tag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:162088potentialitiesmayhap's journalmayhap2015-09-13T23:32:57Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:162088:524724Bridget Jones's Baby2015-09-13T23:30:13Z2015-09-13T23:32:57Zhopefulpublic2<a href="http://variety.com/2015/film/news/patrick-dempsey-bridget-jones-baby-1201589096/">So apparently this is a thing that is happening.</a> I have to say, I already like it better than <i>Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy</i> by virtue of not <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://mayhap.dreamwidth.org/524724.html#cutid1">doing the spoilery thing</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div>.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mayhap&ditemid=524724" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:162088:524240Wednesday reading — bees and boxes2015-09-09T21:14:46Z2015-09-09T21:15:25Zbitchypublic0<b>What I've been reading</b><br /><br />I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22395802-a-slight-trick-of-the-mind">A Slight Trick of the Mind</a>, which is the novel that the Sir Ian McKellen film Mr Holmes was adapted from. I really enjoyed the movie, mostly because of the performance at the center of it, although I also liked the complicated puzzle-box structure of the narrative even when some of the actual story choices made me go, really? Eh, whatever.<br /><br />The book is mostly the same as the movie, except for where it's different, and I have to say, pretty much every change was a big improvement. It could be something I didn't necessarily care for in the movie, even, but the version in the book was definitely worse.<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://mayhap.dreamwidth.org/524240.html#cutid1">Book and film spoilers, also ranting</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15748535-a-red-rose-chain">A Red-Rose Chain</a>, the new October Daye book. It was a fun enough read, but I feel like the series is moving in the direction of Toby fixing all things about the fairy world that make it inhumane, and…not sure if want.<br /><br />I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/905201.Joseph_Cornell">Joseph Cornell: Master of Dreams</a>, which is a good overview of Cornell's life and work with a decent number of illustrations. The author first met him in 1963 when she was writing her master's thesis on his work and then went on to work at the Guggenheim for thirty years, so she has an interesting perspective.<br /><br />I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19019067-hotel-andromeda">Hotel Andromeda</a>, a novel that came up when I was doing a subject search for Cornell. The protagonist is trying to get started with writing a book about Cornell, and I enjoyed the snatches of her book within the book. The main action of the book is pretty much inert, though, with a lot of flat, repetitious dialogue and no ending to speak of, so on the whole I find it hard to recommend. It is very short, though, so you can easily skim all the bits I didn't care for if you wanted to!<br /><br />I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23346719-disclaimer">Disclaimer</a> and regretted it, because it has a hook-y premise (what if you picked up a novel with the standard legal disclaimer and yet it was all about you and a horrible secret that you didn't think anyone else knew?) and just did not deliver in a believable way. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1316790679?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1">This spoilery review</a> on Goodreads covers pretty much everything that annoyed me so I don't have to, but it is essentially composed entirely of Fridge Logic. Nothing at any point makes any sense when you go back and examine it in light of the big reveals.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mayhap&ditemid=524240" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:162088:234006Star Trekking2013-05-21T17:10:56Z2013-05-23T02:45:02Zrestlesspublic0I saw Star Trek this weekend with my dad and let me tell you, I have been dodging spoilers for this movie so long now that it feels wrong just reading those words without my eyes skittering off of them into a safe corner where the spoilers can't get me.<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://mayhap.dreamwidth.org/234006.html#cutid1">Star Trek: Into Spoilers</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mayhap&ditemid=234006" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:162088:231066Shipping all the Gandalf rarepairs2013-01-24T22:28:58Z2013-01-24T22:35:57Zpublic2I have finally seen The Hobbit Episode I <s>The Phantom Dragon</s>, so I am feeling more like a fully-topped-up member of this fandom. (I still have not finished my <i>The Hobbit</i> reread, however. Shhh, don't tell anyone.)