And, putting reactions behind the fold so you can watch the glory first!

OMG OMG OMG. Martin Freeman looking so beautiful as young Ian-Holm!Bilbo! Gandalf’s shorter, darker beard! The DWARVES OMG the dwarves and Kili and Fili and Thorin: all strangely hot for dwarves! The SONG which I cannot WAIT to hear in full deep resonance in the theater! Rivendell! Hobbiton! STING! What’s… a…. Bagginses, precioussssss? EEEEEEEEEEE!

Oh dear gods I have missed Peter Jackson’s vision of this world. I mean yeah sure, I’ve got the Lord of the Rings movies right here to be watched at any time–but OMG it makes me so happy that this is happening now too. Even if we have to wait another year for it to arrive EEEEEEEEEE!

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But for a proper, truly well executed Movie Suckoff, my friends, we require another vital component: a Sci-Fi Pictures Original, ideally in theme with this movie, to compete!

So I put it to you: name me your titles! What’s a good Sci-Fi Pictures Original Crapfest we could put this movie up against?

• Finally saw The King’s Speech, since spazzkat got it via Netflix. That was a very satisfying film, and I’m not at all surprised that it’s spawned so much fanfic across my various Friends lists and such. Everyone in that film did an amazing job, and I have much increased respect for Mr. Colin Firth now. Also, mad love for the scene where the speech therapist’s wife comes home and discovers the King and Queen in her dining room. :D

• Also, as of today, finally saw Source Code with solarbird. Mad, mad props to mamishka for recommending that! It’s a nice, tight little SF flick, and if you like alternate-reality type plots, try to catch this before it vanishes entirely. If you’re local to Seattle, it’s still playing at the Meridian 16 downtown, and it’s running at the Crest as well.

• I have finally found a way I might actually read more comic books: the Dark Horse comics app for the iPad. I installed this on the grounds that a couple weekends back, Dark Horse had a sale of all its digital versions of Serenity and Firefly comics. Since I didn’t have Shepherd’s Tale yet, I thought what the hey, I’d buy ‘em all. The iPad is definitely more suited to digital comics reading than the iPhone, that’s for sure, although the iPhone does actually talk to this app as well.

  Also on the iPad, I have a shiny new app called TunePal, recommended to me by Marilyn, one of the fiddle players who attends the weekly session solarbird and I have been going to. Those of you who know the Shazam app will find the way this works familiar; it basically identifies songs. But in this case, it identifies traditional Irish tunes! You can play them at the app on an actual instrument, or, it’ll identify ‘em if you’re playing them in iTunes as well. Then it goes out and hits up a big ol’ database and yoinks back several guesses as to what it thinks you just played it. It’ll show you sheet music for its guesses, and it’ll play the sheet music for you as well. And, you can add tunes out of the database manually by searching for them as well. You can’t import your own tunes, which is my only complaint about the app, but it’s otherwise very, very cool. Any of my fellow music geeks out there who are interested in trad tunes, you should be checking this out.

• Speaking of the iPhone, my coworker Joe pointed me at my new favorite iPhone game: Tiny Wings. You play a birdie with, of course, tiny tiny wings, and the object of the game is to get the birdie to fly as far as possible by tapping. It’s super-cute and only 99 cents, so check it out.

• FOLKLIFE! Well, that deserves a whole separate post, but I’m noting it here anyway.

• And while I am still technically on book buying hiatus, I’ve picked up a few freebies. And I will unrepentantly, UNREPENTANTLY I TELL YOU, break hiatus wide open to buy seanan_mcguire/Mira Grant’s Deadline this week. Because GIMME. Seriously.

• My friend ravyngyngvar is sending me a Blu-Ray of a-ha’s last concert in Oslo! Thank you, Yngvar!

• I am sorely behind on Doctor Who posts, and will shortly be doing a catchup post. It’s an indicator of how much I’ve not been paying attention to the net lately that I totally missed that BBC America did NOT air the second half of the two-parter on Saturday, to wit, bah. I did not however give enough of a damn about this to actually try to find and download the episode; it’ll air next week as far as I know, and I can wait that long. Especially given that we’re about to have the mid-season hiatus anyway. Just nobody spoil me, mmkay, those of you who’ve already caved and downloaded the ep anyway?

