tag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837burning like matchsticks in the face of the darknesswhen faced with my demons I clothe them and feed themElizabeth (the delinquent, ecumenical)2023-10-04T01:46:32Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1761576culture consumed (July, 2023)2023-08-01T18:15:06Z2023-10-04T01:46:32Zpublic0<b>books</b><ul><li>read Abby ~12 picturebooks -- incl:<ul><li><i>Weather Together</i> by Jessie Sima<br /><li><i>The Good Hair Day</i> written by Christian Trimmer & illustrated by J Yang -- a boy wants long hair but struggles to ask his parents<br /><li><i>The Wishing Flower</i> written by A.J. Irving & illustrated by Kip Alizadeh -- elementary school girl with a crush on another girl! (and it's all about the tension of the crush itself, not about it being queer)</li></li></li></ul><br />We started out strong; those are the first 3 books I read her this month (on the flight back from Indianapolis).<br /><br />Another highlight was <i>Big</i> by Vashti Harrison.<br /><br />We also went through 5 drag queen picture books to help me pick ones to bring to STL to normalize drag queens for the niblings & 3-4 Brazil picturebooks (for same nibling trip -- though sadly we didn't particularly like any of the Brazil picturebooks we looked at).<br /><br /><li>[feminist sff book club] <i>The Monsters We Defy</i> by Leslye Penelope<br /><li><i>Monstersona</i> by Chloe Spencer<br /><li><i>Riot Baby</i> by Tochi Onyebuchi</li></li></li></li></ul><br /><b>concerts</b><ul><li>Ezra Furman solo show at the Rockwell with Abby -- having now been to one punk-ish show and one more folk sounding show, I can say that while I like a lot about Ezra Furman (see <a href="https://jewishcurrents.org/the-desperate-ones">this article</a>, for example), I don't actually enjoy listening to her music all that much.</li></ul><br /><b>trailers</b><ul><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_1EXWNETiI"><i>Ahsoka</i></a> -- two episode premiere Aug 23!<br /><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS_qbDztgVY"><i>The Marvels</i></a> (Nov 10)</li></li></ul><br /><b>movies</b><ul><li>the <i>Barbie</i> movie with Abby<br /><li><i>Nimona</i> on Netflix with Abby</li></li></ul><br /><b>sports</b><ul><li>watched the USA/VIE World Cup game (Fri July 21) with Abby and a friend<br /><br />Was charmed that the person who scored the first goal has the same name as the founder of my alma mater (Sophia Smith -- albeit pronounced differently). And the second goal. And an excellent assist for the third goal (by Lindsey Horan). Honestly, Sophia Smith the soccer player seems lovely and excellent and I like her.</li></ul><br /><b>music</b><ul><li><i>Barbie The Album (Best Weekend Ever Edition)</i> because of my partner's FB post/comments about the movie.<blockquote>It has come to my attention that there is Some Discourse about the new _Barbie_ movie. As a Professional Trans Person*, I have decided to weigh in.<br /><br />Yes. _Barbie_ is a trans allegory.<br /><br />Because you asked nicely, I will grant you a bonus opinion: "Choose Your Fighter" by Ava Max is the most trans song on the soundtrack.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Te5KRtYsvU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Te5KRtYsvU</a><br /><br />* I am a person. I am a professional. And I am trans. Ergo: Professional Trans Person.<br /><br />Also, "Push" really is an extremely uncomfortable song. And while I don't enjoy Gosling's cover of it, I do appreciate that he leans into the uncomfortableness.<br /><br />Brandi Carlile's cover of "Close To Fine" is inferior to the original in almost all ways, but I do appreciate that it cranks the Lesbian to 11 by making it a melancholy duet with her wife.<br /><br />The soundtrack generally slaps, is what I'm saying, and you should definitely listen to the Best Weekend Ever Edition at least once, because the bonus tracks are worth having heard.<br /><br />"(What follows contains spoilers both for the 2112 B.C.E hymn and the 2023 C.E. film.)" [h/t <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/'><b>hermionesviolin</b></a></span>] <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2023/07/barbie-is-the-new-inanna.html">https://wildhunt.org/2023/07/barbie-is-the-new-inanna.html</a><br /><br />Okay, so here's the thing. Barbie is an allegory about life and death and change and living deliberately. And that makes it a trans allegory. That also makes it an allegory about a LOT of things. Because here's the trans secret B3n Sh4p1r0 doesn't want you to know: being trans has a lot in common with just fucking being a human, especially if you're trying to be a thoughtful and good human.<br /><br />That's it. That's the <s>tweet</s> secret.</blockquote>Had not realized until the soundtrack that the Nicki Minaj "Barbie World" was almost entirely a new song, rather than a remix of the original Aqua like I had thought. (I feel like it played for a hot second in the credits, but since I didn't know what to listen for, I might be wrong.)</li></ul><br /><b>tv</b><ul><li>Netflix <i>Street Food</i> Brazil episode (E2S2) with Abby<br /><br />This show is apparently overall well-liked/-reviewed, but we felt like it wasn't well done? There were 4 foods/storylines in the episode, but 1 of the storylines took most of the time, and we spent way more time on that one woman's life story than on learning about the foods. There was some cultural education woven in, which I appreciated -- but they left out a critical part about capoeira (that it also functioned as self-defense, disguised as dance), and I felt like we should have gotten more about food in Candomblé (we're told that food is how you communicate with your gods -- but the women are just selling this food on the street, presumably to anyone who walks by, so how does that work?).<br /><br /><a href="https://sea.mashable.com/entertainment/11844/street-food-has-become-the-most-quietly-controversial-show-on-netflix">This article</a> talks some about the show/season overall (Season: Latin America) and some of the criticisms (some of which we noticed ourselves -- like "Everyone is equal on the beach"). Abby said she wouldn't say the food-explainer was white, but that Brazil definitely has color hierarchies, and that woman was definitely light-skinned.</li></ul><br />***<br /><br /><b>Currently reading:</b> GR claims I'm "currently reading" a whole bunch of books, but I'm not actually reading anything rn.<br /><br /><b>Reading next:</b> I have a bunch more picturebooks coming to bring to STL -- chicken picturebooks (the niblings visited some chickens recently and loved it), biographies of Wangari Maathai (because trees), biographies of queer women, etc. We're leaving for STL next week, and I anticipate doing some reading-to-kiddos while we're there -- though M is a big reader on her own now.<br /><br />After I started reading <i>Riot Baby</i>, I got a bunch of YA books about the Watts rebellion (because I looked for the one I'd recently heard about -- <i>The Black Kids</i> by Christina Hammonds), so I will maybe read some of those?<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1761576" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1761257culture consumed (June, 2023)2023-07-06T20:03:13Z2023-07-06T20:03:13Zpublic1Okay, I was out of town June 29-July 5, so this is delayed.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><b>books</b><ul><li>[feminist sff book club] <i>The City in the Middle of the Night</i> by Charlie Jane Anders (and the sequel short story "<a href="https://www.tor.com/2020/02/11/if-you-take-my-meaning-charlie-jane-anders/">If You Take My Meaning</a>")<li>read Abby ~11 picturebooks -- incl<ul><li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62628931-every-body"><i>Every Body: A First Conversation About Bodies</i></a> written by Megan Madison and Jessica Ralli & illustrated by Tequitia Andrews -- explicitly fat-positive, anti-BMI, etc.! (which does still have a bunch of "every body can be healthy," which I don't love -- like, not all bodies are, or even can be, healthy; the book in other places is very intentionally trying to be disability-aware, but I think it doesn't realize it's being problematic in this way)</li></ul><li>[work book club] <i>Interpreter of Maladies</i> by Jhumpa Lahiri (which had been on my TBR list for years, but which I had no memory of being a short story collection)<br /><li><i>DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right</i> by Lily Zheng<br /><li>quickly read the 4 "<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/354711-little-senses">Little Senses</a>" picturebooks</li></li></li></li></li></ul><br /><b>theatre</b><ul>[ASP/TTO] a very queer <a href="https://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/plays-events/as-you-like-it/"><i>As You Like It</i></a> with Abby, Cate, and Allie</ul><br /><b>tv</b><ul><li><i>Ted Lasso</i> 3.12 (the season+series finale)</li></ul><br /><b>short stories</b><ul><li>as mentioned above:<ul><li>Charlie Jane Anders' "<a href="https://www.tor.com/2020/02/11/if-you-take-my-meaning-charlie-jane-anders/">If You Take My Meaning</a>" (which won't make much sense if you haven't read the novel <i>The City in the Middle of the Night</i> it's a sequel to)<li><i>Interpreter of Maladies</i> by Jhumpa Lahiri</li></li></ul><li>the freely available <a href="https://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/4753358.html">Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award finalists</a> (which is almost all of them -- thanks, <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/'><b>yhlee</b></a></span>)<ul><li>"<a href="https://apex-magazine.com/short-fiction/ten-steps-for-effective-mold-removal/">Ten Steps for Effective Mold Removal</a>" by Derrick Boden (in <i>Apex Magazine</i>, Sept. 2022) will fucking haunt me<li>"<a href="https://www.augurmag.com/toronto-isnt-real-and-other-metropolitan-anomalies/">Toronto Isn't Real and Other Metropolitan Anomalies</a>” by A.D. Sui (in <i>Augur Magazine</i>, Dec. 2022) it turns out only the first part of the story is available for free and then you have to <a href="https://www.augurmag.com/subscribe/">buy the issue</a> (<i>Augur Magazine</i> Issue 5.2); I was sufficiently hooked that I did (8 CAD -- which was $6.31 USD at the time I made my purchase), though ultimately I didn't love it as much as I had hoped to.