Whedon Wednesday :: Engagements [a Dollhouse fanmix]

1. What You Don’t Know (Jonatha Brook)
I’m already going, I’m already gone.  There’s a stranger in my place.  You’ll never see me, but I’ll get along, ’cause the angels know my face.

2. Patriarch on a Vespa (Metric)
Promiscuous makes an entrance.  Her mouth is full of questions: are we all brides to be?  Are we all designed to be confined, buy ourselves chastity belts and lock them?  Organize our lives and lose the key.  Our faces all resemble dying roses from trying to fix it when instead we should break it.  We’ve got to break it before it breaks us.

3. Pretend Love (The Avett Brothers)
Don’t be fooled by my words, don’t be fooled by my song.  If you choose to believe them, you’ll plainly be wrong.

4. Kiss Kiss Kill Kill (HorrorPops)
In this scaring demised time cries and grabs for reality, having to touch comforts me as a greeting in dead and despair.  Sinking down sinking down slipping my conscious knows hasn’t into the pride, close and I’m close and I’m feeling tired.  (Kiss kiss, kill kill.)

5. Invasion (Eisley)
And they will try to make us forget ourselves one by one, one by one.  Call me crazy, but they are after us one by one, one by one.  You don’t have to know the truth.  If you believe it, I believe it, too.

6. Blue Veins (The Raconteurs)
Yeah and the feeling that you gave me, no matter what I do or where I go, it will always remain.  And those who would enslave me must get past you and will have no luck ’cause you’ll protect me from all pain.

7. No No No (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Well I’m frozen like a soldier, don’t know where it stays all over the place.  Time froze like an ocean, don’t know the taste of a neverending ache.

8. Take Me To a Higher Plane (Kate Nash)
I feel worried that my brain is just a fool in your sick game so I will never open my heart.  I try to express how I feel, but it changes every day and I’m finding it hard.

9. Canvas (Imogen Heap)
Hijacked, lost track, light fades, another day left, long shadows lure you in.  The more you lose the less you see.  So close your eyes and start to breathe.  Oh, you said to yourself, this wasn’t easy.

10. Halcyon Days (The Spring Standards)
My eyes try and see through the blue but it’s tough and it’s painted so thick upon you.  Loneliness I can pull through, but when it leaves will it take all thoughts of you?  I’m a few months older now, with a good head on my shoulders now.

11. Go to Sleep (Venus Hum)
This burden that has followed you has fallen now into the sea.  Just lay your head upon my chest and listen, listen to my heartbeat.  Try to go to sleep, try, try, baby.

12. He Doesn’t Know Why (Fleet Foxes)
And you will try to do what you did before, pull the wool over your eyes for a week or more, let your family take you back to your original mind.

13. Locked Up (Ingrid Michaelson)
I have taken a wrong turn.  When will I learn?  When will I learn?  Shall I show them all my scars?  Cherry red, bleeding burn.

14. Modern Inventions (The Submarines)
Darlin’ I had the best intentions, but I dug myself a hole with a modern invention.  Baby, did I make you feel that you didn’t have the mind to reconcile the truth in a troubled time?

15. Drown Out (The Swell Season)
And save our souls, we’re playing dead, and mine for gold in a heart of lead, and turn around and save yourself, we found our way and blocked it out.  Cry alone and die alone.  Pray alone and stay alone.

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: Top 10 television ladies whose wardrobes I want to steal/kind of do steal

Not that I don’t have themed ModCloth wishlists based on a variety of characters.  (I do.  Shamelessly.)

10. Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
I know she isn’t a fashion plate. By any means.  And I don’t know that I want to steal her wardrobe, necessarily, but I do… sort of really do it anyway.  And I’m not talking like cool college Wiccan Willow.  I do high school 90s Willow, really without even trying.  Nothing like giant sweaters and wearing my sneakers with tights, right?  I found a beaded choker I must have gotten out of a vending machine in one of my drawers and died of happiness, almost, it was the missing element for those days I just want to get all Willowy.

9. Winona Hawkins (Natalie Zea, Justified)
Woman is classy as can be, and she’s that kind of classy where you know it’s work-appropriate but it almost isn’t because it just looks so damn good on her, all form-fitting and with splashes of color sometimes.  I don’t know I could personally pull off the look, but I’d steal it for my mother, certainly.

8. Adelle Dewitt (Olivia Williams, Dollhouse)
Much as I’d steal hers for my mom, which you all already know.  There is just something so classy about pencil skirts with nice but not too nice of tops and — gah.  Yes.  So much good.

7. Bennett Halverson (Summer Glau, Dollhouse)
Normally I group my like canons, but because Adelle’s is stolen for my mom and Bennett’s stolen for myself, well.  This is another one that I was kinda sorta doing anyway, unconsciously, prior to her appearance on the show, and one that I am even more shameless about doing now just because.  (My glasses actually sort of work for it, so it makes me happy.)  Sweaters?  Specifically pretty cardigan sweaters?  Plus… oh yeah, pencil skirts?  I’m so there.  It says “hi, world, I’m sort of cute, but I’m not thinking too hard about it right now, because oh yeah, I’m busy pwning you intellectually and stuff.”  I dress like this for school a lot.

6, 5, 4.  Inara Serra, Kaylee Frye, River Tam (Morena Baccarin, Jewel Staite, River Tam Firefly)
Inara’s more in the category of I gape and admire it, but probably couldn’t actually pull off any of it, ever.  I’m not sure I’m suited to that kind of splendor, but hey.  And I don’t actually wear pants like ever.  But the last xyz amount of times I have worn pants out in public and not sweatpants to the gym, they have been my teddy bear Kaylee pants, so that’s got to count for something.  And that one dress she wears in the flashback in “Out of Gas” and in “The Message” I’d totally steal easy.  And I would wear her “Shindig” dress, no lie.  Laugh at me all you want.  But I would.  As for River, well… I’ve also mentioned before how I really do have a proclivity for pairing my combat boots with flowery dresses and stuff.  (Actually, lately, I’ve just been pairing my combat boots with everything.)  Another one I don’t even need to try to do, because I’ve already got the dresses in my closet.  Un/subconsciously, I might as well rock it.

3. Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz, Glee)
Another I’ve mentioned in passing.  But especially this season when she’s gone more neo-Victorian!Gothic and a little less random stuff and stripes!Goth.  I’d wear… pretty much everything she wears, ever.  I think there were a pair of plaid pants once that I wouldn’t wear.  (Part because just no, part because I don’t wear pants, remember?)  But the rest of it?  Oh, yeah.  Even if all she’s doing is hanging out in the background saying like three words at a time, she’s still doing it while looking adorable, so.

2. Joanie Stubbs (Kim Dickens, Deadwood)
Most impractical choice ever, but still one I’ll attempt from time to time.  (Again, thank you ModCloth.)  I can’t do full Joanie just for going out on the town without funny looks (not that they’d faze me, but it’s also expensive) but dear God, do I wish I could.  She is just beautiful.  That blue dress from the first season, or the black one sort of like it, with the beads.  Those velvet or silk waistcoats that just fit so pretty. I wish clothes were still that pretty, that people still took that much effort with what they wore.  (And under the pretty dresses, more boots.  Not quite combat boots, but they’ll do in a pinch.)

1. Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks, Mad Men)
Another pre-existing fact.  Another excuse for me to go OH YEAH I AM IN LOVE WITH HER.  But I attempt the Joan look whenever possible, regardless of situational appropriateness; the only things standing in my way of doing it all the time are time itself, the fact that such dresses are sort of expensive, and the fact that I’ve got so many other looks I love to rip off shamelessly.  The magical thing about this is that finally, finally it’s a look I’ve got the curves to do properly.  I’ve got the pen necklace.  I’ve got the gold earrings.  I’ve got the red lipstick.  All I need is an accordion and I’m set.

–your fangirl heroine.

Monster Monday :: chemical zombies or viral zombies? The world wants to know.

It’s an age-old debate.  Well, it’s as old as zombie movies are, so it’s not really that old, in the big scheme of the world, but it’s nonetheless something that interests me.  I don’t actually have a preference, surprisingly; for me it’s the treatment of the story, not the mythos of the zombies, that makes a zombie film extremely brilliant or less than.  So in that spirit, I present you a pro/con list.

CHEMICAL
Pro

• Fast
• Modern
• Possessing the potential for great origin stories (who made the chemical zombies?)

Con

• Fast
• Sometimes too smart for zombies
• Not always properly zombie-like

VIRAL
Pro

• Slower
• Traditional
• Easy to outwit
• Less certain doom

Con

• Predictable
• Sometimes ickier
• Almost too stupid

 

Who do you think wins?

 

–your fangirl heroine.

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: my thoughts on The Adjustment Bureau

(Yes, I did switch Sunday and Saturday themes this weekend.)

I could sum it up like this: if God was the Dollhouse, and angels were handlers, and people didn’t know they were dolls, and the handlers could use subspace like in Scott Pilgrim except for they had to be wearing magic fedoras to do so, and then one of the doll-people realized they were being handled and went all OH NO YOU DIDN’T and then God/the Dollhouse was all if you really want it that bad go for it, and it was directed by someone who believes in long-term deus ex machinas and happy endings and stuff, then… it’d sort of be like The Adjustment Bureau.  I feel like that description might be giving it a tiny bit more credit than it deserves, but.

It’s not as if it was poorly acted or poorly shot.  It just… well, it was sort of a mess and not entirely original.  I will at least thank them for only screwing with the characters’ heads and not the audience’s (actually, they should have screwed with the characters’ heads, but everyone sort of just accepted the weirdness unquestioningly — well, not unquestioningly, but they were hardly as worldview-shattered as they should have been).  It could have been more than it was.

At least Emily Blunt is pretty?

 

–your fangirl heroine.

Social Life Saturday :: Top 5 genres of music that should not be blues danced to

This one is wholly self-explanatory.  And in order of how much I like the genre otherwise.

5. Hip-hop/rap

4. Modern (often auto-tuned) pop

3. Bhangra (Bollywood)

2. Industrial/techno

1. Folk/alt-country/bluegrass/anything with a fiddle

Yes.  Blues DJs, take note, okay?  We go because we like actual blues music.

 

–your fangirl heroine.

Film Friday :: the Scott Pilgrim drinking game

Yes, indeed.  Because the movie’s not quasi-trippy and ADD enough, throw some theoretical alcohol in the mix.  This one’s simple; it’s more specific, and therefore more guaranteed to get you wasted.  Not that I get wasted, because I never actually play the drinking games I invent with alcohol, but hey.

SHOTS WHEN:

• Someone says “wow.”  I suppose “whoa” or something could work, too.
• Wallace mentions something about being gay.
• Scott declares his intentions to fight one of the exes.  Because even though you know he’s going to, he says something before each fight that’s like the big I’MMA FIGHT YOU NOW.  (My favorite is to Todd: “You cocky [uhm, c--k?]!  You’ll pay for your crimes against humanity!”)
• Stephen Stills repeats words.  (“For the band.  For the band.  For the band. For the band!”)
• Ramona looks down guiltily/sadly/sheepishly/with a negative emotion on her face.
• Someone mentions something about Knives being Chinese.
• You could honestly get drunk alone on every time Kim rolls her eyes.
• And my favorite: every time a cup either gets destroyed or aids in destruction.  So many people crush their cups in their hands.  Or when Scott knocks over the Coke Zero tray.  Or — yes. Also, like when Todd drinks out of the half-and-half cup.  Or when Scott spills cocoa on his crotch.  Really, any time there is a cup at all, raise yours.  This one could probably also get you trashed by itself.

–your fangirl heroine.

Things in Print Thursday :: I love me some bastardized Jane Austen

Surprisingly, I’m not even talking the Grahame-Smith zombieladen kind today.  I picked up a book called Pride and Prescience, A Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mystery a little while back and just finished it this week.  It was a cheap book, and somewhat of an impulse buy, but it was a pretty good killing time read.