<br /><br />I quite liked it! On one hand, it doesn't stand on its own very well and I wouldn't even recommend it to introduce someone to the LOTR movieverse, much less to Tolkien fandom generally. On the other hand, if I had that kind of budget to produce a fanwork and I knew it was going to be my last opportunity to do so, I would indulge all of my whims and fancies, too.<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://mayhap.dreamwidth.org/231066.html#cutid1">Discussion of adaptation choices cut for people who are more behind than I am and who also consider adaptation choices to be a form of spoiler</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />After the movie was over, my mom, who is a strictly movie verse-only fan, asked me why Bilbo had been brought along in the first place. I said that as far as I knew the movie came closer to answering this than the book, that answer being that apparently hobbits are like teddy bears for Gandalf and he feels better when he's carrying one around with him. This actually is almost working for me; but then, I still massively ship Gandalf/Pippin.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mayhap&ditemid=231066" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:162088:226143Dark Shadows rules!2012-05-15T02:52:49Z2012-05-15T03:22:31Znerdypublic0I'm regretting now that I didn't find a cave or something four years ago when I saw Iron Man and devote myself to consuming vast quantities of Avengers-related comics (which would, of course, later be recapitulated in a five-minute training montage). I just want to write all the porn and find myself hampered by a lack of paracanonical knowledge to draw world-building detail from. I mean, seriously, how are you going to set a sex scene on a planetoid if you're not sure how its gravitational pull would affect visiting humans?<br /><br />Speaking of source canon knowledge, we probably would have seen The Avengers again yesterday if it hadn't been for the release of the latest messy and rather self-indulgent Tim Burton/Johnny Depp/Helena Bonham Carter collaboration, Dark Shadows. You see, a while back This American Life reran their <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/74/conventions">Conventions episode</a>, and we learned that my mother had been a youthful aficionado of Barnabas Collins and his gothic doings. In fact, she said, when her family went on vacation in 1967, her friend Carla made copious notes for her so that she would be apprised of everything that had taken place in Collinwood. My brother and I both being huge genre dorks, naturally we thought this was amazing, and when we heard about the movie with Johnny Depp, whom my mother will watch in literally anything although she denies that this constitutes a crush, we knew we were going to be taking her to see it.<br /><br />Even better, before we actually left for the movie, my mom combed through all of her keepsake boxes and actually found a letter from Carla with her recap! I have transcribed it for posterity and your reading pleasure <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://mayhap.dreamwidth.org/226143.html#cutid1">below.</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />The movie itself was not bad, although it relies pretty lazily on fish-out-of-water humor and Johnny Depp's funny reaction faces to everything. To be fair, Johnny Depp does have some very funny reaction faces.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mayhap&ditemid=226143" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:162088:225875The Avengers: playing with ALL the toys2012-05-06T05:52:23Z2012-05-06T05:53:35Zpublic2I will freely admit that the only reason that I got into the whole Avengers thing is my profound and abiding love of the Iron Man movies and Tony Stark. There were things I enjoyed about the Captain America and Thor movies, yes, but they were still basically homework that I had to get through so I could watch the new Iron Man movie (and, like homework, I totally put it off and didn't finish watching Thor until the last possible minute, in the car on Friday afternoon). I flatly refused to have anything to do with any Hulk movies; I asked my brother if he thought there was anything I needed to know from them, and he gave me this pop quiz:<br /><blockquote>Him: What does the Hulk do?<br />Me: Smash?<br />Him: You're good.</blockquote><br />I mention this only to underscore the fact that, post-movie, they are basically <i>all</i> my favorites. <i>Especially</i> the Hulk. Did not see that one coming in a gigantic pair of trousers.<br /><br />I was fortunate enough to get to watch it with the aforementioned brother, late Friday night under the influence of large doses of caffeine, all circumstances which enhanced my enjoyment greatly but also militated against sharing said enjoyment in any coherent manner. Here, therefore, are some <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://mayhap.dreamwidth.org/225875.html#cutid1">belated and not particularly coherent thoughts.</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mayhap&ditemid=225875" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments