Music Monday :: 5 neat cover songs from soundtrack albums

…or, you know.  Just entire soundtrack albums.

5. Moulin Rougesoundtrack
Period.  “Come What May” was original to the film, but pretty much everything else was a reimagined cover, and I’m just not over it yet.  This is where mash-ups really began, and I think it’s great.

4. Sucker Punchsoundtrack
Save the Bjork track, this whole album is covers as well.  And they are all great.  I’ve mentioned my thing for the Emiliana Torrini cover of the Jefferson Airplane song “White Rabbit” before, and the other artists covered are: Eurythmics, Queen, the Stooges, the Beatles, the Pixies, the Smiths, and Roxy Music.  Not exactly a group of artists you’d look at and go “oh, I see the connection!” yet thanks to the covers, it’s really quite cohesive.  And brilliant, and I love it, and what, I don’t purposely look for excuses to talk about Sucker Punch, that would be silly.

3. “Into the Mystic” from the Five Year Engagement soundtrack
Originally by Van Morrison, covered by the Swell Season.  And oh yeah, I love them.  I love them the most.  I need to acquire this track, because it was very lovely.

2. “She’s Not There” from the True Bloodsoundtrack
Because I’ve never mentioned this one before, nope.  There are a couple of other covers on that list, but I’ll just put this one here and leave it be.  Oh, originally by the Zombies, covered by Neko Case and Nick Cave.

1. “Immigrant Song” from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack
Originally by Led Zeppelin, covered by Karen O and Trent Reznor.  I have actually had days where I intently skip around on my iPod while it’s shuffling, refusing to stop for anything but this track.  I love it so much with its industrial and its Karen O being awesome.

–your fangirl heroine.

Superlative Sunday :: the 2012 Oscars and how I felt about them

I… am still on the fence about this last year in movies, honestly.  That 2011 was the year I started hyperactively blogging everything I saw (and thus seeing a lot) has helped me realize that 2011 was not a year where I actually cared about a lot of movies.  (I suppose extending that into things I’ve seen so far this year, as that’s the Oscar Year.)  I mean, the only three movies I bought were comic-based/book-based/hyperstylized action drama fantasy insanities (Sucker Punch, X-Men: First Class, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2) and the only other one I gave a damn about was Hugo (I really should buy that, too).  If we’re counting this year, too, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  Lots of feelings.  I’m looking at my post from last year’s Oscars, and not a single movie that I discussed gave me ambivalent feelings.  Feelings of “it’s good, but not great” or “I knew it was good, I just… didn’t care.”  That was the overwhelming consensus this year, I’m afraid.

The Artist (Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role [Jean Dujardin], Directing, Costume Design, Music [Original Score])
I just.  I might be unsophisticated and lame, but while I recognized this as a good movie, yes, and Dujardin’s performance was good, and the costumes were good (I do like that era), and the music was good (it had to be, to carry a film), it just… didn’t stay with me.  I think I expect too much from movies.  I expect them to make my heart hurt (whether from sad or from extreme happy).  I expect them to, I don’t know, make me feel something.  Something.  Other than “oh, well, okay.”

Beginners (Actor in a Supporting Role [Christopher Plummer])
I have mentioned my feelings about this movie briefly, yes.  I have acknowledged how I approve of Christopher Plummer’s winning ALL the awards for his performance.  I will take this moment to say that: this movie actually made me feel something.  I gave a damn about the characters (all of them) and I loved that, while happy and sometimes whimsical, in a milder Amelie kind of way, it wasn’t perfect.  The ending wasn’t a happy ending.  I have nowhere else to say that, and realize that I never did, but since a lot of the reason that things otherwise nominated (The Descendants, for example) seem to be, at least in part, because they have that “real life story with an imperfect but not terrible ending” — this had that.  And I liked them, all of them, a lot more. 

The Descendants (Writing [Adapted Screenplay])
I saw another blogger, Deadline‘s much more important Nikki Finke, saying this: “while I’m at it, the Academy has its head up its ass for not nominating the final Harry Potter movie.”  I get behind this as a fangirl, because I have been one since I was eleven and they were eleven, it’s just a part of who I am, but I also get behind this in a more technical way.  I had many issues with the adaptations of the Harry Potter books into movies back in the day, when I was younger and I’d read the books more recently.  But not because they were bad movies.  Because I was nitpicky and I wanted more of my favorite details.  I’ve been on a rewatch spree lately, though, and I can honestly say that it doesn’t matter to me anymore.  Are there things I still want (Tonks [Natalie Tena] and Lupin [David Thewlis])?  Are there things I still think were a waste of time (the copious gratuitous nature shots in Prisoner of Azkaban)?  Yes.  Are they still very solid, very good movies that stay true to the spirit of things?  Yes.  And was the adaptation of Deathly Hallows perfect and wonderful, even with details missing because they’d been missing before and continuity and time?  Yes.

