300, books, and other stuff

Am masochistically enjoying present job and workplace - it's a bit like being locked in a room with a series of increasingly difficult logical reasoning puzzels with a time clock and I happen to adore logical reasoning puzzels. In short - I'm being paid to analyze stuff and then explain the analysis in laymen's terms to people. Plus translate it in workable form in database or log. It's stressful, long hours, but also unpredictable, and fun in a weird inexplicable way.

The topic of conversation this week was the flick "300" which all the guys (the men at my company) were psyched to see. Saw it last night during the blizzard with CW. Was exactly what it was meant to be - a visual spectacle. Not everyone's cup of tea, certainly, but CW and I adored it. Surprised a bit that we did, considering.

Would you like it? Don't know. It's not politically correct. And apparently is pissing off the Iranians. Go figure. Yeah, I can see why a "Persian" might find it offensive. But honestly, it's based on a graphic novel, is told in a clearly "fantasical" manner, and is based on something that happened over 4,000 years ago. If anything - I thought the movie did a very good job of driving home the point that we tend to demonize the enemy and make them in-human and monsterous to justify going to war with them or decimating them. This does not mean the enemy is truly monsterous - just that in our point of view they are. The movie has a tight and strict pov that it never wavers from - it's the pov of the troubadour that Leonides, the Greek Spartan King, sends back to Greece to tell the tale. And the pov is emphasized with "voice" over narration. We see everything through his eyes. And the closing sequence - explains a lot of why he chooses the images he does. One of the best examples of a tight unwavering POV I've seen done on film. You have to remember when watching or reading a historical record, a film, a book, or a story - that it is important to know who the storyteller is - and what their goal or motivation is in telling the tale. In 300 the storyteller's goal (not the movie-maker, but the narrator, the pov of the person telling it)is to raise an army to defeat Persia, to convince men and women who hate war and are against going to war and whose priests have advised against going to war - that this is a great thing to do and the enemy is monsterous.

The movie does not tell us what to think necessarily. It tells us what the person telling the story believes and why they believe it. It depicts a specific pov.

The film is visually stunning. And is a nearly perfect adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel "300". CW who was friends with Miller while he was writing 300, remembers him giving word-by-word the same speech that Queen Gorgo gives in the flick - about how liberty and personal freedom is worth fighting for. She said, "that's Miller's typical rant - I can almost hear him saying it in the bar right now." It may be the most beautiful war film I've seen, which is an odd thing to say. Yet by the same token, it felt like an anti-war film.
Chilling. Depicting how we destroy each other for silly things like pride, vanity, hubris, and the desire to be gods.

Not at all what I'd expected. And in some ways, I liked it - visually speaking at least, a lot more than Lord of the Rings (also a war film - this one is prettier and visually speaking more fluid less jagged in places), and V is for Vendetta (a graphic novel film). Although all three are very different. This one has the prettiest men though, which is of course a huge plus or minus, if you don't like that sort of thing.

If you like graphic novels and enjoy visuals such as ahem half-naked men with pretty chests moving about and fighting - you'll like this film. If you don't - you won't. Wales would have hated it for instance, hence the reason I went with CW. Wales is my art-film/chick flick movie pal, CW is my fantasy/sci-fi/action film movie pal. My tastes are so eclectic I need more than one movie pal, or I just see a lot on my own or via netflix.

Speaking of eclectic tastes - I finally finished Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. Wary of saying too much about it, since Dean has an lj and a good percentage of the people on my flist seem to love her work. Suffice to say: I did not love the book.

I have read five books that deal with the same subject matter Dean's book does - three of which take place in a college setting. Of the five, Dean's is by far the weakest and least interesting. The five are:
( Read more... )

Oh in other news: Bought myself BTVS S2 DVD (was on sale at Borders - Slim Set - which by the way I prefer to the other version - it's easier to get the Discs out of and the artwork on the discs is better. I'd seen the other version - when I borrowed it briefly from a friend of mine over two years ago. The Slim Set is similar to the Firefly DVD set - each DVD has it's own container. Much better packaging.), and Casino Royale (because I'm shallow and like to look at Daniel Craig in ahem certain sequences.)

