Golden Compass

John and I went to see the Golden Compass yesterday afternoon as our last kid-free afternoon for the next two weeks. 

It didn't suck.  But I have to say that the real highlight for the whole experience was getting to see the preview for the Speed Racer movie that's coming out in May.  *laughter*

The Golden Compass was very pretty.  The scenes and the people and the voice actors for the daemons were all pretty much spot on to what I thought the characters should be.  I really enjoyed the daemons.    The simplifications of the whole plot were absolutely astonishing, too.  It took away a lot of the richness and complexity and depth of the story, but I think they had to for the format. Still... I think that's what made it less memorable and more like a shorthand, prettied up version of the books.

Which, I'll also have to say, the Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter movies also made me feel like, in some sense.  Beautiful visual representations of what had been going on in my head, and somehow it all always fell short of the depth and complexity of character I expected from the characters themselves.  The gorgeous scenery and props and action representation and all that were cool, but with the character-driven plots cut so to simplicity the characters, by necessity, become simplified as well. 

Ah well.  It may just be a weakness of the medium.  But... there are movies where character is represented so thoroughly and so well, that I don't think that that is just the culprit, but it may be in the comparison of text to movies. 

Golden Compass

John and I went to see the Golden Compass yesterday afternoon as our last kid-free afternoon for the next two weeks. 

It didn't suck.  But I have to say that the real highlight for the whole experience was getting to see the preview for the Speed Racer movie that's coming out in May.  *laughter*

The Golden Compass was very pretty.  The scenes and the people and the voice actors for the daemons were all pretty much spot on to what I thought the characters should be.  I really enjoyed the daemons.    The simplifications of the whole plot were absolutely astonishing, too.  It took away a lot of the richness and complexity and depth of the story, but I think they had to for the format. Still... I think that's what made it less memorable and more like a shorthand, prettied up version of the books.

Which, I'll also have to say, the Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter movies also made me feel like, in some sense.  Beautiful visual representations of what had been going on in my head, and somehow it all always fell short of the depth and complexity of character I expected from the characters themselves.  The gorgeous scenery and props and action representation and all that were cool, but with the character-driven plots cut so to simplicity the characters, by necessity, become simplified as well. 

Ah well.  It may just be a weakness of the medium.  But... there are movies where character is represented so thoroughly and so well, that I don't think that that is just the culprit, but it may be in the comparison of text to movies. 

Gulp

I read all of Captain's Fury by Jim Butcher last night. The library put it on hold for me, so I got it and just read it in one night. I hadn't intended to, actually.

I'd started it in the afternoon, put it down to get through dinner and knitting night at church with Jet, who brought along his stuffy knitting. He wants to make a new stuffy like Seltzer by himself out of turquoise yarn, so he brought his knitting along and has been chugging away at it happily.

Then I picked it up again while John put Jet to bed. I didn't put it down until nearly 2 am. I enjoyed the three plotlines running through it. I am rethinking a lot of what I wrote in November, now, and it's kind of hard to keep going when part of me is like, but I don't WANT to do that in first person, not really...

I'm not sure that Captain's Fury would be "that good" for someone else. But I enjoyed it immensely, especially through the progression of the other books and really watching Tavi grow up. I'll probably buy it, after the holidays just in case someone did take it off my Amazon wish list. For some reason the Fury books are ones that I want to own, but the Dresden books aren't. I'm still not quite sure why... but I suspect that it relates to how the moms are portrayed. *laughter*

I'm perculating an idea of drawing all the mothers from Fruits Basket with Honda-san's mom in the very middle being herself, and the other moms arrayed from front to back from good to clueless to completely bad and sending that in as "fan art" to Tokyo Pop for their fan art page. Someone that was 36 sent in fan art for one of the books I just read, and they said that it was the oldest person they'd gotten fan art from and she was like 36. Yeesh. I'll admit that I like thinking of gang girl making good as mom. *grin*

Gulp

I read all of Captain's Fury by Jim Butcher last night. The library put it on hold for me, so I got it and just read it in one night. I hadn't intended to, actually.

I'd started it in the afternoon, put it down to get through dinner and knitting night at church with Jet, who brought along his stuffy knitting. He wants to make a new stuffy like Seltzer by himself out of turquoise yarn, so he brought his knitting along and has been chugging away at it happily.

Then I picked it up again while John put Jet to bed. I didn't put it down until nearly 2 am. I enjoyed the three plotlines running through it. I am rethinking a lot of what I wrote in November, now, and it's kind of hard to keep going when part of me is like, but I don't WANT to do that in first person, not really...

I'm not sure that Captain's Fury would be "that good" for someone else. But I enjoyed it immensely, especially through the progression of the other books and really watching Tavi grow up. I'll probably buy it, after the holidays just in case someone did take it off my Amazon wish list. For some reason the Fury books are ones that I want to own, but the Dresden books aren't. I'm still not quite sure why... but I suspect that it relates to how the moms are portrayed. *laughter*

I'm perculating an idea of drawing all the mothers from Fruits Basket with Honda-san's mom in the very middle being herself, and the other moms arrayed from front to back from good to clueless to completely bad and sending that in as "fan art" to Tokyo Pop for their fan art page. Someone that was 36 sent in fan art for one of the books I just read, and they said that it was the oldest person they'd gotten fan art from and she was like 36. Yeesh. I'll admit that I like thinking of gang girl making good as mom. *grin*