• And because it’s always worth saying, mmmmm blackberries of my marketboys mmmmmm.

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Spoiler-free picoreview: fairly silly overall, and not nearly as much substance and gravitas (for such values of ‘gravitas’ as you get in a Marvel superhero flick) as the Iron Man flicks, especially the first one.

And oh god the 3D was a bad idea. If you’re interested in seeing this flick–and it’s a perfectly acceptable even if silly popcorn flick–see it in 2D. The 3D added absolutely nothing and in most of the scenes set in Asgard, it actively distracted from what looked like some otherwise beautiful imagery.

Spoilers behind the cut!

Natalie Portman has been quoted as saying that part of why she wanted to be in this movie was because her character is a scientist, and she was intrigued by the idea of being a role model to young girls who might watch the film. This is a lovely sentiment, except for the part where her character does very little actual, y’know, science. Most of her function in this film is to look admiringly at big blond Chris Hemsworth. Who, let us not mistake, is awfully yummy, but nonetheless it would have been nice to see her have more substance to her role.

And as mentioned, Hemsworth is quite pretty as Thor and Paul and I both bought him in the role completely. He’s NOT a complex character by any stretch of the imagination, and all props to the actor for giving him at least a faint hint of depth, given what little he had to work with.

Ditto for the actor playing Loki. Again, not terribly complex as portrayed in this plot, which is a disservice to Loki as an archetype–although towards the end there is at least one scene where the character did genuinely surprise me. (And since this part is behind a cut, I can actually mention which–Loki’s turning on the Frost Giant assassin and killing him right as he’s about to take out Odin.) Given the flimsy plot he had to work with, Loki’s actor did alright. And, from what little I saw poking around on Wikipedia about the actual Norse myths surrounding Loki, the movie’s handling of his origin story wasn’t entirely off base. So props for that.

Anthony Hopkins as expected was a perfectly suitable Odin, and it actually took me a few to recognize Rene Russo as Frigga, although she was fine too.

Of the secondary Asgardian characters, the one female warrior in Thor’s band of compatriots, Sif, is fun even though she doesn’t seem very close to the actual Norse mythos character of the same name. The other three warriors who hang out with Thor are original to Marvel and aren’t from the mythos at all–which is why I had no idea who they were. They might have been more interesting if I had any background with the comic, but I don’t, and as a consequence they seemed only thinly sketched in to me.

The one secondary Asgardian I really liked was Heimdal, who is again primarily a Marvel invention although he’s loosely based on an actual Norse deity, Heimdallr. He’s played by a black actor, which gave me a moment’s distraction, but only a moment, just because the character is the most awesome of the secondary Asgardians. So that quickly became unimportant.

Hands down the part I liked the best was the callback to Iron Man. :D “Is that one of Stark’s?” “Damned if I know, he never tells me anything!”

But I did admittedly also like the Thor Sacrifices Himself Selflessly and then Gets Back His Badass Hammer sequence, and that was the one bit where Natalie’s character’s admiration of him actually worked for me. “Do you normally look like this?” “More or less.” “That’s a good look for you!”

And, even with the annoying 3D, the big smackdown fight between Thor and Loki also worked for me.

In brief, here’s what I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks:

