la_belle_laide | Sittin' in the movie-show, thinkin' nasty thoughts...

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Sittin' in the movie-show, thinkin' nasty thoughts...

So I saw three movies this weekend and I need to comment on all of them, duh!

First, Big Talking Robots And Bimbo In Short Shorts or, “Transformers 2.” SPOILER! Optimus Prime gets killed but gets resurrected. In between those two events is lots of explosions, a few lame jokes--most of which are built around stereotypes--and some phenomenally bad acting by some chick in tight clothes, the geek wish-fulfillment actor Shia LeBeouf, and a couple of doofy character actors. The voice acting was pretty bad too. The only cool part was that big machine that sucked everything in. In short, and I totally say this as someone who's been known to wet her pants over huge transforming mecha: "yawn," and I'm glad I saw this one for free.

Last night I watched The Secret Life Of Bees. I didn't know what it was going to be about, only that Paul Bettany was in it and I was feeling kind of cheap and uninspired and I wanted to see something with a hot guy in it. SPOILER! May Boatright dies. I typically don't like movies that have purposefully emotionally charged montages to indie songs, but the acting really saved the day in this movie. I actually quite liked it. Although I did have a few issues with it, however. I don't know dude, it just seems like Hollywood has such a weird relationship with race. I guess because Hollywood really is white. It seems like they try hard to do right by people of all different colors and races, but at the end of the day still somehow manage to marginalize them anyway. "Black people sure are great when they are helping white people, aren't they?" That's nice, but I've rarely seen a movie that deals with race in any way other than "this is their effect on white people." No matter how good the intentions, it still comes across as being from white people's point of view. Obviously I am not black so maybe I can't even make that judgment call, and like I said, it was a really sweet movie with a really sweet, and I believe heartfelt, message. Queen Latifah is pretty great and Alicia Keys, OMG I had no idea that was her, she is so gorge. The acting was really great all around but she really stood out. But I don't know dude, it just seems like every movie with people of any color other than white in it has to have some kind of message about how those people are in relation to white people.

And the movie that really confronted this, brilliantly I think, was Tropic Thunder.

But I'm getting off the topic. Paul Bettany, dude I know he was so bad and nasty and evil and abusive, but goddamn he is so hot and I felt really bad while I was watching how nasty and terrible he was and thinking, "oh yeah, I'd hit that." One other thing the movie did was ask you to consider the feelings of this terrible and abusive bastard. And then, like it or not, you kind of do consider them. Which feels a little unnatural and taboo. I mean, he beat on his wife and little daughter. People who do this are like demons and you're rarely asked to see them as anything other than that. But this movie went there.

Then today I went to the movies and saw Your Mom's A Horcrux a.k.a. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. But before I saw it, I saw some trailers! For example, I saw the trailer for the new Twatlight movie, something about a ridiculously white and sparkly Cedric Diggory freaking out on some Mary Sue because she got a paper cut, and then some black dude with red eyes threatens her and then Remus Lupin turns into a wolf and they have a battle or something, I don't know, Stephanie Meyers is a toolbox.

I also saw the trailer for Sherlock Holmes, which looks at once both retarded and really awesome. Umm, why is Sherlock Holmes doing Wing Chun Kung Fu, and I'm pretty sure a little CLF long-arm? Surely not because Robert Downy Jr. can do Wing Chun Kung Fu. Surely not. There was some tough-love bromance and a girl without much clothes on just to make sure that no one got any funny ideas about Holmes and Watson, although I like to think that RDJ is probably partial to "funny ideas" and probably wouldn't mind. Either way, I'll go and see it in the movie theater.

Anyway, onto Harry Potter: SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE LOLOLOLOL. Well, first I should say that this bitch is really long. Like as in, I finished my ice cream before anything really started to happen, and then I also had to get up and pee before the movie was over. Also my ass was a little numb. That kind of long.