</li></li></ul></li></li></ul><br /><b>trailers</b><ul><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_fuHRyQbOc"><i>Nimona</i></a> -- coming June 30 on Netflix</li></ul><br /><b>music albums</b><ul><li>Janelle Monáe's <i>The Age of Pleasure</i> -- which I wasn't super into, but <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1180153004/janelle-monae-the-age-of-pleasure-review">this NPR review</a> is good. Also, <a href="https://twitter.com/JanelleMonae/status/1668431747351212033">lol</a>. And Janelle's both non-binary and non-monogamous (the latter via <a href="https://www.them.us/story/janelle-monae-british-vogue-cover-polyamory-nonbinary">this <i>them</i> piece</a> my partner saw, which cites <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/janelle-monae-british-vogue-cover-interview">a <i>British Vogue</i> interview</a>).<br /><br />Because my last Janelle Monáe was <i>Dirty Computer</i>, an emotion picture, it was weird to listen to this album without accompanying videos. Which also made it harder for me to pay attention/catch the words because of how I often struggle to focus on auditory input if I don't also have visuals/often struggle to make out lyrics.</li></ul><br /><b>movies</b><ul><li><i>Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse</i> w/ Abby (whose daughter had warned us it ends with a big To Be Continued cliffhanger; this movie was initially gonna be "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One)," but since they changed the name I hadn't been able to find any info about whether it was still a two-parter, so I was glad for the heads up, and also feel like it's kind of cheating. <br /><br /><i>Vulture</i> informed me <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2023/06/spider-man-beyond-the-spider-verse-release-date-trailer.html">that</a> "The next movie, which will be titled <i>Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse</i>, is slated to come out less than a year from now, on March 29, 2024" Though the author of a later <i>Vulture</i> article <a href="https://twitter.com/__ChrisLee/status/1672230751394476034">said</a>, "Across the Spider-Verse animators say Phil Lord drove them crazy with relentless revision, seeming unfamiliarity with 3D anim, 6 months of indecision and demands to redo finished work 5X. They say no way is Beyond the Spider-Verse coming out in 2024.")</li></ul><br />***<br /><br /><b>Currently reading:</b><br /><br />I recently started reading <i>Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies</i>, after <a href="https://firestorm.coop/events/3054-abolitionist-queer-strategies.html">livestreaming the virtual book launch on Tuesday, June 27</a>.<br /><br /><b>Reading next:</b><br /><br /><i>The Monsters We Defy</i> by Leslye Penelope for feminist sff book club (which is July 23, so I'll probably start that as soon as I get my library copy)<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1761257" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1759248culture consumed (March, 2023)2023-04-01T18:11:02Z2023-04-01T18:11:02Zpublic1<b>theatre</b><ul><li>[ASP] <i><a href="https://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/plays-events/seven-guitars/">Seven Guitars</a></i> (part of August Wilson's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Wilson#The_Pittsburgh_Cycle">Pittsburgh/Century Cycle</a>) <br /><br />I didn't like it as much as the other plays in that cycle I've seen (<i>Gem of the Ocean</i> live at Tufts, and the <i>Fences</i> film -- both back in 2016), but I do appreciate that ASP is doing the ~sequel next season ("Nearly forty years after the blues of <i>Seven Guitars</i>, the American Shakespeare takes on the Reagan Era."). Gonna be hella depressing, but...</li></ul><br /><b>books</b><ul><li>read Abby ~5 picturebooks<li>[work book club] <i>Such a Fun Age</i> by Kiley Reid <br /><li>read on the flight to California: [feminist sci-fi book club] <i>Escaping Exodus</i> by Nicky Drayden (I liked it less than I had hoped -- though it's doing some interesting stuff, and I did enjoy a lot of it -- so I'm likely to skip its sequel, <i>Symbiosis</i>)<li>On the return flight, I finished:<ul><li><i>A More Just Future: Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social Change</i> by Dolly Chugh<li><i>Queer: A Graphic History</i> written by Meg-John Barker & Jules Scheele (which is more a graphic history of queer THEORY, to be clear)</li></li></ul></li></li></li></li></ul><br /><b>movies</b> (who's surprised we saw 2 trans movies?)<ul><li><a href="https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/naomi-campbel-2023-03"><i>Naomi Campbel</i></a> [part of the Harvard Film Archive's program <a href="https://harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/remapping-latin-american-cinema-chilean-film-video-1963-2013">Remapping Latin American Cinema: Chilean Film/Video 1963-2013</a> -- "Chile’s cinema remains the least internationally known of Latin America’s major cinemas. Often overshadowed by the historically larger and more widely distributed cinemas of Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, the rich history of Chilean filmmaking has also been obscured, paradoxically, by the long history of political documentary to which Chilean cinema is all too often reduced."]<br /><br />This was okay? I appreciate that a 2013 film treats a trans woman very matter-of-factly. She wants bottom surgery but is generally happy with her life and resists the narratives of tragedy from the gatekeepers. But the blurb about the film feels to me like it really over-states much of what it's doing (also, despite the blurb, I did not read the woman who wants plastic surgery as trans at all; I very much read her as cis).<br /><br /><li><a href="https://websites.emerson.edu/brightlights/framing-agnes-thursday-march-30th/"><i>Framing Agnes</i></a> [Emerson Bright Lights -- Co-presented with Wicked Queer: The Boston LGBT Film Festival and GlobeDocs; independently, Abby had heard about it <a href="https://twitter.com/junethomas/status/1624755586658103296">on Twitter</a>]<br /><br />This film was so good! Lots of interesting stuff about the history of trans people, their interactions with the medical establishment and the media, the tradeoffs of visibility, etc. Highly recommended.<br /><br />Available to rent or buy on (at least) <a href="https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/framing-agnes/umc.cmc.trlp6a8hvrixar4xqveabm4t">AppleTV</a> and <a href="https://kinonow.com/videos/framing_agnes/6359aba23fdfdf0001924209">KinoNow</a>. Also <a href="https://www.kanopy.com/product/framing-agnes">Kanopy</a> (which you can probably access through your local library).</li></li></ul><br /><b>tv</b><ul><li><i>Ted Lasso</i>'s 3rd (and final) season started, and we're currently caught up (3.01-3.03)</li></ul><br /><b>art exhibits</b><ul><li>"<i>For The Love Of Birds</i>, featuring original artwork with the subject of birds, real or imaginary, wild or not so wild for a juried exhibition that takes place during Chico’s 2023 Snow Goose Festival, which celebrates the glorious migration of snow geese on the Pacific Flyway." at the <a href="https://www.monca.org/posts/show-item/monca-exhibitions/">Museum of Northern California Art</a> -- with Abby and Sarah, during our trip out there for Abby's dad's memorial service<li><a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/portraits-of-pride-a-celebration-of-queer-and-trans-lives-in-boston-tickets-511780488217">Portraits of Pride: A Celebration of Queer and Trans Lives in Boston</a> (Abby wanted to go for date night). It turned out to only be 3 portraits, which was disappointing -- and there was a panel we didn't know about, which we missed most of because we arrived about halfway through the 4:30-6:30pm window. (You can see some of the original portrait project <a href="https://www.portraitsofprideboston.org/">here</a>.)<br /></li></li></ul><br /><b>live music</b><ul><li><a href="https://www.ezrafurman.com/">Ezra Furman</a> at the Sinclair with Abby (opener: <a href="https://bostonhassle.com/a-conversation-with-alex-walton/">Alex Walton</a> -- the opener went on at 8! on a weeknight! I am Old ... but I love my partner, and went to this show that ended ~11pm)</li></ul><br />***<br /><br /><b>Currently reading:</b> <i>Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity</i> by Julia Serano -- which I started reading during the week of the <a href="https://twitter.com/sim_kern/status/1633871728743940280">#TransRightsReadathon</a>. <br /><br />It first came out in 2007 and I read it in, idk, 2008? 2013? A second edition came out in 2016, which I learned about maybe a few years ago? It turns out to be basically the first edition with an added Preface, but since I remember very little from the first time I read it, that's not too bad.<br /><br /><b>Reading next:</b> Microcosm Publishing's <i><a href="https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/10468">The Autism Relationships Handbook</a></i> by Faith Harper and Joe Biel.