down is the enemy's gate

I missed this completely: they're actually making a movie of Ender's Game.

Looks like an interesting cast. I can't blame them for aging all the kids up -- hard to film such a brutal movie with a cast of six-year-olds. I really like that they've genderbent Sgt. Anderson -- the novel is SO FUCKING MALE (with the notable exceptions of Petra, queen of my heart, and Valentine). And casting Ben Kingsley as Mazer Rackham is fucking perfect. Harrison Ford works for me as Graff. The kids all look good so far -- I'm glad they maintained the ethnic mix of the book. And it's coming out next fall? Cool beans.

I have a complicated relationship with the books these days -- I LOVED Ender's Game when I was in high school, though the rest of Ender's arc didn't really grab me, and I quite liked the spinoff series about Bean (as a teenager/college student, the geopolitical scene back on Earth was vastly more interesting to me than Ender's philosophic alien worlds; I haven't reread them in years, though, and the later Ender books might appeal more to me now). And, of course, now that I know more about Orson Scott Card's appalling social views, it's hard for me to separate author from work -- you can definitely see the influence of his personal beliefs seeded throughout the novels, particularly the later ones. But Ender's Game is still a cracking good story, one of the formative texts of my teen years, and I'll be interested to see how the film handles it. And if it's a shitshow, I've got enough distance from the books now that it won't bother me so much.

ugh boys

So I'm doing a Band of Brothers rewatch, because apparently when I'm in tech old fandoms are my comfort food or something (seriously, between this and my EPIC LotR(ips) rewatch over my break, it is Old Fandoms Home Month here chez kaydeefalls), and apart from my continued epic love for my Winters/Nixon OTP Of My Heart, I continue to get completely derailed whenever I hit "Replacements" because OMG BABY!MCAVOY.

I mean, it's not like this surprises me, since that was my reaction the very first time I watched BoB a few years ago, back when I only mildly fangirled James McAvoy due to Atonement and Last King of Scotland and Wanted (...okay, I did fangirl him a fair bit already), but given XMFC, it is SERIOUSLY DISTRACTING. LOOK AT HIS ICKLE FACE. HIS FRECKLES OMG. I do not want to watch his face get blown up!

Fassbender is only mildly distracting, because he's never been my favorite (sorry, legion of Fassy fangirls, more for you) -- I only really like him as Erik. Although it has been fun playing Where's Waldo Christensen in the big group shots, now that he's actually a recognizable actor to me. And I'm fondly anticipating naked!Tom Hardy's arrival in later episodes, although again, suddenly I really don't want to watch Janovec get his skinny arse killed because NOOOO EAMES.

Fortunately, "Replacements" is also The Episode of Epic Winters/Nixon Subtext when Nix takes a bullet through the helmet -- oh, who am I kidding, every episode is The Episode of Epic Winters/Nixon Subtext. OH BOYS.

(Also, I love that I've rewatched the whole thing often enough by now that I do recognize and love every single character. For some reason I'm currently having Garcia ~feeeeelings~, for example. I don't even know.)