Suburb of Heaven

I have seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and loved it. I had a few nitpicks post-movie but while it was happening I was super into it and I'll be going back and at this moment I have nothing but squee in me for it.

Currently reading Mary Beard's SPQR. I'm not that far into it but so far it's really enjoyable.

Speaking of, still have to do my final Italy picture post on Rome, so will try to do that soon. I'm also contemplating putting up a review blog on Tumblr because I've become obsessed with Nesti Dante soap but I'm a bit dubious about Tumblr because I don't know how to format things nicely there. My current usage of Tumblr is 99.5% reblogging other people's shit so I don't have a lot of the finer points down.

I got a hilarious painting of a pony at my office's white elephant. Have to figure out a way to hang it in the office where it can preside over my Funko Hannibal, my assorted collection of skulls and cephalopods, and the Office Squirrel. Sometimes it's nice being in the basement where the public doesn't see us, because we are free to go absolutely nuts in our office.

Doing a little traveling for work. I love tiny airports - this one is bigger than the home airport but still quite small and the TSA agents are friendly and it takes you no time at all to get through security and then to your gate. I'm right on the Mississippi and drove past all the Stately Homes of Old Money with the river views and drooled over a bunch of them. After a stop or two I'll be in Toronto. This is my first trip to Canada, and it's not to Prince Edward Island for an Anne pilgrimage, but I will make those plans for another trip. For now I plan to eat tons of awesome food and do a little shopping and sightseeing but I will not be paying the tons of money to go hang out on the glass floor of the CN tower, because holy crap, yikes. I may not even do the CN tower at all, since I like a good view and all but not enough to pay for it. I would rather buy a ton of gel pens at Muji.

Just finished the first Elena Ferrante book My Brilliant Friend and will start the next in the series on the plane. Really enjoying them.

Also, we saw Big Hero 6 on Saturday night and I loved it. The design of the city was lovely, and even though there wasn't a lot of character development with anybody besides the brothers and Baymax, it was a very sweet and I fell in love with everyone. Also, cried. Yup. I'm an easy mark but I'd have cried even if I had a heart of stone.

Rented Hobbit #2 and watched it last night after the husband went to bed. Pretty much what I expected - some good moments, a big video game sequence or two (the barrel ride made me think I needed a controller in my hand and I play video games approximately once a year these days) and a plot that bore only a passing resemblance to the book. I suppose I can forgive them that, but I don't get how they so sadly did nothing with the epicness that is my shapeshifting giant bear boyfriend Beorn. SRSLY.

I knew Monuments Men wasn't going to be very good, but if there's a designated audience for this movie, I'm probably it, so I knew I'd go see it anyway. (The book is very good, as is Rape of Europa.) It seemed like a movie comprised of a lot of interesting and compelling moments that were not really taken advantage of, all played very very low-key in a way I kind of liked but can see didn't really work. For example, the humor is bone-dry in a very masculine comradely underplayed sense, which made me smile but was probably lost in a movie theater. Each different actor brought something interesting, and I definitely appreciated Cate Blanchette and Matt Damon and their whole relationship, but the plot sort of bobbed along in a really episodic fashion.

I wish this had been a tv miniseries, because you could break off and follow each team of men into their different areas, and the story telling wouldn't have had to be so compressed. Keep the same actors, but let them go deeper into their individual stories. Or, if you're serious about doing something awesome, you just make a movie about Rose Valland, the inspiration for Cate Blanchette's character, because the lady was a badass.

I have been unposty! But I have been doing things! Here is what I've been up to:

- Read The Rook by Daniel O'Malley, which I love love loved, and Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch and I loved it a lot too and just bought the next three books because it's been a while since I was excited by new reading. Oh, also read the newest Harry Dresden book and enjoyed it a lot as a return to form after two books I was really disappointed in. Not to say it was perfect but it made me decide to stick with the series after I was considering bowing out.

- Watched Edge of Tomorrow after all the good word-of-mouth and really enjoyed it. Fun, thrilling, funny, tightly edited, well done, bravo bravo and I don't understand because it apparently didn't do well at the box office? Boo on that, it was great.

- Traveled to Chicago and San Antonio and had a very nice time in both cities while getting some work done there

- Learned the basics of making jam, in a rough-and-ready fashion. Also, brioche.

- Currently entertaining some of the in-laws, on account of a Significant Birthday of my husband (who is not exactly happy about the birthday but it coping with it better than feared)

And that's all I can think of at the moment.

I enjoyed it a bunch, although I don't know that it would rank top three for me. Specifically great were super-suave Robert Redford and the unbelievably charismatic and Anthony Mackie, who needs to be around lots and lots. I liked Black Widow's role very much and was a little surprised that they didn't hit the Bucky-Steve stuff a tiny bit harder. What was there did work well, though.

I'd really like a moody, beautiful Bourne/Hana/In Bruges kind of movie for Natasha guys. It needs to happen.

A quicky review: saw it last night, enjoyed it thoroughly. Little bit disjointed, little bit too exposition-heavy, but not enough to disrupt the amusement. Very funny in parts. Wanted more Frigga and Loki relationship stuff but what's there is very good. Hemsworth continues to be quite loveable - honest and true but not stupid about it, despite what his more conniving brother thinks on the topic. Lots of good Jane and Darcy and Selvig stuff.

Back to trying to figure out my two big holiday fics, because while I have ideas laid out for them, they don't seem to go anywhere.