<br /><br />After sending my partner various Twitter threads, saying, "I'm not autistic, but this resonated with me," we've leaned in to, "An actual diagnosis doesn't matter; but if there's stuff that autistic people find helpful that you also find helpful..."<br /><br />So (at my ~suggestion) she recently Kickstarted <i><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/microcosmpublishing/the-autism-partner-handbook">The Autism Partner Handbook</a></i> and backed the tier that comes with: "<i><a href="https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/10468">The Autism Relationships Handbook</a></i> - The counterpart of the Partner Handbook, this book guides autistic people through how to succeed in relationships." So she's gonna read the former and I'll read the latter and then we'll swap. Or maybe we'll totally bounce off them like we have other Faith Harper productions. Who can say? The future is vague and uncertain.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1759248" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1751526culture consumed (August & September, 2021)2021-10-01T19:29:28Z2021-10-01T19:30:21Zpublic2<u>August</u><p><b>books</b><ul><li>5 picturebooks<li><i>Pole Dancing To Gospel Hymns</i> by Andrea Gibson [(spoken word) poetry]<li>[Newton SFF book club] <i>Babel-17/Empire Star</i> by Samuel R. Delany</li></li></li></ul><b>live theatre</b><ul><li>[Youthquake] <i>The Tempest</i> -- outdoors, only a little over an hour long but I didn't feel like anything was missing</li></ul><b>movies</b><ul><li>[fannish movie night] <i>F9</i> -- "F9 (Fast and Furious 9)! Cars... in space?" <-- That's how D. billed it to the movie night crew, and it's kind of a misnomer, since it takes like 3/4 of the movie until we get to space and it's not even the most interesting thing that happens? But it does maybe stand in for just how Extra the movie is. Secret Family Members! Faked Their Own Death! Magnets! I'm not kidding -- this movie leans in <u>hard</u> with the magnets, and the ridiculousness is really delightful.<br />There's some lampshading, but there's also technobabble and plot-physics.The movie starts out slow, but there's an extended section that is super-delightful. And Charlize Theron is gr9 (her haircut is unfortunate, but she still manages to look amazing). Also, Helen Mirren is back -- and learning that she's in this franchise is maybe what got my partner to wanna watch it? 😂</li></ul><br /><br /><hr><br /><br /><u>September</u><p><b>books</b><ul><li>[work book club] <i>Sharks in the Time of Saviors</i> by Kawai Strong Washburn<br><br />The author recommends <a href="https://believermag.com/that-same-king-feeling/">this review</a>. Excerpt:<blockquote>In this way, <u>Sharks</u> blooms into a tale about colonialism’s rippling effects and the pains of diaspora. When Washburn’s characters return to the beaches and valleys they left behind, they encounter reminders of a time when Native Hawaiians lived cooperatively and self-sufficiently on their land—before white settlers stole everything, before the plantations closed, before there were any plantations at all. In a vision, Nainoa sees “Waipi’o Valley, its rivers, then lo’i paddies of kalo stalks growing plump and green, swarming the valley bottom, and there my family is among it all, with many families…” Washburn contrasts this history of collectivism with the Western mandate of individualism that infects Americans today, many islanders included. As the kids’ mother, Malia, describes, that mandate was a catastrophic development. “[Ships] from far ports carried a new god in their bellies,” she reflects, “a god who blew a breath of weeping blisters and fevers that torched whole generations, a god whose fingers were shaped like rifles and voice sounded like treaties waiting to be broken.”<p>Nimbly rotating between Nainoa’s, Kaui’s, Dean’s, and Malia’s stories, Washburn intertwines their perspectives like the strands of an intricate lei. In this way, he wraps us up in their personal struggles to figure out if they have what it takes to set themselves apart—from their family, from their underprivileged home, from their widely misunderstood ancestry. But right when you find yourself rooting for them the hardest, Washburn unravels what they’ve built, reminding us that setting oneself apart is inherently a selfish pursuit. At the end of <u>Sharks</u>, Washburn leaves readers to wonder if the Western values we bring to the reading experience—for example, an investment in personal growth and achievement, which the bildungsroman has taught us to expect—lead us to misunderstand who the protagonist has been the whole time. Through a subtle bait and switch and a fantastical portrayal of Native Hawaiian culture’s communal spirit, Washburn gracefully pushes us to rethink our understanding of what makes a character meaningful to a story. In doing so, he rethinks storytelling altogether. Ultimately, you may also ask yourself if you’ve misunderstood your own narrative all along—and if you’ve had the audacity to think you’re the savior when really you’re one small part of a much larger and longer story.</p></blockquote><li>[Bi+ book club] <i>Outlawed</i> by Anna North -- though our protagonist is a cis het woman (she spends much of the book in a community of folks of various genders and sexualities)<li>[novella] <i>Remote Control</i> by Nnedi Okorafor (<a href="https://www.tor.com/2021/07/27/exploring-nnedi-okorafors-africanfuturist-universe/">apparently</a> in the same universe as all her other SFF)<li>4 picturebooks about kids with incarcerated parents<li>3 additional picturebooks (and one more that was read to me on a virtual reading/Q&A)<li><i>The Joy of Being Selfish: Why You Need Boundaries and How to Set Them</i> by Michelle Elman -- recommended by my friend Holly<li><i>Trans-Forming Proclamation: A Transgender Theology of Daring Existence</i> by Liam M. Hooper -- Thom likened this book's writing style to <i>Untie the Strong Woman: Blessed Mother's Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul</i> by Clarissa Pinkola Estés (author of the 1996 classic <i>Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype</i>), which makes me not want to read anything by that author<br /></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></ul><b>live music</b><ul><li><a href="http://www.hornographyband.com/">Hornography</a> at Belmont Porchfest</li></ul><br /><b>movies</b><ul><li>[fannish movie night] <i>The LEGO Batman Movie</i></li></ul><b>tv</b><ul><li><i>Ted Lasso</i> S2E9 "Beard After Hours"</li></ul> Thom live-blogged her experience of first watching this:<blockquote><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1751526.html#cutid1">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><p>Okay, going to brush my teeth and head to bed. It feels wrong to say this is my favorite episode of <u>Ted Lasso</u> because it’s not even an episode of <u>Ted Lasso</u>. It’s like a random romp through weird shit in London feature a handful of bit characters from the series. And the feel of the episode is completely different. And I kind of loved it. <p>I’m mildly tempted to show it to you, because it is an almost stand-alone piece of artistry. Like, I could give you all the background you need to understand it in like 2 minutes. And it’s just very wow.</p></p></blockquote>Hence, us watching it on a date night.</p></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1751526" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1740567[fannish/bad movie night] Happiest Season2020-12-03T01:37:20Z2020-12-03T01:40:27Zpublic2<span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://thedeadparrot.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://thedeadparrot.dreamwidth.org/'><b>thedeadparrot</b></a></span>: "Guess what? Tuesday is December 1 and we have neverending list of bad Christmas movies that we can watch. Anyway, we're starting off with lesbian Kristen Stewart, which I have heard bad things about, but you know what? Let's just enjoy the process of yelling at it a lot."<br /><br />So, we (hate)watched <i>Happiest Season</i> -- the KStew f/f Christmas "romcom" on Hulu.<br /><br />I had read some stuff on the Internet (e.g., "Yeah, watching Happiest Season may be legitimately traumatizing for a lot of queer viewers, and I don’t really recommend it! Absolutely not the fluffy holiday romcom it’s being marketed as. The cast did what they could, but the script wasn’t up to the themes it’s working through." -<a href="https://twitter.com/kaytaylorrea/status/1331720063464796160">Kay Taylor Rea on Twitter</a>) that made me not wanna watch it, and then my partner watched it and hated it. But yelling at it with friends felt like an acceptable way to watch it.<br /><br />I'm not super genre-savvy about Hallmark movie sort of movies, but it definitely felt like it was doing a lot of that. But it could have done that without so much of the terrible stuff. [On the subject of which: the forced outing didn't hit <em>me</em> hard, but I recognize it's important to include as a content note/warning for queer viewers.]<br /><br />We could have actually seen any indication that Harper and Abby really love each other. We could have dropped the whole, "Harper pressures Abby to do stuff she doesn't want," bit from the beginning that was supposed to be ~romantic or whatever.<br /><br />We could have had the, "Abby goes home with Harper for the holidays, but they pretend to not be a couple," plotline <em>with both of them consenting to it!</em> Hijinks can still ensue!