kelliem: XMFC - Eric & Charles (XMFC)
( Jul. 6th, 2011 10:57 am)
Still here- still boring. :)

Saw X-Men: First Class and Thor last weekend. Enjoyed XMFC way more than Thor, though Thor was still worth seeing. I loved Chris Hemsworth's Thor- he actually has great comic timing and it would be fun to see him in a romantic comedy. Where I had issues were the portrayal of Odin as a loving touchy-feely dad (SO not how Odin is shown in mythology), and in the convoluted confusing mess that they made of Loki's characterization and motivations. (And minorly, I will probably never be able to see Jaimie Alexander as anyone but Jessi from Kyle XY so her Sif didn't really work for me.) Heimdall really rocked, though.

XMFC was a delight. Despite some quibbles with the "divorce" and some continuity issues between the first X-Men films and this one, over all the movie just held together better for me and was far more enjoyable. And with McAvoy, Fassbender and Vaughn all apparently agreed on a homoerotic reading of Charles/Eric, my slasher's sensibilities were definitely pleased. Not to mention that as someone who lived through the 1960's (yes, I'm ANCIENT!) it was fun to see where they got it right in set and costume design (especially loved the oscilloscope as part of Cerebro! Every '60s sci-fi device worth its parts needed an oscilloscope!) and also the attitudes toward women. It's actually got me reading fanfic again for the first time in ages.

That said, I've found several new items for my semi-annual spelling and homophone rant! I have seen a lot of 'alot'* and 'alright' is not all right. Here are some of the new goodies:

Bare/Bear - You bare your soul, (or possibly your body). You bear a weight or a burden (or you see a bear in the park!) You can have bare skin, or a bear-skin. ;D

Feat/Feet - A feat is a noteworthy or extraordinary act or achievement, usually displaying boldness, skill, etc. Feet are those things at the bottom of legs which come into contact with the ground. Oh, and also a unit of measure.

Rein/Reign - Reins are the things by which a rider controls a horse. To Reign is to rule over. You don't reign in your passions, you rein them in. Oh, and it goes without saying (I hope) that rain is water that falls from the sky.

Wail/Wale/Whale -
*Wail: to utter a prolonged, inarticulate, mournful cry.
*Wale: 1.a streak, stripe, or ridge produced on the skin by the stroke of a rod or whip; welt. 2.the vertical rib in knit goods or a chain of loops running lengthwise in knit fabric 3. the texture or weave of a fabric.
*Whale: any of the larger marine mammals of the order Cetacea.

Whoa is not spelled woah unless you're deliberately using netspeak. (Courtesy of [personal profile] shayheyred)

I'll have to try to remember the other ones and update my list. :D

One other mild slash fanfic-related grumble-- can I just say how TIRED I am of the one-finger-two-fingers-three-fingers-cock thing? Seriously. It does not have to be done that way every single time!!

*And if, like me, alot bugs you a lot, check out this link which was just pointed out to me in a comment by [personal profile] melodyunity.
kelliem: old-skool TV (tv)
( May. 21st, 2009 01:21 pm)
I am irrationally stoked about the news that a UFO remake might be coming to the big screen. I loved that show in all its cheesy glory. I bought it on DVD last year and rewatched the whole thing, and was surprised how much better the storylines were than I remembered, though the costumes were just as whack as I recalled. (If you want to see pix of a few of them in all their eye-searing glory go here.)
kelliem: Star Fleet insignia (trek)
( May. 10th, 2009 03:51 pm)
I couldn't stand waiting, so I caved and went to see the new Trek movie. And like everyone else I've read who's seen it, I loved it. And that's speaking as someone who watched the original series in its original run, and even wrote a letter for the original "Save Star Trek" letter writing campaign. Spock was my second crush (Illya my first) and Trek has been an integral part of my fannish life for decades. I think Abrams et al. hit this ball out of the park. I really only have one and a half quibbles with the movie at all. (Yes, quibbles, not tribbles!) spoilery quibbles after the cut )

Aside from that, I thought it rocked and I can't wait to see it again, maybe in IMAX if it's still playing in that format next weekend. Kham loved it too. I'd read some predictions that only Trek fans would go see it, but the sold-out 5pm Friday showing we attended had people of all ages and definitely not all of them were Trekkies/Trekkers of any variety.
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kelliem: icy lakefront sunrise (Default)
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No!