Oh, and I guess that The Descendants was a passable choice, even if I would have given this one to something else (Hugo, probably, just because I wanted it to win everything).  I haven’t read the book, and never will, but it didn’t suck.  It was good, I suppose.  So.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Film Editing)
I don’t really know how to judge this category, but since I really did like this movie a lot, I’m good with this.  They didn’t even have a score nod (I guess since The Social Network got one and won it last year, it would have been too much) but I would have wanted that, too.  (Note to self: buy this album now.)  And I knew Rooney Mara wouldn’t win.  I didn’t expect her to.  I’m just happy she got nominated.  But I still got to stare at her a few times, so I won’t complain.  Nope.

The Help (Actress in a Supporting Role [Octavia Spencer])
Okay.  Sure.

Hugo (Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects)
As has already been made abundantly clear: this was my Best Picture choice.  Out of immense affection for it, out of a feeling that it was a completely solid film.  It actually made me feel things.  It did the “love letter to cinema” thing that seemed to be the point of this year’s ceremony (and is always good).  It had a really good story.  It had really good characters.  It had beautiful everything-it-won-for, yes, but I wanted it to win so much more.  And I feel like people didn’t know what to make of it.  People thought it was just a kids’ movie, maybe, or they thought it was too weird, or it was too techie-something.  (Which is funny, considering that some movies that have been just techie have gotten buzz as being Great Films for that very reason.)  But it wasn’t.  It was a movie about kids, but it was a movie about adults too.  It was a movie about kids that weren’t too stupid or too, too precocious (I mean, they were precocious, but not in the painful way).  It was a movie that was strange, but strange is good.  It was a movie that had a lot of visual effects and hyperrealism, but this assisted the story.  It was a book that was, in part, about a filmmaker’s robot, for crying out loud.  Of course there were going to be special effects.  It took place in a world that wasn’t quite our own, stylistically, but it was never distracting.  It was beautiful.  It was a fairy tale for grown-ups that happened to have children and robots in it, but it was brilliant.

The Iron Lady (Actress in a Leading Role [Meryl Streep], Makeup)
I have not seen this.  But really.  From what I can see, the makeup had very good street makeup, very good age makeup, very good fake teeth for Meryl Streep.  But again that is not the same as transforming people into convincing-looking goblins or something.  Or, barring that, transforming Glenn Close and Janet Teers into semi-convincing pseudomen.

Midnight in Paris (Writing [Original Screenplay])
I don’t know what I would have actually done in this category.  I can’t, with honesty, do the thing that a lot of people have and say “oh, Bridesmaids,” because I… have unresolved feelings about that movie.  But I do appreciate that it was women being funny for a while, and that was good.  I didn’t see two of the nominees.  (I’d never even heard of Margin Call.)  But I don’t really know if this sits well with me, either.  Woody Allen can write Woody Allen, I feel like.  Here, he had the one “complex, artistic” male protagonist, and a cast of shallow supporting characters.  All of the women (and most of the men) may as well have been paper dolls.  It wasn’t exactly predictable, from the beginning, but once it got going I could see through it.  It was very pretty, but it wasn’t… again, I didn’t feel anything.

The Muppets (Music [Original Song])
In short, YES.

Thank you, Academy, for not giving any of these awards to War Horse or Moneyball, which were, again, serviceable films, but not the best in any of their categories.  No thanks for not putting on a great show (other bloggers discuss this much better than I could, so I won’t).

–your fangirl heroine.

Monster Monday :: 11 brief and highly cracky imaginings of fictional characters as vampires.

If, you know, we’re doing a lot of drugs and inventing the most messed-up crossover fiction of all time or something.  AKA, this list is essentially terrible fanfiction, and I know that.   But it stems from that AU meme that was floating around tumblr ages ago, and thoughts I had then, and when I have these offhand thoughts, they sometimes become lists, and… well.  As always, I’m just imagining them along the lines of Buffy or True Blood vampires, because that’s what I know best, but I’m not trying to insert them into those canons, just in the style of, and I do apologize again for the ridiculous.  I just think that we’re possibly overdue for some crack.  Or… something.

11. Basically anyone from Game of Thrones
I’m imagining this like a fantasy realm True Blood, essentially.  The same sorts of King/Queen powerplays and all that, and still a lot of bloody decapitation and stuff.  I don’t know if it would actually be that different of a story.  The various gruesome killings would just be different in nature.  Cersei (Lena Headey) and Jaime (Nicolaj Coster-Waldau) could have an even more messed-up dynamic.  Dany (Emilia Clarke) would be from a non-vampire family and marry into vampirism.  And get really good at it, in her way, because she is a badass.  Sansa (Sophie Turner) could do some things that would be awesome, even if I don’t know what they would be.  Yes.

10. …or anyone from Boardwalk Empire
Margaret (Kelly Macdonald) resists letting Nucky (Steve Buscemi) turn her for a while, but then she gives in.  Every gangster is always a vampire.  They deal in blood instead of liquor.  Or they deal in liquor anyway and laugh at all the humans.  Again, sort of like True Blood.

OH MY GOSH I don’t know how it happened that I typed this entire post out, and all of it disappeared but the first two number points, and I’m just now realizing this.  Formatting, what.  Embarrassment, quick fixing.  Apologizing for this ridiculous, but not nearly as much as in draft one.  So.

9. …or anyone from Deadwood
Not everyone, but a lot of them.  Al (Ian McShane) and Cy (Powers Boothe) would be vampire pimps.  Jane (Robin Weigert) would be human, but Joanie (Kim Dickens) would be a vampire, so it would be awkward in that “Joanie is kind of an old-timey whore lady!Angel sometimes” way.  Sol (John Hawkes) would be human, but Trixie (Paula Malcomson) would be a vampire, so it would be awkward in that “Trixie could totally be an old-timey whore lady!Spike sometimes” way.  Seth (Timothy Olyphant) could be the neighborhood werewolf.

8, 7. Betty and Don Draper (January Jones and Jon Hamm, Mad Men)
Don would be sired in the war or something, and he would sire Betty out of loneliness.  Theirs would be a relationship of awkward, but they’d think it would work, and their vampire-marriage would go on a while before crash-landing.  It would be like canon, but without children and with vampirism.

6. Babydoll (Emily Browning, Sucker Punch)
And then the High Roller would ACTUALLY BE DON DRAPER, and would go to the brothel (this is ignoring the first level of reality altogether) and while he and Baby were having their consensual deleted scene sex, he’d consensually turn her.  And then she’d contemplate getting revenge on everyone who’d wronged her, but she’d eventually decide just to spend a while protecting Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) from things that go bump in the night.  At a distance.  Going from lady!Spike to lady!Angel.

5, 4. Envy Adams and Gideon Graves (Brie Larson and Jason Schwartzman, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World)
It would be like that terrible movie Suck, except instead of all being vampires, the members of the Clash at Demonhead would all be different supernatural things.  Envy would let Gideon sire her.  Todd (Brandon Routh) would just be his crazed vegan self.  Lynette the drummer (Tennessee Thomas) would be a werewolf or something.  They would try to be famous and hip.  Gideon would want to sire Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), though, and that would not go over well with her.

3. YoSaffBridge (Christina Hendricks, Firefly)
Three reasons: psychopaths make the best vampires, she would be amazing with the gift of thrall, and this.  Because…

2, 1. Alpha and Whiskey (Alan Tudyk and Amy Acker, Dollhouse)
Which is here.  Alpha/Whiskey is this twisted, terrible-for-all-involved, sadistic doom kind of ship, but I think it could work in a weird-ass vampire context where out of desperation, Alpha printed Crystal back into Whiskey (with a few modifications, probably) and then sired her.  They could go on crazy adventures.  They could team up with vampire YoSaffBridge and be like a vampiric Joker+Harley+Ivy team, but minus the obvious abuses and the Harley/Ivy undertones.  It could be demented and bloody and kind of neat.

So yes.

–your fangirl heroine.

Spectacular Summaries Saturday :: top 10 gifts 2011 gave me

Unlike last year, where I was just getting started, all of these have been previously mentioned.  Some in the round-ups earlier this week.  So I’m linking to everything.  I’d originally started this blog as an experiment, a 365 blog, post something every day, but it’s become enough a part of me that I think it’s just… going to have to become a 730 blog, or something like that.  You’re stuck with me, world.

10. Sucker Punch
As evidenced by last night’s tl;dr.  I severely, severely adore this movie in all of its wtf-ery and stylized awesome. I love Jon Hamm’s random appearances.  I love Emily Browning’s giant eyes all over the place.  I love Jena Malone (well, that’s an always, but still).  I love that I arbitrarily decided that I was Amber (Jamie Chung), emotionally, at the film’s beginning, and by the end she’d racked up more of my “I’m this in fiction” B’s.  I love the killer soundtrack.  I love the steampunk Prussian zombie soldiers and the giant fighting bunny robot.  Etcetera, etcetera.

9. Portlandia
I’m not biased ’cause it’s, regionally speaking, one of “my places.”  I’m not biased because as much as I love the city, I also love making fun of it.  I just love this damn show.  It’s so ridiculous and yet so true and perfect and hilarious.  And I can’t wait for the next season (so soon!) because it will be just more amazing.

8. The King Is Dead, the Decemberists
I don’t know if I really have words for how deeply I love this damn album.

7. True Blood season 4
As if it weren’t obvious that this would be on here.  Especially given the almost-solid week of True Blood posts there.  I started the show before I read the books, so my loyalties did just sort of follow the show a bit more strongly; most of the changes that were made were made for good, in my opinion, and I enjoy most of them.  Some of them (Eric [Alexander Skarsgard] and Pam’s [Kristin Bauer van Straten] vampire breakup) make me cry inside, but some of them (Jessica [Deborah Ann Woll] existing) make me really happy.  It’s a give and take, but even though it’s gotten to the point where the only thing the books and show have in common are the character’s names and (usually) species, I enjoy it.

6. my first Comicon
I know that Comicons happen every year, in multiple locations and at multiple times, but 2011 marks my first time braving those waters.  I thought it would be scary and intimidating.  It wound up being the most friendly, amazing, perfect day of ever.  So there’s that.

5. Game of Thrones
If I haven’t also made this abundantly clear, I think Game of Thrones is brilliant.  I know the books date as far back as 1996, but I didn’t know about them.  And because of the show, I picked up the book, and the book is brilliant too.  But — I just fell in love with the show.  It’s a world of epic fantasy, and apparently one that’s very pseudo-period accurate, which is good.  It’s a world of epic characters. Of men who kick ass (oh Jon [Kit Hrrington], rest in peace Ned [Sean Bean]) and women who kick just as much ass (among them Daenerys [Emilia Clarke] and Arya [Maisie Williams]; in her own evil way, Cersei [Lena Headey] has kicked some ass in a way, too).  It’s a world of epic epic.  I say again, BABY DRAGONS.  April 2012, baby.

4. The Civil Wars
Not just their album Barton Hollow.  Them as a whole.  They were introduced to me, and I’ve since been given so many live recordings and found so many single songs and listened to everything obsessively.  They’re too beautiful.

3. Dollhouse comics
The ends of anything in the Whedonverse have made my heart ache, and keep on doing so every time I rewatch.  (Which is admittedly a lot.)  But the end of Dollhouse hurt in a special way, because it’s the only one I’ve experienced in real time.  So the also real time arrival of Dollhouse comics in my life was very, very welcome.  I feel like if I was characterizing my July-to-November time, saying “that time that I was waiting with baited breath for the next Dollhouse comic” wouldn’t be an exaggeration.  They’re brilliant comics, in basically every way, and I adore them.  Did they help answer questions about the overarching continuity of the series?  Not really.  But they answered a lot of little character questions, especially about Alpha and the actuals.  And I do love the actuals.  It didn’t close up the hole in my heart, but it was a very satisfying bandaid.

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Part 1 was before, and I loved it dearly, but again I point out that Part 2 actually made me cry.  It’s a chapter of my life closing, but like the Comicon chapter opened this year, this one closed this year, so it’s noteworthy.  Also noteworthy, because I finally pulled a proper Ravenclaw outfit out of thin air for this last premiere like a boss.

1. The Valley, Eisley
And my first time seeing these kids in concert, that too.  I just can’t think of a way to express how brilliant I find them, I really can’t.  Theirs are really the only music videos I watch, with the exception of the one to “Remains” of course, and that too is lovely.  I just.  They’re so perfect and amazing and weird and different and not quite like anyone else.

–your fangirl heroine.

Film Friday :: 2011 in film (5 opinions, 3 predictable favorites, 3 adorable [pairs of] people, 3 awesome cameos, 2 kickass people)

Opinions
5. Christina Hendricks’ talents were wasted in Drive.
I still… don’t really know how I felt about this movie.  Apparently, the processing process is still in effect.  But I do know that my baby could have been given a lot more to do.  She is so capable of so so much.

4. Ian McShane’s talents were wasted in Pirates.
I mean, he was the best thing in the movie, by a long shot, but they still didn’t know what to do with him and his awesome.  Yeah.

3. Elle Fanning > Dakota Fanning.
I’m sure Dakota is a sweet girl.  I just… I don’t know, she was the only young girl in movies for a while, so it was annoying.  Overexposure.  Elle just strikes me as more genuine and likable.  I legitimately enjoyed her turn in Super 8.

2. I’m still a cynical bitch about romantic comedies.
Even the ones that I can logically say that I liked more than the rest, I don’t feel compelled to ever see again.  Crazy, Stupid, Love.: it was cute, and until the end, it didn’t suck, but just… no.  Once was enough.

1. Haters of Sucker Punch to the left.
I mean, I get why people don’t groove on it.  Like I get why people don’t groove on Repo or something.  But… see, the thing is, I actually don’t think it’s just some fetishy fanboy wet dream.  Yes, they’re young women kicking people’s asses. Yes, they’re doing so in a lot of tight, short clothing.  No, Lisa Schwartzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, they are not “psycho sluts.”  In the first reality, yes, it’s a mental hospital.  But that doesn’t automatically mean psycho.  They don’t really go around killing people for fun, they’re just setting themselves free.  And save the deleted scene between the High Roller (Jon Hamm) and Babydoll (Emily Browning), you don’t see any of them actually partaking in sexual behavior except dancing and that time that Rocket (Jena Malone) almost gets raped and Amber (Jamie Chung) sitting on that guy’s lap.  So, uhm… sluts?  How?  It’s not bad to partake in sexual behavior, far from, but it’s not really cool to judge someone in that fashion, or judge a movie in that fashion.  It’s a chicks-kicking-ass movie, and it’s stylized, and it’s weird, and… yeah, I get why it’s not for everyone.  But I have developed a strange protectiveness over it.

Predictable favorites
3. Hugo
Gorramit, this movie was adorable.  I do tend to like love letters to filmmaking, and I love period pieces, and it was stylistic, and there was a steampunk robot and Chloe Moretz.  A recipe for win.

2. X-Men: First Class
I’ve always liked the franchise, completely innocent to knowledge of the comics but.  And I always like the 1960s.  And I usually like, you know, most of the cast.  So it was just going to be a recipe for win.  Everyone liked it, but I just have to say that yes, I liked it too.  Loved it.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
There was never any question about if I’d like this movie or not.  I mean, there are things I still wish were there, but… it made me cry.  Nothing makes me cry.  That’s magic in and of itself. 

Adorable (pairs of) people
3. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anna Kendrick (50/50)
Predictable, maybe (especially because I like both of them: Anna Kendrick is one of the only forgivable things about Twilight, Joseph Gord0n-Levitt is unquestionably endearing).  But true.

2. Amy Adams (The Muppets)
Again, true.

1. Kat Dennings (Thor)
Yeah, I get it.  Darcy was a brat, a little.  But she was just a damn precious brat.  With precious glasses.  And honestly, her reactions to all of the superhero stuff seemed silly because that’s not how a lot of people in movies act, but it’s how a lot of real people would probably act. 

Awesome cameos
3. Jon Hamm (Sucker Punch)
Because if you watch the deleted scene with the High Roller, it’s… kind of completely different than how it seemed in the theatrical release.  Baby’s just like… “oh okay, I guess I’ll have this intimate time with you now,” and it’s consensual, and it’s good.  It makes sense why the doctor then says that when he was lobotomizing her, it’s almost like she wanted him to do it.  And Jon Hamm is just… all kinds of good.

2. Jim Parsons (The Muppets)
Spoiler alert, finally.  I don’t think there could have been a better humanized nerdy Muppet man than Jim Parsons.

1. Nathan Fillion (Super)
Nathan Fillion anywhere would have been brilliant, but Nathan Fillion in a terrible wig and a cheap-ass super-suit?  In what just may have been the most effed-up movie of the year?  Priceless.

Kickass people
2. Matthew Lewis (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2)
Neville my darling.  My badass darling.  Coming into his own, being so heroic and amazing.

1. Hayley Atwell (Captain America)
Peggy Carter my darling.  Being so efficient, so adorable, kicking ass and taking names and everything.  She is perfection.

So yeah.  Brief synopses and one giant, giant, 24% of the overall post word-wise tl;dr.

–your fangirl heroine.

Sundry Sunday :: my urban dictionary: hyperreal(ity)(ism)

Def.: A cinematic state defined by a fairly real-life scene and characters, but over-saturated, selectively saturated, intentionally desaturated, sharp, soft, and/or otherwise somehow “more than” just regular filming.  The film does not have to be fantastical itself, though there is often a storytelling “more than” involved as well.  Interestingly, it is rarely a full-on fantasy film that uses hyperrealism; it’s the stories that are real life except for one or two things that often use it.  Sometimes, it’s found in flashback or dream sequences; other times, it’s used to show the difference between one world and another.  Hyperreality is often so real it’s not real.

Usage: Hyperreality can look like this:

Repo! The Genetic Opera, 2008 (Terrance Zdunich) – an interesting cross of over-saturation, desaturation, sharpening, and softening.

Dollhouse, “The Target,” 2009 (Amy Acker, Harry Lennix, Olivia Williams) – used in a flashback context.  Interestingly, later episodes chose to show flashbacks in different ways (“Getting Closer,” for example, desaturated somewhat, then lightly screened cyan over the frame) but this way remains my favorite.

Sucker Punch, 2011 (Emily Browning) – here using sharpening/softening and intentional desaturation.  Though the “real world” of this film was less so, the different subrealities were all, to an extent, hyperreal, allowing for their dreamlike qualities.

Hugo, 2011 (Asa Butterfield) – over-saturation, especially of yellows (as above) and blues (other places in the film), as well as sharpening/softening and a glow effect.

–your fangirl heroine.

Fictional Friday :: 10 more cross-canon crack friendships that should be.

This is still ridiculous.  But it still happens in my head.

