it's a magical world

Saw "Tinker Tailor" today. ♥_♥ I'm fond of the book, and the movie does an EXCELLENT job condensing the plot and keeping it moving. ( brief spoilers )

They definitely need to film more of the Smiley series with this cast. I definitely need to read more of the Smiley series first, though.

And because clearly the universe is pleased to give me Benedict Cumberbatch today, Sherlock series 2 clips. I AM SO EXCITE.

...and speaking of Gary Oldman and Tom Hardy, new Dark Knight Rises trailer. My fandoms, they have so many overlaps.

So yesterday, tricksterquinn and I had a bit of a media marathon, consisting of "Eleventh Hour" and "The Beast Below", Stardust, and Across the Universe. GOOD TIMES.

Two things I noticed that I never noticed before:

1. ( minor spoiler for Who 5x02 )

2. newredshoes, THIS IS CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT. Have you rewatched Stardust lately? Because Captain Shakespeare's chief henchman (first mate?) is our very own Johnny Martin. Which meant tricksterquinn and I spent that entire section of the movie going OMG THE JOHNNY MARTIN BITCHFACE. Because it is fully present and EPIC and AMAZING.

And then she let me blab at her for like an hour about my Big Bang plotting problems, and helped me sort some plot points out, which was awesome. Except now I've made the mistake of checking a reference on TV Tropes, and we all know what that means. There goes my morning.

If you have the chance to see The Fall, you really, really should. It's spectacular, sweet and harsh and funny and visually stunning. That guy from Pushing Daisies is in it, and he's smoking hot fantastic, and the little girl is the most natural child actress I think I've ever seen. It's a bit like Pan's Labyrinth, except not soul-crushingly depressing, and with visual imagery reminiscent of Hero. It's got a criminally limited release, so it may be hard to track down, but if it's playing anywhere near you, go for it.

One sad, lonely quote remains unguessed from the movie quote meme I did a few days ago:

3. Glad to meet you, kid, you're a real horse's ass.

Any takers? It's not THAT obscure a movie. It even won the Best Picture Oscar for its year.

Across the Universe DVD FTW. I mean, now I can watch it every day or thereabouts. My love for this movie is perfectly irrational and knows no bounds. The featurettes on the 2nd disk are cute as well, Julie Taymor is a genius, etc.

But the main reason to go right now and get your hands on this DVD? Eddie Izzard's alternate takes of "Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite". MADE. OF. WIN.

Oscar nominations are up. I give it a resounding meh. I haven't seen any of the films up for Best Picture, and the movies I've loved most this year have only gotten a handful of minor nods. I suppose I'll try to motivate myself to see a couple of the big ones -- a couple look vaguely interesting, I guess -- but, really. Meh all around. And I love movies, so this is rather disappointing. I usually at least have one major film to root for. Not so much this year.

kaydee reviews Sweeney Todd in one word: WIN.

Things that are made of win tonight:

1. Snow. Unlike the snow on Saturday, which was sleety and haily and icy and gross, the snow tonight was picture-perfect, and the drive through Evanston after rehearsal was somewhere beyond beautiful. Also, excellent snowball-making snow. :D

2. Rehearsal. I love this show so very very much. And one of the girls in the cast invited us all out to dinner/drinks/ice skating for her birthday on Saturday. Which made our choreographer go OMFG NO DANCERS ICE SKATING NO NO NO, but we'll all probably ignore her anyway. And pay the price later when Dream Laurey breaks her ankle or something. Er.

3. PRINCE CASPIAN TRAILER ZOMG. It's funny, because I just had a long conversation about Narnia with a friend. I don't love the books anymore, because they really aren't all that well-written and the religiosity makes me feel a little ill, but these movies are totally reawakening my inner five-year old in a very good way. Well, I always liked the first couple of books best anyway. Also Caspian is ridiculously attractive.

Gah, I just watched Hotel Rwanda, which I've owned on DVD for a while now but hadn't been able to bring myself to watch because I remember how much it destroyed me when I saw it in theaters. Yup, still just as powerful. I remember being furious at the Oscars that year, because it was ten times better than any of the Best Picture nominees but had only been nominated for acting and screenplay, all of which it lost. But, really, of course it couldn't win any major awards, because it makes you feel ashamed to be American, and that's not going to get any votes. Well, Western in general. Just...how could we have let this happen? We knew what was going on, we knew it was genocide, and yet we just high-tailed all the whites out of the country and let the Africans wipe each other out. It's like Eddie Izzard says -- "they killed their own people, and we're sort of fine with that." And I was all of nine years old when the Rwandan genocide happened, so, really, my guilt is somewhat misplaced there, but christ, it just happens over and over again (y halo thar Darfur) and we just send more and more troops into fucking Iraq to play out our president's personal grudge instead. WHAT THE FUCK.

Sorry, my liberal rage, I generally keep it under wraps, but every now and then something sets it off. Anyway. It's a very good movie.

This movie, seriously, I love it so much. Hence, I seem to have gone overboard on iconage...

( across the universe icons )

ETA: Oh, hell, I'm on a roll. Have some History Boys while we're at it.

( history boys icons )

So since I've only ever owned VHS copies of the original Star Wars trilogy, I figured it was time to remedy the situation and buy the dratted DVDs. They were kind of expensive, so I bought them used through amazon, for a very reasonable price. Trust me to be too stupid to read the fine print. The DVDs are lovely, in excellent condition -- and full screen.

*facepalm*

I'll just have to live with it, I guess. It's still the right movie, just really irritatingly cropped. Why does anyone even make DVDs full screen anymore? Jeez.

STARDUST IS MADE OF WIN.

I hope to provide a more coherent review tomorrow, but for now: MADE OF WIN.