who needs to brush the cat,when you can just cat the brush
(Source: cineraria)
Little girl dressed as Stan Lee at Motor City Comic con!!!
!!!!
i’m not drunk enough for this
there is not enough alcohol in the world
Fandom, you go sit in a corner and think about what you’ve done.
thordinson:aeromachia:sergeantprnz:
WHO NAMED THIS FLOWER
IT BARGES INTO ALL YOUR CONVERSATIONS
IT GIVES YOU A STUPID NICKNAME WHEN YOU’VE MET, LIKE, ONCE
IT WIGGLES ITS STAMENS AT YOU SUGGESTIVELY FOR NO REASON
IT IS: THE AGGRESSIVELY FORWARD BEARDED IRIS
in love with this flower oh my god
I just noticed the GUARANTEED TO GROW part of the label brb dying
I just needed this back on my dash.
Saw Star Trek: Into Darkness today. I didn’t have real high expectations, but the film still failed spectacularly to meet them. I have expounded beyond the cut with a list of complaints. (SPOILERS AHOY.)
Warning: the Read More is stuffed full of spoilers, and I…
yeah. this.
*spoilers*
there was a good amount of stuff that I legitimately liked about this movie- I thought a lot of the dialogue was funny, and the actors interactions with each other were very good. you can tell the cast has great chemistry, and that’s crucial for this sort of thing. I also appreciated that Uhura got to use her language skills, though the ending of that scene was super disappointing.
And perhaps the strongest point of this movie has to do with the exploration of the way that Nero’s existence changed this universe’s history, which is fascinating stuff, even if a lot of it is implied.
But the thing completely hamstringing this movie is the lack of emotional engagement. we’re kept too busy with action sequences to feel any strong emotional connection to our heroes, all of whom demonstrate the emotional depth of a tea cup, and the set up of khan in no way allows for the necessary pain/rage/hatred that is needed to make him Khan. Add to all of that the incredible telegraphing of how every problem is going to be resolved, and there’s also zero suspense.
I loved the first movie, and am still hoping for the third, but this one… is a decent action movie, but is a kinda lousy trek movie.
I went with a friend who isn’t that familiar with Star Trek, so it was interesting hearing her responses. She didn’t understand some of what was going on and specifically asked me if a couple of things were something she was supposed to know about. (Like some of the Bones lines.) Overall, though, she enjoyed it because it was such a fun, action-packed, brightly lit summer movie. It basically boiled down to this: it’s “a decent action movie, but is a kinda lousy trek movie.”
**Mild spoilers** The idea of putting Khan into an alternate universe is intriguing, and could have been done very well, I think. But you can’t just steal a classic villain and assume that everyone will understand how bad-ass he is simply because Other Spock points out that he’s the baddest bad who ever was. Everything with him boiled down to his physical superiority, and we never got to see him being properly brilliant and devious. The payoff was so bad in so many places.
You pointed out one of the most glaring instances, which was Uhura’s scene. What on EARTH was the purpose of that? That had great buildup, and I was really excited that she was using her skills - both language AND cultural knowledge - in a way that made a lot of sense. But it ended that way? Because…? I guess we just needed to get into the next action sequence and there was too much actual plot happening.
If this was just a regular action movie, I could have forgiven a lot more. But it was incredibly frustrating to watch the potential flying by at so many key moments. No, wait, that part was……oh, it could have been interesting, but look, they’re leaping off something at high speed again. Okay.
I did like the friendship that was building throughout for Kirk and Spock, but was it just me, or did all of the other characters seem to somehow have zero screen time? What was Bones even doing during most of it? Hanging back and complaining for the laugh track, I guess. It started to feel more like a Transformers movie than a Trek one at points, and that’s never a great sign.
My husband I think nailed it this morning when he said “when I was watching it, I mostly had a good time, but the more I reflect on it, the more problems I have with it.”
When I came out of the theater I kept saying incoherently ” I expected Benedict to be… bigger. more… something.” I think @badastronomer puts his finger on a lot of what I was trying to get at with “bigger” in his review- http://mobile.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/17/bad_astronomy_review_star_trek_into_darkness.html
I also agree with his “too much stuff” complaint. Star Trek is about the characters and how they relate to each other and their situation. This movie was about situations and the resolution of situations, with the characters simply vehicles for the plot. Furthermore, the plot commits the cardinal sin of writing- deciding what three things you want to happen, and shoehorning them into a narrative, without allowing for organic story growth or characterization.
That said, I still want to see it again. I got stuck on the Khan reveal and missed like a half hour of it going “Khan?! no! really?! Khan?? wtf??” and I think I might like the rest of it better now that I know to expect him.
The thing I find interesting is that it’s bad in different ways than the previous bad trek movies. The Original MP is a good premise, but is way too long. V is just boring as hell. Insurrection, also boring, and Nemesis… well, I’ve never made it through awake. But none of them are “problematic” (ok, Sybok’s a little problematic), they’re just not very good movies. This one is an unquestionably entertaining movie… with a lot of problems.
Quirky miniature porcelain sculptures made by Ukranian artists Anya Stasenko and Slava Leontyev
Medieval methods of entertainment included sad dances and alienation parties.
Tights are not pants, circa 1400something.
dontblinktheangelshavecamelot:
Look! There was a fan fiction article in today’s Washington Express (a free daily I newspaper put out by the Washington Post in Washington DC)
Article credit, Beth Marlowe (Express)
Art credit, Patrick Leger (For Express)
“DAMMIT JIM”
I have a lot of thoughts on fanfiction, but probably not enough coherency to put them all down in one place tonight. (I just got home from seeing Star Trek, so my brain’s still full of that - I laughed when I saw this waiting on my dash.)
