If you ever wondered what a Bond film would look like made by students - well, here it is.



AWESOME, NO. Unfortunately, we haven't filmed half the scenes, and the guy playing Bond (or Banner, as he's known in this) didn't get back into the university this year, sooooo either we film it whatever weekends he can come up, or Bond undergoes dramatic facial reconstruction surgery.

Also, I'm making a profound effort not to blog about every TV show I watch this year - which has been especially difficult with How I Met Your Mother and Supernatural, both of which are bringing their A-game this season - but oddly enough it's been MOST difficult with Merlin of all shows! It's just being AWESOME! AND NEXT WEEK LOOKS SO MUCH FUN OMG.



PS: Oh, and my classes for next year are all set - I'm doing both Akkadian AND Ancient Greek for beginners, since my lecturer believed I could manage them without going insane, and Preservation & Transmission of Information in the Ancient World. I'm also doing the Classical Research training module and my dissertation, of course, and auditing a whole bunch for funsies.

Goodbye social life.

So, I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news: stolen from beckytheelf, we have the DORIAN GRAY TRAILER, STARRING BEN BARNES AND COLIN FIRTH AND SOME AWESOME CLOTHES.



The bad news? It's being released in September here (EEEEEEEEEEE) but... there's currently no release date listed for the US. What with this and The Young Victoria - STILL not released over there, despite being out on DVD already over here - I'm starting to think British studios really DO hate you guys.



In other news - Jackie and the Mitchells have departed for Austria. This would be far more sucky if I wasn't visiting THEM for three weeks at the end of August. As it is, I know I'm seeing her again in a month, so I can deal. We went to London and Hever Castle and Oxford, had a party on Tuesday so she could see Kent people she met last time, and I'm pretty sure she got to eat all the delicious foods she'd been missing.

I have done little since then, since all Kent friends have disappeared off on their 3-day choir course, so I've basically been hanging out at home with my parents. My graduation certificate arrived yesterday, and the photos arrived this morning. I think my mum may actually explode with glee.

Back to Durham next Wednesday, to try and hunt down a costume for a Star Wars party that weekend. Considering this is the kind of party where most people I've spoken to are going as EXPANDED UNIVERSE characters, I'm really going to have to bring my A-game. EEP.

I really LIKED that movie! Way more than I was expecting! Sure, Ron was sidelined, they changed quite a few of the BIG moments and thus changed their significance, but it was such a great balance of humour and darkness, it's the first of the films that I've really, truly liked in its own right, rather than just as an adaptation.

Although please don't tell me it was just me who found all the Harry & Slughorn dialogue really... dodgy? Seriously, Melody and I were CRACKING. UP.

Oh yeah, Jackie and Melody and Nathaniel are here :D:D:D:D I AM SO HAPPY TO SEE JACKIE AGAIN. I LITERALLY THREW MY STUFF ASIDE AND RAN DOWN THE CORRIDOR TO HUG HER. AND MELODY AND NATHANIEL ARE AWESOME AS WELL. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Just saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. OH GOD THE PAIN. See, I loved the first movie. I love big dumb movies. I liked The Core, for chrissakes. But that?? TOO FAR, MICHAEL BAY. TOO FAR. Seriously, it was on The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor levels. Not quite as bad, because I was at least entertained on occasion, but... SMASHING HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OH THE PAIN.

To take my mind off it, HEY LOOK A FANDOM MEME.

Pick 12 characters you like, and then answer the questions below the cut about them. Obviously first choose your characters before you see the questions.