( Aug. 13th, 2008 09:43 am)
This is Bad and Wrong. There is no need for a remake of Rocky Horror. None whatsoever. In fact, there is ANTI-need for it. If you agree with me, go sign the petition:
You see the headline: Iran tests 'new anti-ship weapon' and wonder what they've got against character pairings.

In other news, we went to see The Dark Knight this weekend. opinion behind the cut )
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kelliem: icy lakefront sunrise (paul gross)
( Jun. 17th, 2008 02:21 pm)
Paul Gross' Passchendaele is going to open the Tronto International Film Festival this year! Too cool! If only I lived near Canada...

gakked from [livejournal.com profile] aukestrel
kelliem: Astroboy (astroboy)
( May. 5th, 2008 09:23 am)
(I haven't got an Iron Man icon so I'll have to make do with AstroBoy, who shares certain... characteristics.)

Iron Man totally rocks. Also? My longstanding minor crush on Robert Downey, Jr. has been reaffirmed in spades. That man can act. He was the perfect choice for the role, giving it unexpected depth.

There were no really young kids at my showing-- 1:30pm on Sunday. There were a few in the 9-13 range but nothing younger-- unusual for a "comic book movie" but, you know, it really is aimed at grownups, not kids. Definitely at fans, too, though they were careful to make sure the move was 'readable' by both comic geeks who are already familiar with the whole Iron Man ouvre, and the casual fan, like me, who is peripherally aware of the character but knows little detail. Since this is the first film from the new Marvel Studios, it seems clear that they're not weakening the film by pulling it in a dozen different directions to try and please every potential audience. They they know their audience and go for it whole-hog. That showed very strongly in the casting of Robert Downey, Jr., who is far more mature than the usual superhero movie casting choice of a barely-out-of-his-teens boy.

I was really impressed by the casting all around, spoilers behind the cut )
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kelliem: icy lakefront sunrise (unsettled)
( Oct. 2nd, 2007 08:15 am)
Susan Cooper speaks out (a little) on the new movie "based" (and I use that word reluctantly) on her book, "The Dark is Rising." The link goes to an NPR article which includes a link to Ms. Cooper reading an excerpt from the book.

From the article: "You do have to do violence to a book to make it into a screenplay — the two mediums are so different," Cooper says. "But the alteration is so enormous in this case. It is just different."

I'm definitely going to avoid this movie like the plague. The audio version of the article noted that Walden Media has recently removed "The Dark Is Rising" from the title, and are just calling it "The Seeker" now. Gee, I wonder why?
I never would've believed that a movie based on toys could be so much fun. :)
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I took the last week off work-- had to use up some vacation before the end of the fiscal year or I'd lose it. I had originally planned to clean out the garage but it was just too hot, even though it hasn't been as hot as the weather-folks predicted, thank whatever deity rules the summer weather. I think I'll have to save that job for a cooler time of year. So instead I've mostly spent the week reading and relaxing and watching a lot of true crime shows like Forensic Files and Cold Case Files and stuff like that. (I have this bizarre and morbid fear of finding a dead body so I think I tend to watch a lot of forensic shows in an effort to make that idea less scary.)

Yesterday I spent pretty much the whole day sewing. I made a vest out of some imported Japanese cotton in a pale seafoam blue-green with a brown abstract/floral print. It came out really well, and matches my seafoam colored linen pants so well it's hard to believe they weren't from the same dye lot. I used this pattern (view A, the one with the center closing) and changed the collar so it folds back like a wing collar rather than a band. Next time I'll probably take a bit out of the side panels as it's a little baggy but other than that I was very pleased. And I have to say I'm really thrilled that the pattern companies are finally making some decent, interesting Plus-sized patterns.

All week Riku (see icon) has tried to get me up at 7:30am. If I sleep past then he thinks something's wrong, I guess, so he plays alarm clock. This morning I'd been up very late reading and was cranky so I shooed him out, closed my door and went back to sleep for another hour and a half. Then I got up and made a batch of raspberry-blueberry scones. Then I hung out reading for a while, and supervised the kid-unit's installation of a fly-style zipper in a pair of pants. Then we decided to go see Live Free or Die Hard. thumbs up! )
Probable spoilers below (I never know what someone else is gonna consider a spoiler so better safe than sorry.)

