Aelfgyfu

Go to Oedipus the Movie to see, as the page itself announces:
"OEDIPUS: the story of Oedipus, in eight minutes, performed by vegetables"

WARNINGS: These are from me; the movie itself is unrated. ahem: Vegetable porn (I am not kidding; you don't want to be explaining this to small children; I can just imagine, "Mommy? What is that potato doing with that tomato?"), graphic vegetable violence, great liberties with the story of Oedipus, and do not eat or drink while viewing.

Thanks to a grad student who put me on to this; I'm afraid she'll have to remain nameless so that I can preserve my own pseudonymy.

First, happy belated birthday to astrogirl2 and happy early birthday to mrwubbles! Sorry to those I've missed; my birthday wishes are very hit-and-miss, and please don't take it personally if I miss yours!

I've seen a couple of movies lately and thought I'd share. I'm trying not to give too many spoilers, but to give a little idea of what the movie is about.

( The Queen )

( Hancock )

We returned home from the movie to enter a house with twin trails of bright pink yarn stretching from my home office out of sight. Small Child was given a knitting set for her birthday; I'd had one skein and the needles in my office to practice with some videos I was going to watch on the Internet before I helped her learn to knit. I'd never gotten around to the videos, Doofus the Cat had already attacked the ball of yarn once, and Brilliant Husband had consigned the yarn to the cubby of my desk, which has a door that hasn't closed in years.

Further investigation showed that part of the skein was out of my cubby but still on my desk, trapped by two old appointment calendars that had fallen on it--thank goodness. Doofus had, however, managed to get a large loop stretched all the way from my desk through the corner of the living room (around a table) through the kitchen (around a table and chair and two carts full of bookbooks), into the dining room. The clump of yarn had stopped less than a foot short of the water bowl. He often saves his prizes in the water bowl, whether to drown them or to be sure he can find them later because he knows he's an idiot and he loses everything that's not by the food we don't know. I'm very glad the yarn didn't make it to the water bowl, because that would have been unpleasant.

We picked up the yarn and brought it to the family room; I found a loose end and started making a ball. I thought this would be quick and easy.

It took the two of us (BH and me, not Doofus and me!) forty minutes to disentangle it, and only then could I make a ball of it (which didn't take all that long, by itself). The ball is now locked securely in the wicker basket that holds the rest of the kit. Stupid cat! It was quite amazing; I wanted to take a picture or some video of it, but we were afraid it didn't really look as impressive as it truly was. I'll leave it to your imaginations.

The adventures at home aren't quite as funny as the adventures in the movies, but they actually involved less property damage than Hancock.

WARNING: SPOILERS on the movies allowed in comments.

Wrong, mean--but funny: "The Aria of Prince Algorino" by John Tierney at The New York Times. (Yes, An Inconvenient Truth really is being made into an opera. No, I don't understand why anyone would want to do that either.)

The Geek Hierarchy by Lore Sjöberg. Be sure to check out the links at the bottom with the Unabridged Version and the Frequently Paraphrased Questions.

Finally, LOLDW and LOLTW: ceefax_the_sane has taken many, many pictures from Doctor Who (including some Donna photos, but I didn't see any spoilers) and Torchwood (spoilers through all episodes so far--you have been warned!) and given them LOL tags. Check out many entries on her LJ! As a bonus, nearly all of them have additional captions that show up when you run the cursor over the photo. Naturally, I had worked my way through almost all her macros before I noticed this, and then had to go back and reread all of them. Darn.
WARNINGS: Not Safe For Work. Not Safe For Small Children (or your mom or dad, probably, though it turns out my father-in-law does like TW...). Ceefax also has fics at the site; I've enjoyed at least some of the ones not rated 18+, but I haven't read anything rated 18+, so don't blame me.

In fact, don't blame me for anything (though I'll happily accept thanks for the links, if you like them).

I feel a posting binge coming on--I've realized that aside from my post on The Fall and a brief one on Iron Man, I haven't written about movies or tv since April 22. I knew there was something missing from my life.

Of course, I've only been to two movies in the theater this year, so I've got one movie we saw from TiVo, and one from Netflix. My reviews are already horribly out of date, and not because I took so long to post.

( An Inconvenient Truth--with spoilers! )

( The Triplets of Belleville--no serious spoilers )

First, the setting: Brilliant Husband and I got to Tampa Theatre last night (yes, they use the British spelling) for the very first time. ( Tampa Theatre )

The movie itself: The Fall ( Review without significant spoilers )

We just found out: apparently you have to wait until the very end of the credits of Iron Man to see the special preview of Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury. We couldn't wait yesterday and missed it. Brilliant Husband notes that it will be available on the Internet in a few weeks anyway, but thought you might want to know.

I saw a movie today! I'm not even sure it rates a review, but I saw a movie in the theater! Brilliant Husband dragged me out after lunch this afternoon.

SG-1 spotting: Tim Guinee as Major Allen in Iron Man! Points to me for leaning over and whispering in BH's ear, "Tomin!" in his first scene. Of course, I couldn't remember the actor's name, and I had to look on IMDb both to get his name and his character's name (as it wouldn't do to post "Tim Guinee as some guy who had a few lines and wore an Air Force uniform!"). Yay Tomin! He didn't get much to do.

But who did in this movie? ( Review without spoilers )

Yes, we know Ark of Truth comes out tomorrow--in the US. My UK friends just found out they won't be getting it until May. We're in the US, but we don't know when we'll see it. I've slipped up a few times myself on spoilers, so I thought a reminder wouldn't hurt: please don't run and tell us all what happens! You may squee or say you didn't like it, but please put details, including photos, under a cut.

Brilliant Husband and I have been enjoying Torchwood recently. I just checked out a TW comm--and there, more recently posted than the not even week-old rules about putting spoilers below the cut, were two pictures that are spoilers to those of us who have seen the most recent episode to air in the US. (BH appeared at my elbow when I complained and brilliantly put a nice spin on the pictures. Hey, I have reason to call him Brilliant Husband.) Needless to say, I won't be joining that comm.

Folks, whether it's in a userpic, an ad for your ficathon, or the body of your post, if it's not under a cut with a spoiler warning and it shows something that many people haven't seen, it's a spoiler. Everyone should have userpics they like, but surely there are so many great stills from Doctor Who, the Stargate shows and now movies, and Torchwood that you don't need to pick one that gives away a plot point!

'k thx bye.

"It's never over with you," I think Jack said to Daniel in an episode; I don't remember which.

It's never over with me either, nor, apparently, Canada's Globe and Mail, which features this late-breaking review of Beowulf, complete with some suggestions for an encore for Robert Zemeckis, a few other classic works of literature and how he could update them. My one beef against the journalist is that he places all the blame on Robert Zemeckis, when Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary wasted parts of ten years of their lives on this mess, and Gaiman, at least, knows better. I should read Anansi Boys to get the bad taste out of my head. The review is funny, and worth reading, I think, even if you haven't seen the movie.

I still wish I hadn't seen the movie, but it may come in handy next time I teach the poem. At least this time I'll know where some of the bizarre stuff some student is sure to start spouting originated. (Note to self: still ought to watch Christopher Lambert's "techno-feudal version"; might have better laughs than the Gaiman-Avary effort.)

We got Away from Her from Netflix weeks ago and haven't seen it because on those rare occasions when we had time, I didn't want to watch something I knew would be depressing. We finally watched it today. ( More under the cut, with little to no spoilers )