<br /><br />Harper's family could have been less Incredibly Terrible -- which would have made the dramatic pivot to a happy ending feel slightly more believable. (Someone at movie night quipped, "tell your secrets and take a nap," and we agreed that it's a critical FIRST STEP, but that everyone in this movie needs so much therapy, there's no way that dramatic of a pivot could have happened that night/the next morning. And honestly, even the "One Year Later" tag needed an "After SO MUCH Therapy" subtitle.)<br /><br />Like, the way Harper's mom treats both Abby and Jane is so over-the-top. She can be shitty without having to be That Bad. And Sloane's competitiveness at the ice skating rink didn't need to involve literally fucking up bystanders and not caring about it.<br /><br />Riley could have been Harper's ex-secret-girlfriend without yet another, "Wow, Harper behaved terribly, and lied to Abby about it."<br /><br />The mall cop scene was over-the-top and completely unnecessary.<br /><br />We could have dropped the entire "if the NSA can do it, so can I" phone tracking plotline (which wasn't even treated like it was that creepy!).<br /><br />While they were watching the movie, my partner said, "The role of Elizabeth in this movie is played by the Gay Best Friend." And yes, I had seen lots of quotes of John saying true things in a bitchy way. ("Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass." -Cordelia Chase, HBIC) But when I actually watched the movie, I didn't actually like John that much. He's very self-centered, and I was willing to let him be the catty, self-centered Gay Best Friend TM, but he didn't feel like "me" in the way I had hoped from Thom's comment. <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1740567.html#cutid1">my additional complaints get more spoilery</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />Also, I get why, for narrative reasons, almost no one has any real friends.* But John is literally the only person Abby reaches out to about what's happening? Even though he's clearly only middling engaging with her? Get some better/additional friends, Abby! Love yourself! Though, okay, yes, the fact that she stays with Harper suggests that she has some issues with not valuing herself enough :( <br /><br />* And yes, I know it's an improvement that there are 2 whole queer characters in this film -- who are real characters even -- in addition to our 2 protagonists. The two people who are supportive of Abby are other queers!<br /><br />Possibly the best thing I've read on this film was:<blockquote>But I find the widespread insistence that _Happiest Season_ is a charming, bubbly, feel-good romp a little jarring, when so much of it — the _heart_ of it — is really about trauma and gay shame. [...] <br /><br />[...] I did want to swoon, to feel blissfully transported into a holiday wonderland where wacky hijinks ensue but everything is ultimately OK in the end. Instead, I was left reflecting upon how often queer people, traumatized themselves, can end up seriously hurting their partners. How the quest for assimilation into straight families and polite upper-middle-class society can limit and diminish us. [...] <br /><br />Which is all to say: I was bummed out! And that’s not how I want to feel after watching a rom-com, especially from queer makers and performers I love and respect.<br /><br />-Shannon Keating, BuzzFeedNews, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/shannonkeating/kristen-stewart-lesbian-rom-com-hulu-happiest-season">"The New Kristen Stewart Lesbian Rom-Com Is Kind Of A Bummer"</a></blockquote><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1740567" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1708665[Cinema in Context] Rafiki2019-05-16T19:22:51Z2019-05-16T19:22:51Zpublic2On Monday night, I went to the Cinema in Context screening at the Brattle of <a href="http://www.brattlefilm.org/2019/05/10/rafiki/"><i>Rafiki</i></a> -- the Kenyan lesbian movie.<br /><br />I was both surprised by how bright and fun it was (I hadn't actually watched the trailer, I just knew I wanted to see the film) -- and then surprised by the dark turn near the end, given how bright and fun it had been (though I'd also been low-key bracing myself for a dark turn, and it certainly didn't come out of nowhere, and it was also nowhere near as dark as it could have been).<br /><br />Prof. Amah Edoh (who I was pleased to learn is a queer African woman herself) said that the director (Wanuri Kahiu) tries to make "Afro Bubble Gum" art -- "fun, fierce and frivolous representation of Africa." She has a quasi-Bechdel test for that, which Prof. Edoh read to us, and I didn't write it down at the time but I Googled and got <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/04/29/526031278/she-calls-her-movies-afro-bubble-gum-art">an NPR interview</a>:<blockquote>The test asks three questions. The first question: Are two or more Africans in this piece healthy? The second question is: Are those Africans, the same healthy Africans, are they financially stable and not in need of saving? And the third question: Are they having fun?<br /><br />We need to show images of Africans who are not dying, not in need of saving and living a joyous, thriving African life.</blockquote>Prof. Edoh shared a bunch of notes from a screening-with-the-director at MIT, and apparently the Kenya Film Classification Board was willing to un-ban the film if it had had a *less* hopeful ending.<br /><br />Prof. Edoh also said the soundtrack of the film is entirely African women -- primarily Kenyan, but one Namibian.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1708665" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1706436[2019-03-23] Us (2019)2019-03-24T23:57:12Z2019-04-02T22:53:23Zpublic2I'm not a big horror movie person, and <i>Us</i> didn't interest/appeal to me from the trailers -- but <i>Get Out</i> was so good that I was intrigued to watch Jordan Peele's latest.<br /><br />Zira and I saw it yesterday and left feeling like we wanted it to have been a smarter movie -- to have done more with the "they're us" element (it used that to really good effect sometimes, especially with the son, but I wanted more). Hartley went to a different showing and concurred. Also, the more I thought about the twist at the end, the more difficulty I had with "How does the worldbuilding actually work?"<br /><br />I hadn't had a chance to read any thinkpieces, but Zira texted me this afternoon:<blockquote>This is the first article I’ve read that’s given me a deeper appreciation for the movie:<br /><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18277163/us-movie-ending-what-happened-adelaide-red-explained">https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18277163/us-movie-ending-what-happened-adelaide-red-explained</a><br />This is also a good one:<br /><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/3/22/18275141/us-spoilers-twist-ending-explained-jordan-peele-lupita-nyongo">https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/3/22/18275141/us-spoilers-twist-ending-explained-jordan-peele-lupita-nyongo</a></blockquote><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1706436.html#cutid1">excerpts from those articles</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><b>Addendum:</b> <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://la-dissonance.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://la-dissonance.dreamwidth.org/'><b>la_dissonance</b></a></span> linked to "<a href="https://afropunk.com/2019/03/jordan-peeles-us-review/">Jordan Peele's 'Us' is a Commentary on Double Consciousness</a>" (originally <a href="https://twitter.com/kyalbr/status/1109984274114064385">this Twitter thread</a>). <br /><br />Imma quote from the Twitter thread:<span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___2" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1706436.html#cutid2">excerpts</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___2" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />Addendum2: I would be very off-brand if I did not talk about the biblical reference. One article which asserts that "<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/3/20/18274105/us-review-jordan-peele-jeremiah-doppelganger">Our ugliest history is coming for us.</a>" did the work for me: <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___3" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1706436.html#cutid3">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___3" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />Addendum #3: I think the first couple pieces I read were by white folks, and I'm glad to be reading more thinkpieces about this film written by Black folks.<br /><br />Someone at The Root notes (perhaps tongue in cheek, perhaps not), in "<a href="https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/a-thinkpiece-about-thinkpieces-about-us-1833545814">A Thinkpiece About Thinkpieces About <i>Us</i></a>":<blockquote>Good black films can’t be about regular black people. For a black film to be a critical darling, it must be centered in whiteness. The pain, the heroism or the story must be relatable to white people. The film must have a white savior or teach us an existential lesson about the universality of mankind. Black people are only seen as human when they are suffering from black shit (slavery, oppression or injustice).