1. Starbuck (Battlestar Galactica)
2. Robin (How I Met Your Mother)
3. Adam (Heroes)
4. Casey (Chuck)
5. Chuck (Pushing Daisies)
6. Castiel (Supernatural)
7. Dexter (Dexter)
8. Martha Jones (Doctor Who)
9. Susan (Chronicles of Narnia)
10. Aryan (Dhoom 2)
11. Roy (The Fall)
12. Locke (The Lies of Locke Lamora)

( I would actually read MOST of these fics. )

Just saw Angels & Demons. Even though I pretty much only went to see it for a) Ewan MacGregor, b) the symmetry of having seen The Da Vinci Code when I was 18, and c) EWAN MACGREGOR, I actually enjoyed it a surprising amount. Sure, it messes with history and mythology, but since sci-fi films get to mess with what we know as fact, I can allow some leeway with stuff that's mostly theoretical anyway. (Though that whole business with Magical Jesus-Powered Jet of getting-from-Harvard-to-Italy-in-a-couple-of-hours was so stupid, I can't believe it got through editing.)

I enjoyed it quite a bit more than the first one. It was better written and had a tauter plot structure, with the murders adding more of a ticking clock than being chased by random people in the French police. I also liked it more because it was a lot more even-handed. Rather than being "WE'RE SOOO ANNOYING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WITH THIS MOVIE OMG", it was actually quite an interesting film about the conflicting natures of science and religion. It wasn't subtle, but it was still a better way of handling it.

( Spoilorz! )

My weakness for bad, cheesy movies has reached a whole new low. I just watched The Core, and LOVED IT.

It's... it's just terrible. I'm a CLASSICIST and I could tell the science was monstrous. The earth's outer core stops spinning, breaking down the Earth's electromagnetic field and leaving us vulnerable to radiation, leading pigeons to fly into stuff and lightning storms to blow up the Colosseum. A plucky group of scientists decide to drill down to restart it in a ship built of a metal - called unobtainium - which gets stronger under pressure... but apparently the pressure of the bottom of the ocean floor isn't pressure ENOUGH, and a danger. WUT.

But? It's STILL Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank drilling to the centre of the Earth to set off loads of nukes TO SAVE THE WORLD. THERE IS GOING TO BE ENTERTAINMENT. There are such lines of dialogue as "You want me to hack the planet?", wacky helper whales, and Aaron Eckhart ends up explaining the situation to the US government by setting fire to a peach. Yeah.

It's almost like a mickey-take played straight. In the set-up, there are many many times when one character will say "But that'd be impossible!" and have someone reply, "Yes, yes, of course, but what if it ISN'T?" In fact, that's pretty much word-for-word dialogue at several points -

"Is there any way to start the core spinning again?"
"Even if there was, there's no way of getting to it! We can't drill through the earth's mantle, it's impossible!"
"Uh-huh... but what if we COULD?"
***CUE MONTAGE***

"What will it take to get this highly implausible machine up and running in three months?"
"Ahahhahahaha, errrr, FIFTEEN BILLION DOLLARS."
"Would you take a cheque?"

And then there's one highly dramatic bit ( which is spoilery, ofc- )

I MAY JUST HAVE TO BUY THIS MOVIE.

Just saw it for the third time. STILL so awesome. ( Possible favourite bit- )

Yes, they're here again. I'm totally going to have to write another full-length novel this summer. Sigh. First year it was the Apocalypse, last year it was vampires, this year it looks like it's going to be demons. Plot is already half-done in my head, I love all the characters, their pasts and relationships will probably finish off the plot pretty well, there's room for far more stories, and it's all ready to GO - I just have to finish my exams first. TWO WEEKS!

One problem of being in fandom? It makes you look at all stories you write through the eyes of the ever-judging internet. My biggest fear is of being labelled not feminist enough. I mean, I try to write strong female characters, but every time I try to write a romance or have a heroine NOT be able to deal with everything that's thrown at her, I just start having horrifying visions of the Fandom!Secrets going "OMGGG WHY DOES THIS AUTHOR HATE WOMEN". But I want characters like Robin Sherbatsky, not Bella Swan. I LOVE strong female characters, but Mary-Sues, I want to burn with fire. They've got to have flaws, not the Single Flaw, and not be perfect, and make mistakes.

OK, I'm unabashedly procrastinating, so let's look at my favourite strong female characters.

