Sententiae Draconis

Non-Spoilery review:

It's like the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead: When she was good she was very very good, and when she was bad she was horrid.

I have very conflicting feelings about this movie. Thanks J.J. for proving all of my concerns valid. I waited four years for this movie and this is what you give me?

Spoilery review:

( Under the cut... )

Could we just have a movie of Scotty and Bones sassing the Enterprise and being awesome together?

Yes I hold Star Trek to a higher standard. Why shouldn't I?

ETA: There's some discussion on LJ! And it contains spoilers for STID but also probably for Iron Man 3! You have been warned.

Yesterday morning when I woke up it was snowing outside. In general this makes me very happy. But then a little later (somewhere in the vicinity of noonish – I work nights!) while I was lying in bed reading my power went out. – My apartment is super dark. Even in the lightest part of the day.

Turns out this is not just my breaker (as happens rather frequently in my apartment) but the whole neighbourhood. Because even though it’s Vancouver the snow is actually staying on the ground and is between five and ten centimetres!

J and C and I had been planning on going to see the Hobbit that afternoon out at the IMAX (which is in Richmond) so that we could see the first nine minutes of Star Trek. We were planning on the 4:20 show. The official word is that it takes circa half an hour to get to the IMAX from where we are. But we were planning on giving ourselves lots of extra time even before we knew about the weather. So around 2ish we start texting back and forth about whether or not it’s safe to drive with the roads being kinda crap. J has had the worst day ever with exam stress and weather stress and a massive headache, so she decides not to come. But C (our driver) is familiar with driving in snow and checked the webcams for the highways (which were clear) and decided that it was worth a shot.

So she picked me up around 3 from 8th and Waterloo. It took us until 3:40 to get to Arbutus and 30th. Which is nowhere near the IMAX. That should’ve been a 15 min drive on the outside.

Considering Vancouver probably has a grand total of 2 snowploughs, the roads weren’t all that bad. But the traffic was ridiculous, although I didn’t see anyone being too terrible at driving either (which is frankly a miracle).

So we decided to cut our losses and head for C’s place. I checked the BC hydro website from my phone and the power was still off at mine. (Boo.)

Since C lives near my work though I called up the theatre to let them know that we’d be coming to the 7 o’clock show. (Perks of working in a movie theatre – I can take myself and a friend to the movies for free.) We spent the remaining time drinking tea eating a whole grocery store chicken (me) and watching Seaquest, which C has on DVD because she’s cool like that. And then we walked through the slushy snow to the theatre.

So we didn’t get the first nine minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness (Hell, we didn’t even get the trailer – lame). But we at least got to see the movie. And lo: it was good.

( ”Hobbit )

I want Dwarf hugs! All the Dwarf hugs!

Then I went home and although my power was up the internet was not. I think the wireless needs to be reset. But naturally it’s my landlords who control the router. The internet is still out now and I had to abscond to a coffee shop to post my Yuletide story and check on my virtual life. I'll see if I can pester them about it tonight. On my list of things for the next place I live is controlling my own internet. I'm getting fed up with the poor signal strength in the basement and people who don't notice immediately when it's not working. Le sigh.

Finally went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. It was everything I'd hoped for.

I am filled with Squee!

Also I really must get the soundtrack of the first one from M when we get back home after the holidays. The music in these is really spectacular. Hans Zimmer - why are you so awesome?

Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed the action, the deductions which did not always turn out as expected. And Mycroft!

Now I really want some Holmes/Watson/Mary because Mary is clearly amazing in her own right.

Yay!

Am now in possession of one Doctor Who patterned knitting needle case! (Thank you Etsy!) It arrived today and after I opened it M and I immediately looked to see if we could identify all eleven doctors. (We did, but it was mostly M because she's seen way more of the old Who than I have. - i.e. some.) It's adorable! And also useful. I really did need a new needle case, so on the whole I deem it money well spent.

Other things that are spent: Me.

Am super tired right now. This schooling business totally takes it out of you. I know I'm complaining about nothing so far because it's not like I'm in the midst of presentation and paper rush season, but after a whole day spent in the Reading Room and then at class I am wiped.

Am also considering getting the X-Men First Class DVD in order to have the special features. Did and of you get it? Or have you heard the scoop about whether or not they're worth it? I'm also influenced because I hear tell that part of the decision about whether or not to do another one will be based on DVD sales. But I waver.

But perhaps it is sleep time now.

So it's been over a week since I got back from Italy, and I still haven't written up a good post about the dig and being back and all those other important things. ... And this isn't that either. This is a post about all the crazy things that are in my head at the moment.

