Hell's Half Acre

I've been working on the next installment of the demented'verse. The way I work is that I do a really rough outline, and then sort of narrow it down and add things as I go, so I have a series of successive outlines that get a little more detailed and accurate, but cover less of the story (because I've already written part of it.)

Right now, I'm on outline nujmber 4, which is getting close to the end... only, my third to last outline point (which I wrote months ago) is "Draco tricks Dean" and I can't for the life of me remember what I was referring to there. Like... what did I possibly have in mind?! It doesn't even make any sense.

Anyway, just thought I'd complain about my own foolishness is always believing "I'll remember this idea!" because it's not always true.

In other news, I had a great visit with my sister this past week. I also saw Beauty and the Beast, which was phenominal. All these years, I've been blaming my memorization of the original animated movie on my little sister's love for it as a child... but as we sat in that theatre and the lights dimmed and the movie played and then ended, I realized - nope, it was me all along. *I* love that movie. We actually saw it twice over the weekend, because we could, goddamn it! It was the best the first time around, when you don't know what jokes are coming, but I noticed more details (and heard more lyrics) the second time around. Also, I have a small crush on Josh Gad now, which to be honest, I could never have seen coming going into the film.

Let's see.... what else what else... my sister is buying a condo, and I'm a little jealous that she's managed to sort her life out and I haven't. For some reason, I equate "owning property" with "sorting your life out." I'm not sure, psychologically, why that is. Anyway, maybe one day I'll sort my life out.

How's it going with you?

Okay, so I promised katsheswims that I'd do a reaction post about the Captain America movies. So, HERE IT IS!

Now, before I get into the movies, I should explain that I never saw the first movie when it came out. It just didn't appeal to me, probably partially because I judged it from the title - and, well, as a Canadian, movies that appear to be about how great America is really don't appeal to me. But, hey, that was my mistake, because it's really not about how great America is at all, if anything, the franchise is actually about how much America continually disappoints it's own ideals. Yay!

I'm getting ahead of myself, though... back to the narrative of my life...

Somewhere between the first CA movie and the Avengers, I joined tumblr. Now, tumblr is a horrible place full of horrible things... and sometimes these horrible things are gifs and fanart of things that I DO NOT WANT TO WATCH... but I keep seeing these awesome fanarts and these intriguing gifs, and I start getting curious...

Fanart got me to watch Sherlock. Gifs got me to watch Teen Wolf. And the terrible power of fanart AND gifts got me interested in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And then complete spoilers for the ending of CA:TWS got me to read fanfic... because it was the situation that I absolutely love... listen, you all know that I'm a hurt/comfort whore... and basically, there is no kryptonic for me quite like stories about broken people who are never going to get better, but end up being okay anyway.

This is all to say that I was completely spoiled for the plot of both movies - more so The Winter Soldier than The First Avenger. That being said, I wasn't entirely sure what order things happened in.... and actually, my initial assumption about the order of scenes in The Winter Soldier left it with a fare bleaker ending then it actually had.

I just want to point out though that I'm not upset that I was spoiled and I don't think being spoiled hampered my enjoyment of the films - because if I HADN'T been spoiled, then I wouldn't have watched the films. And there were still surprises!

Now...on with the movies...

Captain America: The First Avenger

( Short But Spoilery Thoughts )

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

( Lengthy Completely Spoilery Thoughts )

Okay, I guess that's it. I realize that I just went on AT LENGTH about The Winter Soldier and BARELY touched on The First Avenger, but given what I DID say about The First Avenger, I would think the reason for that is obvious.

So, for those of you who have seen these movies - let me know your thoughts in comments!

I could probably go on much longer, but it's 10:30 and I have not had dinner yet because I came home from the movies and started typing this and that was two hour ago.

For people who don't want to be spoiled:
Captain America: The First Avenger - Good. Not great. Too much plot crammed into too little time.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Awesome. Must see. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a better first movie.

Last week I read Warm Bodies (the novel) by Isaac Marion... and tonight I went out and saw Warm Bodies (the film).

So, under the cut is a critique of the movie based on having read the book. At the bottom of this entry, I'll put a critique of the movie as though I hadn't ever read the book...

Overview of plot (of both novel and film): The story follows R the zombie, as he eats a man's brain and then falls in love with the dead man's ex-girlfriend, Julie - making the strange decision to keep her safe and alive. In the process of trying to form a meaningful connection with Julie, R ends up causing a chain reaction both in himself and the zombies around him...meanwhile, Julie's recovering from the loss of her ex-boyfriend, dealing with a distant tyrannical father who runs the walled-in human survivors, and trying to figure out what the heck is up with this strange zombie that isn't behaving like zombies usually do.

