“movie” “review”: Dragons: Fire & Ice
As part of a brand-new series I’m calling “I watch shitty movies at 2am so you don’t have to,” Gracetopia is proud to bring you our review of Dragons: Fire & Ice.
I don’t know how this movie ended up in my Netflix queue. I don’t know what mood I was in when I thought this would be a good idea. Seriously:
[Animated] A bitter feud between the Norvagen and the Daigon has been blazing for centuries, though no one remembers why. The peaceful times of the enlightened dragons and their Crystals of Power are no more, as the dragons have vanished and taken all serenity with them. In an effort to restore harmony to the land, prince Dev of the Norvagan and princess Dyra of the Draigon team up as an improbable pair to fight the forces that only they can conquer.
But now it’s here and I’m going to watch it. So you don’t have to.
I’m going to do something of a play-by-play on twitter (which will be in the past by the time you read this bwahaha) and I’m going to jot down thoughts here as well. I apologize in advance for any rambling, incoherence, etc. It is 2am.
AND HERE WE GO.
You know those videos people post on youtube where they make videogame characters dance around to songs like “Boba the Fett” or “Thriller?” That is what the scenes from this menu screen looks like. This does not bode well.
Hmmm okay so we started with a voiceover about dragons, and the Dragonworld, and crystals (+ one special crystal with a name that sounds like “decepticon”) and A GREAT BETRAYAL and a dragon queen is dead. I am not entirely clear on the details. The voiceover was quite growly and dramatic.
Seriously I was playing computer games when I was ten with better animation than this. And Dragons: Fire & Ice is from 2004.
Ah-ha, now we have a little blond prince and a little dark-haired princess. I PREDICT THAT THEY WILL JOIN FORCES AND SAVE THE WORLD. Partly because I just read it in the description. OH NO THEY’RE BOTH ON DRAGONS NOW what if they run into each other? THERE ARE NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS IN THE SKY.
Aw, the little prince and princess are all grown up. The prince is whiny and blond. The princess is whiny and brunette. Goodness so much whining. They’re perfect for each other. I wish them lots of chubby whiny children.
Okay, the prince really needs to stop saying “I will come in/Go in fast and hard.” My adolescent mind can’t handle it.
Hokay, really, I feel like I am watching someone play a 10-year-old video game. I appreciate Pixar so much more now.
GUYS THE TWO ENEMY KINGS HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED BY EVIL DRAGONS. Now the prince and princess must BAND TOGETHER and SAVE THEM. As an aside, has anyone noticed that I use more CAPS when I am tired?
Prince quote of the moment, “Uh, yeah, he’s a wizard, duh.” Such elegant language for a princeling.
Okay, I got distracted. They met a wizard and fought a dragon, but it turned out the dragon is “good” and the wise old wizard is actually a bad guy. Shocking twist, I know. Oh, and now the dragon is explaining plot things that… are maybe important?
WAIT! The Orethon (?) is IN the prince and princess! I do not know what this means but it seems important. It sounds like a disease.
I zoned out again. Now it appears that the sky is falling in. Also a herd of gray dragons that look almost exactly like the monkey warriors from The Wizard of Oz. From afar.
And there are 20 minutes left. What. Help.
Reading reviews on Netflix indicates that there are toys that go along with this movie, and that possibly the toys were first. This would explain quite a bit, really.
Ooh the bad guy just made a dragon skeleton thing out of ice, and it’s actually almost pretty. First thing about this movie that seems even a bit impressive.
OH THANK GOD IT’S OVER. It ended with the bad guy shaking his fist (weren’t they supposed to kill him?) and saying “It’s not OVER!” but actually I think it is. Don’t anyone feel a need to point me towards the sequel.
So basically I think this movie was made for pre-adolescent boys whose mothers told them they had to cap their video game time. Because this seems to my untrained eye to be exactly like playing a video game, except with less plot.
Ta-da! I have watched Dragons: Fire & Ice so you don’t have to—not that you were planning to anyway, probably.
Good night!
movie review: Sherlock Kung Fu Dracula Holmes
So you know how some girls go all fangirl over Twilight? Well, I go all fangirl over Sherlock Holmes. No, seriously. It’s bordering on psychotic. I love Holmes. I’ve read all the stories dozens if not hundreds of times—give me a line from one of the stories and nine times out of ten I’ll place it. I have very strong opinions about canon, and the unauthorized “sequels” (do NOT get me started on The Beekeper’s Apprentice), and the homoeroticism between Holmes and Watson, and Holmes’s misogyny and his relationship to Irene Adler. I was, literally, bouncing while waiting for the movie to start.
That said, I was expecting this movie to be “okay.” Not brilliant, but Robert Downey Jr’s in it so it couldn’t be toooo awful. And, well—if you’ve spoken to anyone who’s seen it or done even a brief google search, you will probably have heard that this movie is “okay, good but not great.” And that is an entirely accurate assessment.
