daasgrrl

My Friend Totoro

Finally saw this on DVD, and all I really have to say is that it was charming. Two young girls move to the countryside with their father to be nearer the hospital where their sick mother currently resides. They quickly get to know their human neighbours... and their more magical ones, like Totoro. Miyazaki portrays children so accurately, it's uncanny. It did not have the same personal appeal to me as Spirited Away, The Wind Rises, or Ponyo, but it was still gorgeous in every way :D

White House Down

Saw this on DVD, mainly for James Woods, who I still like despite his political affiliations. Police officer John Cale (Channing Tatum - oh, so that's who Channing Tatum is) applies for a security position at the White House, but is refused on character grounds. He's brought his young daughter along for some convoluted reason and can't bear to disappoint her so tells her that he won't know the outcome for a little bit. Before they can leave, terrorists storm the White House and take hostages, including his daughter. It's up to Cale to Rescue The President (Jamie Foxx) and Save His Family. Can He Do It? Yeah, no prizes. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the movie (I was exercising), but it hit all the right notes, and had a satisfying resolution that was one notch above where it needed to be, which was nice. And as always I did enjoy James Woods (playing Walker, the head of the Secret Service), doing all the menacingly stern things he does best.

The Girl on the Train

I actually saw this a few days before Doctor Strange, but didn't feel it was fannish enough to justify a post on its own *g*. Read the book a little while ago, and enjoyed it for what it was, but I probably wouldn't have seen this except that I got a free pass for it. (I ordered a book of discount tickets a little while ago, which they decided not to bother sending me, and I had to chase them up. Then I received the pass in the mail a couple of days after I finally got the tickets, which was a nice gesture.)

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This forms the basis for what is basically a mystery combined with character studies of three women - Rachel, Anna, Megan - which I found unusual and very engaging, although perhaps it's just that I don't watch much in the genre (whatever it is). I felt very strongly that it was a "feminine" murder mystery, in the sense that it centered around character as much as plot, and also took a strong feminine perspective in the subjects and themes it was concerned with. But it wasn't what I'd call a "chick flick", either; it was a regular mystery with a different emphasis, where the resolution is every bit as much concerned with character development and the women's stories as "what happened". Which was an excellent combination, for me.

All the performances were solid, but Emily Blunt (Rachel) in particular was amazing as a woman slowly drowning in a bottle and trying desperately to drag herself out again. There was also surprise!Lisa Kudrow in it, which made me happy - as much as for her character as for the actress - and the glorious Alison Janney (CJ from The West Wing) as a suspicious cop. It's not something I would particularly want to watch again, but I do recommend it.

***

I didn't realise America always votes on a Tuesday (and only because I saw John Oliver's video on the subject *g*). Wow, it sounds like an enormous PITA for those who work regular hours, on top of everything else. Good luck, guys :)

Wow, long time no update - still around, though, and reading lj. In the absence of studying, I seem to have taken up reading books again, which is nice :)

Theatre

Saw Liza's Back! (is Broken), which was a Minnelli tribute show by Trevor Ashley, star of the comedic revues Fat Swan and Little Orphan Tr(Ashley) (quickly renamed after the original title did not go down well). He's a good performer, and the other shows were great fun, but I was wondering whether a rather good Minnelli impersonation was enough to keep me entertained for almost two hours. The answer was no. There was a sizable band - maybe ten people or so - who added class and energy to the show, but this suffered from being a solo performance rather than an ensemble one, and didn't really have a story to speak of, just Ashley-as-Liza telling anecdotes from her past, and singing show tunes.

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Also saw the NT Live screening of Richard III with Ralph Fiennes (woo!) - I was so thrilled to at least get to see a filmed version of this. It was good, but not amazing - his performance in Man and Superman blew me away, but this was just another Shakespeare production, really. It may be that I have no great love for this play, or for the histories in general - the first time I saw it was actually the Cumberbatch version, so that's literally all I have to compare it to. The play itself has a handful of great moments, but it's one of those ones I still don't get all the fuss over. Anyway, Richard the III plots to become King of England, kills a few people, and succeeds. I do hope that wasn't a spoiler.

