Apropos of little, other than the idea that I should actually post here sometimes instead of just imagining writing posts but seldom doing it--

I've been re-reading the novel Jaws lately. Listening to it, really, as I saw an audiobook in the public library and checked it out onto my phone. I don't think I've read it since around the time the movie came out, when I was a child who read above my station in life (and also saw the movie, technically too young but definitely untraumatized).

And you know, seeing the movie back then, and many times since (I find it a masterpiece), has erased the memory of much of the actual contents of the book. Meaning, mostly, that I remembered the book as being, like the movie, mostly about shark attacks and battling/overcoming the beast. The movie is Man Vs Nature, with Man only barely succeeding.

The book? Pretty much Man Vs. Capitalism. Or maybe Man Vs. Money, if we want to separate the workings of mob-backed loan sharks from capitalism proper, but I don't separate them, so.

Like, the ongoing, ratcheting strain of 'I'm closing the beaches!'/'Martin, don't close the beaches!'/'I'm not gonna re-open the beaches!'/'Martin, re-open the beaches!' is about human life from Martin Brody's point of view, sure. Basically. But from literally everyone else's, it's about money and business, to an exhausting degree. The book goes into a lot of detail about the fragile economy of a summer resort town, and how it works on a tenuous boom-bust cycle, and how the presence of the shark basically knocks down the town's financial, real estate, and business structure prop by prop, until everyone is speculating very seriously that Amity itself will shortly die.

All v. interesting to someone, I have no doubt. But frankly, I'd rather hear a story about a shark.

Also, unfortunately, Martin Brody can be SUCH A PILL in the novel. I'd forgotten that. Irritable, hapless, uncommunicative, chip on his shoulder, constantly bickering with his wife. No wonder she sneaks off for a nooner with Rich Young Blond WASP Matt Hooper in the book, in a lengthy bid to recapture her lost upper-class identity. Thank goodness the movie removed that subplot and also changed Brody and Hooper's characterizations, plus cast them the way it did. Dodged a bullet there.

And man, listening to the audiobook narrator gamely proceeding through a very 1970s-gender-opinions sex scene, while I am on the train to work...awkward!

Definitely going to have to rewatch the movie to clear my palate.

It happened again! All of a sudden, the Internet suddenly felt Too Much for me, and I fell off it. This has happened before, and it's always distressing--I mean, not that I mind avoiding the giant firehose of outrage-and-merchandising that so much internet/social media spend so much of their time with. That's always good for me.

But aside from that, actual people, who I actually know, and share actual interests with, have been posting interesting things! And yet I feel like I've hardly been commenting or letting them know I'm out here, which might in turn make them feel like they're being interesting into a void.

So FWIW, let me say, I'm out here! And your posts and discussions remain interesting and fun! I'm sorry for falling off the boat. I'm working on climbing back on.

As part of that project, this week I'll be posting a few stories I had actually finished in the last couple months, and had gotten betaed, and polished, but didn't post. I think it was part of that "feeling fallen-off" thing. I had them in my pocket--or, I guess more accurately, in the drawerfic drawer--but was feeling so strange and tired and anhedonic that it was hard to get up the wherewithal to share them.

Kind friends have said, "I understand, but SHARE THEM!", and I am climbing back on as best I can, and so I will. Expect a story announcement in the next post!

To finish off this post, I wanted to mention that last night I saw the movie "Carol", directed by Todd Haynes, and LOVED IT. So beautiful! So melancholy! (But without a sad-tragic-dead-queers-ending!) So CHOCK FULL OF PINING, all kinds of beautiful understated complex gorgeously-filmed pining. Here's a review from Vox: http://www.vox.com/culture/2015/11/20/9769890/carol-movie-review Phwoar.

When I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy last week, one of the trailers before the movie was this one for "Annie" (official trailer #2):



First of all, I think it looks charming, and I'm so glad to see Quvenzhané Wallis getting good work. I loved her in "Beasts of the Southern Wild", but because she had to be so feral and internal in that movie, it's great to see her getting to be external and verbal, show off her range.

(Sad and I'm sure unsurprising note: don't read the comments at the trailer! Even though some folks are in there fighting the good fight, the comments section of course is crawling with people complaining about How Dare They Cast A Black Girl When Annie Is Capital-W White. Uh huh. Yecccch.)

I've been keeping an eye on "Annie" in a vague sense, because of its earlier trailer (the one put out in March, also on YouTube here ). When I first saw that one before some spring movie or other, I was surprised at how much I didn't like it. It's interesting to compare it to the later one, #2, which I do like. I think they make a good before-after example of how the same footage can be re-edited to be much more effective.

The first one, for instance, has a real emphasis on the Miss Hannigan character, trying to use her dialogue for comedy--but it instead comes off as abrasive and offputting. No offense to Cameron Diaz, I think she can be funny, but the sheer amount of time this trailer spends in her mugging nastiness is not appealing. And it soaks up a lot of valuable real estate, putting in two very similar jokes/beats, where she says something lengthy and incomprehensible--long pause--kids go "Huh?" Trailers don't have any time to waste! Silence-->punchline can be very striking, but only used sparingly. (The wig joke from #2 uses it more effectively.)

Trailer #2 I think has a much better sense of how to use just a couple of shorter Hannigan moments for punch/contrast, dialing her presence way down. More of the comedy comes from poking fun at the self-importance of the Stacks (nee Warbucks) character (like the linked Batman jokes, which I really like, but there are also others). I think this is a better approach: spending a lot of time grinding on how hilarious-terrible Hannigan is is basically shooting fish in a barrel, whereas jokes about Stacks are punching up. But also, it's more linked to the theme of the movie, where Stacks (I assume) learns to lighten up and to love and whatnot.