( Book vs. Movie (general non-specific spoilers) )


If you've never read the book....

The movie was really good! Entertaining and actiony. There's very little relationship building scenes between Julie and her father though to make the ending as meaningful as it appears to want to be, but that's really my only quibble. Other than that, it was a fine ZomRomCom, and exactly what I expected (before having read the book). Light-hearted, funny, entertaining, and filled with very good actors.

I also really like how Julie (Teresa Palmer) was betrayed as a hero in her own right. Although she had to be rescued a few times, it was balanced out by the number of times she herself had to come to the rescue of R, or her friends, or an entire community. Not only that, but she runs like a champ... I watched an interview with Nicholas Hoult (R) where he mentioned how she ran fast and it was hard for him to keep up while maintaining his "zombie run" and man, I can totally see that.

Also, fun fact: Nicholas decided that R shouldn't blink, and it's pretty amazing when you actually watch some scenes with that in mind... because he really doesn't blink. It's crazy.

Anyway, all in all, despite not being as deliciously wonderful as the book, I enjoyed the movie for what it was. :)

I would, however, recommend that you read the book - because it is DELICIOUSLY WONDERFUL, like eating someone's brains.

I have to work full time during the month of January. Usually I work 4 days a week (which is technically still full time), but this month I have to work five. So, I find myself with considerably less time for fandom related stuff. Especially since this past week I lost nearly all of my evenings, granted, one of them was for SPN, but STILL... Show is getting in the way of writing things about Show. :P

This weekend, I'm cat/house-sitting for a friend of a friend...who happens to be a film critic. So, I'm sitting around with a stack of screener DVDs, so of course I'm not working on my hobbies...I'm watching movies!

But I digress, for the record, this is the stuff on my blog that is coming up in the NEAR future: 
1. Supernatural/Merlin fic
2. Sherlock "Scandal" rewatch (I wanted to do this before the end of January, but I've only done a rough write-up of the first 8 minutes so far...so we'll see. A typical Sherlock rewatch takes me about 10 hours, and I usually can't handle more than 1 hour in a sitting.)

In the distant future, there will be another resource project, maybe more fic? and more Sherlock...and beyond that, I can't make any promises.

( Movies: Beasts of the Southern Wild and Life of Pi )

My sister is in town for the weekend, and her son wanted to see The Hunger Games. Luckily, Vancouver happens to have a theatre that is STILL PLAYING IT.

I went along...

I have not read the books...

But I keep hearing all this stuff about Katniss/Peeta or Katniss/Gale (or Peniss and Kale?)...but but...did people see the same movie that I did? Because where the hell are my Katniss/Cinna shippers?!? This is my OTP....at least for the movie.

Anyway, good times. Really well done movie. Katniss was a really great character. I also liked how the wounds/injuries were realistic...in that when they got injured, it was srs bsns...and Katniss actually went into shell shock when something exploded close to her.  

But, like I said, I haven't read the books, so I have no idea whether it's a faithful adaptation or not. I just thought it was a good film.

I've started working again. Same job I had before, sadly...which means that I get to research former abuse victims all day. It is both depressing and boring. The only two good things about it is 1)It pays well when it pays, and 2)I can work from home.

Gordon Walker

Yesterday, my sister came home around 3pm and asked if I wanted to watch a movie. So, I blew off work and watched Our Idiot Brother starring Paul Rudd. My sister and I both really like Paul Rudd, just so you know. The movie looked stupid, and it was a little, but it was also hilarious. The ending was especially fantastic.  

And guess who was in the movie?! Gordon Walker! Otherwise known as Sterling K. Brown. He played a parole officer. He was very good...it was funny seeing him in something where he wasn't trying to kill Sam.


Sherlock Holmes

Because my job is boring, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks while I do it. Today, I started listening to A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle....because I had never read it before.* And, also, because I'm super excited about Sherlock series 2 starting on January 1st. It's cool. I've only listened to the first chapter or so, but it's really interesting seeing how it was adapted for the TV series. There's some dialogue that is word for word from the text, while other dialogue is modified, while some is cut completely or new. 

It's cool to see what conversations from the 1800s can be transported to the present day without anyone batting an eye-lash.