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Movies

Don't Breathe - weirdly enough, I saw this with my mum, who likes thrillers, but had no one to go with, so I thought it'd be fun. Within about thirty seconds of the movie starting I suddenly remembered why I don't usually see this kind of thing, and ended up shutting my eyes a lot of the time and watching a great deal of the rest of it from behind my fingers. My mum was perfectly fine, by the way.

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Books

Presto! (Penn Jilette) - I bought this one through iTunes - couldn't find it at the library, and I didn't think it was one I needed a physical copy of. I'm a big fan of Penn and Teller, but I don't quite know whether I like Jilette or not - he's kind of an asshole, but an entertaining asshole? I don't know. I do totally relate to the jumpy, slightly defensive way he talks/writes, though, like he knows you're judging him, and he wants you to know he knows - I feel like that when I write opinion posts *g*. Anyway, the book is about his massive 100-pound weight loss and How He Did It. ( spoiler ) There, I just saved you from buying the book. What was more interesting to me is probably the glimpses into his life - his family, his relationship with Teller, his work, his opinions. He is a great storyteller, despite the massive amounts of name-dropping, and I enjoyed reading it. Once.

The Lady in the Van (Alan Bennett) - This was recently made into a movie (which I've not yet seen), and it was seeing the trailer that made me want to read it. As its name implies, it's the (true) story of the elderly lady who lived in a van that ended up permanently parked in Bennett's driveway. I would class this book as an extended character study - a portrait of her habits, her appearance, her relationship with Bennett, the neighbourhood, and the world. I don't think it really goes much deeper than that, but it's enough to be fascinating. I did really enjoy Bennett's eye for detail, and that he mostly keeps himself and his parallel middle-class life out of it - she is very much the focus of the memoir, and so she should be. In some ways she lived in terrible conditions, but on the other hand she fiercely maintained her independence and her dignity by doing so - I'd class it as melancholy rather than sad. A very short, easy read - more novella than novel.

Sugarbabe (Holly Hill) - an Australian memoir of a woman's time as a "sugarbabe". Having just broken up with a wealthy (married) boyfriend, and needing money to pay her rent and write her book, Hill (not her real name, although it's out there now) advertised online for a sugar daddy arrangement. This book is an account of the replies she got, the people she met, and how well the arrangements did - or didn't - work out. While the book is "fictionalised" - names changed, elements compressed or altered, it's a thoroughly entertaining read anyway. She does sound like tremendous fun to be around, and is very frank about sex and money. (I believe she went onto a career in erotic fiction, and as a connoisseur of porny fanfic, she at least passes muster *g*). I really enjoyed the Sydney setting of this book - I'm so used to reading as an outsider that it's nice to be intimately familiar (haha) with all the places she describes and get that thrill of recognition. Good fun, although something I think very few people would be able to pull off (...and suddenly everything turns into sexual innuendo). An interesting footnote is that this is the book she ended up writing rather than the book she became a sugarbabe to write *g*

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Natasha Pulley) - I read this due to a rec from flywoman, and it was absolutely worth it. I don't think my summary could do the book justice, so I'll settle for the official one.

London, 1883: Thaniel Steepleton returns to his tiny flat to find a mysterious gold pocket watch on his pillow. When the watch saves his life from a bomb blast that destroys Scotland Yard, Thaniel goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori - a kind, lonely immigrant who sweeps him into a new world of clockwork and music. Although Mori seems harmless at first, a chain of unexpected slips proves that he must be hiding something. Meanwhile, Grace Carrow is sneaking into an Oxford library dressed as a man. A theoretical physicist, she is desperate to prove the existence of the luminiferous ether before her mother can force her to marry. As the lives of these three characters become entwined, events spiral out of control.

