thedeadlyhook: (Dazed by Dizzily)
I've missed so many birthdays while generally AWOL. August is a big birthday month! I hope Very Happy Birthdays were had by [livejournal.com profile] pukajen, [livejournal.com profile] botias, [livejournal.com profile] sweet_ali, [livejournal.com profile] estepheia, [livejournal.com profile] boschette, [livejournal.com profile] rainkatt, and [livejournal.com profile] tepintzin, and Very Happy Birthdays in Advance to [livejournal.com profile] mere_ubu, [livejournal.com profile] romanyg, and [livejournal.com profile] dessert_first.

Still blocked on fic, in that way of feeling like you were stupid to ever have thought you could write, but oh well. I know these things tend to be temporary, but that doesn't make them fun.

In the meantime, I amused myself with that "First Lines" meme I've seen going around. Take the first lines of the last twenty stories you're written. See if there are any patterns ) [ETA: I've belatedly realized I didn't exactly follow the rules of this meme, as I didn't choose twenty and didn't put them in any particular order. Shrug.] Suffice to say that my results reflect the sort of patterns I suspect this meme was designed to uncover. : )

In other news, film oddities recently seen by myself and [livejournal.com profile] toysdream include Liquid Sky, which I'd remembered reading a review of back in the '80s when it first came out and thought it sounded interesting (a fair assessment, although "weird," "slow," and "garish" would also qualify, without even getting into the musical score - some trippy monologues, though) and Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare starring Jon-Mikl Thor, a heavy-metal act who apparently had career in B-Films that I'd somehow missed. Not quite as entertaining as Horror, perhaps, for lack of hilarious devil-goat shots, but the demonic finger-puppets almost made up for the lack.

On the roster for tonight, Zacharaiah, which promises to be a "psychedelic trip through the Wild West." And yes, we've been raiding the Cult shelf at our local video den, why do you ask?

Coming Soon: A Personal Top Ten List of Movie Musicals. It's a genre primed for a comeback, I swear.
thedeadlyhook: (Harmony best months by Ruuger)
Substitute "minutes" for "months" in the icon, and you get what I felt about this particular production. Serious weak sauce. And y'know, they could've just done what Stan Lee wrote.

A more pared-down sum-up from Toys:

Fortune Cookie, bumper sticker, fortune cookie, bumper sticker, anime fight.

Followed by:

Wow, that was made of smell.

And:

Oh, Special Features, maybe they'll have an apology from Avi Arad.
thedeadlyhook: (Toki wowee by Groundpass)
Huh, that was interesting. Toys and I were just watching the two Hellboy Animated movies on Cartoon Network (there was a marathon tonight) and they were both infinitely superior to the Hellboy 2 movie that I recently bitched about. As in, they were actually like the comics, right down to some of the most memorable imagery and the loveable Office-esque character interactions. There's also more than one female character, and they actually talk about, y'know, work. Such as actual supernatural research, as in the name of the organization, the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense.

And real supernatural mythology, too - the film set in Japan featured real Japanese yokai, folklorish monsters, instead of the usual made-up stuff that Hollywood trots out.

Although... I'm damned if I can figure out why the animation was so good and the live-action film so lame. Largely the same creative staff all around, right down to the voice work. Maybe Mike Mignola is just a really laid-back guy who lets people do whatever with his property, and the animation guy just happens to be a bigger fan? Who knows.

But for those interested in why the Hellboy issue irks me so much - here's the driving philosophy behind Hellboy that I respond to. Read more... )

Oh, and damn, ABC Family (we're checking out Tim Burton's original Batman movie, which I haven't seen in years, for nostalgia value - shut up) just played a trailer for some new series called Samurai Girl, and now I'm dying to see it. All on the strength of one gag where some white girl (college roommate?) finds the Japanese heroine hiding in her closet for some reason, and reacts with "I thought you were that dead girl from The Grudge!" Bwah. Plus there's posing with weapons and beach-exercise-fu ala Karate Kid. I can't resist.

At this time next week, I'll be at San Diego Comic-Con. I haven't been in about three years, and I've been warned that "it's gotten more corporate." More than it was? Like, as in the year they drove a full-size Batmobile onto the dealer floor? My mind boggles.