Dr. Who 'Utopia' )

The 4400 season premiere )

The Dead Zone season premiere )

The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer )

I forgot to record this week's "The Next Food Network Star" (it aired opposite The 4400) but fortunately they re-run it 80 times during the week so I won't have much trouble catching up with it. (Yeah, Top Chef is much better than TNFNS but I still want to watch it.)

Oh, and Kyle XY's season premiere was last Monday )
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kelliem: icy lakefront sunrise (darkness)
( Feb. 20th, 2007 01:29 pm)
I don't know whether to be elated or terrified at finding out today that they are making one of my all-time favorite fictional worlds, Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series into movies. O.o

I was all set to be elated, when I read this article which leaves me more in the terrified camp. I can't see how anyone could put a "Biblical" spin on that series without totally ruining it. Walden Media did pretty well by The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, but the Christian allegory in those books was there to start with, it didn't need to be tacked on.

That said, there's at least one bit of casting that I love. Check the IMDB entry and I'll bet you know who I'm talking about. :)

ETA After reading a bunch of posts on [livejournal.com profile] thedarkisrising I think I'm definitely in the terrified camp, despite the casting. ::whimper::
kelliem: icy lakefront sunrise (Default)
( Dec. 11th, 2006 11:03 am)
I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. Gah. Kidunit and I cleaned house. And we... have a LOT of stuff. Much of which is crap and should probably be gotten rid of, but that's kind of intimidating to think about. Anyway, that meant that most of this weekend was spent sorting, cleaning, pitching, and going out to buy some new storage bins and shelves for stuff in order to accomplish said task. We've been to Target four times, Bed Bath & Beyond three times, and Wal-Mart twice (once to buy shelves, once to return one broken set and get an unbroken one. No, we didn't break it! ;D) We have bags and bags of trash, and the house is still a mess but at least we have potential places for some of the stuff now, we just need to get it shifted around. And I'm tired and sore and my back hurts like crazy. And I think I am fighting off a cold. Ugh.

In between all that, we managed (mostly because I demanded it) to go see Casino Royale. spoilery reactions behind the cut )
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kelliem: aurora borealis (skylight)
( Nov. 27th, 2006 09:36 am)
Kidunit and I went to see The Fountain last weekend. I had read a couple of reviews that indicated it was an incomprehensible mess, but we thought it actually made sense. Mostly. Still unclear on the whole 'bubble-ship' thing. Maybe you have to be coming from a SciFi mindset to grok the movie in general. Anyway, it was visually stunning, and we enjoyed it, even though it was weirder than owl doo-doo. The only way I can think to describe it is that it's what you'd get if you crossed Love Story with 2001: A Space Odyssey and sprinkled it liberally with historical romance and some yoga.

Hugh Jackman must be a workaholic, I think, considering how many of this year's movies he's in. And quite unfairly he looks good both with and without hair. :D

The four-day weekend went by much too quickly, but it was sure nice while it lasted. We were too broke to take advantage of any of the big sales, so instead we just relaxed, decompressed, and ate a lot of turkey. :)
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kelliem: blue stairs (possibilities)
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Wow

( Sep. 12th, 2006 08:28 am)
I just read that Peter Jackson (yes, that Peter Jackson) has optioned [livejournal.com profile] naominovik's Temeraire series.

Now, we all know that an option does not a movie make, but still how cool is that?

Congratulations, Naomi.
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kelliem: blue stairs (possibilities)
( Sep. 6th, 2006 12:36 pm)
Saw an ad for Flyboys last night. First I'd heard of it. OMG! Biplanes! WWI Flying Aces! Jean Reno! Tyler Labine, of my late, lamented Invasion. And it's a war movie mostly starring a bunch of pretty boys, so the slash potential is there-- who knows what those boys get up to without many girls around? ;-D

(Only a few of you know this, but I have a long-languishing WIP, a due South AU where Ray and Fraser have come back to Canada after meeting Over There during WWI, where they were both biplane pilots. I did quite a bit of research on it, and am really excited to see this coming out.)
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kelliem: Kitty hi (hi)
( Jun. 28th, 2006 06:00 pm)
With [livejournal.com profile] theamusedone visiting last Thursday and then [livejournal.com profile] bluster coming up immediately after that, I've been offline for nearly a week. I gave up trying to catch up with my flist (it's at about skip=325 so if I missed something important, I apologize. :)