What is not to love? There is some serious genre-bending here - it's Victorian magical realism (steampunk) that has a mystery at its heart (who set the bomb?) and also touches on history, science, feminism, travelogue, and romance. And to digress slightly... you know, over the years I've seen the expression "just like fanfic" as a bit of a double-edged sword. It's often used disparagingly, especially in reference to canon, but I think it can have positive connotations, too. To me one of the greatest things about fanfiction is that many of the usual rules of "literature" are up for grabs, leading to some amazingly inventive work. So I'm just going to say that I would bet that the author has read (and/or written) fanfiction in her time, and while this book is firmly "literary", in the sense of meeting all traditional established criteria for a novel, for me it also replicated a lot of the imaginative and emotional feel of first-class fanfic. And I mean that in its most positive sense. Highly recommended.

The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins) - another read prompted by a movie trailer. I suppose I tend to reason that if someone wanted to make it into a movie, it's probably at least a half-decent read *g*. The biggest initial surprise was that it's set in the area around London, because I was sure the trailer I saw was set in the US - and sure enough, it is. They changed it for the purposes of the movie. So the UK setting was a plus for me. A woman catches the train into London every day, past the house in which she used to live with her ex-husband, and makes up stories about the people and things she sees on the way. She's an alcoholic, and prone to blackouts and lost memories. So when a woman in her old neighbourhood goes missing, a woman she's only seen from the train window, she thinks she might know something about her disappearance, but she can't quite remember what it might be.

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Received this in my inbox today - if you're a vidder and haven't already seen it, you might be interested in participating as well :)

Originally posted by kimberlyfdr at It's Our Content Now - Fan Vidding Research Survey Now Open

esteven contacted me and asked for more information about the Philip Quast night, so I thought I'd do a proper write up for them and anyone else who might be interested :D

( Philip Quast: In Conversation )

For the rest of you, here's Philip having a bath on Play School, and Javert looking unimpressed.

    

I'm finally done for the semester (and hopefully, the degree) but am feeling wrung out. Have been sick for literally a month which hasn't helped. I don't know what's going on there - I think it was possibly the flu followed by three or four successive colds, so nothing serious, but always just a little under par with some spectacular coughing fits. Not in the writing mood at all, but at least getting some reading done :)

Read The Fireman by Joe Hill, which I was looking forward to, but it's probably the novel of his I've liked least to date. His earlier ones were quite compact, but this was a 700+ page epic that imo showed signs of needing a good edit. And this is an odd thing to say, because I don't think I've ever really said this about a novel before, but I didn't 'believe' his characters. I mean, I've read books with protagonists capable of virtually anything and everything and not turned a hair, but I've never read a protagonist I've found so... idk, detailed, yet internally inconsistent? ( Read more... )

But it was very readable, and engaging, so I guess that's still a good thing?

Saw a few things at the Sydney Film Festival, which has just ended. First there was High-Rise (Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons) which was visually stunning - in many ways - but otherwise not my thing at all. I thought it did quite accurately capture the spirit of the book in that I disliked almost everyone in it and found the plot both illogical and annoying. But it looked great, and stylistically did have that 70s groovy schlock-horror vibe to it, and there was a lot of sex and screaming and gratuitous violence if you like that kind of thing. Normally I would, but eh. All very arty, but not very satisfying if you want story rather than set-pieces.

Then Ten Years, which is a Hong Kong compilation where five young film-makers were asked to make a short film about what life might be like in Hong Kong in ten years' time, with most showing particular emphasis on life under Chinese rule. Unsurprisingly, the film opened in HK, and was then pulled from cinemas by the PRC Government, in the finest traditions of irony *g*. ( Read more... )

Also Under the Sun, which is an odd combination of film and documentary. A Russian film crew were invited to film a documentary about an 'ordinary' North Korean girl and her glorious journey towards becoming a member of the Children's Union on the Day of the Shining Star (Kim Il-Sung's birthday). However, this is not that 'documentary', but rather a combination of scenes that were filmed, coupled with footage of things that happened during the shoot. So it shows Korean handlers instructing the family what to say and how to act, and details how the father, who is actually a print journalist, is shown in the 'documentary' as being the brilliant head of an exemplary garment factory, while the mother, who works in a cafeteria, is shown to be a worker at a factory producing soy milk. ( Read more... )