To start with, I’m not happy that Fifty Shades of Grey blasted in as the forerunner in bringing more widespread attention to the fanfiction world. I have no problem with the level of its sexual content, to be clear, but I do have issues with the way it inaccurately handles the sexuality it portrays, as well as with the overall quality of the writing. Fanfiction feels a little bit like a dirty secret - I rarely admit to reading it, which is entirely unfair - and I don’t think Fifty Shades of Grey gives the best impression of what else is out there.
I’m not meaning to rant about that, though. What I wanted to say was that fanfiction fills a need I think most readers (or viewers, in the case of tv shows and movies) have felt at least once upon turning the last page of a book, or watching a set of credits roll. What happens next? Or, often enough, what SHOULD have happened?
I used to be pretty arrogant as a young reader, harshly judging any book-turned-movie. If the movie strayed at all from its source material, I’d jump on it with excessive amounts of disdain. How DARE they taint the purity of the language, the motivations of the characters? As I’ve gotten older (I say this as someone who is not yet 30, but who sometimes feels stupidly ancient all the same), I started realizing that movies aren’t necessarily meant to transfer the book exactly from the page to the screen. It’s impossible, for the most part, but it’s also a way for a filmmaker to create their own personal vision, an adaptation that reflects what drew them to the material. Sometimes it’s incredibly disappointing, true. Sometimes it’s actually more enjoyable than the original.
For me, Harry Potter falls pretty squarely into the latter category. As much as I love the world J.K. Rowling created, I have pretty severe criticisms about her writing and character development. The snogfest of book…five, was it? four? was embarrassing to read, and she needed the assistance of a much more engaged editor. (That’s a separate topic. I could also talk for ages about the importance of proper writer/editor partnerships but will spare whoever is making the effort to actually read this.)
This isn’t to say that all of the Harry Potter movies were perfect, because that’s far from true for the majority of them. I do, however, think that the third and the final two captured the magic of Rowling’s world more effectively for me than any of the books did on their own. Now, to pull this back to the original topic - I felt an even deeper connection to the Harry Potter world once I moved past the movies to the world of fanfiction, where I realized that people were writing some stunningly creative accounts of the world Rowling had built. The part I was the most drawn to delved into the backstory of the generation before the main trio - the Marauders.
That was years ago, and I’ve moved into several different fandoms since then, but one thing hasn’t changed: the massive amounts of talent involved in fan-created fiction and art. I’ve got to be honest…some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read, and some of my favorite authors, didn’t reach me from a bookshelf, but from some corner of the internet where publishers don’t typically lurk. Sure, there’s a lot of terribly written stuff out there, but that’s not something that’s limited to the world of fanfiction. Just take a minute in a bookstore and look at the rows of really awful books that made it all the way through an official publishing process. There are always gems mixed in with the detritus on those shelves, and that’s true on the internet as well.
Maybe Fifty Shades of Grey, as inadequate of a flagship as it is, will start to bring some of these talented individuals into more of a spotlight, where they can receive wider recognition (and maybe even a living?) for the wonderful works they spend their free time producing for their own love and other fans’ enjoyment. It’s a trend I wouldn’t mind seeing continue, anyway.
In the meantime, it’s the sort of thing that gives me back some of the hope I lost when I tried to dive (however briefly) into the disillusioning world of traditional publishing. Creativity is far from dead. Maybe it doesn’t always make it to blockbuster or bestselling status, and maybe sometimes the ones that do reach those levels are terrible examples, but that doesn’t mean the people who are good at their craft have given up. There’s always enough beauty out there if you know where to look for it.
Oh, and a footnote about something the article got wrong. AO3 doesn’t require any sort of sign-up unless you want to post your own writing or more easily bookmark and track authors. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to navigate than fanfiction.net. (Or the terrors of trying to find fic on livejournal, which is how i started out many years ago.)
Saw Star Trek: Into Darkness today. I didn’t have real high expectations, but the film still failed spectacularly to meet them. I have expounded beyond the cut with a list of complaints. (SPOILERS AHOY.)
Warning: the Read More is stuffed full of spoilers, and I…
yeah. this.
*spoilers*
there was a good amount of stuff that I legitimately liked about this movie- I thought a lot of the dialogue was funny, and the actors interactions with each other were very good. you can tell the cast has great chemistry, and that’s crucial for this sort of thing. I also appreciated that Uhura got to use her language skills, though the ending of that scene was super disappointing.
And perhaps the strongest point of this movie has to do with the exploration of the way that Nero’s existence changed this universe’s history, which is fascinating stuff, even if a lot of it is implied.
But the thing completely hamstringing this movie is the lack of emotional engagement. we’re kept too busy with action sequences to feel any strong emotional connection to our heroes, all of whom demonstrate the emotional depth of a tea cup, and the set up of khan in no way allows for the necessary pain/rage/hatred that is needed to make him Khan. Add to all of that the incredible telegraphing of how every problem is going to be resolved, and there’s also zero suspense.
I loved the first movie, and am still hoping for the third, but this one… is a decent action movie, but is a kinda lousy trek movie.
Fan fiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don’t do it for money. That’s not what it’s about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They’re fans, but they’re not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.
The Boy Who Lived Forever | Time Magazine (via lordofwinterhell)