Umm, I don't know, it was Harry Potter. The kids have come a long way. I know they're not Oscar material but to be fair, neither are most of the people who've won Oscars. I like them though. They really fell into the characters, even if Hermione's huffiness and tears seem a little forced, and Ron's goofiness a little overdone, and Harry's earnestness like really EARNEST, LIKE THIS, IN ALL CAPS. I thought the kid who played Draco did a great job with this one. What is he like about 6'7" by now or something? Anyway, weirdly enough he was the most believable of all the kids in this one. The girl who played Lavender was way too over the top, even though she was supposed to be. I still didn't like her. Alan Rickman, umm, you could ask him to play a pet rock or a piece of fungus and you'd walk out of the theater going, "I've never enjoyed watching a pet rock or a piece of fungus so much." Homeboy knows how to work the long black coat.

Another one I really liked was Luna Lovegood. I think she does a smashing job; her timing is right on, and she's just so likable too.

One of the best performances in the whole movie was also one of the briefest. Frank Dillane, who played 16 year old Tom Riddle, had like ten lines in the whole thing but he was the most convincing one in the film. He was so oily and so creepy and really believable. I immediately and self-indulgently thought he's make the perfect young Sahrek, you know, when I'm the next JKR and they're making my books into movies.

I began to miss the older movies, and the old characters. There just wasn't enough time to get everyone in there, and I get that, but I missed them. They used to round out the whole experience and give the HP world a sense of being populated. Seamus Finnegan, Hagrid, the rest of the Weasleys, all the other teachers. They just got crowded out of this film. The plot ran a little bit like "this happens and that happens and then this" and sometimes it seemed like one thing did totally not lead to the other.

In the book, the "half blood prince" and his potions book were a lot more meaningful. Hence, you know, Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince. However in the movie it was like, "Oh look, here's a book which has all the answers, wonder who it belongs to, oh here's a good spell, yikes that's kind of mean. Okay let's hide this book and give it one line of significance towards the end. Look! Hormonal teenagers!"

As I said to my friend

skitty_kitty who, weirdly enough saw the movie THE SAME TIME I SAW IT and did her own review: The thing about these films is that they are made for people who've read the books. When you try to show them to people who've never even cracked the book they are invariably like, "WTMFF? How the hell did this come to be?" Then you sit there going, "Err, well, in the book she went into much more detail and, yeah..."

There were, however, incredible and jaw-dropping special effects. (Bellatrix LeStrange had one of the best entrances I've ever seen!) Visually, the movie is a total experience. I think people should really see this on the big screen. It made me wonder how movies are going to possibly top themselves ten, fifteen, thirty years down the road. God, what will they look like then? I can't even imagine it! And oh my god, the money they must have spent to realize this vision!

When in fact, acting itself is free. I think people lose sight of that.

OTOH, when I'm the next JKR* and they're making my books into movies, will my movies get a huge big budget and lots of neato special effects? Will my characters have their own theme song that will creep up on you during the specially-designed opening logo? Will people watch my characters grow and evolve through nine movies, and will some chick with too much time on her hands one weekend sit there and pick it apart on livejournal?

One can only hope. ^_^

Anyway, seeing the trailer for Twatlight before seeing Harry Potter--however flawed the HP movie might have been--really makes you realize the difference between some mediocre hack who purposely appeals to the most base and underdeveloped emotions of teens (which teens have every right to have; I had them too!) and someone like JK Rowling, who, in fact, can write a novel.

All of this makes me sincerely, sincerely, sincerely hope that I am no SMeyers and that I can, you know, write a novel.

And those were my three movies!

*GOOD HEAVENS allow me one more edit. Anyone who knows me can hear by inflection how completely tongue-in-cheek I am being when I call myself "the next JKR." It's a joke, yo. Because seriously.

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I gotta agree, I loved the actor who played Tom, and the effects. Just wished they hadn't screwed Snape over, and hope one day they'll let Rickman act! They let Felton act, and look how awesome he was in this one. ;D

Rickman's gonna get his shots in over the next two films, just you wait.

Err, I mean, he has to. Right? O_O

Next one film? Or is the epilogue an entire film on its own? ;D

Man, I hope so. I really, really do, but I mean, he should've had that epic ending and they yanked that away from him. I will be curious to see how they handle his death, which imo could be improved. A lot. :p

Aren't they breaking up Deathly Hallows into two separate films? Or did I imagine reading that? O_O

Yeah, oh boy, I hated his death in DH and I hated how he was sainted after the fact.

