Aelfgyfu

If you have seen Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse, you must remember that there's a whole scene done in Lego. (If you haven't seen it, I hope you can soon! But this post is not spoiler.)

If you know much about Lego, you know how much work that is. It's a wonderful scene.

Even more wonderful? The creator is fourteen-year Preston Mutanga. Mutanga made his own complete Lego version of a full, 2:18 trailer for the new movie and posted it to Twitter in January of this year. The producers saw it and were blown away, so they contacted him to do a full scene in the movie! Full article here.

Also, a piece on the first hijabi Spider-Woman, featured briefly in the movie.

Brilliant Husband and I finally went back to a theater to see an actual movie with real, live, other human beings! (Well, he'd done it for Dune, but I wasn't ready then.) We saw Everything Everywhere All at Once, and I really recommend it. It's a lot, though: you have to be braced for some very rapid cutting (fortunately, not generally for too long at any one time).

I have to say, I didn't feel great about us being the only two people in the theater wearing masks. And I don't mean just our theater; I saw no one else wearing masks at the whole multiplex. Not the staff, not people in the halls, not people in the bathrooms (BH didn't see any in his, either). We were fortunate to have empty seats on either side of us. We'd considered buying them to keep them empty, but so few had sold before we bought that it didn't seem sensible to buy them. And I'm still basically cheap, which is a big part of how we could afford to buy them now.

The movie is genius. Michelle Yeoh is awesome, and the rest of the cast can keep up with her. It packs a surprising emotional punch for a fantasy-action-comedy. I laughed, but I also felt very moved at points (but don't want to say too much).

Weirdly, I spent the whole movie feeling I should recognize Ke Huy Quan, who plays Evelyn's husband Waymond, and I found from the IMDb that I had only seen him when he was a child—in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (which I like to call Indiana Jones and We Really Didn't Think This One Through and have only seen partially, and once) and The Goonies (which again, I have only seen once, and he was quite young).

It was also a good feeling to be with other people laughing together. I hadn't realized how much I missed that.

Have any of y'all seen it? Is anyone else going to go through the rest of your lives referring to the movie Racaccoonie?

I was so excited about Neverwhere being made into a radio show and then about World's End (see here) that I overlooked one more credit under Martin Freeman's name, which I just noticed today:
Saving Santa, where all the credits are voice credits, so it appears to be animated. Voices include:
Martin Freeman
Tim Curry
Tom Baker as Santa!
Noel Clarke
Chris Barrie

A friend put me onto this:

"And the Oscar Will Go To" by Anthony Lane; I had to wait for some kind of ad to go away, but it was totally worth it.

My favorite is 2012, but I enjoyed them all.

We managed to see Moon! I hadn't even heard of it until Brilliant Husband asked me if we wanted to see it. "What?" I asked. He repeated the title and told me that David Bowie's son had made it. "David Bowie has a son?" Then one of my friends said it was really good, and we managed to make time to go. ( Cut for length, not for spoilers, because I'm trying not to spoil )

Yes, I do seem to have a lot of reviews to do. Summer, I get a little free time, and what happens? I can actually read and watch things!

We finally saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I don't have a whole lot to say about it. It was a well-made movie, but I got very frustrated with the characters; such is my lot in life, I think. Great cast, weird story; I'm curious to read F. Scott Fitzgerald's original version, which surely doesn't feature World War II! Make-up was phenomenal. I suppose it helps that we have loads of photographic evidence to reconstruct what Brad Pitt really looked like in his teens!

Thanks to hestia8 for noting that Jason Flemyng was in the cast, or I might have missed him; I'd only seen two eps of Primeval with him by the time we saw the movie, and wow, does he sound different to me in the movie.

I think it's worth watching, but I wouldn't move it to the top of my list, were I any of you. Brilliant Husband wanted to see it, and it was worth watching with him.

( Spoilers/discussion )

Just two quotations from Pushing Daisies that shouldn't spoil anything but make me happy. They're funnier with context, but I think they're probably funny even on their own.

"You know what, I'll be in the kitchen rationalizing my panic attack."

"Signals are like nuts—mixed is better. Who wants all the same kind, right?"

( Fanboys: it's a short review, because I've sunk too much time into this movie already )

( Up; few to no spoilers )

Just a few interesting links I've picked up over the last few days, on varied topics:

This little Freakonomics entry gives you a free link to a Chronicle of Higher Education article about the international paper mill trade. I'd have given you a direct link, but I couldn't give you a free one, and I'm guessing most of my readers don't have subscriptions to the CHE. (We have an institutional one.) The article is fascinating, and kind of horrifying, but also rather funny, in a painful way.

I have cut back my reading on RaceFail '09, but I was glad I read kynn's entry here. I do believe that parody can be powerful; on that note, food and drink warning applies to the entry.

And now for something completely different: my brother sent me a link to a bit of Monty Python and the Holy Grail as a Lego movie. Go watch.

First, I am still shocked at Natasha Richardson's death. Brilliant Husband and I just finished Blow Dry two nights ago (we'd started watching on a previous night). I was going to post a brief review; I thought it was very funny and well worth watching. I think that will have to do as a review for now. Here's the New York Times article about her death. That story has links on the side to a couple of items about head injuries and how they can seem really minor but still kill; CNN also has this.

I'm saddened for Natasha Richardson and her whole family.

I do hope people can learn from this accident, get something out of it, so it isn't simply a terrible waste. It happened so fast I don't know if going straight to the doctor would have saved her, but maybe some other people will be saved now that a lot more of us know that what seems to be a slight injury can be deadly.

A couple of more cheerful things: from bigtitch at primeval_denial: an article with a nice video clip about the Walking with Dinosaurs arena show.

From lunachickk: Extreme Sheep LED art at YouTube. Just watch. You'll be glad you did.

First, a link I've stolen from or_mabinogi for an article about The Big Bang Theory: "Must-Geek TV: Is the World Ready for an Asperger's Sitcom?" by Paul Collins at Slate.

Now, a movie Brilliant Husband and I recently saw thanks to Netflix: The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. ( Minor spoilers at worst )

Now the long awaited Stargate SG-1 s6 episode comments! (Well, aurora_novarum has been awaiting them long!) Yes, we're still watching s6: we started the show in s7 and began the DVDs with s1 while it was still on. We hit s6 a little before the show ended, and we lost any sense of urgency. I'll tell you straight up: season 6 doesn't, on the whole, do a lot for me. I like Jonas, but some of the plots seem pretty lame to me, and I often don't feel the team gelling (yes, that happens in other seasons sometimes too). We just saw "Paradise Lost," but I figured if I waited until we'd seen the whole season to post comments, I'd exceed the character length for one entry (and give up in despair). ( words, words, words--including spoilers for later seasons as well as s6 )