First and foremost are James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender - because they are awesome and X-Men has eaten my brain. It's not so much that First Class was that great a movie (although I did really enjoy it) but their chemistry was fantastic and their obvious friendship in all their interviews is absolutely contagious. Their epic bromance is only equal to Sir Patrick and Sir Ian, or RDJ and Jude Law. It's epic. And also they totally weren't exaggerating when they mentioned the drag scene which was cut from the movie - HILARIOUS! I think I may have to buy the DVD if I'll get extras like these!

Evidence: The Japan DVD trailer, the Drag is at the 4 min mark!

I've also downloaded and started watching episodes of the Animated X-Men TV series which is a fond memory from my childhood. It is totally awesome too. I was not expecting it to still have such great characterization and messages and even the plots are pretty awesome. Even my roommate M is loving it and she didn't watch it as a child and therefore doesn't have nostalgia. - Also even in '90s Children's TV the Professor and Magneto are made for each other!

Let the brain-eating continue I say!

I've been procrastinating from writing my report for the dig. Partially because I've never written an archaeological report before and I'm worried that I'm going to screw it up, and partially because I've been sick and sleeping for most of this past week. In that light I've even ended up accomplishing other things - like organizing an orientation for the incoming grad students to our department (because our department would never do anything like that and also it needs to happen - but it's going to be super basic, I don't have the time or energy to do anything more official.) and getting my student loan documents in order (almost done!).

But today I will at very least start on that damn report, and I will at very least organize my laundry so that I can do it. And I will try not to be seduced by the internet and McAvoy-Fassbender interviews - I've seen most of them already anyway.

Also also - have you guys seen the new videos up on Peter Jackson's Facebook page for the Hobbit! There are 13 Dwarfs! And they are AMAZING! They are teasing each other and joking back and forth and it makes me squee like a squeeing thing! I can't wait for the Hobbit!



And on a more somber note, Jack Layton, Canada's Leader of the Opposition, died of cancer. It's really weird reading people say that they were expecting something like this because of how his health had taken a turn for the worse, because I've been on the other side of the world and paying even less attention to the news than I normally do. I vaguely remember hearing about him having some health problems, but the last I'd really heard of him was from the election when he was strong and energetic. So it's kind of shocking to me. He was a great man and a great politician, and the farewell letter he wrote to Canadians two days before his death is very moving. I don't agree with all his politics, and he was in no way perfect, but I'd been really looking forward to what he would accomplish as leader of the opposition and I had great hopes that he might've won the next election and become our Prime Minister. I'll miss his lovely moustache. See also: The Happy Jack Layton is Happy Tumblr for some awesome photos of Jack in action (via karenjeane).

A list in honour of the crown I'm getting tomorrow. :)

1. The hockey blog I read (which I've mentioned before) had a Scrabble Battle today with Tanner Glass, a forward with the Vancouver Canucks. Yes, I did say "Scrabble Battle." Way back near the beginning of the season there was some player profile thing during the TV coverage of one of the games which said that Tanner Glass was an avid Scrabble player. As a result, Harrison from Pass it to Bulis challenged him to a Scrabble game. Probably nothing would have come of this (since the challenge was online rather than in person, natch), but apparently someone in Tanner Glass' family reads PITB, and drew his attention to it. Since then it's been a bit of a running gag. There were T-Shirts made for it and everything. Today was the game.

They organized it to be a fundraiser for charity, and the guy who raised the most money got first move (naturally the guy who earns a lot of money and hangs out with a bunch of other guys who earn a lot of money got the start). I'm actually super impressed. Not only because an NHL hockey player actually decided to play Scrabble with a blogger for charity (which is cool enough as it is), but both of them had really good showings. I posthumously read the Live Blog of the game (over here) and both of them had some really good plays. Harrison won, but not by too much, and both of them had over 300 points. Which is a wicked score.

(Although maybe Harrison should have let Tanner win, because Tanner Glass Fights Bears, after all.) :)

All in all this was extremely hilarious.

2. I'm officially going to Cuba! I bought my ticket today. There is going to be an all-inclusive resort, and my brother and some really good friends of ours are all going to be there. It's going to be the first time I've ever had a hotel room to myself as well - so that should be pretty cool. I'm super looking forward to it.

3. The Eagle. It was every bit as awfully awesome as I thought it would be and then some. I loved it. Unfortunately they weren't in short skirts for as much of the time as I would have liked (for that you have to watch Clash of the Titans *grin*), but I suppose when most of the film is set in Scotland, you want to cover as much as you can. Understandable, but still unfortunate. No mangled Latin, but loads of mangled Gaelic - some of which I recognized! Although I don't have a good enough sense of whether it sounded mangled to me because it was Scots Gaelic instead of Irish (or because it's been nearly 7 years since I took Gaelic in a very poor sort of way), or because they just mangled it. I'm going with the latter personally, but I'm more than willing to be proven wrong. (Because if nothing else, Billy Elliot speaking Gaelic is super hot.)