I sorta can't wait. The bargain bins, they wait for my searching fingers. I have back issues that need finding, particularly anything featuring Hannibal King.
thedeadlyhook: (Iron Man flying by Sincerely_Jane)
Belated Very Happy Birthdays to [livejournal.com profile] germaine_pet, [livejournal.com profile] lordshiva, [livejournal.com profile] diachrony, [livejournal.com profile] ladyk8, [livejournal.com profile] fenchurche, [livejournal.com profile] eurydice72, and Happy Birthday in Advance to [livejournal.com profile] flake_sake!

We had a locksmith come in to fix our laundry room door, which had mysteriously decided to lock itself yesterday, trapping a load of wet clothes in the dryer and us out in the hall yanking at the frozen doorknob for, I kid you not, hours on end. The landlord's whole family eventually got in on this action, which could have very easily ended in breaking down the door with a fire ax--that lock was not budging--until Toys came up with the idea of pulling the door hinges and wriggling the door loose that way. And now we have a shiny, new unlocking knob. This, in our house, is what currently counts as drama.

Saw Hellboy 2 the other night. This will probably be a minority opinion, but I was pretty disappointed. Spoilers Ahoy for Hellboy, The Brothers Grimm, and Death Race 2000 )

And then, I remember that Iron Man is still playing in theaters, and that I really enjoyed The Incredible Hulk. And that's when things start to look up.

I'm gonna go read some more Doctor Strange now.
thedeadlyhook: (Karate! by Beanbeans)
I've missed so many birthdays, it's honestly embarrassing: [livejournal.com profile] botias, [livejournal.com profile] spikes_heart, [livejournal.com profile] pukajen, [livejournal.com profile] romanyg, [livejournal.com profile] dessert_first, [livejournal.com profile] pfeifferpack, [livejournal.com profile] lillianmorgan, [livejournal.com profile] ascian3, [livejournal.com profile] rikko_oko.... Very Happy Belated Birthdays to you all, and hopes for a great year ahead.

Good Christ, I'm behind on everything. I haven't even read any of the Bring Back the Porn Day entries on InsaneJournal. Something's clearly wrong with the world. Or I've just been too busy. Or both. Sigh...

[livejournal.com profile] coyote_william has a poll about the Slayer activiation spell: good idea or bad, morally speaking? (Not just good/bad in terms of plot device, in other words.) I've contributed to this thread a lot; I have big honking problems with "Chosen" which I apparently still need to get off my chest. Isn't it amazing how some things will nearly always draw you back into the same damn conversations?

Fic rec: We Who Are About to Die, a Spike & Anya conversation on the night before the battle of "Chosen." Really like this one, the knowing quality of it. Sublime.

More dribs and drabs, some links picked up from the Flist )

I signed up for [livejournal.com profile] ruuger's Buffy is the Hero, Dammit! ficathon. Because I am insane, and don't have enough WIPs to work on. And I signed up for [livejournal.com profile] seraphcelene's Fic Meta-a-Thon too. Because I am INSANE. Clearly.

But on that note:

[Poll #1059076]
thedeadlyhook: (Grindhouse Girls by Fandomoncrack)
[ETA: Now checked for typos!]

So Toys and I are sort of still recuperating from the cold from hell - more him than me on the actual cold; I'm more having stiff-back issues from being laid up so long - so I put on Kill Bill again for us to watch, since we'd been talking about the use of narration as a storytelling tool lately, and Kill Bill has such a good example of the voiceover-exposition narration. (This really IS the kind of thing we geek out about for fun, seriously, the questions of how things work.) The good news is, the rewatch finally motivated me to finish the review of Kill Bill that I'd been meaning to do, along with Grindhouse, and a little insight on Pulp Fiction by way of Sonny Chiba. This Way for Chop-Socky Ass-Kicking and Feminist Theory )
thedeadlyhook: (Creature of the night by Elizalavelle)
Horror's Hallowed Grounds. An enterprising urban explorer seeks out horror movie locations. The entries for Phantasm and Prince of Darkness are pretty darn amazing. Plus, I find now that I've actually been to a lot of the locations in The Fog. Brr.