</blockquote>Back to thinkpieces, from <a href="https://shadowandact.com/the-ending-of-us-explained-review">ShadowAndAct</a>: <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___4" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1706436.html#cutid4">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___4" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />A writer in <i>The Atlantic</i> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/03/us-and-jordan-peeles-reinvention-of-horror/585532/">talks about</a> how the face of horror tends to be white (e.g. the iconic shower scene in <i>Psycho</i>) and how Jordan Peele is changing that:<blockquote>The greatest effect of Peele’s work as a director so far has been to subvert the mainstream offerings of horror, which themselves were originally subversive. It might be, then, that <u>Us</u>’s most powerful mode is as a meta-satire. The film confronts the genre with a Hadean version of itself, this time possessed by disinherited Others with an intent to dismantle. This new self—composed of a growing collection of diverse talent embodied by Peele and his production company—resembles the old. It shares a soul, to quote the film. The tropes and the basic structures employed are similar. The genre is still horror. But instead of Janet Leigh’s scream, the representative image is of a black face, looking to the void.</blockquote><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1706436" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1705247I have so many rydra_wong posts to catch up on now.2019-03-18T02:27:14Z2019-03-18T02:28:02Zpublic0I've now seen both <i>The Dawn Wall</i> AND <i>Free Solo</i>. Thanks, <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://thedeadparrot.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://thedeadparrot.dreamwidth.org/'><b>thedeadparrot</b></a></span>!<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1705247" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1704407[MCU] Captain Marvel2019-03-10T02:46:10Z2019-03-10T02:46:30Zpublic0The <i>Captain Marvel</i> movie is so good! And so fun! Would see again. (I don't tend to rewatch movies, but I would totally go see this again soon.)<br /><br />Spoiler-free capsule review: It's a delightful story of a young woman figuring out who she really is. Which sounds really wholesome, and it is, and it's also really fun and I would totally watch it again. And the 90s music was even more delightful than I anticipated -- I bopped in my seat to like every song. AND there's a political message! (I'm glad movie makers are learning the <i>Thor: Ragnarok</i> lesson -- superhero movies should be fun AND political.)<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1704407.html#cutid1">punch a hole in the sky</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1704407" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1696547[Marvel/Sony] Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse2018-12-28T02:59:26Z2018-12-28T05:52:11Zpublic0Okay, I didn't love this movie like everyone else has, but I did cry I think literally 4 times during the movie.<br /><br />Also, I loved Spider-Gwen just as much as I had hoped to.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1696547" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1693789Venom, again2018-10-27T23:56:43Z2018-10-27T23:59:50Zpublic1Zira and I saw this movie a second time -- with a couple other fangirls who had not yet seen it.<br /><br />It was even more of a delight the second time around.<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1693789.html#cutid1">additional notes</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1693789" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1693022[MCU] Venom2018-10-08T23:16:08Z2018-10-11T14:20:24Zpublic0I went to see <i>Venom</i> this afternoon -- mostly for the lulz.<br /><br />IDK how to embed Tweets in DW, but <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=dykezuia'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=dykezuia'><b>dykezuia</b></a></span> had <a href="https://twitter.com/dykezuIa/status/1049001908369805313">Tweeted</a>:<blockquote>venom: hello earth i’m here to eat you all<br />eddie: hey<br />venom: actually i’m going to marry this man and betray my entire race for him</blockquote>And during the end credits, Zira found excellent reviews, like Vox's "<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/4/17930900/venom-review-tom-hardy/">Venom is a fun, twisted rom-com disguised as a bad superhero movie: Tom Hardy is just a reporter, standing in front of a parasitic alien symbiote, asking it not to eat him.</a>"<br /><br />I will say, though, I was pleasantly surprised by how much of a role the female "love interest" gets.<br /><br />Brock/Venom are kind of dudebros (I didn't love the emasculating insults, or the <i>Tootsie</i> joke), but not excessively so, and are overall fairly decent.<br /><br />The movie isn't particularly statement-y, but I did appreciate the opening montage of investigative reporting (hi, Silicon Valley!), and tech genius + rockets made me think of Elon Musk, so of course I was rooting for the villain's downfall the entire movie.<br /><br />Also, once I realized Venom's tongue wasn't actually venomous (despite his name), I was like, "Why was anyone freaking out that the Internet was thirsty for Venom?" [Though JFC, the movie's only been out for like 4 days and there are already <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Venom%20(Movie%202018)/works">131 works on AO3</a> -- obviously some of them are just from the trailer, but a full 70 of them were posted on or after October 5, 2018.]<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1693022.html#cutid1">speaking of the credits</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />***<br /><br />We saw it at a small theatre so only got 2 trailers -- <i>Captain Marvel</i> and <i>Alita: Battle Angel</i>. <i>Alita</i> still feels problematic (besides the uncanny valley, our titular character has CGIed anime-large eyes), but I enjoyed the <i>Captain Marvel</i> trailer even more than the 2 times I'd watched it on YouTube (sometimes the big screen really does help). I know not everyone's thrilled with the Brie Larson casting -- that based on some comics iterations, some folks would prefer an actress more like <a href="http://cacchieressa.tumblr.com/post/143273468503/elevatorsarentworthy-casting-dream-katee">Katee Sackhoff</a> instead of yet another slip of a woman (similar to some of the pushback around casting Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman) -- but the only exposure I've had to Captain Marvel has been fannish osmosis, so I don't personally have strong preferences. Mostly when I was watching this trailer this time around I was thinking (as I did the second time I watched it) of Fake Geek Boys who asserted she had no expressions and never smiled, and I was literally noting every instance of a different expression, every time she smiled.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1693022" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1683847culture consumed (2018, Jan-Feb)2018-03-01T02:34:59Z2018-03-01T02:34:59Zpublic0I didn't finish my 2017 "year in review" post for various reasons, so I decided to attempt quarterly "culture consumed" posts to at least -- and then I remembered that we're only two months into this year, but I'd already drafted this, so I'm going ahead and posting it anyway. I'm happy to talk more about any of the culture I have consumed.<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1683847.html#cutid1">books</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___2" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1683847.html#cutid2">movies</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___2" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___3" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1683847.html#cutid3">tv</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___3" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___4" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1683847.html#cutid4">theatre</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___4" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___5" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1683847.html#cutid5">visual art</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___5" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___6" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1683847.html#cutid6">music</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___6" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___7" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1683847.html#cutid7">podcasts</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___7" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1683847" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1683627[MCU] Black Panther2018-02-18T01:54:44Z2018-02-18T01:54:44Zpublic2<span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1683627.html#cutid1">quibbles</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1683627" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1681149[movies] I just shouldn't make any other plans for December2017-12-12T03:19:59Z2017-12-12T15:38:01Zpublic2This past week, I literally saw one film a day for 1 week straight (except for Friday when I was gonna go see <a href="http://www.brattlefilm.org/2017/12/08/selma/"><i>Selma</i></a> at the Brattle but I had started fading before EOB, so I went home and slept for 13 hours instead).