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damkiannaChristmas was lovely, and I hope everybody had a lovely Friday, no matter what they were celebrating or not celebrating. I got books! And movies! And more books! :D I haven't actually read any of the books I was given yet; I've been too busy reading the ones I gave to other people.
The one I feel like blabbing about specifically is Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. My sister and I bought it for our father, along with Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters. Some parts of it were actually quite good, and there were definitely some moments I really liked; however, I like my kind-of-parodic AUs to take their own meta-levels a little more seriously. I like crack best when it has a modicum of internal consistency: I wasn't reading this book for random scenes of Elizabeth Bennet punching zombies in the face - or, well, okay, I kind of was, but I found myself wanting there to be a more carefully thought-out foundation for the zombie-punching bits. The background world-building failed for me in several places, and the part where Elizabeth kills a ninja, rips out his heart, and starts chomping on it was just a smidge over-the-top for me. It was reasonably fun to read, and there were portions that I genuinely loved, but the changes to the book's universe could have been handled much better than they were, IMO. As I was reading, I kept catching myself thinking that any one of a handful of fandom people could have done a much more awesome job with it.
As for movies, well. My family and I went to go see Avatar. I had queasy and hesitant feelings about this movie the first time I heard what it was about, and actually seeing the movie ... did not really alleviate those feelings. The visuals of the movie were beautiful; that and Michelle Rodriguez are just about the only things I can unequivocably say that I loved. The story was so unbelievably predictable that it was almost stupid, and it was a sterling example of a classic What These People Need Is A Honky. The one saving grace was that there was actually a scientific and biological basis for saying that the Na'vi had a special connection to nature. I was groaning a little when the seeming superstition regarding the seeds kept Neytiri from killing Jake, expecting it to be part of that same minorities-have-speshul-powahz bullshit that screwed the !Kung in the Human Cultures video I watched; to me, it read as almost a subversion, that there was actually a reason. However, I'm not sure whether it was intended that way; it's entirely possible that it's really just a full-on embrace of that particular toxic myth.
Anyway, there were bajillions of things about it that bothered me in bajillions of tiny ways. Three - three! - changes to the plot would have made me feel at least a little bit better about it: I wish Neytiri had not been The Chief's Daughter, that she had instead simply been one of the numerous female Na'vi warriors who appeared in the background; I wish Neytiri had already begun calling the clans together even before Jake returned; and I wish Trudy, gorgeous, awesome, brilliant Trudy, hadn't died. (I loved that she gave her hover-chopper-thing war paint, that was sweet.) But even those changes would not have fully eliminated the race or gender fail - and they wouldn't even touch the ableism fail intrinsic in the concept of a wheelchair-bound man attaining heroism by taking on a fully able body, and eventually moving into that body permanently. I was especially peeved that it didn't work for Grace, who, as she was not the Mighty White Hero, had evidently not earned it.
I know this is a very weird complaint, but the choice of font for the subtitles of Na'vi speech also grated on me. It was Papyrus, a font I am intimately familiar with because I was obsessed with it in about sixth grade; maybe I've completely lost my mind, but it seemed to me like the only possible reason to choose that font as a translation subtitle would be to evoke a sense of exoticism - exactly what you shouldn't be doing when the purported point of your movie is that the Na'vi are people just like anybody else, even if they aren't human. The bottom line is that it was a very pretty movie, and that's just about the only positive thing I can say. Neytiri, Grace, and Trudy were all wonderful characters who did not get to do nearly as much as I wanted them to; and the whole thing was filled with undercurrents of racism, sexism, and ableism that really drove me crazy. Thinking about it now, it reminds me a little of 300 - if I could turn off the analytic part of my brain that is concerned with unfunny business, the part that fandom turned on and that I am extremely grateful for, it was decent enough, if still painfully unoriginal. But I can't turn that part off, and I don't really want to.