Sorry to be so absent lately. Real-life stuff in the way, you know the drill. But, aside from answering overdue comments, a few backburner topics I'm hoping to post about soon: Read more... )

I've knuckled under and created an Insane Journal. This on top of the JournalFen and Greatest Journal. It may take awhile to get into the habit of checking all these accounts, but friend me there and I'll friend you back. One way or another, I'm gonna stay in touch with y'all, I swear.
thedeadlyhook: (Buffy Comic Portrait by awmp)
I thought the cold that Toys and I picked up from the niece was going shake off without much trouble, but no - it got worse. I succumbed back into I-feel-crap shortly after my last post; Thursday was his really bad day after that, and yesterday was mine. Today is the day for general muscle weakness and coughing up neon goo, which I hope is a good sign. Winter colds suck, ho ho ho. Happy Holidays. *hack*

"Other guys have girls on their jock," Toys remarks dryly, as we watch Chronicles of Riddick in a bleary-eyed state. "Riddick has mercs on his neck."

Yep, it's super-cheesy bombastic sci-fi film fest day on TNT (We Know Drama!, aka theme marathons that start early in the morning with Batman Returns and proceed into Demolition Man are great buildup for a World Premiere of Van Helsing, a movie that was saved from utter dreckitude IMHO only by an over-the-top Dracula). Go figure, I really ended up enjoying Riddick - at least, for free on TV. Some films really do seem better suited to the small screen, don't they - when I saw Underworld on the big screen I thought it was asinine, but on television, it has a kind of loveable charm. Is it the simple fact of all that blue lighting and leather, transposed into my living room? Maybe. Riddick is blessed with some really impressive production design, complete with axe-swinging dude who also played Caesar on Xena, Gwen the Lightning Lass from Angel, and the bald villain from Storm of the Century (about the only memorable thing about that mini-series - give me what I want, and I'll go away). Vin Diesel has a presence attack like whoa, and Judy Dench as some kind Bene Gesserit-esque ghost? Saturday matinee fun. Although, hm, I also dug the hell out of XXX, and that I saw on TV too. Maybe I was right the first time about the transposition to living room principle. Or maybe it's a Vin Diesel thing, who knows.

A Very Happy Birthday to [livejournal.com profile] denny_dc!!!

Making note of this because dude, it's just TOO COOL: Roman tomb found at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London. (Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] petzipellepingo for the original pointer.)

[livejournal.com profile] awmp remembers Buffy, with icons. You must go see. It brings back so much.

Wonderful Xander fic Reference Desk by [livejournal.com profile] nwhepcat. Slice of life from Season 3, a little twisted, and things turn out different. Read it for Giles, read it for Faith. Then weep.

[livejournal.com profile] earth_vexer has produced a set of Spike icons so good I don't know which ones to upload next. (As per usual.)

The best breakfast ever on winter mornings wtih a cold is hot oatmeal, fresh made. With just a little milk poured over, and apple slices. And brown sugar. Mmmmm.
thedeadlyhook: (Default)
First off, hello and thanks to all the new peeps who have stopped by my LJ over the last few days, and to new Friends - honestly, I never really expected to get such response to either that last little ramble or any of my recent fic efforts. That said, I can't say I hate the attention, so just a big thanks to everyone who took the time to drop a comment or get into a debate. You've really made my day. Or last few days, more like it.

New business: [livejournal.com profile] eurydice72 is running a William ficathon. I'm such a latecomer to these things that the whole concept of ficathons is still kinda novel to me, so I'm sorely tempted. As if I don't already have enough WIPs on my plate. (grumble, grumble) Thoughts About William )

Semi-related side note while I'm doing the William ponder: iTunes threw some Smiths at me this morning, reminding me of a theory I'd had back when I'd first heard that there was going to be a BtVS musical. I'd thought it likely the music would be covers instead of original pieces, and I'd predicted that surely Spike would sing "I Know It's Over" from The Queen is Dead album - pretty obvious from the lyrics why I thought so. (I'd also note the previous song on that record, "Frankly, Mr Shankly," has a line about "I didn't know you wrote such bloody awful poetry"... maybe somewhere in my head William ended up crosspolinated with Morrissey.) Anyway, I'd also guessed there might be something in there from The Music Man, and lo and behold, we did get a little name-check in the actual episode - "76 bloody trombones." But why The Music Man? For those not familiar... You Are What You Play )

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