<br /><br />I feel like by this time last year I was excited about a lot of potential Oscar nominees/Christmas releases -- <i>Moana</i>, <i>Hidden Figures</i>, <i>I Am Not Your Negro</i>, <i>Star Wars: Rogue One</i>, <i>A United Kingdom</i> -- but the films I'm looking forward to are further out in next year: <i>Black Panther</i> (Feb 16) and <i>A Wrinkle in Time</i> (Mar 9) and <i>Pacific Rim: Uprising</i> (Mar 23 -- I still need to watch the first one). And <i>Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse </i> (Miles Morales! finally!) Christmas 2018 (<a href="https://theplaylist.net/100-most-anticipated-films-2018-20171205/4/#cb-content">December 14</a>?). [Edited to add: and after we all canceled JKR on account of <a href="https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/grindelwald-casting/">her terrible statement about continuing to cast Johnny Depp</a>, <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://twitter.com/thingswithwings'><img src='https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico' alt='[twitter.com profile] ' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' width='16' height='16'/></a><a href='http://twitter.com/thingswithwings'><b>thingswithwings</b></a></span> RTed Elizabeth May's Tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/_ElizabethMay/status/938863268365553664">Anyway, apparently the next Fantastic Beasts movie comes out the same day as a movie called "Widows" and it's a fucking ALL WOMEN HEIST MOVIE written by Gillian Flynn and starring Viola Davis. YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU.</a> That's Nov 16. And it's true that <i>Ocean's Eight</i> (the one with 8 women) is coming out on June 8. And apparently <i>Deadpool 2</i> is out June 1 -- though I still need to watch the first one. And I might watch <i>Ant-Man & The Wasp</i> (July 6) and/or <i>Aquaman</i> (Dec 21). And okay, now that I've fallen into the rabbit hole of <a href="https://theplaylist.net/100-most-anticipated-films-2018-20171205/3/#cb-content">anticipated movies of 2018 lists</a>, apparently <i>On The Basis of Sex</i> is a Ruth Bader Ginsberg biopic, as yet without a release date.]<br /><br />Maybe I've just seen more of the Christmas-time movies earlier in the season this year? Maybe some of the trailers are barely out yet? (I only saw a trailer for <i>The Post</i> -- Dec 22 limited release, Jan 12 everywhere -- before <i>The Shape of Water</i> on Saturday.)<br /><br />Anyway, my week in movies:<ul><li>Tues = <a href="http://stumpedthemovie.com/about/"><i>Stumped</i></a> at <a href="http://web.emerson.edu/brightlights/">Bright Lights</a> (Emerson's free film screening series)<ul><li>documentary about a quad amputee<li>bonus: he has a male partner and it's not About Being Gay at all</li></li></ul><br /><li>Wed = <i>Coco</i> with <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://thedeadparrot.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://thedeadparrot.dreamwidth.org/'><b>thedeadparrot</b></a></span> (who Tweeted, "I found Coco extremely delightful even if all the plot points could be seen from about a mile away. Definitely worth staying up late on a weeknight for.")<ul><li>Remezcla has <a href="http://remezcla.com/lists/film/latino-film-critics-review-pixar-coco/">a round-up of Latinx film critics on this Day of the Dead film</a><br /><li>We were warned that it was preceded by a terrible 20-minute <i>Frozen</i> short ("Olaf's Frozen Adventure"), so we took our time getting there, but we ended up seeing I would estimate most of the short, and we didn't hate it (maybe because we hadn't seen <i>Frozen</i>?) though <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://allofthefeelings.tumblr.com'><img src='https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico' alt='[tumblr.com profile] ' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' width='16' height='16'/></a><a href='http://allofthefeelings.tumblr.com'><b>allofthefeelings</b></a></span> later ReTumbled <a href="http://jewcy.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/frozen-short-gets-wrong-jews">an article</a> about how its inclusion of Jews is anachronistic because <u>Jews weren't allowed in Norway at the time <i>Frozen</i> is set</u> D: </li></li></ul><br /><li>Thurs = <i>Tom of Finland</i> at Bright Lights<ul><li>Boston premiere of the biopic about the gay erotic artist (who was also a WWII vet, I had not realized)<li>content notes for war (including PTSD) and some homophobic violence (not super-graphic, but definitely present)<li>Norway's submission to the Oscars this year</li></li></li></ul><br /><li><s>Fri = <a href="http://www.brattlefilm.org/2017/12/08/selma/"><i>Selma</i></a> at the Brattle (part of their <a href="http://www.brattlefilm.org/category/calendar-2/repertory-series/in-our-view-films-by-african-american-women/">In Our View: Films by African American Women</a>, part of their A Year of Women in Cinema)</s><br /><br /><li>Sat = <i>The Shape of Water</i> with <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://twitter.com/silverbluefic'><img src='https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico' alt='[twitter.com profile] ' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' width='16' height='16'/></a><a href='http://twitter.com/silverbluefic'><b>silverbluefic</b></a></span>, <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://thedeadparrot.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://thedeadparrot.dreamwidth.org/'><b>thedeadparrot</b></a></span>, and <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://jjhunter.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://jjhunter.dreamwidth.org/'><b>jjhunter</b></a></span> -- would recommend, even better seeing it with fen (we were all reacting at the same time)<ul><li>at age six, Guillermo del Toro was overwhelmed by the beauty of <i>The Creature from the Black Lagoon</i> and was sad that the Creature and the woman don't end up together as they should have [for more on that, read <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568561089/director-guillermo-del-toro-says-shape-of-water-centers-on-love-beyond-words">this interview</a>]<li>content notes for some body horror, and a sort of accidental animal death as well as a little <s>canon compliant</s> historically accurate racism and homophobia (it's set in 1962)</li></li></ul><br /><li>Sun = <a href="http://www.brattlefilm.org/2017/12/10/daughters-of-the-dust-6/"><i>Daughters of the Dust</i></a> at the Brattle (part of their <a href="http://www.brattlefilm.org/category/calendar-2/repertory-series/in-our-view-films-by-african-american-women/">In Our View: Films by African American Women</a>, part of their A Year of Women in Cinema)<ul><li>"At the dawn of the 20th century, a family in the Gullah community of coastal South Carolina -- former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors' Yoruba traditions" plan to move to the mainland, but not everyone wants to.<li>I feel like I mostly heard about this 1991 film around #LemonadeSyllabus.</li></li></ul><br /><li>Mon = <a href="https://www.landmarktheatres.com/boston/film-info/the-other-side-of-hope"><i>The Other Side of Hope</i></a> at the Kendall with <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/'><b>bironic</b></a></span><ul><li>Syrian refugee in Finland (Aki Kaurismäki)</li></ul></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></ul>After I saw <i>The Shape of Water</i>, I scrolled back through film Twitter for reviews (largely so I could RT them to encourage people to see the movie) and the Coolidge had Tweeted <i>Slant Magazine</i>'s "<a href="https://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/the-25-best-films-of-2017">The 25 Best Films of 2017.</a>" Dated Dec 8. I have a lot of feelings about doing retrospectives before the year is actually over. (I assume the writers have already seen advance screeners of stuff like <i>The Post</i> -- and their list is clearly all Srs Bznz, so I don't expect stuff like <i>Star Wars: The Last Jedi</i> [also not out yet] or <i>Wonder Woman</i> to have been in their running, but I was still a little peeved that <i>The Shape of Water</i> wasn't on their list.)<br /><br />Also, okay, their list is Serious Business, but it does include <i>Personal Shopper</i> (KStew talks to ghosts) -- and <i>Blade Runner 2049</i> makes their next 25 (I was pleased that <i>Dunkirk</i> was only ranked #46 -- I have not seen <i>Dunkirk</i>, but I saw ads for it so many times the beginning of this year, and ugh white dude WWII films).<br /><br />I had heard of 13 of the films on their list (which is a higher percentage than it felt like as I was reading through) and of those, had seen 2 (<i>I Am Not Your Negro</i> and <i>Get Out</i>).<br /><br />I guess <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/golden-globe-nominations-2018-full-list-nominees-1063937/item/best-performance-by-an-actor-a-motion-picture-drama-1064266">the Golden Globe nominees are out this morning</a>? And <i>The Shape of Water</i> has "a bajillion" nominations (to quote a colleague this morning, who was talking about the <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/898406/critics-choice-awards-2018-complete-list-of-movie-and-tv-nominations">Critics' Choice Awards</a>). Still bitter that <i>Get Out</i> was nominated as a fucking comedy.