I like the TV version of character of Sherlock better than the book so far - he's too arrogant and talkative in the book, which is saying something, because bbc's Sherlock is pretty damn arrogant and talkative as it is. I also like the TV version of John better too...John in the book is a little uptight - though, I suppose that's unfair, given that he is a Victorian gentleman. Again, I've only read the first bit of the story, so this could change - but so far John lacks that undercurrent of hardened soldier that Martin Freeman pulls off so brilliantly in the show. I REALLY like that dynamic to John. In the book (so far), he's all doctor-y, and "of all the unmitigated gall!"

*I'm supposed to be reading another book-book called Beatrice and Virgil for a bookclub thing, but I haven't even started it yet. I'm also supposed to be reading a book that a friend of mine just wrote and published, but I have only read until Chapter 4 and that was a week ago. I am a bad book reader, because I get distracted by books.

Sam's Plaid Shirts

I was doing up some pie charts of Sam's shirts, but I've run into a little methodology quandary...so, you might not see them for a day or so until I sort it out. Basically, I was trying to do charts by season of Sam's frequency of plaid...but the problem is how to count. I was counting how many plaid shirts he wore vs other types of shirts - but then it occurred to me that the way I was counting, if he wore plaid shirt A 3 times, and striped shirt B once, it would both count as once - because I simply didn't record how OFTEN Sam wears his shirts. I just counted whether they appeared in the season or not. 

So, my first option would be to count how often he wears each shirt - but my god, that would be too tedious even for me....and it would take far too long. So, now I'm thinking that I'll just count the shirts that he BUYS each season. So, it'll be a measure of "What sorts of shirts does Sam purchase most frequently?" Does that sound good?

You probably don't care.

Anyway..um, yeah, that's it for me.

Today I met Tom O'Brien, who played the Crocotta in Long-Distance Call back in S3. He's a nice guy. He didn't talk too much about Supernatural, mostly StarGate SG1 and the X-Files, and his newest projects (which included organic farming, because at the moment he's an organic farmer.) Film-wise, He's mostly producing these days. 

Anyway, um, it wasn't like an interview, but for those that are interested:
1. His favourite sets to work on were SG1 and X-files.
2. He worked with Kim Manners on X-files.
3. The film community is really small once you get into it...kind of scarily small. Everyone knows everyone.
4. He read for Fox Mulder...apparently it was between him, David Duchovny, and Kevin Sorbo....obviously, he didn't get the part, and neither did Mr. Sorbo.
5. He got the part on Supernatural by walking down the street. Someone tapped on the glass of a pub he was walking by, and he looked over and there was "Phil", who asked him if he was busy and if he wanted to be on the show - Phil said "I just need to call Bob, and we're good."

Tonight I went to go see a special screening of Repeaters at District 319.  Some Supernatural fans might recognize District 319 as the venue for Supernatural's 100th episode party, but that's neither here nor there. (Though, guys, I've totally been to a shindig at the same place as the entire cast and crew of Supernatural...just not at the same TIME.)

Anyway, tonight they had a screening of Repeaters with a Q&A session afterward with the director and some of the actors. 

The movie was really good, guys! It is coming soon to a netflix/dvd store near you, and I recommend that you check it out.

It stars Dustin Milligan (who some of you may better remember as Corbett from Ghostfacers), Amanda Crew, and Richard de Klerk (who some of you may better remember as Scott Carey, third special-kid fatality on Supernatural in Hunted). 

HOME FROM THE MOVIES!

We drove down to Riverport. It's a very sneaky way to go to the movies...it basically feels like you are driving out into the middle of nowhere, except, for some reason when you get to the middle of nowhere, there's a giant SilverCity movie theatre. We didn't take the option of IMAX, because it's super expensive....but, anyway, on with the review....

( If you haven't read the entire 7th book, then you definitely shouldn't click here )

Alright, I guess that's it...let me know if there's anything you wish to discuss that I didn't touch on!

 My sister and I watched A Single Man tonight. Man, what a beautiful movie.

Not only is it filed with really good looking boys (of all legal ages), but it's also just amazingly beautifully shot. And it plays with colour the same way that Supernatural does...which completely won me over, of course.

Also, I was surprised to see a brief scene with Ridge Canipe! (AKA: Wee!Dean)...selling guns, no less!

It was just...ugh, no words.

My sister said: "I like the fact that by the time you saw Julianne Moore's character, they had shown you so much of how great the guy's relationship with his partner was, that I couldn't even picture a man and woman being together anymore - it just didn't seem right."

Anyway, this isn't really a proper review - I just felt like saying "Dude! I liked that movie!"