Theatre-wise, saw the wonderful Philip Quast 'in conversation', which was such a joy. I think he has my favourite musical theatre voice in the world, but I haven't heard him sing live for years - he was based in London for so many years (winning a record three Oliviers for best actor in a musical), and then mainly did acting roles once back in Australia. He's getting on in years, but has retained both his amazing falsetto and earth-shaking baritone. Just incredible, especially at close range (we were in the second row). He had some fun stories, too, such as baking Ian McKellen a cake for his 70th birthday when he attended La Cage Aux Folles with 70 guests and complained that it apparently takes two straight guys to play a gay couple (Quast was starring in La Cage Aux Folles with Roger Allam - my god, the entire theatre must have vibrated with those two) *g*

Lastly saw Heathers (the musical) at the Opera House which I thoroughly enjoyed, much more than most of the musicals I've seen recently. Loved the movie - whatever did happen to Christian Slater? -  but had forgotten just how dark the comedy was, and the 80s nostalgia was fun to visit all over again. The songs were well done - properly integrated into the story (for a change) and with some very clever and funny lyrics into the bargain. Good singing, great acting (admittedly tuned to High Camp), and interestingly pared-back but effective set design, with movable banks of lockers being used in versatile ways. Might need a movie rewatch...

Except for the book, that was all in the space of the last week and a bit, which was not ideal timing, but couldn't be helped. Now I just need to stop coughing *g* (In case you're wondering, I managed to not actually cough during performances - it seems to be triggered by changes in temperature and position, so as long as I'm warm and sitting still, I'm fine. LOL.)

Wanted to do another holiday post, but am feeling a bit uncommunicative. Nevertheless - media roundup! This one goes back about three weeks.

- Finally saw Victor Frankenstein (on the plane, to which it was perfectly suited). I do think I would have been disappointed if I'd made a trip to the movies specifically to see it, but as a gap filler it was fine. Igor (Daniel Radcliffe) is a hunchback who works in a circus, but has a flair for medicine. Victor (James McAvoy) rescues him, straightens him out (literally) and we're on our way. I don't remember much of it except that there were shots of twitching flesh, bolts of electricity and cries of "It's alive!" - so, pretty much like every other retelling of Frankenstein, ever. Obviously this one was made a little different by the takeover of the Sherlock cast - Andrew Scott as an suspicious policeman, Lou Brealey as... someone (I think she was a girl in a bar, but whatever) and Mark Gatiss as... someone in the lab. IIRC, he had one line: "AAAAAAAGH!". And that was the movie *g*

- Also saw Clue on DVD, something I'd been meaning to do for a while, mainly because 1) I adore Tim Curry and 2) for that infamous Madeline Kahn "I hated her sooo much, it, it, flames... flames on the side of my face" gif which I also love. Yes, a movie based on the the board game. Six guests gather at a mansion in response to a mysterious summons, people are murdered - whodunnit? It was incredibly cheesy, sure, and packed to the hilt with cheap jokes, but they were thoroughly entertaining cheap jokes, and the movie was surprisingly well-structured. Tim Curry was glorious, and I enjoyed it from beginning to end. Would watch again someday.

- Saw Eddie the Eagle in an open-air cinema while on holiday, which was a lovely experience - deck chairs under the stars. The movie wasn't bad, either. Based on the true story of Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, who competed in the 1988 Winter Olympics, qualifying as the first British ski jumper under quite unlikely circumstances. Sure, he kind of sucked compared to the others, but he also did his country proud by getting there. Eddie was played by Taron Egerton, who I remember from Kingsman, with Hugh Jackman as his coach-with-a-dark-past-who-is-dragged-unwillingly-out-of-retirement (whose arc I suspect is heavily if not entirely fictionalised). While I am not a fan of Jackman, I thought he was fine here, and Egerton was that kind of hilariously bumbling character who nevertheless has a spine of steel (not literally). He was an easy character to care about in his seemingly impossible journey from bespectacled, clumsy schoolboy to the Winter Olympics, and I did. Enjoyable, but not life-changing.

