rivers_bend

Oh my god. dreamlittleyo and I went and saw Inception today and we were LITERALLY the only two people in the WHOLE THEATER so we could talk and gasp and do little clappy hands all we wanted without bothering anyone. In non-spoilery news, this movie is GORGEOUS. Probably the most visibly stunning film I've ever seen except for Where the Wild Things Are.

( only spoilery for cast and my opinions )

Today I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch with my cousin's kids and their babysitter, and then we went to see Marmaduke. It's assuredly not a movie I ever would have watched had I not been going with children, but it was actually far less painful than I anticipated. And Judy Greer is one of my favorites, though she's not in it much. Lee Pace is also very watchable. And Hollywood has gotten much better with the animal mouth moving. even the doggy love story was less sexist than I was expecting.

So tonight we went and saw The A-Team. Non-spoilery review. IF YOU WATCHED THE SHOW AS A CHILD, GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

If you go see this movie, stay to the very end of the credits.

( very slightly spoilery )

ZOE SALDANA, TAKE ME; I'M YOURS.




The slightly longer review:

I LOVED ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING EXCEPT THAT ONE THING AND THAT OTHER THING and those are only cos I'm kinda squeamish.

HOLY COW THAT WAS AMAZING.

um. I hope that isn't spoilery. It's a comic book movie with guns and bombs and JDM and Zoe Saldana and Chris Evans looking like Jensen and being called Jensen. I was never not going to love it.

In related news, there needs to be some kind of rule about Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen being in movies together. I cannot tell them apart. At all, apparently. But Zoe in another action flick? HELL YES.

Now she just needs to be in a movie where she and Summer Glau are like rival (or partner) assassins. Dear Hollywood. Plz to be getting right on that.

First:

If you can get yourself to any of these cities, you really really must go and see La Mission. It's currently playing in the SF area, the LA area, and NYC, and it will be playing in Dallas and San Antonio, and San Diego at the end of the month. It's absolutely in my top five of best movies I've ever seen, and it needs to get wider distribution.

It's a stunningly beautiful love letter to the city of San Francisco, and to the Mission District--La Mission--and even my mother, who never notices such things, was gushing about the cinematography as we were leaving the theater. But more than that it is a movie about people who are proud to be who they are. Proud to be a strong woman who owns her decisions, has agency and opinions, and who shares them. It's about pride in culture, in history, in family. Queer pride. Pride that goes before a fall. Pride that picks you up again. Pride that gets you killed. Pride that makes you strong. It's a Latino movie; it's a queer movie; it's a men's movie; it's a women's movie. It's a movie about how important family is, and how important community is. It's a movie about low riders and a love of cars. It's breathtaking.

I saw it in a packed 700-person theater and it was the most diverse crowd I've ever seen. Mostly you get your "date-movie" crowd, or your "action-movie" crowd or your "queer-cinema" crowd or your hipster-indie crowd. But everyone was here. All ages (late teen and up; they didn't hold back on the swearing and it's definitely R rated), all races, all points on the sexuality and gender spectrum, and a broad class spectrum. And listening to the conversations going on as people exited the theater, and looking at the people asking questions and making comments when a couple of the actors and the director spoke afterward, everyone in the theater found something that spoke to them, that they could look at and say, "This is my life."

Second:

This post by weesta is a wonderful look at Devil's Trap and the latest SPN episode (so spoilers for that), and how the people making this show do such a great job visually and thematically. And how even when they seem to be circling around the same issues, there are levels. It filled me with EVEN MORE love of Show. You should check it out. :D :D

Third:

Today's Sunday Sweets post at cakewrecks. Adorable animal cakes that made me grin and grin.

Yesterday was so much fun that my cheeks still hurt from grinning. Just getting to hang out with coiledsoul (Jenn) and glendaglamazon (Glenda) would have been brilliant and super fun, but add onto that getting to see the US premiere of Doctor Who with a huge crowd of geeks like me at Wondercon, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAND getting to go see Clash of the Titans with other people instead of on my own (which is how I figured I was going to be seeing it), and a fantastic day becomes pretty much perfection.