• Saw and enjoyed both Tron: Legacy and Tangled. Both were quite pretty, and while T: L had less plot than one might have liked, it actually had more plot and emotional weight to it than the first one did. And I say this as a fan of the first one, which I rewatched during this downtime, too! As for Tangled, I liked it more than I expected it would, given my prior fear that it’d screw up my favorite fairy tale. It was Disney by the numbers, but then, Disney does do awfully catchy numbers.
• Did Longest Night with solarbird, in which we did what seems to be becoming my yearly tradition of rewatching The Lord of the Rings. We are sure you’ve noticed by now that the sun did, in fact, come back up.
• Speaking of Solstice, and Christmas by extension, I didn’t really want much loot this year thanks to having gotten the Awesome Guitar of Awesomeness. But a few lovely bits of loot were had nonetheless! Most notably, Dara gave me a really clever little capo that lets you capo individual strings and therefore simulate different tunings. I also got Peter Jackson’s King Kong on Blu-Ray from mamishka, Matt Smith’s just-concluded series of Doctor Who from spazzkat, a B&N ebook card from jennygriffee, a lovely hardbound copy of a Norwegian graphic novel from ravyngyngvar, and the obligatory pile of stocking stuffer candy.
• The Thursday before Christmas, Dara and I went downtown and spent a lovely afternoon at Ummelina, the spa on 4th. We did their two-person Pacific Rim package, and mmmm relaxing. This was redeeming the gift card I got Dara back in April for her birthday, since we’d decided that “while I am on vacation” was an excellent time to do so. After the spa, I did a lightning-quick raid on the marketboys, catching them JUST as they were closing up shop and surprising them by my arrival. They looked pleased to see me! Or at least pleased to sell me literally last-minute raspberries. ;)
• Christmas Day itself was fairly quiet. Dara and I went back downtown for the aforementioned viewing of Tangled, and afterwards had Chinese at a place downtown we hadn’t tried before. We didn’t care for the place much, but they were awfully overworked that night so we couldn’t quite hold it against them. And the food, while mediocre, was revived by Dara later for two more meals’ worth of nomming. So it was a win in the end.
• Have been doing a lot of trying to fill out all the achievements on Plants Vs. Zombies, as well as trying to play through the new levels in Angry Birds. Raise your hand if you’re surprised.
• The high point of Christmas Day was definitely the Doctor Who Christmas Special, and big kudos to BBC America for having actually broadcast it in a timely fashion and uncut, as I previously posted!
• Also as previously posted, Dara and I had an almost impromptu totally blottoed viewing of “Spock’s Brain”!
• Also watched a lot of MST3K as I was seriously in the mood. Bought one of the DVD box sets we hadn’t owned before and watched all of those, as well as The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (PERFECT followup to “Spock’s Brain”) and Hercules Against the Moon Men via YouTube, streamed over the Blu-Ray player. (Which worked amazingly well, I might add, and way better than playing those same videos over any of the computers in the house would have done. Even given that it’s on the exact same network!)
• Some light reading was done, and way less writing or editing than should have been (read: none to speak of).
• Caught a cold, which was NOT so fun. But really, it didn’t change much of what I was doing anyway, except while I was shaking it off, I was doing the same things with added blankets, Nyquil, and sneezing. George was very, very happy to occupy my lap the whole time regardless.
• And last night, we finished off the year with a lovely visit from Jenny as well as llachglin, kathrynt, and their children, for consumption of homemade pizza, some more boozahol and snacks, and playing of Rock Band 3. Jenny stayed overnight with us so she wouldn’t have to drive all the way back to Issaquah with a bunch of drunk New Year’s Eve partiers out on icy roads, and we got up to have tasty breakfast cooked by Paul. A great way to finish off the old year, and start a new one, indeed.

So yeah. Feeling ready and rested if not tanned, and rather looking forward to getting back into the swing of normal things on Monday. Bring it on, 2011!

mamishka

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flashfire has been spending the week with us as well, and we’ve been doing various low-key amusements since he’s had to be on call for work, which means he doesn’t have too much time free. We have, however, had quite a bit of fun attending both the Battlestar Galactica and Harry Potter exhibits downtown; last night, too, we saw the new Harry Potter movie.

Friday afternoon was exhibits day. We wandered downtown and had lunch at the Dick’s not far from Big Fish, as it turned out. It was really kind of weird actually getting that food in a sit-down restaurant. solarbird was amused by overhearing a nearby child asking another child, “Y’gonna drink that ketchup?”

From there we wandered over to the Seattle center to hit the exhibits. We tried Potter first, only to be told that we wouldn’t get in any earlier than 6:30. So we bought tickets for that time slot and hit the Battlestar exhibit instead.

The BSG exhibit was super-tiny, but what it had rocked. There were several excellent costumes from both the old and new series, an assortment of props, and interesting little snippets of videos spaced around the area. We were happy to see some of Starbuck’s stuff in particular, since Dara and I do miss our crazy TV girlfriend Kara, even now. ;) The big draw for this exhibit though was hands down the two Vipers and the Cylon raider, full size! solarbird took oodles of pictures. They’ll be going up for viewing soon enough, as soon as she figures out where to put them, I expect (her Flickr account is full).