First, though: Robert Downey Jr is fantastic. He’s a new, grittier Holmes. It’s quite a humorous script, and he pulls off the funny while staying true to Holmes’s sometimes mechanical and forlorn character. The scenes where he is wallowing in misery, especially the first wherein Watson is trying to make him do something, anything, are brilliantly done. Jude Law is quite good as Watson, too. He doesn’t have as much to work with, script-wise, but what he does have he does well.
I found the story slightly disappointing. Choosing to do a storyline involving dark magic and occult orders and whatnot just seems like a lazy way to take advantage of the current fantasy/magic craze. It was obvious that all the magic would be explained away with science (it is a Holmes story, after all), or at the very least “science,” so it didn’t really hold my interest. It all just seemed… unnecessary, and un-Holmesian. A sharp, gripping story could easily have been written using no fake magical elements. I mean, it’s a totally feasible story; the late Victorians loved magic and the occult and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself took pictures of fairies. But I would have been so much happier without the smoke and mirrors.
The script was pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. A lot of humor was thrown in, especially in the fight scenes. Really, between the jokes and the overly-impressive fighting on the parts of Watson and Holmes, it sometimes felt like watching a Jackie Chan movie. (Don’t get me wrong, Holmes knows how to box. But… probably not like this.) The movie was an interesting blend of gritty realism and absurdity. And it was beautiful; sets, costumes, everything was beautiful. Dark, but beautiful. Holmes was a little more disheveled than is entirely accurate, but RDJ pulled it off.
And I loved the little things they included from the stories: when Watson correctly identifies a watch as belonging to a drunk, he is using the exact same reasoning utilized by Holmes in “The Sign of Four” to identify the watch of Watson’s brother; and when Holmes shoots “V.R.” into the wall he is exactly replicating one of his “queer humours” from “The Musgrave Ritual” (for “Victoria Regina”—Holmes is nothing if not a loyal Briton). Cute. I approve.
So overall, the movie is, as expected, pretty okay.
But now we need to talk about Irene Adler. Because really, what the hell. Way to run rampant with the canon.
I haven’t really complained yet about the liberties the script takes with the canon, because it’s only to be expected in a movie like this that’s supposed to be some kind of reinvention. I haven’t complained about the Mary Morstan nonsense (they totally rewrote that storyline), or about how Holmes was petulantly attempting to prevent Watson from getting married, or about Holmes’s fighting.
But I cannot keep quiet about Irene Adler.
I understand the desire to have a female lead in this story, to attract/mollify some female viewers who would not otherwise have wanted to watch a story about two men fighting male criminals with the help of a male police force. I understand. But Irene Adler? She holds a very specific place in the canon. The only woman to outwit Holmes, a woman he regards so highly that he always refers to her as The Woman. She is unique and extraordinary. And there is a) no romance between them, implied or otherwise, and b) no altercation between them aside from “A Scandal in Bohemia.” According to the movie, Irene Adler has already outwitted Holmes twice before the movie begins. No.
I possibly would have put up with bringing her back as an antagonist or a protagonist or both. Possibly. But to imply a love interest? Like I said, I have very strong feelings about Holmes’s misogyny. He just… doesn’t. like. women. It happens. Watson is the ladies’ man in these stories, if you felt romance was absolutely necessary have him hitch up with someone. (I mean, you did, but he’d already caught his fish by the time the movie started.)
Why is it so difficult for everyone to believe that Holmes admires Irene Adler because she outfoxed him, not because he wants to get in her skirts? Why why why? This has always been a sore point with me, in case that weren’t obvious, and of everything in this movie it bothered me the most.
Okay. Rant over.
But in general, quite a good film, quite pretty, RDJ is fantastic and Jude Law is close behind. I’m not going to call it a must-see, but… you won’t waste your time. It’s pretty okay; good, but not great.
And you get to see Robert Downy Jr without his shirt on. It’s all about the little things, people.
Goals and Resolutions, 2010 edition
Okay, as promised. Goals for 2010. New Year’s Resolutions, if you will, though if we call them that I will certainly fail in a fiery ball of fail.
After much thought and deliberation (scribbled these on the back of a post-it yesterday), I have decided upon the following for my 2010 Goals:
- Finish my WIP. Not any WIP. This one. BY. The one that I’ll have been working on 2 years in March. I am going to fucking finish this thing or die trying.
- Write a query letter for BY. Even if it’s not query-worthy by the end of the year, I’m going to write a letter. If BY is query-worthy, then I will add onto this goal “mailing the query letter,” but we will cross that bridge when it gets to us.
- Write and submit a short story. Not even get it published. I aim small. Just submit. Also, I am horrible at short stories. Ugh.
- Lose 20 lbs. I am tired of people suggesting I go on or assuming I already am on a diet. Fuck you all. I’ll lose 20 lbs.
