You had plenty money 1922

Went to see Prince Caspian with Lissy and Emma (was meant to see Wanted with Megs, Jane and Jen, but certain people had to pull out so we postponed - I was poking the odeon website and told Lissy I was buggering off out of work 15 mins early to go see Prince Caspian and she went 'ooo? where?'). We may have over-squeed a bit. It was just so... so perfect. Edmund! Lucy! Peter! Susan! all the Telmarines! (Lissy, being a horse person, kept squeeing over the Andalusians, so we said 'fine, you can have the horses, we'll have the Pevensies and Caspian') I also may have scarred their brains a bit by mentioning :cough: the most frequent fic pairings for the Pevensies. Though they are in *total* agreement that Edmund is completely gay and that he so ran the intel and spy section.

Now watching LWW. They so wee! So innocent! and so..so... sorry, brain breaking after watching Peter try to handle a sword with no idea what he's doing when faced with Maugrim. This is after I've watched him fight battles and do some really fucking dirty one-on-one combat against Miraz a couple of hours ago. (there's headbutting in Caspian. Disney movie. Headbutting. For reals.) Post Prince Caspian, it's really really clear that Peter spent half his sodding time as a soldier. as did the others. Pevensies when faced with battle know *exactly* what they're doing. And hee, just got to the bit where they're about to go into battle and Edmund's starting to show signs of the completely supportive no-nonsense 'gets stuff done' person he's become by the time of Prince Caspian. ♥ Oooo, and just noticed : Peter at the first battle is wearing the same design of armour as he does in Prince Caspian, just... smaller. And shinier.

oh lord, now I desperately need post- Caspian fic back in the real world. And, er, au fic of them grown up and Peter as a soldier and leader of men who the army officers keep blinking over because this public school boy from Finchley who gives off this impression of perfect battle-hardened soldier and officer who has this ridiculous talent for tactics and didn't need lessons in dirty fighting. The fencing club learned long ago that he doesn't understand rules and sportsmanlike behaviour if you put a sword in his hand.

And dammit. Prince Caspian didn't have James McAvoy.

Don't you just hate it when people know your guilty pleasures?

Dad walks into the kitchen when I've just got all the stuff together for cutting and pinning a costume (cloth, patterns, tools, etc) - no way am I going to get the sewing done today - reads a bit of a review out of the tv mag, we giggle, and then says casually 'oh, and The Princess Diaries is on in fifteen minutes, so you'll be moving all that into the study, right?'

Me : '...I hate you so much.'

So yes, I did de-camp to the study and did all of the cutting on the bay window ledge whilst watching the film while mum watched it on the sofa after some deliberation and constantly turning around from her idle surfing on the computer. And then put on The Princess Diaries 2 after about fifteen minutes of godawful Tim Westwood on the radio (seriously, does that man not know how much people take the piss out of his put-on voice?) as something more cute, funny and non-taxing.

Just the waist-bodice thing to go. :sigh:

Enchanted? Absolutely adorable. Really, really adorable, and so very funny and witty - best moments for that are when bloke leaves Giselle in office reception and comes back to have everyone looking very, very weirded out, and the Central Park song and dance sequence. 'How do you know the words? I've never heard of this song!' It doesn't miss a beat, Timothy Spall is great, Pip the Chipmunk wins *so* much, as do the NY public workers and James Marsden is so pretty yet so very, very dumb.

I need this film in my life. NOW.

Also, I need to see St. Trinians, according to Taz's review and the fact that when I asked the usher if it was any good, he said 'it's really funny, and every performance sells out'.

Once again, Bay Trading is evil. So very, very evil. Fortunately, I lack the cash for it to be really evil - went in for a pair of jeans I'd tried on during the sales (never fails, this - sales on, heather makes beeline for new stuff) and will have to turn up as they don't do petite, got a pair of denim shorts in the sale since I've been meaning to get some shorts since April for summer wear as the only shorts I own are very tiny hotpants or my black dressy ones I use for Cabaret. Then stared a lot at the various shirts and went 'wibble' a lot whilst I convinced self that I really don't need them since I exist in t-shirts and jeans.