<br /><br /><b>Golden Globes</b><br /><br /><u>Best Motion Picture - Drama</u><ul><li><i>Call Me By Your Name</i> -- *shrug* white gay dudes (I finally actually saw an ad for it before <i>The Other Side of Hope</i> tonight; not to be confused <i>God's Own Country</i>, the gay British film with sheep, this is the gay Italian coming-of-age film)<br /><li><i>Dunkirk</i> -- ugh, as mentioned above, white dude WWII film (with bonus <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/dunkirk-whitewashing-indian-soldiers">erasure of the Indian soldiers who fought at Dunkirk</a>)<br /><li><i>The Post</i> -- I'm interested to see this (it's about the <i>Washington Post</i> publishing the Pentagon Papers -- timely film is timely; not about government secrets per se, but about the obligation of journalism to reveal the truth even in the face of political pressure -- with bonus female lead)<br /><li><i>The Shape of Water</i> -- YES<br /><li><i>Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri</i> -- I would have been more excited about this film (which I haven't seen) about the failure of the legal system to pursue justice for victims if it had been about a black victim rather than a white victim and lo, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonwillmore/three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri?utm_term=.tkZZqM1bw#.sm0gJOR1G">a BuzzFeed article</a> asks, "What happens when your resonant dark comedy about female anger is also a lousy one about racism?"</li></li></li></li></li></ul><u>Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy</u><ul><li><i>Get Out</i> -- YES<br /><li><i>The Greatest Showman</i> -- I had not even heard of this (P.T. Barnum)<br /><li><i>I, Tonya</i> -- I'm potentially interested to see this<br /><li><i>Lady Bird</i> -- I've heard good things about this but am not personally interested<br /><li><i>The Disaster Artist</i> -- blah, James Franco</li></li></li></li></li></ul><b>Critics' Choice Awards</b><br /><br /><u>Best Picture</u><br /><ul><li><i>The Big Sick</i> -- I saw this and enjoyed it, though I found it flawed and definitely understand why <a href="http://racebaitr.com/2017/11/28/big-sicks-disgusting-treatment-women-color-illuminates-violence-colorblind-love/">some people found it problematic</a><br /><li><i>Call Me by Your Name</i><br /><li><i>Darkest Hour</i> -- another WWII film (Churchill)<br /><li><i>Dunkirk</i><br /><li><i>The Florida Project</i> -- I'm interested to see this<br /><li><i>Get Out</i><br /><li><i>Lady Bird</i><br /><li><i>The Post</i> <br /><li><i>The Shape of Water</i><br /><li><i>Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri</i><br /></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></ul>I just pulled the Best Picture noms, didn't try to list all the movies that got any nominations, but gabi <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=harleivy'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=harleivy'><b>harleivy</b></a></span> on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/harleivy/status/940221590024916992">notes</a>:<blockquote>greta gerwig directed lady bird. 197 reviews. 99% on rotten tomatoes.<br /><br />patty jenkins directed wonder woman. one of the biggest movies of the year. critical success as well.<br /><br />yet the Golden Globes chose to nominate 5 men in their "Best Director" category instead. let it sink in.</blockquote>:/ <br /><br />And (h/t <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/golden-globes-2018-nominations-spark-backlash"><i>Teen Vogue</i></a>) <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://loudlysilent.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://loudlysilent.dreamwidth.org/'><b>loudlysilent</b></a></span> <a href="https://twitter.com/loudlysilent/status/940219700667072514">Tweeted</a>, "ALL FIFTEEN of the #GoldenGlobes nominees for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, Drama, and TV Drama are white."<br /><br /><b>Edit the next day:</b> Rotten Tomatoes <a href="https://twitter.com/RottenTomatoes/status/940563650783469569">Tweeted</a>:<blockquote>Patty Jenkins (#WonderWoman 92% 🍅)<br />Dee Rees (#Mudbound 97% 🍅)<br />Greta Gerwig (#LadyBird 99% 🍅)<br />Kathryn Bigelow (#Detroit 83% 🍅)<br /><br />None were nominated for a #GoldenGlobe<br /><br /><a href="https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/the-golden-globes-have-a-problem-with-women-directors/?cmp=TWRT_Awards_GlobesProblem">The Golden Globes Have a Problem with Women Directors</a></blockquote>The linked article also notes, "Ava DuVernay was the last woman to receive a Golden Globe nomination for best director in 2015. DuVernay is also one of only five women to be nominated in that category in the award ceremony’s 75-year history."<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1681149" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1680854The Breadwinner [2017-11-29]2017-12-04T23:57:31Z2017-12-04T23:57:31Zpublic0Last week I went to see <i>The Breadwinner</i> (animated film about an Afghani girl who disguises herself as a boy) with <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/'><b>bironic</b></a></span> (partly because <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://finnglas.tumblr.com'><img src='https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico' alt='[tumblr.com profile] ' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' width='16' height='16'/></a><a href='http://finnglas.tumblr.com'><b>finnglas</b></a></span> had <a href="http://finnglas.tumblr.com/post/165590837380">posted</a> excited about it).<br /><br />I had not realized that in addition to being produced by the white Irish woman who did <i>The Book of Kells</i> [Nora Twomey], the film was based on a book by a white Canadian woman [Deborah Ellis] and had a white Ukranian-Canadian woman [Anita Doron] as its other writer.<br /><br />The voice actors all seem to have Middle Eastern names, and an Afghan women's choir does the song over the closing credits, but I was still somewhat uncomfortable with "White People telling a story of Oppressed Brown People."<br /><br />I did some digging after I got home that night, and <i>The Breadwinner</i> seems to be part of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/66451-the-breadwinner">a series</a> of middle grade novels -- though the movie was based on the first book (which came out in September 2000).<br /><br />The GoodReads blurb for <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/828015.The_Breadwinner">the first book</a> says, "A political activist whose first book for children, <i>Looking for X</i>. dealt with poverty in Toronto, [author Deborah] Ellis based <i>The Breadwinner</i> on the true-life stories of women in Afghan refugee camps."<br /><br />A <a href="https://www.landmarktheatres.com/the-breadwinner-filmmaker-letter">letter from the filmmaker</a> says:<blockquote>Deep within the threads of <i>The Breadwinner</i> are stories that give the film its heart—from personal stories such as cast members Kawa Ada and Noorin Gulamgaus families both fleeing war to try to find a new life to larger stories of conflict such as the role of the West in Afghan affairs, the proxy wars fought by Superpowers, and the prioritization of short-term goals at the expense of long term stability. Every story gave depth to the characters and a deep compassion to the form of the film.</blockquote><span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/'><b>bironic</b></a></span> emailed me the NYT Critic’s Pick <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/movies/the-breadwinner-review.html?_r=0">article</a> noting, "The journalistic roots of the original book are reassuring. Still, this was the only snippet in a movie review that begins to look at the question I wondered about."<br /><br />I did some more digging.<br /><br />A Mary Sue <a href="https://www.themarysue.com/review-the-breadwinner/">article</a> says:<blockquote>Initially, I was concerned by the fact that this film was an adaptation of a white Canadian woman’s book…by a white Irish woman. However, while the source material wasn’t created by Afghan women, both Ellis when writing her books and Twomey when making her film did everything they could to incorporate the participation and perspectives of Afghan women.<br /><br />When writing <i>The Breadwinner</i> (and subsequent books in the series), Ellis traveled to Pakistan to interview refugees at an Afghan refugee camp. It was there that she met a mother and daughter whose story she fictionalized through Parvana.<br /><br />For the film, Twomey made sure to cast all-Asian/Arab folks for the voice cast, and the composers worked with Afghan musicians to make sure the film had Afghan input from every angle. The fact that <a href="https://www.themarysue.com/the-breadwinner-screening-nora-twomey/">Afghanistan’s first lady has spoken highly of the film</a> makes me think that it manages to be as authentic as it can possibly be without having been written/created by an Afghan woman.</blockquote><a href="https://fellowsblog.ted.com/a-heart-wrenching-story-of-childhood-in-afghanistan-rendered-in-enchanting-animation-b4594dc5a7de">An interview with Anita Doron</a> also reveals that they had a cultural consultant<blockquote>As soon as I signed onto the project, I asked to attach Afghan artist and TED Fellow Aman Mojadidi to be a cultural consultant. Andrew and Anthony agreed immediately — they were deeply invested in making sure what we created would be as authentic and truthful as possible. Aman read various drafts of the script, and we had lengthy conversations about life in Afghanistan. I’d ask him questions like: “If I make Fattema and company stop closer to Kabul on their way to Mazar, is there a regular stop people take with roadside chai at about a day-and-a-half walking distance?” (Answer: “Yep — Salang Pass.”) He provided specificity and a sense of humor and understanding of the world, which was invaluable.</blockquote>and she also just generally did a lot of research -- "I spent months and months researching and feeling and seeing Afghan poetry, stories, music, food, crafts, fabrics and so on."<br /><br />***<br /><br />The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/movies/the-breadwinner-review.html?