- Eat better. (This is not necessarily related to the previous goal.) I’ve starting eating out/prepared food SO MUCH because I am SO LAZY—but NO LONGER. You can tell I’ll stick to this goal because of all the caps.
- Write at least 500 words per day. I was going to make this 1000, but I know I’ll fail if I do that. So. 500. That’s easy, right?
You guys are all going to have to hold me to these because, as we have already proven, I have no willpower whatsoever.
These goals seem pretty paltry compared to what everyone else I know is doing, but, hey. If I finish it all by June then I can feel like an overachiever, right?
a montana-style christmas
A Christmas Eve picture from our front door.
(You can’t see the huge mountains in the background because they’re covered in white and are blending into the white sky on this silly camera, but they’re there!)
deck the halls with christmas music
Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!
Today I am going to post my favorite Christmas songs. Beware. I am not a normal human being.
Father Christmas, by the Kinks:
‘Zat You, Santa Claus?, by the one and only Louis Armstrong:
A Charlie Brown Christmas, by Bela Fleck (no seriously, he plays it on a banjo):
Aaaand, Grace’s #1, top favorite most-beloved Christmas song of all time—A Fairytale of New York, by the Pogues:
Enjoy!
christmas present for those who like mysteries and victoriana
I kind of love Mr. Scott Pack, so when he talks about someone’s fabulosity, I take notice.
Lee Jackson, proprietor of one of my favorite Victoriana sites, The Victorian Dictionary, also apparently writes Victorian mystery novels—and we all know how I feel about Victorian mystery novels. (These were only available in the UK as far as I can tell, so I fell slightly less bad about my ignorance of them.) But I guess the books wasn’t selling well enough, so his publisher didn’t re-sign him. BUT. Being the awesome person that he is (I mean, he runs a website about Victorian England, he is obviously very high on the cool hierarchy), Jackson is posting his newest novel online for free.
And click here to read Mr. Pack’s original blog post, which I basically just copied.
Merry Christmas!
Wilde Wednesday: Preface to Dorian Gray
Wilde Wednesdays have kind of fallen by the wayside, BUT I AM GOING TO BRING THEM BACK. STARTING NOW.
With one of my favorite pieces of writing ever in the world, the preface to the Picture of Dorian Gray. I truly love this.
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
All art is quite useless.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.
From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
writing again
OKAY.
That week I was going to take off after NaNo slowly grew, and now it is 3 weeks later and I’m finally opening up my WIP. Not the NaNo WIP—that has died a deserved death (by drowning).
I’m back to the WIP that I was cleverly calling Chrysanthemum, which I can hardly spell. I’ll just take it back to its actual name—or rather, its actual acronym, BY.
I am going to finish this fucking novel if it kills me.
Okay. We’re at 6k. Here we go.
POST EDITED for ROGUE APOSTROPHE AAAHHHHHHH *kills self*
goals and accomplishments and things
So the (amazing, awesome-filled) people in my online writer’s group are making lists of things they accomplished this year, and what they hope to accomplish next year (not necessarily writing-related) and I’m like… uh…. well…
I accomplished nothing of note in 2009.
No really. I didn’t land a job or find an apartment—those were late 2008. I didn’t finish a novel—you were all playing along when I failed NaNo, right? There’s nothing huge that I can point to and say, “Look what I did this year!”
HOWEVER.
I refuse to acknowledge that 2009 was a total bust, so I’m going to make a list anyway. Because damn it, I must have done something.
So. In 2009, I:
- Acquired all 3 seasons of the original Star Trek.
- Gave myself a concussion.
- Finally decided I kinda like Boston.
- Saw the Pogues live in concert, and Shane MacGowan was everything I’d hoped for and more.
- Went on a Bear Adventure in northern Minnesota.
- Bought shoes. Lots of shoes.
- Watched the Star Wars trilogy… 5 times? That I can recall.
- Saw Rent 4 times.
- Acquired an adorable little kitty.
- Got my first tattoo.
- Met a large number of the people in my online writer’s group (considering how scattered we all are, this is actually a pretty big deal).
- Met some amazing people through NaNo, even if I didn’t finish the novel.
- Won the highly-coveted Merlene Award.
So there. My 2009 was filled with accomplishments that you can only dream of.
But what for 2010? Hm. I’ll make a proper list and post it tomorrow.
Merry Christmas
*snerk*
Totally NSFW Star Trek slash “read” by Zachary Quinto:
I really don’t feel that explanation is necessary, but if you think you need it, here you go.
greetings from Cincinnati
Hello! The travel day from hell has begun, and I’m now in Cincinnati watching it snow. And snow. And snow. I am slightly concerned, because I have 3 more hours here, 3 hours that will be full of snow. If I get stuck in Cincinnati I will be very sad.
Currently listening to Jeremy Irons read Lolita. This may have been the best $30 I’ve ever invested.