Friday [livejournal.com profile] bluster came to visit and she just went home today. We had a great time relaxing, yakking, watching lots of gritty British cop dramas (Touching Evil, and Wire in the Blood), and cheesy old American TV westerns (The Wild Wild West), and a little Stargate Atlantis on top of all that. [livejournal.com profile] ardent_muses came up for a while both Saturday and Sunday and hung out with us, it was wonderful fun. We got pedicures ([livejournal.com profile] bluster lost her pedicure cherry!) and The Cheese Importer was visited, of course, and we had several delicious meals out and I cooked a slapdash coq au vin using some frozen boneless chicken breasts and a lovely cabernet sauvignon [livejournal.com profile] bluster had brought with her. Note to self: you need to remember to caramelize the onions beforehand next time, so the reduction is brown rather than pinkish.

Last night, on the spur of the moment, [livejournal.com profile] bluster, kidunit and I went to see the late showing of Superman Returns, which we all thought was great. Bryan Singer has an amazing knack for giving big mindless action flicks a heart. We thought Brendan Routh was an appealingly vulnerable Superman and Kate Bosworth was a stronger Lois Lane than usual. Kevin Spacey was a surprisingly understated Lex Luthor-- usually filmic Lexes chew the scenery more (which is not to say there was NO scenery chewing). Maybe he took a cue from Michael Rosenbaum's Lex on Smallville (where he is the best thing about the show). Frank Langella made an excellent Perry White, and it was nice to see James Marsden's eyes for once. He's a better actor when you can see them, they're very expressive. (I wonder if his Superman role was why his Cyclops role in X3 was so small?) We were surprised that they used much of the original score from the 1978 Superman. The only thing we didn't like was that we thought they got a little carried away with the opening credits. We got kind of bored waiting for the actual movie to start and wondered why they hadn't moved most of them to the end credits.

One thing that struck me as stylistically odd very minor spoiler behind the cut: )

Finally, just for fun I took the "What type of MAN turns you on Test". While I actually kind of agree with the results, I can't really agree with the representative of the type they chose, since Jude Law does exactly nothing for me. But hey, can't have everything, right? Full results after the cut )
kelliem: Geoffrey Tennant - Art (art)
( Nov. 8th, 2005 03:48 pm)
Looks like Paul Gross finally has a go-ahead on his Passchendaele film!

Paul Gross to star in new WWI film

CALGARY (CP) - Canada's military role in the little known battle of Passchendaele during the First World War will be the subject of a $20 million feature film starring actor Paul Gross. The film will be released in Canadian theatres on Nov. 11, 2006 - Remembrance Day.

more behind the cut )
kelliem: icy lakefront sunrise (Hiiiiyah!)
( Sep. 2nd, 2005 08:00 pm)
So in a rather vain attempt to take my mind of world events, I watched Pterodactyl tonight. And [livejournal.com profile] sithdragn was pretty much right. "Greatest amount of crap crammed into two hours EVA." Despite having about 15 minutes of David Nykl in it as a hard-bitten Special Forces sergeant. A very short hard-bitten Special Forces Sergeant. :-) I have to say I like him better with glasses.

Okay, maybe it wasn't the worst movie ever, I still think that award goes to either Purple Toast or Now and Forever. (Yes, I will watch utter crap just to see my favorite actors, why do you ask? Fortunately I can forgive my favorite actors for making the occasional crap movie so they can pay the rent.)

And it did have two redeeming features. 1) Angie bought it. (Sorry if anyone feels hideously spoilered) 2) Check out the list of character names:

Actor .... Character
Coolio.... Captain Bergin
Cameron Daddo.... Professor Lovecraft
Amy Sloan.... Kate Heinlein
George Calil .... Serling
Ivo Cutzarida .... Yolen
Mircea Monroe .... Angie
Jessica Ferrarone .... Zelazny
David Nykl .... Russell
Steve Braun .... Willis
Petr Jákl .... Tezo
Dusan Fager .... Burroughs
Todd Kramer .... Clark
Danna Lee .... Gwen Kemper

Now, I don't know where Kemper, Tezo, Russell, Bergin or Angie came from, but I certainly know where Lovecraft, Heinlein, (eta: Serling, Yolen,) Zelazny, Willis, Burroughs and Clark came from. ;-D Hee!