Since we had time to kill, and since we hadn’t actually explored the Experience Music Project part of the building, we wandered around through the rest of the place as well. That was kind of neat, especially the display about indie music history in Seattle. The huge exhibit on Jimi Hendrix didn’t mean as much to me just because I have no background with his music; plus, I think I was a bit nonplussed by the huge sculpture of instruments in the lobby. I couldn’t help thinking gosh look at all those instruments that aren’t getting played, although they did look cool, I must admit. And apparently, the sculpture is set to play at certain times, though we didn’t catch that part.

solarbird, spazzkat, and flashfire also wandered through the Science Fiction Museum. I’d been in there before so opted not to look at that part; I wanted to check the swag shops and get me a Battlestar shirt, and also just see what else they had for sale. All in all a good way to kill time.

The Potter exhibit was doing mad crazy business, as you might expect on a holiday weekend, the first weekend following the opening of a Potter movie as well. It too was smallish, although bigger than the BSG exhibit. And unlike with the BSG exhibit, pictures were not allowed.

There were a whole lot of lovely costumes from the various movies: school uniforms and casual clothes for Harry, Hermione, and Ron; various teachers’ robes; Quidditch uniforms; and a lot of the Yule finery from Goblet of Fire. Those were neat, but I liked the set pieces better, such as the furniture from the Gryffindor dorms, Hagrid’s hut, and the big wardrobe and giant jack in the box from Prisoner of Azkaban. And there were props galore, including a Gryffindor notice board, a whole heck of a lot of Quidditch-themed props, and more. Big, big props though for the full-size figures of Buckbeak the hippogryph and a couple of the centaurs.

This of course leads nicely into talking about the movie. We did see Deathly Hallows last night, and since I never did get around to reading Book 7, now we’re getting into stretches of the story that are actually new to me (modulo the big best-known spoilers, which I am aware of at this point, yes). It was quite a bit different dealing with Harry, Hermione, and Ron outside the context of Hogwarts, and I rather liked that, even if the pacing of the movie could have used a bit of tweaking. Three words: too. Much. Camping.

(Paul in fact turned to us after the credits started rolling and said, “OH NO JOEL! CAMPING!”)

Dara noted and I agree with her that this is the first time that Voldemort and his followers really seem like a serious threat. The action scenes were certainly awesome, and I quite liked what we saw of the Malfoys and Bellatrix LeStrange. I must admit though that every time I see Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort I keep thinking “SAD MUPPET HAS NO NOSE!”

One more day of vacation tomorrow. We’re going to wander around Pike Place (and I am likely to do a fruit run with my marketboys), and then amble in the direction of I Heart for serious sushi goodness to send James home again on a tasty note.

The one that involves Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in a movie set in the Old West with ALIENS. Money quote:

If you need one guy to send those aliens running back to space with their tentacles between their tentacles, it’s Daniel Craig. Basically, if you are engaged in any sort of endeavor and wish to achieve victory, you call Daniel Craig. He’s the English Steve McQueen, it’s almost an unfair fight. But considering that in the Old West, without even the A-bomb to halt the aliens’ malevolence, you need a bit of an edge. So get Daniel Craig on alien-ass-kicking detail, STAT.

And here’s the trailer-y goodness:

Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in the same movie? SIGN ME UP!

Rational: Oh god not another remake!
Fangirly: But, but, but, RUSSELL! Shooting things!
Rational: But it’s ANOTHER REMAKE!
Fangirly: What part of RUSSELL SHOOTING THINGS are you not getting here?
Rational: This is yet another movie that’s standing between him and making a Master and Commander sequel.
Fangirly: …… well, you do have a point there.

I remember when The Equalizer was out, mind you, though I never watched it; I was too young to be its target audience at the time. Intellectually I can appreciate though that it seems like Russell would be a good match for the character. Wikipedia says the show was well-received and ran for four seasons, which matches my own vague recollection of it.

Anybody out there actually watch the show? If you did, what are your recollections of it?