Today's case of '...my god some people are blind' :

Someone on the JB list, in the wake of eps 12 and 13 airing in the US, went 'omg, since when has Captain Jack been Gay?' (and yes, they did capitalise the gay every time they used it)

See rest of list go 'er, I'm sorry, did you *miss* the entire series of Torchwood? All the Ianto comments? The stopwatch bit? His very first scene in Doctor Who, since you said you watched those? The fact that he snogged the bloody Doctor? Every single interview/review/tv guide snippet about the series?' 'ALSO : NOT GAY. OMNISEXUAL.'

Oh, and they also seemed unaware that John is gay. Even though he mentions it in, oh, every interview and the sheer amount of press he did for Torchwood's US launch.

Plus : Must smite those who capitalise 'gay' every time they use it in a sentence. Big. Deal. How about we capitalise 'heterosexual' every single time? Cause sweetie? It looks patronising.

Watching Superman Returns. :sigh: tiny screen really doesn't do it justice. Also, I heart Lex. And Richard. And Jason. And Lois. and Perry. And all the henchmen. Especially the henchmen. (okay, I may heart Clark too, but... just not as much as the rest of the cast. except the simpering girlfriend who I wonder why Lex keeps around, like all useless simpering girlfriends of really cool bad guys) That's one *shiny* film. Its prettiness is beyond compare - the only way they could actually make it prettier is to have used Michael Rosenbaum instead of Kevin Spacey. And to have strangled Parker Posey's character within two minutes.

Oh, just got to the bit on the island Lex grew from crystal + kryptonite. And as ever, my comments from when we saw it at cinema come flooding back : 'Lex, it may be bloody extra real-estate but hello, no arable? Also : it is very, very clearly brittle, which makes it kinda crappy for building owt on...'' Plus : please don't commit one of the first rules of Villainry : chucking the *almost*-dead hero off a cliff normally means he'll come back. Much better to let him bleed out in front of you. With a coroner's report.

Also, I have new boots. probably the closest to knee-highs I'll ever get given my calves. They're DMs, brown and rather nice, with many buckles that on their widest setting let me actually fit in them. ( boots! ) And when I get back to civilisation, I will steadfastly ignore the fleece-lined CATs I saw of similarness for about £20 more.

flat hunting? don't talk to me about flat hunting. Gah. I've booked/emailed a couple more people, but the one I really want isn't having flatmate review til next week.

Need to get tickets for Regents' Park open air before the 16th - either Macbeth (HJ's utter weakness) or Midsummer Night's Dream, which is... it's entirely appropriate for this time of year, okay? Amused by the bit stuck on the new 39 Steps posters - 'Now with Full Air Conditioning as Bonus!' ... Do they know something about this August's weather that we don't?

not to self to do the WIP meme when get home.

Also, pondering the weirdness of the English - well, not language, but spoken. English is the original mash-up language. It's composed of one base language with another laid over the top, meshed and changed vowel sounds a few times down the centuries and has hordes of words stolen from other languages, fitted in seamlessly. So why the hell do we have such problems with long names or names with loads of consonants in? The amount of times you see us (and yes, I'm including me) attempt the first couple of syllables and then give up is untrue. I'm thinking it has to be a mental block when it comes to the long names, since the majority of English names (sur, first or place) don't tend to contain more than three syllables, and it's well known that we're very, very fond of shortening anything more than that into a nickname or shortened version. Not to mention the several names that *look* long in the language that're actually *said* as something quite different. Featherstonehugh (Fanshaw) and Gloucestershire (Glos-ter-shur), I'm looking at you. (anything with on-the-wold tacked on the end doesn't count, since that's a clarifier, not the main name) So the amount of Indian sub-continent names that get short shrift, I'm really sorry.

And then you have the ones with lumps of unfamiliar consonants - nearly all dutch or east european. Which is slightly more understandable when it comes to language; if you're not used to pronouncing/processing from written to spoken that combination of sounds, you nearly always stumble. Even though that really shouldn't be an excuse in English, considering our penchant for nicking any words we fancy from probably every single language on earth. (especially considering the most recent immigration flood of Poles) I do find it vaguely amusing that the English language - the way the vowel and consonant combos go - has less trouble processing Far East Asian, African, Pacific island and South American vowel/consonant combos than it does ones that are on the closest land mass.

