Movies

[Kathy Li]

Thanks, Gibby, I actually knew about Hellblazer, I was just joking around. (Actually, as a sign of how old I am, I can actually remember the creation of the Vertigo line with Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing. The high point of Fiddler's Green for me was meeing Karen Berger.) The main character in the Hellblazer comic book, John Constantine, was drawn to look as much like Sting as possible. He's British. He's seedy, older, worn down by evil. (I mean JC, but in retrospect...)

And they cast him as Keanu Reeves and changed him into an American for the film. Hence my take that the movie really doesn't have that much to do with the comic book. (can you imagine if Spielberg had gotten away with making Harry Potter American and casting him as Haley Joel Osment?) OTOH, the guy who writes the Bags'n'Boards blog for Variety said it holds pretty true to the Hellblazer storyline, so I might still go see it.

[Birdhead]

can you imagine if Spielberg had gotten away with making Harry Potter American and casting him as Haley Joel Osment?

YES I CAN, and now I AM. You are a horrible person. *scratches brain out with spoon*

So I saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the first one of my must-see movies this summer (*eyeroll* Yes, I know it's March now. I can't believe summer is OVER *weeps)

Anyway, it's really good! Some beautiful cinematography, a relaly interesting style; non-existent plot, but it really doesn't matter because for once the setting of the movie totally pulls it off, along with a very fine Angelina Jolie cameo. Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow were, of course, also very good AND added bonus, it had Sir Laurence Olivier in it! That's right! (spoilers) <span class="ev_code_WHITE">The most totally brilliant thing about that was, of course, that they had a guy who's been dead for twenty years playing... a guy who's been dead for twenty years. I thought it was good, anyway.</span>

Also, it had some extremely cool gadgets. Who wouldn't want to have a plane like Sky Captain's? It's like the stuff Bond gets from Q, but with better artistic direction and set in the thirties. So yeah, go see it, y'all.

I suppose it's not showing in American theaters anymore. But still.

[Kathy Li]

Sorry, sorry! Didn't mean to make you scrub your eyeballs, there.

Yes, to everything you said about Sky Captain, except I really didn't like the Olivier-as-proto-Nazi overtones and empty plot/characters. I still say that The Rocketeer was better, if you're going for a Republican-serials/1930s feel adventure movie with cool gadgetry. Or even the old Fleisher Superman cartoons. But I'm weird.

[Lisa]

Birdhead:
Unless she dislikes fantasy in particular

Oh no, she reads it as much as I do, and really likes it too. It's my dad who doesn't like fantasy (grr ), and he's made me paranoid about people taking away my books, so I don't let ANYONE (except my very close "friends") know what I'm reading. We own a LOT of Anne McCaffery books, I just can't read them. I think she didn't want me reading McCaffery in general because I'd eventually find one of her not-so-appropriate books. And she's...okay...with cussing, as long as it's not in the extreme.

[Kathy Li]

I was lucky. My parents never cared what I read, so long as my grades were good, and I was going into engineering.

Shhhh. Keep it under your hat, but....this site has a trailer for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit.

[Peter Murray]

Lisa said:
We own a LOT of Anne McCaffery books, I just can't read them. I think she didn't want me reading McCaffery in general because I'd eventually find one of her not-so-appropriate books.

I don't get it. Why doesn't she just tell you which ones you can read?

I think my parents must have been like Kathy's, not worried about what I read. I know when I was 14, I read a library book which probably wasn't that suitable, set in the Roman Empire. No idea now what its title was, or who wrote it.

I looked at that page, but I don't think I can view .wmv, so I stopped it downloading.

[Cress]

i couldn't ever get into the Anne McCaffrey thing. Don't know why.

[Kathy Li]

So, anybody else excited by Sin City opening next week? I do have to say, that I think a lot of folks have no idea what they're going to be in for. The graphic novel was one of the darkest and most macho noir things I've ever read. But the visuals look amazing. And I'm wondering how the heck you can have a "guest director" (Quentin Tarantino, apparently) in a movie...