_r=0">NYT article</a> says: <blockquote>Harsh disappointments befall the characters, and they are depicted frankly, but in a way that encourages young viewers to form an affinity with the characters rather than cringe at terror. The director, Nora Twomey, has a nuanced way with characterization and action, and the voice cast, led by Saara Chaudry of “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” is terrific. In its alternating of Parvana’s day-to-day struggle with the tale she tells herself, the movie doesn’t promote bromides about stories and storytelling transcending reality. Rather, <strong>it demonstrates that the way imagination refracts reality can provide not only solace but also real-world strategy</strong>. (emphasis mine)</blockquote>***<br /><br />One thing I was reflecting on after the film was how the father's story about their people being a people at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains who were attacked over and over again by invaders was so reminiscent of Marjane Satrapi's introduction to her graphic novel <i>Persepolis</i> (2002), even though <i>Persepolis</i> is about Persia/Iran and <i>The Breadwinner</i> is about Afghanistan. The two countries are right next to each other, and I wondered how far one had to go before a people's identity stopped being the nomads who were conquered and became the conquerors.<br /><br />From the 2002 Introduction to <i>Persepolis</i>:<blockquote>In the second millennium B.C., while the Elan nation was developing a civilization alongside Babylon, Indo-European invaders gave their name to the immense Iranian plateau where they settled. The word “Iran” was derived from “Ayryana Vaejo,” which means “the origin of the Aryans.” These people were semi-nomads whose descendants were the Medes and the Persians. The Medes founded the first Iranian nation in the seventh century B.C.; it was later destroyed by Cyrus the Great. He established what became one of the largest empires of the ancient world, the Persian Empire, in the sixth century B.C. Iran was referred to as Persia -- its Greek name -- until 1935 when Reza Shah, the father of the last Shah of Iran, asked everyone to call the country Iran.<br /><br />Iran was rich. Because of its wealth and its geographic location, it invited attacks: From Alexander the Great, from its Arab neighbors to the west, from Turkish and Mongolian conquerors, Iran was often subject to foreign domination. Yet the Persian language and culture withstood these invasions. The invaders assimilated into this strong culture, and in some ways they became Iranians themselves.</blockquote>I paged through a copy of the book <i>The Breadwinner</i> at a local bookstore, and it didn't have the story the father told (in the book he tells a somewhat different story) and I can't find it online, but I remember it used language like "Aryana" and had a series of conquerors (it used cut-paper animation to nice effect there -- having basically the same male figure on a horse, just with slightly different clothing etc. each time, representing various different conquerors).<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1680854" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1679127[MCU] Thor: Ragnarok2017-11-04T23:42:59Z2017-11-04T23:42:59Z"Immigrant Song" - Led Zeppelinpublic3As I said on FB, I'm often dubious about the match between trailers and the movies they precede, but <i>Thor: Ragnarok</i> was preceded by trailers for <i>Black Panther</i> and <i>Star Wars: The Last Jedi</i>, which was perfect. <small>(Though the Capitol only does 2 trailers and apparently some of the other trailers were less good. Though they did include <i>Pacific Rim: Uprising</i> which, yes, good.)</small> Maybe I will manage to see the 2 new Star Wars movies before <i>The Last Jedi</i> comes out in December?<br /><br />The only thing I knew about the movie (besides the trailers and <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/how-tessa-thompson-went-from-indie-actor-to-thor-ragnarok-badass-w510485">Valkyrie's grey-canon bisexuality</a>) was <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://ghostwiring.tumblr.com'><img src='https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico' alt='[tumblr.com profile] ' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' width='16' height='16'/></a><a href='http://ghostwiring.tumblr.com'><b>ghostwiring</b></a></span>'s <a href="http://ghostwiring.tumblr.com/post/167075037617">comment</a> "amazing that the villain of thor ragnarok was just a goth lesbian with a really big dog and a disdain for all men" and <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://allofthefeelings.tumblr.com'><img src='https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico' alt='[tumblr.com profile] ' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' width='16' height='16'/></a><a href='http://allofthefeelings.tumblr.com'><b>allofthefeelings</b></a></span>' <a href="http://allofthefeelings.tumblr.com/post/167074103795/im-a-little-in-love-with-valkyrie-and-a-little-in">comment</a> "#that was better than i expected#and gave so many openings for fic i'd actually be interested in reading #it's a marvel movie about why colonialism is bad #i'm genuinely surprised they went there"<br /><br />I knew the film was gonna be funny and goofy, and I felt like maybe "Ragnarok" wasn't the right choice for that, but it actually worked. (And as many people have commented, in this current geopolitical hellscape, having a movie not be grimdark is much appreciated. <i>Wonder Woman</i>'s theme is the power of love, and I'm not sure what the one line ~moral of <i>Ragnarok</i> is, but it has a similarly hopeful ending while also being realistic.) I wouldn't necessarily say it goes deep into problematizing colonialism, but it definitely has some explicit commentary on imperialism -- and the recurring theme in the Thor films of Odin papering over uncomfortable truths. And both Sakaar and the Asgard plotline engage the issue of using other people -- including the ways that people rationalize their own complicity in systems that seem un-thwartable.<br /><br />Also, I would like Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" to be my fight song/entrance music always.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1679127" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1676341Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017)2017-08-01T03:00:14Z2017-08-02T19:42:18Zpublic1Tom S. from church posted a link to "<a href="http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/07/11/valerian-review-is-the-movie-summer-cinema-needs-but-not-the-movie-it-wants">VALERIAN Is The Movie Summer Cinema Needs, But Not The Movie It Wants</a>" and I emailed coworkers saying I wasn't sure if that article made me wanna see the movie or not.<br /><br />Charlotte expressed interest in going.<br /><br />Then I saw someone RT "<a href="https://twitter.com/jaimewrites/status/888624566645518336">wow. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is the worst movie I've seen in a long time. and not in the fun trashy way.</a>"<br /><br />The OP continued in that thread:<ul><li>I came away wanting to punch the screenwriter, and also Dane Dehaan's character's smug sexual harassing creepy eyed face.<br /><li>It's ... not good. In any way, except the visuals. And the main character is AWFUL.<br /><li>I am very sad! I wanted glorious space trash! But all I got was trash. Woe.</li></li></li></ul>I went ahead with my plans with Charlotte tonight, and it was definitely not as bad as I was expecting.<br /><br />Valerian definitely doesn't deserve his hero/romance arc <small>[and honestly, the movie did not need the romance plotline at all, especially since the 2 of them have basically no chemistry -- they're partners, and yes she's always running after him to save him, but not in any way that made me feel like they should be more than partners ... and I am often a sucker for competent woman & kind of douchey guy, see Pepper/Tony, Donna/Josh, possibly some of my own life, etc.]</small>, but Laureline is gr8 (the comic series is called "Valerian and Laureline," I learned in the end credits, and I dislike that Valerian got solo billing in the movie title -- they are definitely partners, and it genuinely feels like it's equally their story).<br /><br />It's not super campy fun in the way that <i>Jupiter Ascending</i> is, but a lot of it is fun. A lot of the world-building is very hand-wavy, but I was willing to roll with that. And yeah, the dialogue is not this film's strong suit -- the visuals of the world-building are definitely its strongest suit. A lot of the plot is clear to the viewer early on, but not in a way that bothered me -- and sometimes the film even surprised me. <span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1676341.html#cutid1">major spoilers</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1676341" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1675777Jupiter Ascending (2015)2017-07-21T03:37:21Z2017-07-21T03:41:04Zpublic0<i>Jupiter Ascending</i> was everything the Internet promised me it would be AND! BONUS! the villain is capitalism.<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://hermionesviolin.dreamwidth.org/1675777.html#cutid1">so on my way home I was saying Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1675777" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-07-27:936837:1674027Get Out (2017)2017-05-11T23:06:51Z2017-05-11T23:06:51Zpublic0So, I finally saw <i>Get Out</i>. So good! And now I understand why people didn't wanna say anything about what happens in the film other than the very basic premise.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=hermionesviolin&ditemid=1674027" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments