a vintage year for scoundrels

Lovely Festividder, thank you for making me a vid! ♥ I am so excited to see whatever you make, and I hope you have fun making it. :D If you already have an idea, hurray, but if you are looking for more guidance, this is the post for that! But rest assured that whatever vid you make, I will be happy. ♥

( general likes and dislikes )

( specific fandoms: Batgirl (2000-2006), The Batman, Borgen, The Five(Ish) Doctors Reboot, The Sapphires, Scott and Bailey, Supergirl, Vixen )

Thank you again, lovely person! I hope some of this wittering was helpful to you. ♥

Handed my dissertation in yesterday! Calloo, callay, etc. I considered doing something to celebrate, but then remembered that I'm going up to London to see Lashings of Ginger Beer Time on Saturday, then possibly seeing King Lear the weekend after (if I get round to organising it, and it's not sold out), then going to Barcelona to see The Sister (WARMTH. SUNSHINE. BRING IT TO ME.), and then it's Vidukon, so... I think I'm sorted, celebration-wise.

Instead I watched a FILM. (This is rare.) It was The Sapphires, about an Aboriginal Australian girl group in the sixties, and I liked it a lot. It had a lot of stuff about race that I am SPECTACULARLY ill-placed to comment on, being a white Englishwoman, and mostly I think it handled it well: ( ok, let's cut for spoilers here ) Basically, if you're looking for a feel good film about women which also has something to say about race, I think you could do a lot worse than try The Sapphires.

Hello, new people from various friending memes! I was going to do an introduction post but I couldn't think of anything to say in it. This is the sort of quality dreamwidthing you can expect around here. We could make this an "ask me questions if there's things you want to know" type of post (for everyone, however long you've known me!)? Oh, and also, as a round up: I'm also shinyjenni on Twitter, Librarything/Goodreads (prefer the former for usability and the latter for social things, if only I could somehow smush them together...), and Ravelry, though I don't use that last as much as I always mean to. And I am usuallyhats on tumblr; I've been trying to tag things properly over there - if there's anything in particular you'd like me to tag for Tumblr Saviour purposes, do let me know! ♥

Also, I have a fandom stocking! I wasn't going to sign up this year, as I'm not sure I'll have the time or the wherewithal to make things, but it's my favourite thing, so I'll try and make time. (Might nick my parents' microphone while I'm there and make some more podfics...) Let me know where yours are!

I went to see The Hobbit last night! I really enjoyed it, but ( not actually spoilers, just cutting for anyone who doesn't want to see people's thoughts on it before they see it themselves )

I have been working my way through various female led action/superhero films! Here are some of the things that I have watched:

- Resident Evil: bizarrely, this was the second film in as many days to contain Unexpected James Purefoy (the other was Bedrooms and Hallways), well done there, film. I enjoyed it a lot, although it is rather gorier than my usual fare: it turns out I am fine with zombies but very freaked out by ( possibly getting into spoiler territory? )

- Next up was Elektra, which is not a good film, but overall I feel very positive about it as it contained one element that I really loved: ( spoilers )

- Also I watched Aeon Flux, which was... odd. ( not really spoilers but I have got into the habit of using cut tags now, so )

- After that was Supergirl; I've been trying to get into the Supergirl comics recently (because of how she and Batgirl fought vampires that time), but they are SO CONFUSING, so I was a little dismayed to see a whole other backstory for her that wasn't the one I knew. But that issue aside, I liked it a lot - not necessarily a good film, but an entertaining one. Overall I would characterise it as "deeply cheesy, but nevertheless rather charming". I am thinking particularly of the scene where ( vaguely spoilery, maybe )

- And finally, Milla Jovovich again in Ultraviolet! I was expecting to enjoy it based on the fact that she had a sword on the DVD cover, but I was rather put off by the fact that everyone looked oddly smooth and glowy for some reason. Step away from the effects box, people! I was also unimpressed by the almost complete lack of female characters who weren't Violet, grrr. On the plus side, it did pick up a fair bit when the swords eventually came out, and I enjoyed the final fight scene a lot: ( spoilers! )

I feel like I should have some concluding thoughts here, but I don't. Well, nothing beyond "make more superheroine films! And make them better!", but I had that one before I started. Actually, thinking about it, I would like superheroine TV serieses even better, since I prefer TV to film as a medium. GET ON THAT, PEOPLE WHO ARE IN CHARGE OF THESE THINGS.