I think I’ve mentioned before on LJ posts that their story should totally be a movie. It’s got everything that would make a movie great: an epic forbidden cross-species romance, a quest at the behest of an angry king, a great and loyal hound, monsters, magic, and most importantly, the heroine standing up to not only Middle-Earth’s biggest badass ever but even death itself for the sake of her man. I mean, seriously. You don’t get much more classic than this.

Since this is the Ideal World According to Me, I would of course cast Russell Crowe as Beren. (Actually, I’d have cast him as Boromir in Lord of the Rings, but this’ll work too!) Beren is not a young pup in the story; he’s already got several decades of experience under his belt by the time he sees and is absolutely smitten by Luthien. So Russell’s current general age and slightly grizzled look would be perfect. Not to mention that man, just the thought of seeing him do Beren’s being literally struck dumb by the first sight of Luthien gives me delicious shivers. I can see it now: the camera lingering on his awestruck face, so intense that he looks like he’s about to weep on the spot. Yum.

Likewise, it should surprise none of you that I’d totally be casting Alan Doyle as Daeron, who also loves Luthien and winds up betraying her a couple of times to her father, out of jealousy for her love of Beren. He later repents and writes laments for her loss. Wikipedia describes Daeron as “the greatest minstrel of the Children of Iluvatar”; frankly, if there’s any other role that would have “Alan Doyle” written all over it, even more than “Allan a’Dayle” did, I can’t think of it! (And I’m not fangirling for the opportunity to see Alan with pointed ears! Well okay, not much. Though I’ve always found Alan rather more puckish than your typical Tolkien elf would be, I’ve always suspected a touch of the fey about him. :D )

In my Ideal Movie World, they would of course do this movie with all the same loving attention to detail that Jackson’s done with LotR and which hopefully will also be done with The Hobbit. No garishly obvious CGI. Make it look real. Make it look right. The great hound Huan must not under any circumstances look fakey. Nor should Carcharoth, the monster wolf who bites off Beren’s hand that holds the Silmaril. Though I have a hard time visualizing how to do Morgoth–who, as an even bigger badass than Sauron, as in fact the original Big Bad of Middle-Earth, should be even scarier and more intimidating than Sauron was!

And you would of course need a proper Luthien. If she hadn’t already played Galadriel I’d be totally eying Cate Blanchett. But failing that, you’d need somebody who could pull off not only unearthly but even angelic radiance even when rescuing her man from the grimmest, most hellish places on earth. (Since Luthien is not only just an elf, she’s also part Maia.) You would need someone who could sing, or else someone with a heavenly voice dubbed in for when the character must sing–because this is after all a big driving force of the story.

(Side thought: if they dubbed in a classically trained singer for Luthien’s singing voice, one presumes she would be a soprano. Since that would seem fitting for “Tinuviel” meaning “Nightingale”.)

Okay, and in the Ideal Fangirl World According to Me, Luthien would of course be played by me. But I’m thinking of this in terms of the Ideal Movie World, not the Ideal Fangirl World. Mostly. ;)

So many vivid characters to be cast here, overall. I passionately hope somebody writes this into a script at some point and that it gets filmed. And that for the love of all that is holy, that nobody tries to do it in 3-D.

*pauses to wave tiny!fists of glee, particularly over Robin and Marion, and ALSO over Alan! Doyle! Movie! Star! and his Action Lute!*

Ahem. Now let’s try this again, only a bit more coherently, shall we? (Please, dear husband, won’t you share my spoilers?)

If you’re not me, which is to say, not a raving fangirl of Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett and especially Alan Doyle, you probably won’t squee over this nearly as hard as I did. mamishka pretty much nailed it for me when she said that this movie is no Gladiator, and it isn’t great–but on the other hand, it is solidly enjoyable.

If you’re a Robin Hood fan in particular, there’s very little here that’s actually Robin-Hood-ish; all the big familiar names are in play here, but as this is an origin story, you’re not going to get much that’s traditionally part of Robin Hood tales. Russell will probably strike hardcore Robin Hood buffs as inadequately English, but this version of Robin is not a nobleman; it’s his old familiar “Royal Shakespeare Academy, two pints after lunch” accent from Gladiator, only with a touch of a brogue, and it worked for me. But I acknowledge, I’m addressing this with my Russell fangirl hat on, and yeah, fine, I can listen to that man read the back of a cereal box, so there you go. ;)

If you’re a history geek, you will probably know more than I did about whether the events portrayed on screen have any semblance to actual history–although, casting a glance over King John’s page on Wikipedia suggests the movie isn’t entirely bullshit in this regard, which is nice. But hey, Wikipedia; take that with the obligatory grain of salt. History geeks out there who’ve seen this, I’d be interested in knowing if the movie did right by what it portrays!