Sherlock Holmes, I liked infinitely better. My family was planning to see it Christmas Day, but those plans fell through because my sister got sick and didn't feel much like going out. So I saw it with my friends a few days later, and hopefully will be seeing it again with my family. And, my god, the slash. I was giggling like a fiend throughout practically the entire movie, because practically the entire movie is composed of Watson trying to move out and get married, and Holmes getting increasingly clingy, interspersed with them invading each other's personal space, trading banter, and worrying after each other. It was awesome.
And one of the best things about it was that the women were just as awesome. Granted, I would have been best pleased if Mary and Irene had actually met at some point, and if Mary had had more screen time. But I ended up liking both of them quite a lot; this is going to sound a little weird, but I loved how often Irene hit people. I feel like a lot of the time, the feisty woman gets a single scene with punching or slapping, to prove to us that she is feisty, and then she never hits anybody again.
Of course, there was also some, you know, actual plot in there somewhere. Parts of the evil scheme kind of lost me a little bit while they were happening, but I knew I could count on Holmes to deliver an overall summation at the point of the grand reveal - which he did. I actually liked that there was no real magic involved, although I wanted it to be the kind of thing where you could figure out the mystery yourself if you paid enough attention, and I'm not sure it was, since I don't think the sprayer over the front door that made the American fellow inflammable was visible until the flashbacks that accompanied the summation. (And I mean inflammable here as the antonym to uninflammable.) I reeeeeeeally hope at least a few people do some fic in this 'verse; it may not have been the best movie in the entire world, but it was reasonably solid and fun and struck me as a welcoming sort of source when it comes to fic. (Not that book canon or other adaptations haven't been - although I am pleased by a young and clever and competent Watson, some Holmes sources kind of shortchange him. Didn't hurt that he was Jude Law, either. :D)
The most significant event aside from that stuff would be that I somehow managed to blow through the rest of the terrifying HP AU, and now it's ... done. Book 1 of it, at least. Of course, I need to edit it before I can even consider putting it up anywhere; but being finished with the first draft is still a pretty awesome milestone. I'm not sure it's even really sunk in yet. Thank goodness there's a Burn Notice marathon right now, or I don't know what I would do with myself. ^^
The one I feel like blabbing about specifically is Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. My sister and I bought it for our father, along with Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters. Some parts of it were actually quite good, and there were definitely some moments I really liked; however, I like my kind-of-parodic AUs to take their own meta-levels a little more seriously. I like crack best when it has a modicum of internal consistency: I wasn't reading this book for random scenes of Elizabeth Bennet punching zombies in the face - or, well, okay, I kind of was, but I found myself wanting there to be a more carefully thought-out foundation for the zombie-punching bits. The background world-building failed for me in several places, and the part where Elizabeth kills a ninja, rips out his heart, and starts chomping on it was just a smidge over-the-top for me. It was reasonably fun to read, and there were portions that I genuinely loved, but the changes to the book's universe could have been handled much better than they were, IMO. As I was reading, I kept catching myself thinking that any one of a handful of fandom people could have done a much more awesome job with it.
As for movies, well. My family and I went to go see Avatar. I had queasy and hesitant feelings about this movie the first time I heard what it was about, and actually seeing the movie ... did not really alleviate those feelings. The visuals of the movie were beautiful; that and Michelle Rodriguez are just about the only things I can unequivocably say that I loved. The story was so unbelievably predictable that it was almost stupid, and it was a sterling example of a classic What These People Need Is A Honky. The one saving grace was that there was actually a scientific and biological basis for saying that the Na'vi had a special connection to nature. I was groaning a little when the seeming superstition regarding the seeds kept Neytiri from killing Jake, expecting it to be part of that same minorities-have-speshul-powahz bullshit that screwed the !Kung in the Human Cultures video I watched; to me, it read as almost a subversion, that there was actually a reason. However, I'm not sure whether it was intended that way; it's entirely possible that it's really just a full-on embrace of that particular toxic myth.