The blog giving you flak again, or is this a preemptive strike?

And well shit! I thought HBP was the one split in two, but I was wrong about that. I hadn't heard the last movie was a two-parter!

I hated a lot of things about the way she handled Snape at the end. And I'm horribly prejudiced because while if I knew him IRL I'd likely punch his face in, he's my favorite character in the books. I wish he'd gotten the end he deserved, and a better written reason for why.

What blog? I feel like i missed something?

Maybe HBP is split into two parts, but what would be left? I should really re-read the book at some point.

I felt the same way you did about Snape. He deserved more, but it seemed like in the last book she just tried to tie everything up as quickly as possible and skimped a lot.

I know I'm wrong about HBP, but before it came out I was under the impression it was a two-parter, as was someone else I know. Honestly couldn't tell you where I got the idea, though. Is there any info out there that for sure says the last movie is a two-parter?

Blog = Place where people are hugely retarded and flamey and they think it's made by a famous person. Your edit made me think someone was being stupid.

Yeah, she skimped on all of the important things and us wizardly bass master 3000, or Harry and the Great Outdoors.

Could be that we're both wrong? But we both heard something about a two-parter, hmmm. Either way they'd better hurry before Draco can't fit into the doors anymore. ;)

Ohh, that blog. I haven't checked it since I went in to say hi. No, the edit was because I realized there could be people out there who don't know me who would take that seriously.

Those crazy biddies can go hang; who cares what they think. ;D

HP and the Great Outdoors, LMAO! That was the only time I really started skimming her stories.

It's weirding me out how grown up he's getting! Odd, though, that three of us got this 2-parter idea separately. Off to the ~~library~~ to search the net!

And there we go.

Great work!

OMG, two months later! That's actually kind of neat. Glad it wouldn't be two years. O_O

See now I don't know when it's coming out, because I think either a Vanity Fair or EW article has the movie coming out 6 months later. Like 1st is out in Nov., the 2nd in May. So...one of them maybe right?

Well I'll tell you what, I was a little T.O.ed when this one was supposed to come out in November but they wanted a big summer blockbuster so they released it now instead.

On a real bummer of a note, if they had released this one in November like they'd originally planned, my Grandma could have seen it. >_<

I like the November releases; always have. Kind of nice and cozy.

Aw, that sucks. :(

Yeah, they are bastards.

(You used your witchy icon so I wanted to use mine. :D )

Also, I do not get people who like Twilight. I find Edward CREEPY. CREEPY CREEPY CREEPY.

I think you have to be a master at fail to be SM, which is a level few can achieve. I believe you are safe. :D

You know, I read a few pages of the book at a book store and I was floored by how godawful those few pages were. My first thought was, "I've read better fanfiction. Seriously."

I hope you're right! ;)

This entry rules.

I LOLed through most of it.

Also, god, this chick i used to be friends with sent me a copy of the book Secret Life of Bees and was all "omg this was transcendantly beautiful and wonderful and i cried and cried and it's just magically great and omg since it takes place in the South i had to send it to you and i hope you love it as much as i did!!1!"

So i read it and was REPULSED by the thickets and droves of Speshul Magickal Negresses living in their beekeeping wonderland hidden amidst piles of Murderous Racist Hillbillies, whose only purpose in life was actually apparently to hep some spoilt honkey tween cope wit her vile daddy. I was like, wow, this book is the most fucking bullshit pile of hurl ever upchucked onto the page, by some privileged pasty twat who writes like she never actually knew any real black people, you know, like as real-life neighbors or friends or lovers or anything. It offended me on so many levels i can't even deal. It is a book i literally threw across the room.

And now you tell me that PAUL BETTANY is in the goddamn film, and also Queen Latifah? Fuck a fucking bag of fuck, but now i might have to watch the goddamn thing.

