse Stone TV movies, with Tom Selleck. Anyone else tried them? He plays a police detective in a small town who solves A- and B-plot crimes each episode. Sometimes it's just nice to watch stories about decent people trying to do decent things. I mean, aside from the mobsters and murderers and domestic abusers and stuff. The piano music is lovely. Viola Davis, also coincidentally in Ender's Game, should get more lines. Stone's sidekick Suitcase, who looks like Alexander Skarsgard with his guileless face on, makes me smile. "You're on to something, Jesse. I feel it in my cells."

- It gets dark so early these days. Tomorrow they're saying it may snow in the morning. Let the Game of Thrones quotes commence.

Comments

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

Winter is coming. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

I am bummed to hear that the women in Ender's Game didn't fare very well. Petra was certainly never an emotion-soaked stereotype in the novel - she was kick-ass. Who is the other important female character besides Valentine?

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Major Anderson, in this version. She got to talk about Ender's feelings while Graff snapped at her and pushed Ender to military success.

And, okay, Petra was still kick-ass in the movie, it's just, why did she have to be a love interest? She would have been even kick-assier without the hand-holding and double entendres.

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Well, on the one hand, Major Anderson did express similar concerns in the novel as a male character, and it's nice to have another major (no pun intended) female character (and a non-Caucasian one at that). On the other hand, now the emotional stereotype is maintained, so I don't know whether to be appreciative or annoyed ;).

Petra is Ender's love interest in the movie? That is just so wrong.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, and yes. :/

[amnisias.livejournal.com]

barley lured me into watching Jesse Stone by waxing about him, his dog, his bottle of wiskey and the beautiful coast line. It's got a nice European feel to it, with things unfolding slowly and quietly, and a certain melancholie hanging over everything. Check out Barkley's vid Wintersong !

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I will! Fingers crossed it doesn't spoil the latter half of the movies; I've only seen four so far.

ETA: I see now in a comment that she'd only seen four when she made it, so all should be good! *runs off to watch*

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

I... that trailer is like Angel took over all the set elements of Thor they threw out, and kidnapped the girl from Dexter along the way. I was vaguely interested, but now I'm... not. LOL.

Looking forward to Ender's Game. Even if it doesn't come out until early December :P

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ellipsis followed by LOL is pretty much where I'm at with Frankenstein right about now. Although another bonus point for Bill Nighy. As one of the YouTube commenters pointed out, since it's made by the people who made Underworld, we're in for a blue-soaked urban decay war of vampires Frankenstein creatures vs. werewolves gargoyle monsters.

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

I liked what I saw of Jesse Stone, and honestly that may be the reason I have such a hard time with Selleck's character on Blue Bloods. Stone (despite his unfortunate name) is a far more interesting character to me, and Reagan (equally unfortunate name) pales badly by comparison.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hm, that's disappointing. I haven't seen that show, but it sounds like maybe I'm not missing anything anyway.

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

Well, this is just me; I know Nightdog watches Blue Bloods and I will sometimes get drawn into it if I stumble on it. It's just way more wholesome, and I guess it says something about me that I can get irritated by that. There are times I find it a bit ... maybe "moralistic" is the word I want? And other times I've liked it pretty well. But I found what little I saw of Jesse Stone a lot more appealing. Probably because I think it's interesting to see a guy like Selleck playing a screwed-up and (from what I saw) somewhat self-hating kind of character. He's better at it than I'd have imagined.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're clearly lying to throw us off the scent. *peers suspiciously*

On the basis of the trailers I was considering not even seeing Ender's Game, despite having been waiting for a movie of that book since I first read it some 15 years ago. At the time I allowed that due to the special effects needed to simulate zero G there might never be a movie of it, but now that it's possible ...just tell me they didn't completely eschew the battle room? I'm not sure whether my ultimate loyalties are to the themes or the battle room scenes, but the trailers (which I know can be deceiving) showed no sign of either. Hearing that at least they get the themes right, I may have to see it after all, no matter what they do to Petra. But -- battle room?

[bironic.livejournal.com]

*recites dutifully* They didn't completely eschew the battle room.

The zero-g effects varied. When the launchies went to battle school in the rocket, the actors just sort of held their arms in front of them to indicate weightlessness. The camera made an initial attempt to depart from "ceiling is up" orientation in the same scene, but soon settled down again into more familiar orientation. This was especially disappointing given what Gravity just did. I'd have to see Ender's Game again to remember better, but at first blush the battle room scenes similarly did not convey the full disorientation of stepping into freefall, so the mantra of "the enemy's gate is 'down'" didn't resonate as much as it did in text. Still - the zero-g there was more believable*, they did a few training sessions and battle scenes, and there were the freeze guns and whatchcallem asteroid obstacles and formations and careening and Bean's rope and stuff.

*They get a pass on the lack of "equal and opposite reactions" laws with the freeze gun and asteroid impacts because the battle room technology may well have been specially engineered to get around them.