(PS: Did anyone else think that Zelazny looked like Sandra Bullock and the dorky kid with the glasses looked like Rick Moranis?)
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kelliem: icy lakefront sunrise (tree of life)
( Nov. 22nd, 2004 08:19 am)
Had a very Luddite weekend. For some reason I just couldn't bring myself to get near a computer. So instead I had a lovely lunch (souvlaki, dolmades, feta, tomatoes, cucumbers and olives) with friends on Saturday at a little Greek greasy-spoon (I expect us all to become lesbians any time now...) down near East High in Denver, and afterward we went to the Omonia Greek bakery next door and had the best coffee I have tasted in ages and ate delicious pastries until the cluster of older Greek men in the corner smoking horrible-smelling cigarettes drove us out. :-) Drove home in a minor snowstorm and stopped at Linda's to borrow a stack of MFU zines I hadn't read and spent the rest of the weekend reading them.

Then on Sunday the daughter and I went out to breakfast and then to see Finding Neverland, which was absolutely wonderful, but warning , take a box of tissues. At one point there was a woman in the audience who was literlly sobbing out loud for a good five or ten minutes, and I'm not ashamed to admit I was crying (though more quietly). Johnny Depp continues to amaze me. Unlike so many of our current crop of 'stars' he does not stand in front of a camera and be himself with a different name, he actually acts. He completely submerges himself in the character until you don't see Johnny Depp any more, you see J.M Barrie, or Jack Sparrow, or Gilbert Grape. Freddie Highmore, the little boy playing Peter Llewllen-Davies is really amazing. It's no wonder that Johnny Depp lobbied to have him cast as Charlie in the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie with him. Also, if you've seen Pirates of the Caribbean you will also recognize a couple of familiar faces in the cast. :-)

All in all a relaxing weekend, and hey, it's a short work-week so I'm happy about that, too.
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I have that song running through my head so I thought I would share.

Why yes, I am evil. Why do you ask?

Went to see the movie today with the daughter-unit, and thought they did a great job. Yes, it's a comic book movie but it's a GOOD comic book movie. I actually thought it was better than the first one, which I also liked so I'm not damning with faint praise. Well worth the cost of admission.

spoilers )
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kelliem: aurora borealis (skylight)
( May. 29th, 2004 05:39 pm)
[livejournal.com profile] khamryn (The daughter unit) and I went to see The Day After Tomorrow today (which sounds odd), and actually we both enjoyed it. It was exactly what we expected (and after she lived in LA for several months she confirmed that people there really WOULD act that stupid in a tornado...) and the SFX are great. We both like disaster movies, so sue us. (Though we did go through the whole movie thinking Sam was Tobey Maguire, only to find it was Jake Gyllenhall-- man they look alike!) But what disappointed me enough to leave me feeling vaguely depressed despite enjoying the feature, was seeing the trailer for I, Robot. Read more... )
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kelliem: aurora borealis (skylight)
( May. 14th, 2004 10:25 pm)
On the spur of the moment, my daughter and I went to see Troy tonight. In brief: it was better than I expected, but not fantastic. I did enjoy it a lot more than I did VanHelsing though. More behind the cut tag.
Read more... )
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kelliem: aurora borealis (skylight)
( May. 8th, 2004 08:34 pm)
Went to see Van Helsing with the kid and housemate today. Not the worst movie ever made, but I sure hope no one is expecting it to be a serious horror flick, because the only serious it is, is seriously campy. And the cheese factor is quite high. If this movie was food we'd be talking about cheese enchiladas with melted cheese on top.

Of course, I probably would have been able to take it more seriously if I hadn't thought that the guy who played Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) was a dead ringer for Rob Morrow (Dr. Joel from Northern Exposure). It was also a bit of a shock to realize that Carl (Van Helsing's answer to James Bond's 'Q' and also the comic relief) was played by none other than David Wenham. That's right. Faramir, from the LotR movies. He does very well with comedy. Kate Beckinsale was decent, though I kept thinking it must be uncomfortable to run around for an entire movie with your breasts winched up most of the way to your chin.

Anyway, if you go expecting a funhouse ride you won't be disappointed, otherwise...
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