I also much prefer the way the second trailer uses the "Hard Knock Life" song and beat from the get-go, with the editing being quick and staccato in a matching way. And then it slows down a bit to do some story pipe-laying with dialogue, and then picks back up with quick cuts again, which gives the trailer more of a shape and a forward propulsion. The first trailer inexplicably began with one of those long Hannigan diatribes, which felt draggy, and only brought in the music afterward (when it was too late, the pace had already been established as sloggy).

Anyway, that's just the sort of thing I think about, in the dark before the movies while I'm trying to figure out the best way to open the box of Milk Duds.

Home sick today--nothing serious, but I mostly slept, plus a bit of sitting around in an extreme state of inertia.

I also rewatched this (very!) short film, "Fresh Guacamole", which was nominated for an Academy Award last year for Best Animated Short Film. There's something about it that I find so satisfying--the sound design, for one thing, but also of course the clever transformations.

So maybe you'll enjoy it too!:

I don't know what bucket I've been living under, but I only now got a look at the cast for the upcoming HBO film adaptation of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart.

To wit: Mark Ruffalo as gay activist Ned Weeks and Matt Bomer as Felix, the man he falls in love with. I mean... I mean... GADZOOKS. ♥_____♥

I frankly granted myself an amnesty from watching AIDS-related movies for a while, since a significant portion of my life in the 80s and 90s was itself an AIDS movie. But there are exceptions. And HERE IS ONE.

There are little moments from the film shown in HBO's new year-end/preview trailer, which out.com has .giffed for easy study.

It is sherrold's birthday today. And as an antidote to the blues, movies_michelle asked that people "post a rec of something, anything, you enjoyed today, whether it was a story, vid, photo, meme, discussion, whatever. Whether it's new or old. If you've been meaning to go back and leave a comment on a story, go do it now, even if it's just to say 'Love this!'"

So, in the spirit of the day, I will gladly rec two movies I just recently got to see!

1) PACIFIC RIM.

Yeah, I know, probably the last fan in the world to see it. :D I enjoyed it! When's the last time I saw an action movie where the fight scenes never felt too long, and where I had a good solid sense of who's where & the fight choreography?? (Answer: far too long ago.)

Plus, interesting worldbuilding; I can totally understand people getting fannish about it (both in-universe and with fandom-fusions), because it had all kinds of tantalizing background and loose ends and itches that could use a good fannish scratch. I love good worldbuilding, especially worldbuilding that doesn't point out/explain everything to us, that lets a lot of stuff just exist underfoot like a world does. It's fun to think about, and to play in.

I like to think Sandy would have very much enjoyed seeing soulbonded pilots riding giant robots punch invading monsters RIGHT IN THE FAAAAACE. \o/

(Also, when Stacker comes out before the final climactic scene, wearing that outfit that I won't specify for fear of spoilers? I feel like I may have ruptured something in my hormone-engineering. PHWOOOOOAAAAAR.)


2) THE CONJURING.

I hadn't heard anything about this film until someone convinced me to go see it with them. And it was a very pleasant surprise!

I have a particular taste in scary movies: I vastly prefer a tone and approach I like to call "creeping dread", as opposed to the more jagged/jumpy types of horror-violence and blood and unstoppable killers and grue. I like a movie to start slow and quiet, and just...slowly...ratchet...the tension...until...*creak*...WHO'S THERE??? O______O

Well, The Conjuring is just my type of movie. It's basically a haunted-house story, where a husband and wife and their daughters move into an isolated old rural house where straaaange things start to happen. \o/ And there's a husband and wife team of paranormal investigators they eventually turn to for help, but the guy-investigator is increasingly worried about the toll their work is taking on the woman-investigator, who is very sensitive to paranormal events/visions.

It's set in 1971, and the art direction, costuming, and sound design are terrific. I love how it looks and how it sounds. It did a very good job at creeping me out, and I live for that! My movie companion ended up curled in a ball with just their eyeballs peeping out through their protective fingers (not because of gore, I must again emphasize, but because of tension and breathless fear and creepiness).

It didn't have a big budget, but all of the money went to great use--the look and sound, as I mentioned, but also the casting. I'm very impressed at the caliber of the cast! They got skilled, experienced pros, and I felt like I was in good hands. Ron Livingston plays the husband in the house and Lili Taylor the wife, and they're great; I also especially liked the performance of Vera Farmiga as one of the investigators.

(Final note: someone else declined to go see the movie with us, because he'd read an article on Salon.com about how it was a thinly-disguised right wing misogynist screed. I paid very close attention to the movie, and I consider myself sensitive to that sort of thing--but honestly, I didn't sense one drop of it, and neither did my companion. The Salon article remains completely baffling to me.)

1. Over the weekend, I saw "The Muppets" in the theater.
2. I really really enjoyed it--the whole audience did. Kids laughed and reacted (my favorite was when the bad guy seemed to get the upper hand at a very dramatic moment, and a little girl to my left gasped, "OH MY GOODNESS!"), adults laughed and reacted (especially to the many cameos. And 80s Robot. ♥).
3. And now the songs keep going through my head, which I think is a sign of success. Makes sense, of course, since the songs were written by Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords, who has taken over enormous swathes of my brain already.
4. If you're in the mood for a little muppetaciousness yourself, Salon has a slideshow (with links to videos) of the Muppets best musical moments.

This has been your Muppet News Flash for the morning. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

ETA: I didn't even remember to mention the animated short before the movie! New Pixar, "Small Fry," with the Toy Story characters (set after Toy Story 3). Loved it. It must have been so fun to be part of the Pixar team who got to brainstorm up all of the Happy-Meal-style toy names/concepts.