As it sounds, it’s a murder mystery (except there isn’t much murder; the only character who gets murdered isn’t even one of Austen’s, just a newly invented wealthy old stodgy fellow) starring the characters of Pride and Prejudice.  There’s very little business with the Bennets, which in many ways is all right (Mrs. Bennet and Kitty and Lydia are insufferable; I will admit to having a strange sort of soft spot for Mary, but she wouldn’t really fit in the story at all, so it’s all right.  I have just decided that some day I will write, like, The Mary Bennet Diaries.  And it will be epic).  The whole plot sort of revolves around a character I generally despise, Caroline Bingley, but she spends most of the book (spoiler alert) in varying states of hypnosis, so I want to smack her upside the head a little less.

You did just hear me right when I said hypnosis.  In addition to being a murder mystery (the back touts the story as the Regency era’s answer to The Thin Man‘s Nick and Nora, which I’m not sure about, not knowing too much about The Thin Man, but anyway) it happens to be a murder mystery that plays with the supernatural a tad.  Nothing more interesting than spiritualists and cursed objects, but the back doesn’t really say anything about it outright, so it was a surprise.  Knowing me a pleasant one, because I do have a strange fondness for mysticism in literature (and film and television and theatre and music and — yes).

But did you ever imagine what would happen if Elizabeth and Darcy (newly married, of course) would react if they felt compelled to solve the mystery of who seems to be attempting to kill Caroline Bingley (also newly married, to a wealthy American ~who is not all that he seems~)?  Because that’s the dilemma this book will resolve for you.  Ridiculous, yes.  Fun, yes.  It’s frothy and ridiculous, and the characters do manage to stay in character, which is nice.  Jane is appropriately desirous of being sweet and thinking the best of everyone.  Bingley is an appropriately good host.  The Hursts are appropriately bitches.  Lizzy and Darcy banter a lot.

In short?  I… well, I may not have ever finished the original Pride and Prejudice.  But I’ve seen both the films (the Keira Knightley one multiple times) and I’ve read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and its’ sequel and the graphic novel of it and the graphic novel of the original and… I do like it.  I should maybe pick up the original again some day, but I just feel like it would be less fun without any murder now.

What on earth does that say about me?  Oh yes.  I’m a morbid little thing.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: Top 11 members of the Joss Whedon mafia (actors/actresses)

Ranked by number of/size of appearances (and a tiny bit by epicness.)

11. Christina Hendricks (some bar wench on Angel, YoSaffBridge on Firefly)
Have I mentioned lately that I am in love with this woman?  More so when I discovered that she was a bar wench on Angel for all of maybe five minutes?  (I’ve not seen the episode, but I found screencaps.  So much love.)  Also YoSaffBridge is inherently awesome.  Kind of a crazy bitch, but a really awesome crazy bitch. 

10. Mark A. Sheppard (Badger on Firefly, Graham Tanaka on Dollhouse)
When our man Whedon needs a guy who says something dry a few times, then goes away, Sheppard’s who gets turned to.

9. Adam Baldwin (Marcus Hamilton on Angel, Jayne Cobb on Firefly)
I… am terrible, and haven’t seen most of Angel yet.  But I will say that from Wikipedia, that character and Jayne sound very, very different, so — cool, man.  Range is yay.  (Actually, most of the folks on this list are pretty range-y, thanks to Joss being a genius and stuff.)

8. Gina Torres (Jasmine on Angel, Zoe Alleyne Washburne on Firefly)
More with the Wikipedia says the goddess Jasmine on Angel is all about world peace.  Coolie.  Even though it’s not exactly good, apparently.  But, uhm.  Zoe is on my lady badasses list, and therefore more awesome is had here.

7. Alexis Denisof (Wesley Wyndam-Pryce on Buffy and Angel, Senator Daniel Perrin on Dollhouse)
He’s twitchy as Wesley and also it’s a good thing he never hooked up with Cordelia properly ’cause ew.  He’s all pseudonoble as Perrin and then OMFGWTFBBQ WACKINESS.  And thanks to Buffy he met his wife Alyson Hannigan, and that is a showmance, and that is adorable.