It was a pretty movie. And it was entirely what you would expect. Although it was rather weird to hear all the Romans with American accents, but I suppose it makes sense because then the British could have British accents. Still. Their putting my cinematic tropes on their head! Also they were clearly portraying the Roman Legions as Jarheads, which took a moment to get used to, but otherwise made very good sense.

As one might expect, I wish there'd been more character development for the relationship between Aquila and Esca. But I'll just wait on the fic. (Is it strange to be sad about movies that come out in the beginning of the year because they're temporally so far away from Yuletide? I feel like even if I don't forget about it before Yuletide shows up then probably everyone else will forget about it by then. Le Sigh.)

But yes - Awesome.

I really want to see this. I went searching for the trailer again just now because I was watching clips from a SD Comic Con panel called "Women who Kick Ass" where one of the women from this movie was talking about the training and stunts they had to do. Jena Malone said that at one point she was hanging upside down on wires flying through the air shooting and she had to reload her massive gun (she of course said this much better than I did, and with accurate details). When she finished and got to the bottom the stunt coordinator guy had this weird look on his face, so she asked if she'd done something wrong. He said that he'd only ever seen one other person do that before - Ice Cube.

That is so awesome. This movie should be great for that reason alone. I mean - Jena Malone? - I think of her as Mary from Saved, and it's always cool to see actors be completely different people from one role to the next.

In other news today I did a lot of cleaning and organizing. I'm by no means done. But I managed to get all of my stuff up off the floor and move my desk around so there's enough room for my new set of shelves. Things that still need to be done:
- More organizing!!!! I would like to have a vaguely clear desk so that I could at least theoretically do some work from home.
- declog the drain in the bathtub. I think maybe the drain hasn't been properly cleaned since GC was opened twenty years ago. There is probably enough hair down there to cover a small dog or several cats. Sorry for the image - but I'm not looking forward to facing it and wanted to share the gross (I'm just that kind of gal). (And yes I've already tried harsh chemicals. Unfortunately the drain is not fully clogged so the chemicals go through too fast to completely eat away the hair. Yuck.)

Yesterday I did a bunch of wandering around downtown without any real destination or purpose in mind. It was really nice. An exercise in expanding my mental map of the city. It makes the place seem more like home that way.

I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do for New Years. Maybe I'll just hang out here and be boring. I mean there'll be loads of partying happening at the Conference.

Meh. For some reason this whole holiday season just doesn't feel all that auspicious... if that's the word I'm looking for...

They're filming Fringe outside the Barber Library. I did a trip over there to slake my curiosity and to take back a few books I didn't need anymore. At first I thought the caution tape was to prevent people from walking into the scene, but then I realized that it was because they were filming a crime scene. All the FBI people and the "dead" body sort of gave it away.

Hee.

Also I went and saw RED yesterday. It was hilarious. The action was awesome and clearly there for the coolness factor, but in a way that is actually cool rather than crap. And there was a lot of Karl Urban being awesome and looking really attractive in suits.

Clearly my type of movie.

I feel much better now.

I went to see Watchmen today, and I actually quite liked it. I would even like to see it again, but probably not paying to watch in the theatres. I read the comic over the Christmas Break ('cause hobbitbabe has it), and it was pretty good at sticking with the story without changing too much but also making it into a movie instead of just a moving comic book (I thought).

( Cut for general spoilers )

In conclusion - Pretty! With some weird bits. Also is it just me or was this filmed in Vancouver? I need to watch this again if only to play "spot the Vancouver actor."

In other news I got my eyes checked on Thursday and I need reading glasses. It's about time, since I've been trying to make everything work with drug-store reading glasses that aren't optimal for the past four years. C and I went to buy frames yesterday (since he's clearly my fashion consultant), and they should be ready for me on Tuesday or Wednesday. I am excited! They're arriving just in time for paper season and all of the research I'm going to be doing for that. (yay... or not.)

I also did my Greek Lit honours exam yesterday. I only realized today that it might not have been such a good idea to do it on Friday the Thirteenth, but I think it went well regardless. It's one of those exams where I think that I've not done well because it seemed too easy. But I've been told that these exams are easy - but shouldn't it have been harder than that? Whatever, I'll find out soon enough whether I passed, and then I'll know whether I needed a bigger, more in depth answer than that.

So I went to see PotC III today with S. It's raining and just generally damp, so it's the perfect day to go inside and watch a movie.

Here's my reaction. With spoilers.

( Will Turner you are not a sailor! )