[Lisa]

PM
I don't get it. Why doesn't she just tell you which ones you can read?

I think my parents must have been like Kathy's, not worried about what I read. I know when I was 14, I read a library book which probably wasn't that suitable, set in the Roman Empire. No idea now what its title was, or who wrote it.

Heh. I have no clue why she won't let me read any. I guess she's just really overprotective. (Yep...she gave me a lecture because my friends have boyfriends...not me, my friends. Overprotective-ness.)

But I get around that. I just check stuff out from the school library and never bring it home. I also hide things in various locations around my room. ( *looks under/behind bed, behind bookshelf, behind CD rack...) Mostly, though, she's okay with what I read. Heaven knows I have more freedom here than with dad. It's only when she's actually read the book that she complains. She probably knows I can get around her restrictions, so she doesn't want me getting into it. I can, and will, get every book in a good series when I want to. So even if she does tell me what I can/can't read, I'll read it all anyway.

[Cress]

Ouch. My mom generally doesn't care what I read. The only time she told me to stop reading something was when I was reading Kushiel's Avatar cause she said it was trashy bad fantasy. And of course she's never read it, she just looked at the cover and decided it was bad.

[Paige]

Originally posted by Lisa:

(Yep...she gave me a lecture because my friends have boyfriends...not me, my friends. Overprotective-ness.)

Yes I am one of those friend who have a boyfriend and I'm sorry Lisa.

My mom doesnt care what I read I buy a book she asks what I got and I get a "it looks good". My mom actuly gave me a book to read that in the begining has a very 'sexual' part. She goes read it, it's a good book. So quite frankly I can read anything I bring home so yea!

[Lisa]

Steph/Paige
Yes I am one of those friend who have a boyfriend and I'm sorry Lisa.

My mom doesnt care what I read I buy a book she asks what I got and I get a "it looks good". My mom actuly gave me a book to read that in the begining has a very 'sexual' part. She goes read it, it's a good book. So quite frankly I can read anything I bring home so yea!

...Which is why I often keep my books at her house.

She hasn't technically given me the lecture yet. Just mentioned it and told me she wanted to talk to me about it.

And she doesn't really moniter what I read. I'll give her my reading log, (which we have to do for English) and she'll just sign it without saying anything.

...Or, if I forget to have her sign it, she'll let me forge it. My mom's the best.

Seriously, the only thing's she's either a) mentioned or b) banned are the following:
1. Anne McCaffery-banned
2. Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan-banned, twice actually, because I kept reading it after the first time, and she forgot she'd already forbidden it.
3. Orson Scott Card-mentioned. She found one of them behind my bed while looking for my wallet, and asked my brother (I was at the library) if it was appropriate. He said he hadn't read it, but I think he was lying...

Not a very long list. The Wheel of Time series was rather good. At first, I was reading the kiddie versions, but only one had been released, so I continued the series with the normal copies that my brother had. (Funny...he did approve this. In fact, he was the one who bought it for me.) She forbid them while I was reading the second one, but I got up to the fifth or sixth before she banned them again.

[Cress]

I didn't think Wheel of Time was that great. I heard it was like the best in the world, better than LOTR, but it didn't seem that great. I mean, LOTR is SO in depth and detailed, it's almost impossible to compare anything to it.

[Kathy Li]

Oh god. WoT movies. [scrubs eyeballs]

I still haven't seen The Aviator. I guess I'd better do that soon, before it disappears from the theatres. I'm really interested in seeing if Cate Blanchett can do Kate Hepburn.

Has anybody seen Robots? Is it any good?

[alla]

heh.. I tried reading the WoT books and I got bored. The series is too much like a wheel... it just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and I'm sure you get the idea ...

It puzzles me why parents ban certain books. Here so many parents have trouble just getting their kids to read something and then they go and complain when they don't read anything when more often than not the parents have banned the sort of books that the kids want to read... its so silly