6. Alan Tudyk (Hoban Washburne on Firefly, Alpha on Dollhouse)
(Alpha is in fewer episodes, sure, but is MUCH MORE EPIC.)  As we already know, I think Wash is sort of very precious and also hilarious in that wry quirky way.  And Alpha is, as I just said, epic.  Deliciously evil, and delicious evil makes for good villainy.  I wish there had been more Alpha, but he made a gigantic impact in the short time he was around, and — I know he’s evil and stuff, but I cannot say a single thing against his character from awesomeness standpoints.

5. Amy Acker (Winifred Burkle on Angel, Claire Saunders/Whiskey on Dollhouse)
I’ve got a soft spot for Fred already, even not having seen Angel.  (I’ve seen pictures of her with her adorable glasses of adorable, okay?  Automatic points in my book.)  And Amy Acker as a person seems precious.  Yet, I HATE WHISKEY WITH THE FIERY PASSION OF A THOUSAND BURNING SUNS.  I actually kind of liked her for most of the series, because you’re supposed to feel bad for her and I did, but then JUST KIDDING DAMN YOU JOSS.  Way to turn that one around completely.  Yeah, kids.  2×11 “Getting Closer.”  I can pinpoint the exact moment I began to hate her.

4. Eliza Dushku (Faith Lehane on Buffy and Angel, Caroline Farrell/Echo on Dollhouse)
Making an entire season of an already epic television show just THAT more epic singlehandedly, then going on to make your own show pretty epic.  That’s what Eliza Dushku did, and that is made of extreme win.  I’ve sort of got a weird love/hate relationship with Faith, but in a good way.   And I’m pretty sure Echo is just by definition… well, epic.  Way to rack up the rocking, girl.  (And to think, you used to just be that girl from Bring it On who said “oogle my goodies” and flipped everyone off like every five minutes.)

3. Summer Glau (a ballerina on Angel, River Tam on Firefly, Bennett Halverson on Dollhouse)
I am… literally in love with her.  Her and Christina Hendricks.  Actual, literal love.  Okay, so that ballerina was just one episode of Angel (that I… also haven’t seen.)  Bennett was four episodes of Dollhouse.  I DO NOT CARE.  She dances pretty (I’m pretty sure most characters she plays ever that aren’t Bennett get to dance at least once.  And Bennett… probably cannot dance, as a character.  Because she just isn’t the type.  So it’s okay) and that’s good.  Bennett is in my like… top three of Whedonwomen, period.  (I’m not sure what it says about me that I relate to her deeply.)  Also, River… yes.  Lady badasses.  Also, she’s beautifully Joss!crazy and I love that about her.  Also, it’s thanks to her that I say “also” instead of “and” where both can be used.  Also, I know many weird things thanks to her.  Like that the human body can be drained of blood in  8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.

2. Felicia Day (Vi on Buffy, Penny on Dr. Horrible, Mag on Dollhouse)
Pauvre bébé never gets a last name.  Nonetheless, she is Joss’s go-to lady and with good reason.  She is adorable and sweet and funny.  I’m… not yet to season seven in Buffy, but bonus points from the others: she can sing pretty.  She wore armwarmers at one point.  She can be adorable.  She can be adorable while kicking ass.  She also filled the redheaded lesbian quota on Dollhouse.  (Yes, this made me love her more.  Do not judge.)

1. Nathan Fillion (Malcolm Reynolds on Firefly, Caleb on Buffy, Captain Hammer on Dr. Horrible)
Also, I bet if Dollhouse had been allowed to continue, he’d have popped up… somewhere.  I don’t know where or as what, but he would so have been there.   Because he is a god.  (No, really.)  He is so epic strangers see him at the store and call him Captain.  He is so epic that his successful current TV show has referenced Firefly.  Multiple times.  He is so epic that… he just is.  Mal is just a brilliant character.  Captain Hammer is a hilarious d-bag.  And the evil preacher… is an evil preacher?  Question mark?  Nonetheless, he is just sort of every fangirl’s dream man in at least a platonic way.  I want to be friends with him.  While he wears his tight pants.

 

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: the tall, dark, handsome, but not whiny ones

They just make television a happier place to be.  The ones who have a moral code but don’t drown in complaining about every single thing that challenges it.  The ones who roll with life’s punches.  The ones who have a weakness for a pretty lady but don’t try to pretend they’re above it.  The noble ones.  The ones who shoot first, then ask questions.  The ones who smolder.