Anyway, there were bajillions of things about it that bothered me in bajillions of tiny ways. Three - three! - changes to the plot would have made me feel at least a little bit better about it: I wish Neytiri had not been The Chief's Daughter, that she had instead simply been one of the numerous female Na'vi warriors who appeared in the background; I wish Neytiri had already begun calling the clans together even before Jake returned; and I wish Trudy, gorgeous, awesome, brilliant Trudy, hadn't died. (I loved that she gave her hover-chopper-thing war paint, that was sweet.) But even those changes would not have fully eliminated the race or gender fail - and they wouldn't even touch the ableism fail intrinsic in the concept of a wheelchair-bound man attaining heroism by taking on a fully able body, and eventually moving into that body permanently. I was especially peeved that it didn't work for Grace, who, as she was not the Mighty White Hero, had evidently not earned it.
I know this is a very weird complaint, but the choice of font for the subtitles of Na'vi speech also grated on me. It was Papyrus, a font I am intimately familiar with because I was obsessed with it in about sixth grade; maybe I've completely lost my mind, but it seemed to me like the only possible reason to choose that font as a translation subtitle would be to evoke a sense of exoticism - exactly what you shouldn't be doing when the purported point of your movie is that the Na'vi are people just like anybody else, even if they aren't human. The bottom line is that it was a very pretty movie, and that's just about the only positive thing I can say. Neytiri, Grace, and Trudy were all wonderful characters who did not get to do nearly as much as I wanted them to; and the whole thing was filled with undercurrents of racism, sexism, and ableism that really drove me crazy. Thinking about it now, it reminds me a little of 300 - if I could turn off the analytic part of my brain that is concerned with unfunny business, the part that fandom turned on and that I am extremely grateful for, it was decent enough, if still painfully unoriginal. But I can't turn that part off, and I don't really want to.
Sherlock Holmes, I liked infinitely better. My family was planning to see it Christmas Day, but those plans fell through because my sister got sick and didn't feel much like going out. So I saw it with my friends a few days later, and hopefully will be seeing it again with my family. And, my god, the slash. I was giggling like a fiend throughout practically the entire movie, because practically the entire movie is composed of Watson trying to move out and get married, and Holmes getting increasingly clingy, interspersed with them invading each other's personal space, trading banter, and worrying after each other. It was awesome.
And one of the best things about it was that the women were just as awesome. Granted, I would have been best pleased if Mary and Irene had actually met at some point, and if Mary had had more screen time. But I ended up liking both of them quite a lot; this is going to sound a little weird, but I loved how often Irene hit people. I feel like a lot of the time, the feisty woman gets a single scene with punching or slapping, to prove to us that she is feisty, and then she never hits anybody again.
Of course, there was also some, you know, actual plot in there somewhere. Parts of the evil scheme kind of lost me a little bit while they were happening, but I knew I could count on Holmes to deliver an overall summation at the point of the grand reveal - which he did. I actually liked that there was no real magic involved, although I wanted it to be the kind of thing where you could figure out the mystery yourself if you paid enough attention, and I'm not sure it was, since I don't think the sprayer over the front door that made the American fellow inflammable was visible until the flashbacks that accompanied the summation. (And I mean inflammable here as the antonym to uninflammable.) I reeeeeeeally hope at least a few people do some fic in this 'verse; it may not have been the best movie in the entire world, but it was reasonably solid and fun and struck me as a welcoming sort of source when it comes to fic. (Not that book canon or other adaptations haven't been - although I am pleased by a young and clever and competent Watson, some Holmes sources kind of shortchange him. Didn't hurt that he was Jude Law, either. :D)
The most significant event aside from that stuff would be that I somehow managed to blow through the rest of the terrifying HP AU, and now it's ... done. Book 1 of it, at least. Of course, I need to edit it before I can even consider putting it up anywhere; but being finished with the first draft is still a pretty awesome milestone. I'm not sure it's even really sunk in yet. Thank goodness there's a Burn Notice marathon right now, or I don't know what I would do with myself. ^^