10. Kate Gregson (Brie Larson, United States of Tara) and Jessica Hamby (Deborah Ann Woll, True Blood)
I don’t even know.  Kate would be doing her stewardess thing and maybe, since this is some demented alternate universe, she’d be stewardessing for one of those vampire-friendly planes.  I don’t even know why I feel like these two would get along; they’d be really easily frustrated with each other, but I think they both need a girlfriend, and they could appreciate each other’s existences.  Kate would of course big sister it, they’d swap crazy family and crazy love life stories, it would be good for them.

9. Anya Jenkins (Emma Caulfield, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Pam de Beaufort (Kristin Bauer van Straten, True Blood)
Sure, there would be that moment where Anya’s going, “Oh, you’re a vampire.  That’s potentially bad and I might have to slay you if Buffy isn’t here,” and Pam’s going, “Fat chance, sugar,” but once they got past that awkwardness, I feel like these two would really get along.  They both have that same sarcastic sense of humor that tends to permeate their very existence.  Anya doesn’t always know how to “be human,” Pam ignores the concept of playing nice entirely.  They’d be over in the corner snarking all the time, Anya would give Pam unwanted business tips re: Fangtasia, Pam would roll her eyes at everything Anya said, they’d have a system.  It’d be that friendship where you argue all the time to show you like a person, but that’s how Anya and Pam both operate.

8. Faith Lehane (Eliza Dushku, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish, Sucker Punch)
They’re both resistant to friendship, yes, but they both need someone.  Since neither of them is prone to graciously accepting anything, and both of them are super-tough and can take care of themselves, they’d be a good pair, I think.  Sweet Pea would get out of the institution and she and Faith would go on an epic redemptive ass-kicking mission all around the country, defending themselves and others from assholes both supernatural and normal.

7. Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams, Dollhouse) and Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
These two.  Oh, man.  They went to college together, I can just see it: they were neighbors, and they hated each other for at least six months, but it was that hating that grows into “we’re actually well suited to be friends.”  (They maybe tried sex once or twice, too, but that just wasn’t gonna happen.)  They occasionally wrote each other over the years, and they were amused when they realized they were both eventually stuck in California.  They’d have phone dates where they were wry and sarcastic and vague about their lives, and they’d both be drinking while they did so, ‘cause Giles would only think to call Adelle when he was heading down the road to drunkenness (which would amuse her, not that she’d ever say so).

6. Topher Brink (Fran Kranz, Dollhouse) and Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Largely thanks to this.  Topher and Willow both understand the whole “oops, almost ended the world/accidentally ended the world” thing, and they both understand watching bullets hit the love of their lives right in front of them.  Theirs would be a friendship based largely in mutual commiseration; also a mutual tendency to occasionally make situationally inappropriate pop cultural references and to say things that go over everyone else’s heads.

5, 4. Kim Pine (Alison Pill, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World) and Max Black (Kat Dennings, 2 Broke Girls) OR Ivy (Liza Lapira, Dollhouse)
Kim needs more girl buddies.  In the comics there’s Lisa, who I adore, and she’s friendly with Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), yes, but it’s not a close relationship.  Kim and Max would just be having these endless sarcasm battles forever, wherein they openly despised everyone and everything around them.  They’d bitch about all of the people they have to be consistent for, they’d bitch about all of the idiot children populating their lives.  They should be pen pals.  Then they could just write pages and pages of “by the way, this is ridiculous” rambling about their lives and vent to each other.
Kim and Ivy would get on for that same “why are we so consistent” reasons.  Ivy needs more girl buddies, too; she needs a place to go “WHY IS EVERYONE AROUND ME INSANE?” and “WHY DO THEY UNDERVALUE ME SO MUCH?”  Kim would understand that.  She feels undervalued, too, and she’s not inquisitive enough to ask Ivy questions about exactly what it is that she does for money, which Ivy would appreciate.  Ivy’s occasionally sarcastic, too, even if she doesn’t always go as obvious about it.

3. Alpha (Alan Tudyk, Dollhouse) and YoSaffBridge (Christina Hendricks, Firefly)
I can’t even explain how much I want this criminal partnership to exist.  (And there’s a part of me that’s sure that YoSaffBridge is a composited Doll, or she could be… which would be even better.)  Between the two of them, they probably know every single thing about crime, period, and they could pull off such epic crimes.  Alpha would encourage her to expand her efforts beyond conning various men, and they’d travel throughout everywhere killing people and stealing from them and being sadistic nutcases.  And it would be beautiful.

2. Tara Knowles (Maggie Siff, Sons of Anarchy) and Simon Tam (Sean Maher, Firefly)
DOCTOR BUDDIES.  These two would meet at med school, and since he’s not a creep who wants in her pants, and she’s not annoying, and they’re both hyperprofessional at times, they’d form a sort of working friendship that would be consistent and good.  And since they’re both livin’ the outlaw life now, because this is some universe where the crew of Serenity is in modern times or the Sons are in the future (they totally run their own planet), they’d help each other out.  If the crew raided some hospitals, Simon would call Tara up and be like “Hey, we’ve got some drugs, you need any?”  If the crew needed some emergency medical help and they were by the planet that the Sons run, Tara would be right there to offer something that they didn’t have, special surgical tools or something.

1. Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds) and Erik Lennsherr (Michael Fassbender, X-Men: First Class)
All I can say is that this epic Nazi-hunting party needs to happen.  Now.  (Also, if this is happening, can I just say that Shosanna should have pyrokinetic powers?  She should.)  They could go around Europe killing Nazis that deserve to die and wearing snappy vintage clothes, Shosh would teach Erik about films, they’d speak every language together, it would just be beautiful and perfect and messed up and amazing.

–your fangirl heroine.

Music Monday :: 6 of my favorite soundtracky tracks

Half of which are covers.  Hm.

6. “Such Great Heights,” as covered by Iron & Wine on the Garden State soundtrack
Now, I love the original of this track (by the Postal Service).  But the original is shamelessly chipper, and making it folksier and melancholy like this cover does is a way to make it applicable to the other half of life situations that require love songs.  It’s not quite gloomy, but it’s definitely slower, definitely twangier, definitely more thoughtful.  And it’s pretty.

5. “White Rabbit,” by Emiliana Torrini on the Sucker Punch soundtrack
We’ve had this discussion before, yes?  Yes.  But it needs to be said.  It’s just too brilliant.

4. “She’s Not There,” as covered by Neko Case and Nick Cave on the True Blood soundtrack
Okay, every song that plays on the True Blood soundtrack is fantastical.  But this is the only one I’ve gotten around to downloading, because I’m just like that.  But… Neko Case.  Baaaaby.  I was listening to this earlier today, and I actually skipped back to the beginning when it was over to play it through again, because it’s just so good.  It’s kind of the musical version of fictional angry sex or something.

3. “Cat People (Putting Out the Fire),” by David Bowie on the Inglourious Basterds soundtrack
Originally this song was for the soundtrack of a film called, well, Cat People, but this is a film that I have not seen, and it is actually a film about cat people.  Reading the Wikipedia synopsis, I’m pretty sure I’m all right having not seen it.  But (haven’t I mentioned this before?) the “Cat People (Putting Out the Fire)” sequence in Basterds is one of the most flawless set-to-music scenes I’ve ever seen in a film, if not the actual top of my list, and makes this song worthy of never ever skipping on shuffle ever.

2. “Chick Habit,” as covered/translated by April March on the Death Proof soundtrack
I say covered/ translated because the French version, “Laisse Tomber Les Filles,” was by Serge Gainsbourg and performed by France Gall in the 60s.  March wrote the English lyrics; they’re not a direct translation, but the spirit is still there.  It’s a big giant “kiss off” to stupid boys, really it is, and I love that, but more than that I love how ridiculously addictive this song is.  It’s just so retro and at the same time it doesn’t feel kitschy.  With the vocals and the backings and all of it together, it’s just so perfect at being what it is.  And it fits in with Death Proof perfectly, because Tarantino knows his soundtrack stuff.

1. “Black Sheep,” by Metric on the Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World soundtrack
Guess who isn’t surprised!  All of you!  I’ve also rambled about how much I love this track plenty of times before, so I’ll spare you the reiterations, but it just had to top this list.

–your fangirl heroine.

Sundry Sunday :: and to round it out, 6 actors and actresses with gorgeous green (or hazel) eyes!

(I have enough to split it into multiple posts, but I feel like I should draw the fun out.)

6. Maggie Siff

Using this Mad Men photo ’cause it highlights her beautiful eyes so nicely.  In a way, green eyes are the most subtle: they’re not immediately piercing like blue, or smoldery and dark like brown, but they’re soft and subtle and so striking when you look closely and Maggie’s are a perfect example.

5. Emma Stone

Emma’s eyes are that green that’s so light that at first you think it might be blue, or blue-ish, but then you look closer and go… oh, they’re green, and gorgeous.  Yep.

4. Timothy Olyphant

I’d actually been thinking I’d include him on the brown eyes list for a while, but then I took a closer look: they’re really more hazel.  There’s some green in there for sure.  And being in possession of hazel eyes myself, I applaud this.  Also, I like having a reason to stare at his face like a creeper fangirl.

3. Emily Browning

Emily Browning’s eyes were practically their own character in Sucker Punch, hence my including a picture from the film instead of a real-life photo of her (there were plenty that were striking, but).  I swear I won’t turn this into an opportunity to once again defend the hell out of that film (which I could) but — damn, baby/Baby.  Those are some mind-numbingly pretty eyes.