Comics Reviews...Buffy S8

First off - last night had one of those nightmares that haunts long after the fact. Don't remember anything from it but one bit. Someone meets me in a comic store and tells me that my eyes are a coward's eyes. The coward's eyes bit haunts. Weird. What is my subconscious playing at anyways? Spent most of the day telling myself that I may be many things, but a coward is not one of them.

Watching a funky Elton John special on BBC America.

Question: If you don't like what you are doing for work or profession right now - what would you prefer to be doing? If you do and you couldn't do it, what would you do instead?

*(This was prompted by two things: one a conversation with a co-worker the other day in which they told me they felt they'd chosen the wrong profession - they could tell you anything about Africa and African culture (because it interested them) but not about the database we were struggling with. This hit a bit too close to home for comfort. Two a question posed to Elton John by Timothy Dalton, John who lucked out and got to do what he loved most - his response? That he'd have gotten a job at Tower Records, which in reality was really all he'd expected. The rest was a bit of a surprise. For the record? I think I'd have been an artist. Either a novelist or a graphic novelist. But the universe in its ultimate wisdom had other ideas, the best I can do is continue to write in my spare time. Book is closer to being done. Whether or not anyone gets to read it or it gets published is another issue entirely. I've long since given up fighting the universe, sometimes one just has to let go and see what happens...you know?)

Buffy Season 8: The Long Way Home

Anticipation is not always a good thing. I think sometimes we build up unrealistic expectations for things. It is a problem I've run into with my own writing - which is why I no longer ask most of my friends to read my work. Their perception of me and expections get in the way of the work - they are disappointed, because it does not meet whatever they think I should be creating.

That said, I did not have high expectations. I also know where the writer wants to go. What is interesting to him and how that differs from what is interesting to me. I've seen and read enough of his work, and watched enough of what influences it (General Hospital, BSG, Veronica Mars, X-men comics, Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Shakespeare, Howard Hawks...), that I have a pretty good idea what he'll write about. He's interested in the power dynamics between male/female and how our society belittles women and is sooo patriarchial and soo threatened by female power and why that is. If you've watched enough Westerns and read enough comic books and seen enough Sci-Fi, you can sort of see why he thinks that way, plus, it helps if your Mother more or less created NOW - the feminist activist group. That's what Whedon's comics are about. It is what interests him.

The art works. It is not distracting. It flows. And it fits the characters without copying the actor's looks. Buffy is actually more attractive here than Gellar is right now. Gellar is almost too thin. And Xander, similarily, is more attractive here than I think he was in the later seasons or Brendan currently is. In marked contrast to Buffy, in the comic he is thinner, and darker, while in reality - Brendan is heavier and lighter.

The advantage of a comic or novel over a tv show - is we can delve into the character's thoughts. We get to know what they are thinking. Which I happen to like. And it was one of the my problems with Buffy in the series - as a good an actress as Gellar was, she didn't always emote well - so as a result seemed a tad remote as a character. Here, she's less remote somehow.
( the rest of this review contains serious spoilers. I liked the comic and do recommend for those who haven't picked it up. )

Angel Old Lyne Syne - did deliver by the way. Both Angel and Spike work in it. Their relationship fascinates me. And the writer does a good job of playing with it. I have to agree with the writers of the Angel series - Spike was the best romance for Angel in a completely unsexual way. They are hilarious together. And their unresolved and on-going love/hate relationship is precious. It works in some ways better than a male/female, gay romance would - because the tension can never be resolved, it remains edgy. Perpetual foreplay. At the same time, they can tell each other things and push buttons on one another - that two lovers would never dare do. This is the great thing about non-romantic relationships, you can tell each other more. In romance - we tend to lie more, for fear of losing the sex. In friendships, the stakes aren't quite so high.

In May - another Spike limited series is coming out - Spike:Shadow Poppets. Spike against Puppets. Cool. Yay.

Me happy. The universe is delivering the entertainment I want for a change. Very nice of it, don't you think? Do wish the weekend would last longer, though. Since I may not get one next weekend. May have to work.