Watched Midsummer Night's Dream last night. ...Why do I always forget Christian Bale's playing Demetrius? I remember every single other person (it is a cast of immense pretty and acting skill, with the *only* piece of miscasting/not quite up to the job of handling Shakespeare being Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania - and that's bloody amazing for any Shakespeare, let alone filmed). He's a brilliant Demetrius, and one of his scenes with Calista Flockhart tends to make me fall over with guh every time (let's just say it involves the line 'the rich worth of your virginity' said in a very low tone of voice and leave it at that - the_oscar_cat, the area for drowning in puddles of drool is over there.). Maybe the Rupert Everett/Stanley Tucci/Kevin Kline/Anna Friel/Dominic West combo just makes my brain explode too much. And as ever, it's very clear that Kevin Kline was utterly robbed by the period of film he was born into. He needs swashbuckling, athletic works that require him to be 27 Pirate Kings swinging on ropes all at once every second. Every non-flamboyant role I've ever seen him in, the director is clearly having to sit on him heavily and not always succeeding.

Have finally seen Pirates.

jamjar and I nearly hurt ourselves, we were laughing so much. Also, ooo pretty action sequences.

Oh my god, I can finally actually click on the sparrington posts.... (and yes, I'm as amazed as you I've managed to remain spoiler free)

ETA : Torchwood Babies. - you will die from cute.

Just watched The Merchant of Venice, Al Pacino 2004 version. Oh my god *stabbity*. Seriously, by the end I just want to stab pretty much every character except Shylock. And Antonio gets a bit of his just reward by the end, so not so much stabbity and actually, y'know, is not a self-involved selfish fuckwit like the rest of the cast.

Long-term readers of this lj will already know my feelings towards Jessica, Shylock's daughter who runs off with her dad's money. However, after seeing the play for a second time and concentrating a bit more on the words, (though they probably edited her part down a bit for film so she comes across as more sympathetic), I now want to stab the rest of the cast. Many times. The largest knives being reserved for Portia. The lads are... well, Bassanio's a using fuckwit who gets by on being pretty and living off whoever he's sleeping with's money, that's established in the first scene when he asks Antonio for money. (also known as 'Hi, I've got you wrapped round my little finger to the extent that I feel completely comfortable asking my lover for the money to marry someone who I completely admit I'm only marrying because she's gorgeous and loaded'). His mate's just laddish and full of himself. And *isn't* marrying for money.

Portia though... oh dear lord. First act : 'Hi, I'm clever, funny, and I know I'm gorgeous. Aren't I great?' Second act : Not content with having got Antonio off the hook from the pound of flesh, she proceeds to twist the knife. Again and again and again. Just to show how clever she is and how much she's read the law, and she does this with complete glee because she's pleased with how clever she's being. 'Right, now that we've established that you can't cut Antonio because you can't shed his blood, you can't have the money you're owed either instead. Oh, and half your goods go to Antonio because you're reneging on the deal. And the other half goes to the court. And did we mention your lands? And Antonio, you can add another sting... Ooo, you have to embrace Christianity and leave your community and all that. Sucks to be you.' Pause. 'And while I'm at it, hubby, in payment for saving your boyfriend, I want that ring I made you promise never to take off. Just to see if I can. And then when I get home, I'm going to ask to see the ring and then call you faithless and inconstant for giving up the ring which I blackmailed you into giving up.' :winning smile: 'Aren't I *great*?'

STABBITY.

Though, um, I seriously don't get the people who call this play anti-semitic. Er, no. The entire play is about how the rest of the cast and society are anti-semitic and the only person who's in the right is the Jew, and considering the 'pound of flesh' is a joke at first, then after his daughter fucks him over he gets a wee bit focussed on revenge. But note that legally he is still in the right. And still a better person than the rest of the main cast. The point being that anti-semitism is wrong, no matter how pretty and rich you are.