(I typed most of this out in Google Docs, which has helpfully corrected a selection of my straight quotes to curly quotes. Why do you hate me at the moment, Google?)

1.) Thank you to the lovely anonymous person who bought me a month of paid time! I don't know who you are, but I know you are GREAT. ♥

2.) I watched Strange Days last night, on the_smut_fairy's recommenedation, and it was very good. I wasn't sure at first that it was going to be my sort of thing, but I was wrong. The more I watched, the more invested I got in the characters - I don't think I have ever hoped so desperately for a film to have a happy ending before. ( and now I shall cut for spoilers )

3.) Music meme, from hhertzof:

Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly.
Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING! Also, might not even work for some of these.

1.) Things don't have to be this way / catch me on a better day Garbage - Fix Me Now, guessed by glinda
2.) A thousand thundering thrills await me Space - Female of the Species, guessed by ghostpaw
3.) Look at the stars, look how they shine for you Coldplay - Yellow, guessed by glinda
4.) Who would sell their soul for love / or waste one tear on compromise
5.) All is lost tonight / in the clotheslines
6.) I'm not threatened by every pair of legs you watch go by
7.) I closed my eyes / drew back the curtain Jason Donovan - Any Dream Will Do, guessed by glinda
8.) If all you've got to do today is find peace of mind / come round, you can take a piece of mine Catatonia - Road Rage, guessed by glinda
9.) The ice is thin, c'mon dive in
10.) Get off of me, away from me, get me out of here
11.) My eyes are bifocals / my hands are subjointed
12.) Listen as the wind blows / from across the great divide Sarah McLachlan - Possession , guessed by glinda
13.) He's a wounded animal / he lives in a matchbox Regina Spektor - 20 Years of Snow, guessed by ghostpaw
14.) Cool breeze and autumn leaves / slow motion daylight Savage Garden - You Can Still Be Free, guessed by silly_cleo
15.) Tiptoeing where you shine your light
16.) Smiley little baby snuggled in her mommy's arms Bif Naked - Violence, guessed by glinda
17.) Do you listen to yourself / never live for someone else?
18.) You were once my one companion / you were all that mattered Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again from The Phantom of the Opera, guessed by glinda
19.) Rain fell it called off play we ran for shelter
20.) Wake up the dying, don't wake up the dead

1.) Happy birthday, ecossefilmmaker!

2.) agapi42 and I went on the Reclaim the Night march on Friday. It was great: there was drumming and dancing and chanting (and, ok, a fair bit of raining), and the turnout was really good. I was pleased to see that there was someone there from my union, waving a big purple Unison flag.

3.) London at the weekend! V. exciting. I met the_smut_fairy for lunch when I got there on Saturday (after some time spent wandering around looking for her in completely the wrong place, WHOOPS), we went to a very nice Turkish place near Victoria station and had mezze, yum. Then I met up with Izzy, Phil and James and we went to see Wicked. SQUEE. I really loved it (apart from the rather too neat ending), especially "Defying Gravity", of course! Then we went back to Izzy's and watched Hot Fuzz (on the grounds that if you have four people from Gloucestershire in the same room you practically have a legal requirement so to do), which I love, and 300, which I... did not love. Anyway. On Sunday we went and queued in the rain for the Natural History Museum. We'd booked to go round the new Cocoon section, which was quite interesting but hampered somewhat by the touchscreens, most of which we couldn't get to work properly, so there was a lot of irritated stabbing at them as we tried to persuade them to tell us stuff. But then we found to display of Things In Bottles, which cheered us up tremendously. Semi-digested squid fished out of a whale's stomach and put inna jar! Yay. After that, we had a quick mooch around the Science Museum (and I spotted rj_anderson's Rebel in the bookshop, which I didn't realise was out, or even imminent, and would have carried off if my rucksack hadn't already been pretty heavy). And then I went home and discovered that my shoulders hurt, my legs were on strike and my brain wouldn't brain. This is what happens if you go to London, everyone! You should all move to Bristol instead, it is much better here. (Cheltenham or Bath are also acceptable.)