( I'll restrict myself to five. Picspam! )

I guess what they all have in common is they're a) smart, b) kick-ass, and c) can hold their own in a crowd of boys without excessive romantic pining, or at least romantic interests that get in the way of what needs to be done. *takes notes*

OK. Need to get back to revision now. Oops. STUPID PLOT BUNNIES.

There's a new poster for Dorian Gray, and.... what the hell is going on there?? He looks like a VAMPIRE. Seriously, are they trying to get in on Twilight's audience?

Still vair excited for this film, though.

(Real life: accidentally slept in this morning. Apparently I've mastered the art of turning off my alarm clock in my sleep. That's what I get for staying up late at Improv Comedy, though it was SO MUCH FUN last night.)

There isn't really much going on in my life at the moment - recovering from excessive amounts of work, about to start the next lot, sleeping in and generally being bleeeh. It's lovely, but hardly exciting to blog about.

So you get a meme instead.

Movie Meme

Rules:
1. Pick 16 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. NO cheating, if you don't know any of them then that's just too bad.
6. You don't have to be tagged in this to play.

( I like a wide range of movies... )

Got to say, one of the most fascinating things after seeing a long-loved book (or in this case comic book) be adapted into a film and hit the interwebs is seeing how fandom mutates and adapts with the huge new influx of fans and their new interpretation.

I'm not that deep into the fandom, so I haven't seen much, but as always, fandomsecrets provides a good sampler.

There are a lot of 'Rorschach - I'd Hit It/ He's Beautiful/ OT3 With Nite Owl and Silk Spectre' ones, which I totally expected. I mean, as this secret demonstrated so perfectly (and so aptly, given my current topic), the F!Sers will always seize on someone new and controversial to fantasise over.

(I personally never liked Rorschach that much. I mean, he's a great character, and interesting, and his bits in prison are great, but... it was genre breaking at the time, but by now, we've had LOADS of dark and edgy heroes. I KNOW Rorschach is 'worse' than all of them, but still, that's not the kind of story that interests me. At all, really.)

But an outcome of the film that I honestly DID NOT SEE COMING was the... entirely new kind of fandom Ozymandias has. Now HIM I really liked in the novel, and the movie, and not just because he's a Classicist at heart. HIS story, I find fascinating.

And now... he has the same kind of LOLfandom, Mr Sparkles And Awesome as Edward Cullen and Castiel. ( IT'S KIND OF AMAZING. )

On a, well, considerably more serious RL note, I got a place at Durham to do my Masters! Now I just need to get a 2:1 and funding/a job...

Apparently The Young Victoria doesn't have a release date in America yet - according to imdb, anyway. Not surprised, really, it's a small-ish British film about a British monarch and Europe. And it's not Elizabeth I. Or Keira Knightley.

Oh well, here's the trailer anyway, because I want to watch it again:



Another film worth watching? Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day. I've squeed about it on here before, and several people on my flist are now caught up doing Lee Pace picpams after that and The Fall, but it's another film that caused me great glee. AND I JUST GOT IT ON DVD. DELIGHT, JOY.

Ugh. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dose up on Pro Plus and show this dissertation who's boss.



PS: Story taken from d20fyx - Godspeed, Space Bat. *salutes*

... this is the first time I've come out of a film GIDDY in a long, long time. I know there were historical inaccuracies, I know they raced through complicated bits of history in favour of focussing on the Victoria/Albert romance, but goddamn, when she proposed I could barely contain the EPIC SQUEEEEEE, because she was so AWESOME and he was SO DAMN ADORABLE.

There was other great stuff, too. It was beautifully shot, in general - the scene where Victoria is told she's queen was basically staged to almost exactly mirror a famous painting already in existence. Paul Bettany continues to win my soul, whatever he does, and Miranda Richardson and Jim Broadbent are generally awesome, which we all knew anyway. Costumes were SO DAMN PRETTY, and I really, really need to visit inside Buckingham Palace one day - I mean, it's RIGHT THERE.