In other news, great acting, gorgeous film, wonderfully set mood and tone-wise. And the way there's no concept of private space at any time. Props to the director and cast for making all the speeches sound like conversation or quite natural rants. Even if Al Pacino's voice has always annoyed me.

poisoninjest, feel free to wade in at any time...

:deep breath: Now I'm going to watch Battlestar Galactica, where everyone at least knows they're fucked up.

I've just watched the 300 trailer. And now I can't stop whimpering.

Oh my god it's PRETTY. I mean seriously, it's beautiful. The lighting, the framing, the colours, that's a piece of pure visual cinematic *poetry* there. LOTR has nothing on it.

It's just... it's Frank WHOREWHOREWHORES Miller. WHORESWHORESWHORES.

You know him. WHORESWHORESWHORES. You know he's a misogynist bastard with a machismo fixation. WHORESWHORESWHORES. You know how he writes. WHORESWHORESWHORES. You know he's got a very small penis. WHORESWHORESWHORES. You don't understand how his wife reconciles being married to a man who has this opinion of the world. WHORESWHORESWHORES. You know the sheer racism/sexism/sick moral judgement of the book. WHORESWHORESWHORES. You know there's some spouting about freedom and slaves when it's monarchy and Sparta being built and supported by standing on the damn slaves.

I own 300. I haven't gotten round to going anywhere near ebay in the last few months, but it's going on there. I bought it back when I was enamoured with his style and could mostly close my eyes to the WHORESWHORESWHORES.

300 is a gorgeous, coffee-table book. Lynn did a beautiful job with the colouring. It's well-paced. It's so well-laid out it makes your eyes bleed. However, fortunately, it's not perfect due to the way Frank draws stuff - that weird, gritty, wrongly-angled way that's not quite right.

300 the film? Has no ugly Miller drawing style. It's taken Lynn's colours and run with them and made them even more beautiful. And you're left with nothing but the frankly horribly uncomfortable feeling of having to admit that Frank WHORESWHORESWHORES Miller is a design and layout genius. No, really. So many of the shots in the trailer you could practically lay a page from the book over the screen (helps that the book was all double-page spreads to emphasise the widescreen feel) and have everything match up perfectly. And these are some of the most beautifully framed shots. Things like kicking the Persian ambassador over the pit, or soldiers being backed off the cliff, or the shot of the oracle in the throes of a vision... they're all Miller shots.

So you're sitting there going oh my god the pretty but feeling so uncomfortable at the fact that it comes from sheer skeeviness that is Frank WHORESWHORESWHORES Miller.

AUGH.

Was debating on whether to go see The Departed, which is apparently a remake of Infernal Affairs. I *loved* IA. Hong Kong triad boss puts an undercover agent into the police force, and at the same time the police put an undercover agent into the triads. IA, for those who need more incentive to see it, is fucking gorgeous, amazingly shot, edited, acted and so on, and seriously engrossing. It's just... remake. The only remakes I've liked have been the Japanese horror remakes like The Grudge and The Ring. Oh, and The Birdcage.

Then poked it to see who was in it, all big names... and then realised I've seen bugger all of their work. Scorcese I've seen a bit of Goodfellas. Leo I've seen Romeo + Juliet (many, many times). Matt Damon : Dogma, Chasing Amy, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Ocean's Eleven. Mark Wahlberg : Three Kings, Renaissance Man (and Entourage). Jack Nicholson : Batman, Mars Attacks. Martin Sheen : a tiny bit of Apocalypse Now, Hot Shots part Deux, and I can't remember if I saw his Spin City eps. Sort of disturbs me that most of what I've seen of theirs is the piss-take stuff, or Askewniverse in the case of Matt Damon. Ray Winstone, who's next on the bill and almost certainly playing a supporting role of cop or mafia? Plenty of his. Oodles. :fangirls:

And hah! I knew it! Val Kilmer was the Sherpa weed-dealer in Entourage! Whilst watching it : ...Have I seen him before? ...I'm sure I've seen him. ...Hang on, is that Val Kilmer under there?

Val Kilmer and Brad Pitt : a propensity for playing strung-out nutters whilst under a large amounts of make up and/or facial hair. I now have the urge to fast-forward through True Romance just to see Brad as the druggie and Val as Elvis.