- Then as soon as I got back there was Ghost: The Musical, which... yeah, it's based on That Film. Which I actually did see, all those years ago. I mainly saw this because it starred Rob Mills (Sam), who I really like, and Jenna Rix (Molly), who has a lovely voice. I think probably everyone knows the story - Sam and Molly are in love, but Sam can never bring himself to say "I love you". Then he's killed, but finds himself hanging around on Earth to unravel a conspiracy around his death and protect Molly. In this endeavour he's reluctantly helped by a fraudulent psychic, Oda Mae Brown, who is surprised and not entirely happy that she's not quite a fraud after all. I'd say it's still a really solid story, and the staging was interesting, with a lot of use of projection to evoke the New York environment, plus some nifty stage magic to produce some "ghostly" effects. The singing was enjoyable, and Wendy Mae Brown (playing Oda Mae Brown, which did made me double-take) ended up being a major highlight who pretty much just walked away with the show. Nothing could stand before her or her character. But... much like the musical Kinky Boots, I found the musical aspect entirely pointless. The songs were pleasant enough, but so uninspiring that I was mostly waiting for them to be over so they could get on with the plot. I still did begrudgingly ended up enjoying it, but that was as a result of the storyline and the talent on display. Unchained Melody remains the show's most memorable song. Musical or not.

- A week after that there was the NT Live production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Christopher Hampton), which remains such a fabulous play (yes, I know it's based on the book). But I was impressed with the writing all over again. I did see a stage version with Hugo Weaving about four years ago which was brilliant, so I wasn't sure this would live up to it, NT cast or no, and I have to say that it had an entirely different feeling to the Sydney Theatre Company version, partly because that one was done in modern dress. This one was full period, as you'd expect. But I think with the change in costume came a certain change in style as well - the Sydney production was very sleek, almost minimalist, and there was a certain clinical intellectual quality in the games and sparring between Valmont and Merteuil. Whereas the NT production was extravagantly OTT in sensousness. So the Sydney one seemed to emphasise love as a game, while the NT focused more heavily on the decadent sexuality of it. I suppose it's telling that on the whole I did prefer the Sydney interpretation, while also appreciating this production. Another major difference was the vibe of the ending - the Sydney one seemed to echo the movie interpretation (for me) where Merteuil has won, but she's also lost everything that made the game worth playing. But in the NT production I felt like it hurt her terribly, but she lifted her chin and kept on going full steam ahead, because she's a survivor. I think both aspects are implied in the ending - but again, with different emphasis.

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- Lastly, there was Sherpa, which I'm now sad is the last item because I'm tired of typing, but it was the best of the lot. Amazing, incredible, all the superlatives. Everest is one of my pet interests anyway, and this documentary follows the 2014 climbing season, which was the deadliest in history, with 16 Sherpas killed (in case you're not aware, the Sherpa are actually an ethnic group, but because they're so acclimatised to altitude they have become synoymous with Everest guiding). This obviously devastated the Sherpa community, who demanded better working conditions and government regulation around the industry, and who effectively brought the entire climbing season to a halt by refusing to work the rest of the season. I read a review describing it as the world's most picturesque industrial dispute, which... yes.

What I loved about this film is the focus on the Sherpas and their families. Virtually all Everest-related stuff focuses on the "foreign" climbers, but very few of them could have climbed Everest without the support provided by the Sherpas. It was particuarly entertaining to see the first summit of Everest recounted with the focus on Tenzing and his media appearances and the impact on his family and community, with Hillary effectively relegated to a sidenote. Because let's face it, even Hillary said it was an equal partnershp, but we all know who the Western media typically focus on. Anyway, I knew intellectually that the Sherpas did all the heavy lifting, but actually seeing what they did was both amazing and terrifying.

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If you have the slightest interest in Everest and the industry surrounding it, this is a must-see imo.