But no, the major overwhelming thing I adored about this film WAS Victoria and Albert. Emily Blunt rocks my socks, and thank god the role went to someone like her rather than Keira Knightley (shudder), because she could really pull off "I AM THE GODDAMN QUEEN BITCHES, but... hell, I'm only 18." She's also gorgeous, which helps. And Albert? Oh man. I first decided I had to see this film when I saw the trailer and suspected that he'd be adorable, but NOTHING COULD HAVE PREPARED ME. And him and Victoria together were just... yeah, the barely controlled squee when she proposed, basic continual squee throughout their wedding and happy-couple-time, happy glee before when they're just talking and you can see them falling in love... but always underscored with the overwhelming sadness brought to me by the historical awareness that he died comparatively young. GAH.

Man. Whoda thunk, a few months ago, that the film I would come out of March in love with wouldn't be Watchmen but a chick flick about Queen Victoria? I have turned into such a girl. The times they are a-changin' indeed.





(Dissertation still exists. Will kill it soon.)

So, this is basically my last week for dissertation writing. It's due next Thursday, I'm going down to London all weekend to see my family for my Mum's birthday and Mothers Day, and I want to hand it in on the Wednesday or my entire Thursday will be spent in a big ball of panic.

So, my current plan is:

MONDAY - Write up Diomedes section
TUESDAY - Latin lectures, preparation and essay
WEDNESDAY - Write up Telemachus section
THURSDAY - Morning lectures, write introduction and conclusion
FRIDAY - Latin lectures & preparation (and essay?), check references with tutor
SATURDAY & SUNDAY - Print off this draft, attack with red purple pen on train to and from London, edit edit edit. Also, start trying to come up with an abstract. Also? Try to have fun. A bit.

MONDAY & TUESDAY - Go to library, MAKE EDITS. EDIT EDIT EDIT. DON'T SLEEP UNTIL IT IS DONE.
WEDNESDAY - Read through, make sure is coherent, get bound, hand in.
THURSDAY - *floorheap* Chocolate will be necessary.

(I know I write out these plan things a lot, but they seriously help my head get organised)

And then... I get the Thursday and Friday off. No work for me. But I start working again that weekend. Because I want my summatives ready to hand in as soon as I get back from the holidays, so I can start revising right away.

Ahhh, naive optimism...



(For some reason, I don't feel stressed. Just... very, very aware of how much I have to do. I have about 5 minutes of panic every day, which I don't try to suppress, I just go get chocolate and read TV Tropes till it goes away. And when people ask me how I am, they might be a little surprised at how high and fast my voice has gotten. But other than that... I'm OK. Ish.)


PS: MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY IS FINALLY OUT ON DVD IN ENGLAND!!! I... I MAY HAVE TO GET A COPY FOR MY MUM AND MYSELF. Because it'd be a perfect birthday/Mothers Day present for her, but then I'll only be able to watch it when I'm at home, and GODDAMN I WILL NEED THE HAPPY FLUFF DURING THE EXAMS.

I'm... confused. I can't quite figure out how I felt about it. I mean, I was watching it pretty late after a long day dissertation-ing, so that hardly helped. I think I thought it was good... but I don't think I liked it?

( More confused (spoiler-filled) bibblings here )

So, I just watched The Fall. I bought the DVD on faith based from the trailer and the fact it had Charles Darwin as some kind of bandit and, oh man, it was so worth it.

It's basically Lee Pace as a stuntman in a hospital, telling a little girl Alexandria this epic story, which we see through her imagination and keeps having little things altered - like, she decides she doesn't like the bandit's Spanish accent, and so it switches briefly to French, before just becoming American. And we see it all in Alexandria's head, so she visualises all the characters as people she knows around the hospital, objects she sees show up all the time, and the Indian character, which the stuntman meant as a Native American like a character in the film he was making, she sees as from India because of the people she works on an orange plantation with.

It's just - the little details like that in it killed me. KILLED me. It was beautifully shot, and more imaginative than any film I've seen for a while. Lee Pace never really grabbed me in Pushing Daisies, but with Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day and now this, I'm quickly coming to adore him. And the little girl was amazing. According to wikipedia, most of her stuff was unscripted, and it comes across as so real, and all of Lee Pace's interactions with her are just adorable.