Ugh though, i really abhorred the book with such a fiery explosive Vesuvian volcano of hate, i am not sure even the fabulously sexy Senor Bettany can get my butt in that seat. :/

If I can make you LOL that's really saying something because I always read your entries with such glee! :)

I'm kinda glad then that i never read the book. Yeah, the movie was pretty much similar. I kinda didn't want to really think it, but you put it into words so much better than I could anyway. What I kinda got out of it was, "Aren't black people great? Like when they're helping white people?" And also the interracial little pre-teen love seemed to read like, "Look at what a GOOD PERSON the little white girl is, she is such a good person she would kiss a black boy." It seemed like she was doing them such a big favor.

But yes dude, Paul Bettany being villainous and beating the hell out of little girls, but oh man, I'd watch him drink out of a toilet. He's so pretty. Did you see him in Inkheart? I wanted to lick his face.

I just think, you know, had Sue Monk Kidd ever bothered to read To Kill a Mockingbird? Because that book nailed "Civil Rights in the South through the eyes of a young white girl," and you know, why'd she bother writing her own shitty take on that concept?

That's really it, the whole book is just dripping with the conceit that by just interacting with the black characters, the white protagonist is bestowing such a gift upon them all. And i thought all the black women characters were so stereotypical, magic mammies and sultry sexpots and shit. Don't even get me started on the fucked up figurehead-idol thing.

(I mean, i am 110% down with created spirituality and ritual, and investing meaning in personal symbologies and shit, i am not knocking that in GENERAL, i just felt that whole part of the story was like, some white person's fantasy-driven titillation at what she kinda thought might be omg bombastic black spiritualitye hallelujah praise the lawd omg.)

YESSSS, totally like the "noble savage," like a black Tonto. They are so super and wonderful and spiritual and wise, but really they are just there to help white folk out. And they seemed to be used as a device just to show white protagonists in a more positive light.

This is also what bugs me out a lot about the Hawaiian culture as well. I notice it at every single show I do, or even ones that I go to. Hawaiians aren't allowed to be anything but "ALOHA" and if they god forbid have a temper or get angry or want their sovereignty back, they are screwing with the white perception of how they are supposed to act.

/tangent

Okay yeah, if the Black Madonna thing bugged you you'll definitely want to FF through the "church" scene in the movie where there's a lot of "oh lawdy" and "testify!" kinda thing going on. They didn't make too huge of a deal about it but it was there in that one scene.

Hmm. I have three different races in my story and the world I'm writing has a lot of race relation problems. I'm glad I saw this movie and we're having this conversation because this has given me a lot to think about. I sort of touched on the "noble savage" / "we love you but still treat you like a pet" idea for like a second, but this has made me more aware of what not to fall into because I have a whole different world view too and I just don't want to be "that writer."

Oh and, no i did not see him in Inkheart. Maybe i should watch it for the facelicking factor.

I have watched him in Master(bator) and Commander about 23948 times though. I always feel a little bit skeeved out at myself for thinking the self-surgery scene is hot.

See Inkheart OMG shirtless firedancing; he is so hot he creates fires.

I never did see M&C but I have this umm, issue, and now I think I should probably like to and rent that sumbitch yesterday.

Oh well, um, i guess i just spoilered a bit of that film then. I assumed that back when we were both frotting anything with pirate ships that you must have gone to see it in theatres or whatev, because it was that whole salad-days-of-PotC thing.

M&C is perhaps my favorite film of all time, ever, period. I have the super DVD box with the 203984 hours of extras and i even take it with me when i leave town (how ridic). I swear on every fucking sacred thing, including the faked up idols of beekeeping black ladies whose greatest joy in life is to wipe the gentle tears of white wimmins, that film is full of HOT MENS, awesome sea battles, cool-ass Galapagos wildlife, lovely classical music, throat-lump-gulping tragic events, and OMG THE HOT MENS.

You are actually the, I think maybe second person who has ever even mentioned the movie to me. (My first KF teacher, wonderful lady, I think around Xmas last year said to me, "Oh, I really like that movie; you should see it." It was during a conversation about HAWT.) TBH I don't even remember seeing trailers of it?