4.) Am trying to decide what to bake this afternoon: bittersweet chocolate and pear cake or chocolate yoghurt snack cakes. Opinions? (If you are tigerpixie or amicu I am particularly interested in your opinions as the said baking is for tonight's Stitch 'n' Witch.) Usually the correct answer would be "both" but I am not sure I have time, woe.

Have just watched Prince Caspian (finally). Here are some thoughts:

( spoilers )

Changing the subject somewhat, anyone fancy going to the Reclaim the Night March next Friday? I would like to go (to the march bit, anyway, would probably skip the evening stuff as am going to London the next day) but would rather not go on my own!

1.) Hello internets! I have been away all weekend and am just now catching up. (Three hundred and eighty six unread items in my google reader, you say?) I had the day off on Friday and I went to Cardiff with Jess and Vanky. First we went to the museum and learned about the history of Wales from about 400 million years ago, but we only got as far as the dinosaurs when we had to run off and have lunch, because we were going to see Robin Hood (avec John Barrowman) in the afternoon. IT WAS ACE. Barrowman was great (despite having a cold; when he did the "thank you for coming" bit at the end he looked very pale and pasty, poor thing) and so was the actor playing the Sheriff - his evil laugh was PERFECT. There was singing and dancing and general hijinks, and cross dressing (hurrah! I was worried that there wouldn't be any) and double entendres (and single entendres) and a DRAGON, and a random ice skating interlude, and also an entirely unexpected ( slightly pointless spoiler cut here, since half the joy was the unexpectedness ). And a good time was indeed had by all. Then we went back to Cheltenham (which was handy for Jess and Vanky, since that is where they live) and had a lovely meal out with Emily and Dale. And then I spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with my parents (and also, briefly, with silly_cleo, yay!). We watched Ice Cold in Alex, which was really good: very tense in places, and nicely nuanced. And we spent most of Sunday playing games. Good times.

2.) Here is a Being Human reaction type thing:

( wif weevils. Sorry, spoilers. With spoilers )

3.) Someone please tell me why I shouldn't buy this ring, please? (Answers of "but Jenni, you don't know your ring size, it might not fit" are acceptable.) It's so pretty! All my other rings are silver or haematite! Jo Grant is my style icon and thus I am in the market for more rings! Also if you could persuade me to spend tomorrow afternoon cleaning the kitchen instead of going to see Sherlock Holmes again I would appreciate it.

4.) ARGH THE DRILLING MAKE IT STOP. Oh, it has stopped. Never mind, then.

1.) Happy birthday, littledarkvoice!

2.) I got back to Bristol today, after spending Christmas at my parents, to find a lovely pile of cards waiting for me, so thank you to agapi42, oxymoron67, rosalind_wang, cosmic_celery (I love the art! ♥) and ghost2 (eee, such a cute picture inside!). I also had a mysterious unsigned card from someone somewhere in the UK (postmark sadly indistinguishable), so if that was one of you, thank you too!

3.) Cannot stop listening to Ben Lee's Awake is the New Sleep, it's so catchy!

4.) Apparently there is going to be a film of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth. I heard about this a while ago and thought it had died a death, but it seems not. I am afraid I am incapable of being rational about this turn of events and can only keep going "WAH MY CHILDHOOD NO". The Romans are going to have American accents! They will not sound like what they do on my tape! Sadface! No, no, none of this. I shall be sensible and hope that it is any good at all and people read the book because of it. (MARCUS NOOO! They haven't even cast Cottia yet! D: Look, at least I know I'm being irrational, right?)

5.) So far 2010 has involved games, nice food, books and playing Beatles Rock Band. I approve.