Dec. 4th, 2012

Skyfall

Dec. 4th, 2012 01:01 pm
ivyfic: (stained glass)
I've been thinking about a couple of posts, and since my accounting teacher has failed to post the homework, I have a free lunch hour!

The first is, I saw Skyfall this weekend, at [livejournal.com profile] mithras03's insistence this weekend. I'm not as nuts about it as she is, but I really kind find anything wrong with it at all. I mean, there's orientalism and objectifying of women, but--Bond--and it's nowhere near the rest of the films in the franchise on those scales.

What I mean is, I agreed with every single storytelling choice. There was never a point where I felt like they'd dropped the ball or chosen a less interesting story arc than they could have.

Two things really stood out to me:

- It is gorgeous. It's one of the most beautifully shot films I've ever seen, full stop. It has this one fight sequence that was just stunning. And they do some low light stuff that film hasn't even been capable of really capturing until recently. I can think of a dozen shots in the movie off the top of my head that just grabbed me.

- The Bond franchise has a history of high camp. Mostly in the Roger Moore years. I love those movies, but they are about awful puns and ludicrous supervillains and impossible gadgets. The Craig reboot, from what I can tell (didn't see Quantum of Solace) is going for a much more gritty, Bourne Identity type of spy thriller. This movie manages to be just a little bit arch, but without it ever being jarring or overly winking at the audience. There's just enough of the heightened reality to make it clearly in the lineage of the franchise, but without lessening the stakes or moving into ludicrous at any point. And that, right there, is an incredibly hard balance to strike. The film deserves kudos just for that.

Expandspoiler cut contains spoilers )
ivyfic: (stained glass)
Post two! Person of Interest, or my new fannish obsession. From this fandom I have learned a new and useful term: clam - a character who feels fierce and passionate emotions but has very strong control over their emotions and attempts stoicism, but sometimes there are cracks and the emotions show through.

Person of Interest is a clam show. I mean, it's basically Batman, and he's a super-clam. And wouldn't you know it! All of my favorite heroes are clams. Dean Winchester? Check. John Constantine? Check. If I've written it, chances are there's a clam involved.

Two things re POI in relation to its slash fandom (spoilery, but not very specifically):
Expandthings )
ivyfic: (stained glass)
I just finished Overseas by Beatriz Williams, which was, well, balls, and oh there's a rant coming. But it got me thinking about why I prefer to read nonfiction to fiction when I read for myself. It is because the threshold for quality writing in non-fiction is a lot lower. What I mean is, I can read a book, like, say, Moby-Duck, that has enormous structural and pacing problems, which was kind of a bear to read, but still get something out of it. Because it's about real things, even if stuck in a morass of meandering, I come away having learned something. I may not have enjoyed reading the whole thing, but it's not time wasted if I learned something.

If it's a novel, though, and it has enormous structural and pacing problems, I'm not learning anything in the meandering but the inside of the author's head. When I'm reading fiction, it's strictly for my own enjoyment. So if I'm not enjoying the hell out of it, I'm wasting my time.

And there are very, very few authors who are any good and write about something that hits me right. This is part of why I no longer have any desire to be an editor. Because almost every book is some level of flawed, from slight to very, and I don't want to spend my life on flawed books. Which is why the fiction I read is usually from a few authors I know I love. Which makes me feel I've lost something of the vividness of my inner life from when I read a hundred some odd novels in a year. But editing has made it impossible for me to read a book without seeing the book I wish this would be, so most novels I read are just...aggravating.
ivyfic: (stained glass)
The Daily Show just used a clip of Kevin Sorbo as Hercules's evil alternate universe twin the Sovereign from Hercules: The Legendary Journey. *hearts*

...I could probably tell you the episode from that one word.

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