There are some groanworthy moments: lines like “we are Men of the Hood, now merry at your expense”, and “the more the merrier” were over the top. WE GET IT, Ridley, these are the future Merry Men of Sherwood Forest! It’s okay, use a few different adjectives plzkthx. We won’t mind! Also, a couple of the bowshots had Sam Raimi written all over them, especially the final one that takes out the bad guy. Which is fine if you’re a Raimi fan, but I’m just sayin’, kinda cheesy. Go in expecting that.

Now let’s get back to the fangirling. ;)

ALAN DOYLE. Great Big Sea fans, take heart: our Alan acquitted himself splendidly in this movie. He had significant screen time, both as one of the three main Merry-Men-to-be and as his own delightful singer self. At least three times we get to see him whip out his lute and start singing, and a couple of times when he’s doing that in the background, he is totally cutting loose like he does on stage at a GBS show and it’s beautiful.

He gets in some lovely shooting, too. It’s still deeply, deeply weird to me to see Alan with his hair pulled back and wearing a beard–and his accent stood out way more strongly for me here than it normally does, possibly because I’m of course used to hearing him interact with Sean and Bob of GBS, and of course they also have Newfoundland accents. But ACTION LUTE! I will be deeply, deeply disappointed if he’s not on the soundtrack, but I’m pretty sure he’s not. Sniff. Oh well, darn, guess that means I’ll just have to watch the eventual DVD more. (Like I wasn’t going to do that anyway?) Also? Blue homespun is a really tasty look on him.

CATE BLANCHETT. <3 She kicks ass right out of the gate, and I gotta say, ho-ly CRAP her chemistry with Russell just crackles. She and he have regrettably little screen time together, but what scenes they do have… whuff. WHY HAVE THEY NOT MADE A MOVIE TOGETHER BEFORE? And when will they do it again, that’s what I wanna know. Because wow.

My only beef with any of her portrayal at all is that, once she pulls an Eowyn and shows up in the final big battle with her ragtag band of fighters, she doesn’t actually get to kill Godfrey herself or even really seriously damage him. Yeah yeah yeah Robin needs to kill him ’cause Robin’s the hero and all but it would have been nicer if she’d really gotten in some serious blows first and, y’know, helped him kill the guy who killed her father.

Also, take note of “pulling an Eowyn”, because several of us in my group tonight kept totally flashing back to Lord of the Rings. I swear to gods I kept expecting the warg riders to come pouring over the green, green hilltops of Nottingham. This is not necessarily a bad thing, mostly because to this day I still maintain that Russell would have been an awesome Boromir, but it was nonetheless kind of distracting to keep flashing over to better movies–

Except for the scene where Shirtless Russell was involved. I didn’t have ANY distraction problems then at all. ;) For a dude in his mid-forties, yeah, Russell’s still looking suitably buff. Yum.

Which of course brings me around to Russell himself. This is not going to go down in my fangirly history as Best Russell Movie Ever–Master and Commander still has it beat by a nautical mile, and Jack Aubrey is IMO far more suited to Russell’s considerable talents than Robin Longstride is. But that said, Russell’s been in movies that were considerably worse (Breaking Up and Rough Magic, I am LOOKING AT YOU). And as mamishka said, this was still solidly enjoyable. I absolutely foresee myself rewatching this repeatedly, and Russell goes a long way to making it so. He doesn’t honestly stretch himself much here, but see previous commentary re: crackling chemistry with Cate; there are also quieter, touching scenes with Max von Sydow and more than one moment where he’s trying very hard to look as casual as possible while his character is very clearly very, very nervous. He’s also got multiple great moments with Will Scarlet and Allan a’Dayle and Little John, and his line “these are my men-at-arms. This is about as courtly as they get” is so far hands down my favorite.

In conclusion, it should surprise absolutely none of you that I will be seeing this again!