OMG looks like I will be taking a trip to the store tomorrow for serious. I mean you swore on Teh Black Madonna. TESTIFY. Hot mens = tragedy and Paul Bettany + blood, like I said, issues, okay now I'm psyched because I have a new movie I need to watch and I can't wait for it to be tomorrow night already. O_O

Ok this is hugely fruitcakey of me (and, hopefully not creepy sounding) but now I HAVE TO WATCH IT AGAIN TOMORROW NIGHT TOO. Just on the off chance that you love it, so it can be fresh in my mind for OMGing. laksdjf dorktastic.

That's awesome. I am going to try to get to Target today and see if they have it; if I have time after Kung Fu tonight (I totally forgot I had KF,) I'll watch it but I have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow efffffff! I might end up watching it tomorrow night after school.

I absolutely absolutely will let you know. :)

It's pretty long, like 2.5hrs i think, so yeah, you might put it off, or watch half tonight and half tomorrow.

Though suspense-wise that might be maddening.

NO ONE HAS IT. >_< This makes me feel very pissy. I'm gonna order it from Amazon. Grr.

Oh god, thank you. I am so glad to see someone else hating on SLoB.

Hey! Look what I did there.

ok between the little kid playing really little Tom Riddle and this kid playing teenage Tom Riddle i totally feel like a pedophile now

i dunno what the appeal of HP was, because i didn't like any of the books when i tried to read them :( just couldn't keep reading enough to finish any of the books. i've enjoyed quite a few fanfics and one or two of the movies though and agree the characters are pretty awesome, although again not sure how much of that is the fanfic author's writing style and how much of it is the original character and his/her plight.

JKR >>>> SM though totally, i read a page of Twilight out of curiosity and thought it was a spoof/joke :(

LMAO! At first I thought they had to be brothers because they really did look so much alike!

I mostly love JKR's writing style. There have been times when her style has annoyed me, and there have been times I've facepalmed over something she'd written, but for the most part they were huge page-turners for me; the kinds of books I couldn't put down even when I knew I should be doing something else. More than that, I have great respect for her. She seems so awesome. And she supports fanfic, too. :) (As long as it doesn't sexualize her young characters, she said. Anything else is okay with her. OMG, I love that about her.)

Oh man, Smeyers. Yeah, I wondered at first if it was some kind of joke, too. Actually I'm still not convinced it isn't. ;)

After her freak out about someone leaking her book, I firmly believe she be trollin'.

I didn't hear a thing about that. LOL wanky authors!

Lol, I totally feel the same way after watching Tom Felton in this movie. So wrong.

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Cool, it's not just me then! So many people were peeing themselves over Transformers 2 andhow OMG awesome!!!!111 it was and yet through the whole movie I felt I would rather watch my leg hair grow back.

COULD NOT FIND MASTER AND COMMANDER! WAH! No one carries it anymore! Must resort to Amazon.

In the book, the "half blood prince" and his potions book were a lot more meaningful. Hence, you know, Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince. However in the movie it was like, "Oh look, here's a book which has all the answers, wonder who it belongs to, oh here's a good spell, yikes that's kind of mean. Okay let's hide this book and give it one line of significance towards the end. Look! Hormonal teenagers!"

Best Shorter HBP EVER.

I liked it, I think. I'll probably have to watch it on DVD a couple of times to be sure though. Dammit, I wish I could create something as spellbinding that people get sucked into my world enough to read and watch things over and over.

I watched Twilight last weekend and it made me physically ill.

Hehee, thanks!

I liked it, I think. I'll probably have to watch it on DVD a couple of times to be sure though. Dammit, I wish I could create something as spellbinding that people get sucked into my world enough to read and watch things over and over.

ME TOOOO. In fact that is my second most devoutest wish evar. (The first being "world peace combined with ridiculously long and healthy lives for everyone I really like including me, along with everyone who ever pissed me off having bad karma and realizing how much they suck, and a hundred million dollars also.")

I hope you saw Twatlight for free.

I agree with you about the whole black people helping white people thing in movies. I mean, The Legend of Baggar Vance? Come on. Too weird. From one stereotype to another. But that's Hollywood!

I never actually saw that movie but I'll take your word. Seems the more I think about it the more it bugs me out. Looking back on movies I've seen, I can see that it's a much more prevalent stereotype than I'd even noticed.

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Sittin' in the movie-show, thinkin' nasty thoughts...

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