Ah, crap, that isn't even the last one, I completely forgot that I saw Captain America: Civil War yesterday. LOL. Um. You can tell I'm not really a Marvel fan. It was fine, and I liked it better than The Avengers, because the plot was more plotty, and the action less... action-y. Robert Downey Jr. continues to give Academy-Award-level acting in a superhero franchise, which I continue to find amazing. I wanted to find Spiderling annoying, but was charmed despite everything. I like Black Panther a lot. William Hurt! Martin Freeman contributed very little (sorry), and I kept thinking of Fargo. I actually managed to keep track of all the superheroes and who they were, so that's something *g*

Quick run down of stuff I've been seeing, just in case anyone would like to chat about it :D

- Arcadia (by Tom Stoppard) at the Opera House - it featured one of the lead actors from Holding the Man (Ryan Corr), and I wanted to see whether he could actually do stage. Turns out that he can, as could everyone else up there, which was nice. I'm not even going to bother trying to explain Arcadia - you either know it, or you don't. It's about love and chaos theory and history and gardens and uncertainty, and involves flipping back and forth across time, the modern replacing the traditional, and talk of the butterfly effect and recursive algorithms and their application not only to mathematics, but to relationships, and history. Plus the usual entertaining banter. Exactly my cup of tea; possibly not everybody's. I can't think why *g*

- 10 Cloverfield Lane - never saw Cloverfield, but I just liked the feel of the trailer and was intrigued by John Goodman, who I thought was pretty amazing, actually. ( discussion )

- Zootopia, mainly thanks to a highly positive review by shadowfireflame. I'm glad I saw it, and I did enjoy it a lot more than I would have expected from the trailer, but it just didn't make a huge impression on me - possibly because the message aspect was so blatant? It was worthy, and a lot of fun, and I don't really have anything bad to say about (even that bloody song was catchy) but I wasn't captivated by it the way I was by Inside Out. Maybe because I'm not really an "animal" person to begin with, idk. I did particularly enjoy Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) and Gazelle (Shakira) in relatively minor roles.

- Clone - mainly for the sake of Mark Gatiss, but I do like Jonathan Pryce very much as well. I'd seen the Gatiss sections on Youtube before, but never watched the entire series. I loved it, actually. Pretty much your typical cheesy British comedy, but there's nothing wrong with that. Jonathan Pryce plays Dr Victor Blenkinsop, a scientist who has managed to create the ultimate super-soldier. In future all soldiers can be cloned from this perfect prototype and be sent into battle, sparing the rest of the populace. But in the best British comedic tradition, it's an utter disaster - the Clone is sweet, childlike, and a complete and utter klutz. Victor and the Clone are forced to go on the run while Victor struggles to find the right "trigger" to turn him into the super-soldier he was always meant to be. In the meantime, the delightfully psychopathic Colonel Black (Mark Gatiss) is doing his best to find and destroy them so his superiors never find out. Colonel Black kills a lot of people, threatens to kill many more, and occasionally talks about his erection. It's that kind of show.

- The Devil of Winterbourne, written by and featuring Mark Gatiss. I'll just cut and paste from my tumblr review.

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Haven't yet finished The Night Manager, which improved a little from the first episode, but which I still find a bit silly. Tom Hiddleston is immensely pretty, but unconvincing to me as Mr SuperSpy. Hugh Laurie is basically playing English evil!House, which is delightful. His accent is so upper class you could cut yourself on the edges. Elizabeth Debicki is gorgeous - apparently her entire purpose - and Olivia Colman is engaging as a role that was originally written for a man, apparently. Why am I not surprised?

I think that's all of note. And so much other goodness as well - Doctor Strange pics, Mark Gatiss winning an Olivier and new setlock coming up, yay!

Status: Complete
Fandom: London Spy/Sherlock
Characters/Pairings: Rich (London Spy)/Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 4,400
Warnings/contents: drug use, slash, consensual sibling incest.
Notes: After Mark Gatiss' delightfully disturbing appearance on London Spy, I had vague expectations of Rich/Sherlock fic, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet, so I had to.

Summary: Rich has quite a few boys hanging around nowadays, but this one is special, for a number of reasons.