So in a rather delightful way, this has been a summer of Much Ado About Nothing for me. It was the local amateur Shakespeare troupe's choice, so I saw it in a local park for free - reset to the 1980s, with parody pop songs and a bunch of cheerful actors doing their best outdoors in the humidity.

Then, of course, I got my DVD of the Branagh version and rewatched it. I am a pretty unabashed Branagh-Thompson fangirl, so you can imagine how beloved this movie is by me. There are a couple of tiny hammy bits, but that's ok (I saw someone say the movie was now dated, which I don't quite get, but ok) and in all other things...I just love it all. The banter, the scenery, the vast majority of the acting (I kind of adore Keanu personally, and he's not in the movie enough to slow it down too badly, but if the role had been bigger it would have not been great) and the music are all superb. And Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh just...nnngh. I get weak in the knees.

So I'm a Whedon fan, too, essentially. I came late to his stuff, and backwards - I saw a trailer for Serenity in a theater, thought it looked interesting, and so started out with Firefly and then back to Buffy and Angel, and of course rounded things out later with Dollhouse and Dr. Horrible and The Avengers. Seeing one of my favorite plays done in such an intimate manner - literally in his house with all his friends - I knew I'd at least see it. And since it has been making the film festival rounds, it was nice to get a sense of the film early - that it was good, that it wasn't something where I'd slide down in my seat and feel embarrassed for everybody concerned. And when it finally, this week, came to the local arthouse theater, I knew I'd want to see it at least twice, once on my own and once with my friends in the playreading group I'm a part of. (It's kind of in hiatus now, but this will hopefully kickstart it back into life.)

I saw it on Friday, and came away very happy, in a kind of...well, warm and snuggly fashion. It is very low key, at times perhaps a little bit too much so - I wish Alexis Denisof had been a little bit more, well...what's the word I want? Animated? He's very understated and a little snide through most of the movie, and so some of the crackle that Amy Acker was putting out there got muted when it crashed up against him. Then again, he had a purely delightful bit of slapstick that made me so very happy.

The music is great, and I've been playing the interpretation of "Sigh no more, ladies" a lot.

Amy Acker was just. Mmmph. So good. So solid. And by and large the rest of the cast did great jobs, with Sean Maher's role becoming a little bit more interesting when given a female Conrad to bounce things off of. Nathan Fillion played Dogberry so straightforwardly that I actually got more of the wordplay and watching him run around with his buddy playing CSI: Messina was delicious. Clark Gregg and Reed Diamond were, as expected, lovely, and as somebody who actually liked quite a lot of Dollhouse but who did not watch Cabin in the Woods (don't do horror movies), Fran Kranz was a delight. (Although next time, go ahead and cut the "Ethiope" line. Just...cut it, Whedon.)

It didn't reach quite the emotional pitches that the Branagh version does, where I get teary with how happy I am with everything. But it's a movie that can be described as delightful, not in a patronizing way but in the simple fact that it brings delight. Looking forward to seeing it later in the week with my playreading group.

Casino Royale is one of my favorite movies, so I had high hopes for this much-praised new entry in the Bond canon. By and large, I came away from the movie pretty happy. Firstly, it's gorgeous. A fight scene set in a Shanghai skyscraper was only one of the several genuinely beautiful moments - the movie is full of scenery you want to fall into.

Secondly, I adore M and Judi Dench got a lot of space to flex her muscles.

Thirdly, besides the scenery eye candy, the cast is ridiculously gorgeous throughout. Teeny tiny Q and his cardigans, Bond and his bespoke suits, Naomi Harris in gorgeous dresses...fabulous. Poor Javier Bardem is apparently carving out a niche role for himself - psychopaths with terrible hair.

I don't, however, think it came up to the standard of Casino Royale.

( a few of my issues with the movie )

Anyway, I enjoyed it a whole bunch, but I don't quite agree with some of the rapture I've seen around. But an opportunity to watch Daniel Craig and Judi Dench be awesome will never be passed up by me.

So, The Avengers? Totally lived up to the hype. Whedon, you magnificent bastard. I remain in awe at his deft juggling of so many characters and their personalities. Also, the funny. Saw it in a packed theater, and everybody was captivated (barring a few tiny children running up and down the stairs).

A movie I had been waiting to see, and which is actually my first Woody Allen movie. I was attracted to it for two things: A) lush shots of Paris and B) a storyline that revolved around several of my big interests, Paris in the twenties, time travel, and fluffy adorable-ness. It did not disappoint on any of those grounds. It is just a sparkly bit of fluff, but that's just fine. I liked that the time-travel setup wasn't overworked or explained, it just happened. And of course, I was really excited to meet so many people I enjoy reading and reading about, even if it's mostly a lightning quick moment with them. A few quibbles. I think I get why Owen Wilson was chosen for the lead - he's so aggressively American (Californian) that he contrasts well to everyone in the past. But lord have mercy, listening to his nasal voice and drawl throughout the movie camethisclose to spoiling it for me because I found it so unpleasant. I wonder if they asked him to play up his usual manner of speaking for the movie? Also, his present-day girlfriend and her family were so unpleasant that it got me thinking about why they had ever gotten together in the first place. I could handwave most of that, though. Finally, what it made me realize is that I actually want a movie focused in on Hemingway and Fitzgerald and the rest of that crowd, the Murphys and Zelda and Picasso and the whole rowdy crew. Here, the past is mostly standing in for a lot of stuff (the point of the movie, really) but just like I wanted Julie and Julia to stay with Julia Child for the whole shebang, I wanted to stay in the twenties (and hell, a separate movie in the Belle Epoch would be fine with me too) and dig further into those people as main characters.