2. Jewel Staite

(Excuse for that picture to be used?  What?  Of course not.)  Jewel’s eyes are sometimes of a decidedly darker green, almost hazel, but that’s the fun of green eyes.  Differing shades!  And they’re still beautiful.

1. Patrick Fugit

Oh, hello, my longest-term mancrush ever.  (I sort of love that my three longest-term crushes each represent a different eye color group and have topped all of these lists.)  Really, it isn’t fair for someone to have such lovely piercing warm beautiful tenotheradjectives eyes.

–your fangirl heroine

Theatre Thursday :: 5 of my favorite plays and musicals and if they’d work as films.

5. Speech & Debate by Stephen Karam
I have a great, great love for this play.  My heroine of life Susan Blackwell was in it, and the kids actually felt like kids I might know.  I mean, really.  Diwata (played by Sarah Steele) was like… 85% me.  The play was set in my town, they attended a high school I did summer theatre camps and choir recitals in, they used real copies of the local newspaper on stage, they even put on the same play (Once Upon a Mattress) that I did my junior year of high school.  Karam unconsciously stalked my life.  It’s a brilliant play, I saw it during its run in New York (front row, baby, and eternally grateful) and I’m still in love.  But could it be a movie?  Well, it’s a four person cast.  It’d have to be a weird independent film.  (Besides, Hollywood would be suffering from Glee syndrome and try to make it more mass-marketable.)  But if it was a weird independent film, maybe with Karam consulting, it could be done well, perhaps.

4. Spring Awakening by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, adapted from the play by Frank Wedekind
Spring is without a doubt, no questions asked, my favorite musical.  It maybe didn’t change my life, but it was a huge part of it, and to some extent it’s responsible for many of the great things in my life, including some of my greatest friendships.  But honestly?  I feel like it would be near impossible to translate to film.  Said friends of mine and I once tried to contrive of a way to do this; it was much too difficult.  Voiceovers were utilized in excess and a lot of the songs would just have to take place in a subreality.  Not unlike how they did Sucker Punch, actually, though that was obviously not in our minds at the time.  While this works for a story like Sucker Punch, where the subrealities are all ass-kickery and dancing in leotards, I think it would just feel slavish doing Spring as a film that way.  I mean, Sucker Punch had, what, four subreality scenes?  Spring would have to have one for all nineteen songs (or however many of them stuck around – and most of them would have to, I think; when I try to think of which are expendable, the only things I can think of are “There Once Was a Pirate” and Phoebe’s “Mama Who Bore Me/Touch Me (reprise),” and both of those were cut from the stage production).  It would be very hard to do in a way that would feel still genuine and not just like someone filmed the stage play.  And really, casting would be impossible: on stage, you can get away with twenty-six year old Phoebe Strole playing a fourteen year old, but in film?  It would be like… well, most high school movies and TV shows, where the high schoolers are very obviously at least twenty-four.  And that wouldn’t feel right.  But you couldn’t have actual fourteen year olds in it, either, as per the sex and everything.  Just… how about no.

3. How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel
One of my friends and I once had to theoretically adapt this into a musical for a class (well, we had to make a musical; we chose it as our source material, because we were paired off due to our mutual morbidity and dark artistic inclinations, and we intended for the score, were it real, to have been written or at least styled as if it was written by Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione, oh yeah).  As a stage musical?  Yes, it would have been awesome.  As a movie?  Hell no.  It’s much, much too non-linear and dissociated.  I looked it up, and apparently there was a TV movie in 2001, but as imdb doesn’t even have cast or crew details listed on the page, it can’t have been very good.  I just… don’t see it working.  At all.

2. Next to Normal by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt
We all know I love this one, too.  (It’s probably favsies after Spring and Rent, and yes, I know I’m an outrageous musical theatre modernist.)  But… well, the theme of tonight seems to be it just wouldn’t translate.  For one, the story just isn’t something that would go over.  It’d have to be another of those indie films, and even then, it could be problematic: those ambiguous endings don’t sit well with people, especially somewhat unhappy ambiguous endings.  There are too many songs.  I mean, Rent did okay translating, but they had to change a lot of the songs to dialogue, and it worked for them somewhat, but I just can’t see the Next to Normal songs adapting into straight talking well.  It’s too small of a cast for a musical film.  They’d try to glam up the electroshock sequence (again, I’m just seeing Sucker Punch, and while it’s perfect for what it is, it’s not perfect for Next to Normal).  They’d probably cast people who were all wrong just to make it more accessible.  It just… no.

1. August: Osage County (in development?) by Tracy Letts
I honestly don’t know.  Plays set only in one location that can’t be set in another location worry me for film adaptations.  But it’s got a huge-ass cast, and that helps.  They’ve apparently slated it for a movie in 2013, and that’s something to look forward to; I’ve never actually seen it staged, just read it, but I’m still wary.  I hope for the best, though.

–your fangirl heroine.