Read at: AO3

Another academic year, another quasi-fandom hiatus. Doing another degree sounded like a good idea at the time, and it's been well worth it, but I'm just about ready to be done. Cross fingers *g*

However I am still apparently compelled to keep track of my media consumption online, so, in brief:

- Saw The Pride (Darlnghurst Theatre Company) last week - part of the annual Mardi Gras festivities. Written by British playwright Alexei Kaye Campbell, it looks at the lives of Ollie and Phil (and I may be the only person who immediately thought of Legz Akimbo and Everybody Out! here *g*) in both the 1950s and the modern era (it was written in 2008). So in the 1950s, Phil is in real estate, and more-or-less happily married to Sylvia, who works as an illustrator for author Ollie, who's writing a book about birds. When she invites Ollie over for drinks one night, attraction sparks between Ollie and Phil (in theory - in practice there was so little initial chemistry between the male leads that I began wondering whether I had the wrong idea about the play) and the two begin a clandestine - and mostly offstage - relationship that ends badly. In the modern day, Ollie and Phil used to be together, but have separated due to Ollie's sex addiction (or is it because Phil wanted to quit the theatre company and become a proper actor?). Sylvia is Ollie's best friend, and acts as a sounding board while he frets over what's gone wrong with his life, and whether he can get Phil back. So it's a kind of compare/contrast/mirroring thing - times change, and challenges to the gay community change with them, but they're still there.

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Incidentally, the original London/NY casts sound like they would have been amazing - JJ Feild and Bertie Carvel in London, Hugh Dancy/Ben Whishaw in NY. Guh. Anyway, it was worth seeing for the ideas, and some of the acting, but a bit hit-and-miss overall.

- Also saw Hail, Caesar, mostly on the strength of the trailer, which was incredibly misleading. It made the movie look like a bit of a kidnap caper with perhaps a hint of science-fiction thrown in, when it was nothing of the sort. It was basically "a day in the life of an old-school Hollywood studio head". I mean, it was Quality with a capital Q, and I can already see people itching to write academic papers on it, but I can't say from the bottom of my heart that it was enjoyable. Such a plebeian concept, enjoyment. Impressive production values and so many famous names, but it never felt like there was really anything at stake, for anyone. The studio head just calmly goes around fixing things - whether it be a kidnapped star, a pregnant starlet, a possible scandal - and life goes on. The end. I was intellectually engaged, but emotionally detached, so that I'd be thinking things like, "Oh, yes, I can see that this is amusing" without actually BEING amused. Or "oh yes, this is a very impressive recreation" rather than being "ooooh!". You see the difference? It was the cinematic equivalent of a well-crafted essay. Worthy, and I'm sure the critics were wetting themselves over it, but not my thing at all.

- Oh, god, and, um, not to just be one big ball of negativity, but... is anyone watching The Night Manager? Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie are both incredibly pretty, and I do enjoy Olivia Colman in general. But the amount of eye-rolling I've already done over the plot should constitute a workout in itself.

- Also finished watching the last of the new X-Files. Sorry, what was the point of that? But I really did enjoy the Were-Lizard one. And quite liked the old school superpowered brother/sister. But I feel like they just compressed the entire original run of The X-Files into six eps. Introduction - incomprehensible and illogical mytharc - monster of the week, monster of the week - equally incomprehensible non-conclusion. The end? That's not so much a criticism as an observation - it's always been like that.

- I will tentatively end on a good note, even though I'm kind of reluctant to enthuse about a book until I've finished it. Am reading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, and I just wanted to say that I haven't been so impressed by actual writing in years. Like, not plot or character or whatever, but the sheer poetry of words on page. I'm not a fan of "literary" writing in general, which I often find synonymous with overwrought language and metaphor tortured beyond its natural limits, but he's got such a lovely way with words, and writes with an extraordinary - but never tedious - amount of detail. I can't even say that I care thaaat much about the story - I still haven't quite worked out exactly what's going on, for a start (and I'm 80% of the way through the book!) but the thing is that I don't even care? (Of course, like London Spy, I may get to the end and discover, that actually I REALLY DO CARE VERY MUCH *g*) But for now I'm just really enjoying his writing :)

Saw the NT Live screening of Jane Eyre yesterday - I would normally have given this a miss, but have a friend who loves the book, so I saw an opportunity to get some more theatre in *g*. I have a vague memory of reading it many years ago, but, much like Wuthering Heights, have never understood its wide appeal. I remember thinking Rochester was a dick and that Jane was severe and cold and a bit dull (sorry). So I went more for the sake of "seeing what it was like", but I have to say I enjoyed the production and now have a bit more enthusiasm for the underlying story. I think the play brought out Jane's resilience and struggle for self-sufficiency more clearly for me than reading the book did, or perhaps those qualities mean more to me now? But I can see her appeal a lot better after having seen it.