The ones who… are Timothy Olyphant.

As a friend of mine said this evening, “They should just mass-produce him.”  Any woman who wants one of her own (hell, any gay man who wants one of his own) should be able to just have one.  In the least creepy way.

 

–your fangirl heroine.

Music Monday :: a love letter for my girl Jenny Lewis

I’m fairly certain that this woman can do no wrong, and anything she sets her honeyperfect voice to is 100000x better for it.

I believe it was 2007 that I fell in love with Rilo Kiley.  Well, a friend of mine had included “My Slumbering Heart” on a mix that came into my possession almost a year before I bought The Execution Of All Things, and I will admit I listened to that song… often.  These were the days before I’d fully discovered the magic of the iTunes store, so it was the Virgin Megastore in Times Square that enabled my first brush with Rilo Kiley album goodness.  That particular song also ended up on the soundtrack to a movie I wrote for my creative writing class in exactly six and a half days (49-page screenplay, full soundtrack mixed), and the movie…  well, looking back on it, it was inadvertently quite a lot like True Blood except without vampires or werewolves or shifters or anything.  It’s still a kickass driving soundtrack, though.  (What?  My answer to the Death Proof soundtrack?  What?)

I remember my delight, too, upon hearing someone use their song “Pictures of Success” in a video for class.   Granted, they just used the instrumental bit over and over to underscore their discussion of Why To Study Psychology, but I still felt smug knowing the song.  (I always have.)   I’d just gotten Take Offs and Landings, and marveled, and it is a great riff.  And when my family purchased a stack of CDs to put in a box of treats to be auctioned off for the kids’ theatre company I worked for, I was adamant we ought to include Under the Blacklight, recently released at the time.  I was also adamant I just acquire a copy for myself.

Strangely, More Adventurous (arguably the most popular of their albums) was the last to actually come into my collection.  I knew some of the songs anyway, but it’s just a delightful collection.  Every Rilo Kiley album is a delightful collection, and I say that even knowing that it’s more or less obvious.  Especially coming from me, lover of charismaticladysingers fronting mostlymalebands.

Jenny’s solo work is another thing entirely.  Rabbit Fur Coat was a birthday present the year it was released, and I listened to it on repeat.  I still get shivers of delight at the opening notes, honestly.   And sure, the Watson Twins are largely to thank for the beauty that is that album, but even still.  I don’t know I’ll ever get over the folksy glory of it, of its sweet, simple-yet-complex songs, of its gentle, unassuming perfection.  (Bonus points for including guest vocals from my geek indie god Ben Gibbard on “Handle With Care,” and guest work from her now-partner Johnathan Rice and also Conor Oberst who I saw her open for [well, I didn't actually see him, as I had to leave after she was done, but still].)

And Acid Tongue was for a while one of the only albums I’d loaded onto my laptop’s iTunes, so it’s gotten… a disgusting amount of play.  I think my favorite song on that album changes with every listen, and that’s fair; sometimes I’m just having a beautifulgloomy “Pretty Bird” day, sometimes I want the magnum opus that is “The Next Messiah,” sometimes I’m down for the slightly edgy fun of “See Fernando” or “Carpetbaggers.”  (And bonus points here, too, for guest work from Johnathan Rice, M. Ward, my love Zooey Deschanel, and the classic Elvis Costello; though critics were a tad bit skeptical, I say bravo.  I love when people I love work together.)

And that leads us to Jenny & Johnny, her official collaboration with Johnathan Rice.  They’re together together, apparently; this makes me squee like an idiot fangirl, because the only thing better than people I love working together is people who love each other working together.  And they just sound so darn cute together.  But not cloying-cute, frustrating-cute.  More just… perfect cute.  “My Pet Snakes,” “Animal,” and “Just Like Zeus” are probably my favorite tracks, at least this week.  But it’s all phenomenal.

It probably doesn’t hurt much that Jenny Lewis is also an indie darling, adorable, and the only person on this planet that I will allow to wear a romper ever.  She’s just got style in a world where that word hardly means anything anymore.

 

–your fangirl heroine.