One thing I love about what fandom has brought into my life is the variety of ages and locations and life experiences of my friends. It's enriching and exciting and educational (and lots of other e-words like excellent, too). But it's also fun sometimes to get together with people who grew up with the same toys and shows on TV and horrifying 80s fashions and set of cultural references. So there was that :D

And Wondercon itself was fascinating and great for people watching, and not nearly as crowded as I was worried about (with the exception of the Capcom booth, so we walked away from that), and there were girls in corsets. Which is never a bad thing. Some fantastic cosplay, including a boy of about 8 dressed as Link who was delightful, and some steampunk girls who were ridiculously gorgeous. I kept poking Jenn to give more Wincon cards to girls in corsets, but she was awesome and handed them out to girls and women of all clothing choices (except full twilight paraphernalia *g*), shapes, stripes and walks of life.

We queued up for the first screening of Dr. Who, but were told after not too long that there was no way we'd get in, so we went away and had some food and came back for the second screening. There was a little scary moment where we thought they were cutting the line off, but they were just checking space, so it was all good.

( no spoilers for plot, but some people don't even like to know reactions )

While we were leaving the parking garage after parking I had casually mentioned that I was really excited about Clash of the Titans but hadn't had a chance to see it. Jenn mentioned that she was really wanting to see it too. And we managed to convince Glenda that it was a good idea. So while we were waiting for Who to start, out came the iPhone, and we booked tickets to the 9:30 (NOT 3D) show at the theater around the corner from the convention center. That left us just enough time to shoot over to Chevy's for a beer before the movie.

OH. MY. GOD. THE. MOVIE. I. FREAKING LOVED IT. That's not a spoiler. It was always gonna be a given. But I did. I really really did. ( some more under here )

Then we went to Mel's Diner (*waves to my Azkatraz dinner-mates*) and had food and serious business fangirl discussions. Then we came back to my parent's house and talked more until finally I couldn't keep my eyes open and I fell into bed at 2:45.

Then this morning we laughed at ourselves because we waited until they were standing by the door bags in hand before we started talking about this week's SPN.

Fangirl funtimes are the best. MOAR PLZ.

Mom rented Taking Woodstock for her friend who was having trouble getting it from the library. The library came through before it came from Netflix but mom never canceled it. Or something. Anyway. It came. The three of us watched it tonight. I think Dad liked it. Though it's not always easy to tell. His brother was at Woodstock, and so my dad has a kind of vicarious nostalgia about it, even though said brother tends to use that he was there as evidence that he is cooler than my dad. Mom said a few times that she was pretty sure she wasn't the target audience. She was getting antsy about the crowds, even though she was safely tucked up in her reclining chair. I pretty much loved it. I can definitely see how it's not worth renting for JDM, but it was funny and touching and queer positive, all of which are things I dig in a movie. :D

speaking of queer positive... as reported by missyjack, SPN has been nominated for another GLAAD Award in the category of Outstanding Individual Episode in a series without a regular LGBT character, for The Real Ghostbusters. Source

Went to see A Single Man tonight with the awesome miss_begonia. I totally loved it. I was both looking forward to it and totally hesitant about it, because there is a lot in the book that doesn't really feel like it will translate well to film. I was right in the first instance and utterly wrong in the second, I feel. One of the features I didn't think would work in cinema is how well Isherwood managed to convey a tremendous amount of movement through utter stillness. But that same feeling came through perfectly. Colin Firth was every inch George, and Julianne Moore is absolutely stunning, even when she is a wreck. And Nicholas Hoult. My god. When miss_begonia pointed out that he was the boy in About a Boy, you could have knocked me over with a feather. He... wow. Does not look even REMOTELY the same. I have just done a google image search, and I can vaguely see the evolution, but still. Wow.

If you are a fan at all of Isherwood, of Cinema, of Firth, or Moore, or Hoult, of gay movies, of the 60s, of costumes, of the variety of storytelling, or of gorgeous houses, there is something for you in this film. I wish it had gotten a much wider release, because it really was stunning.

It is one of the most visually stunning movies I have ever seen. Ever. The rest of my thoughts are a little spoilery ( so I'll cut them )

I'm very glad I went, and missyjack and I had a great day. Because she is made of awesome, I now have Richard Castle's book. Heat Wave. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS.

Now I am trying to catch up on some of the TV I missed last week.