It is heartbreakingly sad at times, because the only reason the stuntman is telling her this story is because he's suicidal and is trying to get her to bring him morphine to kill himself. And you can imagine what that kind of outlook has on his story. But - I love films that play with narration like that, and I now love Lee Pace, and I love ANY film that has Charles Darwin as some kind of action hero and swimming elephants, so... yeah. Complete adoration. I kind of want to watch it all over again right now.

It won't be everyone's thing, but I can't recommend it enough. HERE IS TRAILER:

I love the movie so, so, SO much. I mean, it's not just Ben Barnes's ability to make me regress into a 12-year-old fangirl* - Susan kicks SO much ass (GIRL IN CHAINMAIL!), as does Edmund. I actually adore all the changes they made to the book - the bit where they try to summon the White Witch, the attack on the castle, Susan/Caspian (I SHIP IT SO HARD) - and, just, I could go watch it again RIGHT NOW.

OK, so Peter's a bit of a jerk, and I tune out of the Aslan/Jesus bits, but the rest of it is EPICALLY AWESOME.

SO WHY HAVE THEY HALTED PRODUCTION ON DAWN TREADER. IT'S MY FAVOURITE BOOK! Wofflepuds, pirates, the star's daughter! PLUS CASPIAN IN CASUAL SEAFARING GEAR! WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME, DISNEY, WHYYYY.



* I still stand by my declaration that whoever decided Caspian should be a) played by Ben Barnes b) older and c) Spanish deserves some kind of award.



ETA: According to sources (erm, wikipedia) they haven't stopped production for good. Disney just isn't having anything to do with it any more. It looks like 20th Century Fox are going to do it instead. WE MAY STILL GET CASPIAN IN LIGHT SHIRTS HOLDING ONTO RIGGING. ALL IS WELL.

... I never posted what I thought of Twilight. And having already seen it twice (narrowly avoided seeing it a third time by going "HEY WHY DON'T WE GO SEE INKHEART INSTEAD" - so many people I know only want to go see it with me, for full cringey play-by-play) I feel I'm as prepared as I can ever be.

( 'I think you should wear your seatbelt.' 'I think YOUR FACE should wear a seatbelt!' )

( And since I brought it up, regarding Inkheart... )

My plot bunnies are currently bouncing all the way around my head because I've let them out of their box properly for the first time in several months. After going to see Twilight with my sister (more on that later) I went round Carys's where we tried to watch Dawn of the Dead, but her disc was scratched, so we watched 28 Weeks Later. And throughout, we tried to see how the hell one went about writing a zombie movie.

Then I got home, and got started.

I finally settled on a title, 'Mitigating Circumstances', because the reason the characters are fleeing this wave of student plague like a zombie virus is because their exams start the following week and they really don't want to get sick. It's weird - as soon as I thought of the title, and typed it in, the rest flowed really easily. Like "Hey, that's pretty good, when did I think of that?" easy. I think I'll probably actually finish it tonight. Of course, I'll edit it in a couple of days with fresh eyes, but... I'm really happy with it. Where I left it, my characters - one already lost to a bar crawl - are fleeing for the library ("The last place a sick student in their right mind would go") away from the lead's corridor friends, who are chanting, "Briiiiian." Because... that's his name. And I have a weakness for easy jokes.

Eeee. I'm so happy this is going so well. Of course, I can't tell if it's any good, but I think it is. Which is usually a good sign.

( So I saw Quantum of Solace... )


Also, I'm pimping the Heroes Christmas Fic Exchange (I don't know the html codes for fancy underlining and colours, and my computer has decided it hates the Rich Text option) being organised by aurilly, ladyanne525 and shimmeree. I'm doing it, because I get the idea my plot bunnies still resent me for keeping them cooped up.

Although I noticed great similarities between the kind of fic I wanted to read and wanted to write, so... I may end up writing a fic like it anyway. It's an idea I've been toying with for a while, and it's not going away, so I guess I'll see.