It was much longer than I'd realised when I booked - 3.5 hours including interval, and what is it with these incredibly long productions? Is it that they're determined to give you value for money, or that having trapped you in the theatre, they're not letting you go until they've thrashed the thing out thoroughly? But having said that, it moved very quickly and didn't drag at all - the play was accompanied by live music played onstage, which really worked to join the scenes together and just keep the general energy of the production up. Most of the musical accompaniment was only a few lines sung here or a snippet of instrumental music there, not entire songs/pieces, so that wasn't a trial either. Much of it was vaguely operatic or traditional folk in style, which mostly worked, but I found the rendition of Mad About the Boy(!) to show Jane's feelings towards Rochester jarring. The slowed-down version of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy actually did work, though, surprisingly.

It was a tiny cast - 10 performers in all, including the musicians and soloist, and they were all outstanding, not a weak link in the whole lot. A lot of the roles were doubled, so men with beards played fellow girls at Lowood, while the woman playing Helen Burns, Jane's childhood friend, later played the Minister who wants to marry Jane and become a missionary. I think for once, though, the women had all the best roles, except perhaps for Rochester and the guy playing the dog, Pilot (really) who attempted to steal the show. Absolutely loved the use of the cast as a "chorus" who reflect Jane's thought processes as she debates with herself over various issues. And everyone sounded great and moved well on stage, fantastic performances all around. I would single people out, but I'd have to list almost everyone in the cast for some brilliant moment or another - I think it's the first NT Live screening where I actually wanted to applaud at the end. So, a great staging, and probably even better if you like the book *g*

Then saw Zoolander 2, bizarrely, as a Valentine's Day movie because L actually wanted to see it with me. I was somewhat surprised by this, but not about to say no *g*. I only watched the first Zoolander movie because I heard BC was in this one, and although it was better than I expected, I can't say it actually did a lot for me. Add in the abysmal reviews for this one, and expectations were low. However, perhaps because I'm not the target audience for this, or was just in a good mood, I have to say I really quite enjoyed it - much more than the first one, anyway! I suspect that's partly because the celebrity cameos were a lot "fresher", given that the original was way out of date by the time I saw it, but also because there seemed to be less emphasis on Zoolander himself, who was the character that grated most from the first movie. He was possibly marginally less annoying this time around - in an approximation of maturity, perhaps - but I think there was also less of him. Also, I admit that familiarity with the first movie added to the appeal of this one, and that somehow things I didn't find particularly amusing in the original worked better as passing references in the sequel.

There were admittedly some very tone-deaf jokes, that imo started off with millennials who "couldn't name a Caucasian president" (uh-huh) and kind of went on from there, although at least the script wasn't overwhelmed with them. I liked the plot, which was ridiculous and yet made enough internal sense to hang together, and the visual aspects (the thing I liked most about the first movie) continued to be fabulous (as well as faaabulous). I also enjoyed all the people who weren't Ben Stiller, basically - Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Kirsten Wiig and Penelope Cruz were all fun and funny. Other more spoilery things I liked:

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So while the internet decrees I should hate it, I'm afraid I thought it was thoroughly entertaining - like, it's tacky mass market comedy, but it's solid, visually appealing tacky mass market comedy plus some great cameos that made the movie for me. It wasn't funny ha-ha, but then I never expected it to be - more gently amusing action/adventure/drama, I'd say. Subtract points for the leaden "jokes", but add a few back because I was pleasantly engaged with the characters and the storyline almost all the way through, and that's rare for me even in "quality" movies.