Skewed Perspective

I've acquired a few new people on my f-list in the past few weeks, so I thought it was probably round about time I actually posted again. Hello there! You are probably already entirely aware of who I am and what I post (or else why would you have added me?), but still - hi, pleased to meet, you, I'm Skew. These days this journal is mostly sporadic updates about my life, what I've been watching/reading/writing lately and the occasional meme, but you never know, I may one day become interesting again.


- It's been snowing a fair bit lately, which I wouldn't mind, particularly, other than this is of course the exact time at which my boots choose to spring a leak. Having to dry one's feet out on an electric heater every evening is a pretty small inconvenience compared to, say, working out childcare plans when the schools are shut or getting to work when the buses can't get through snow, but there's a small paranoid part of me that keeps checking for early signs of trench foot.

- Most of you have probably heard this already, but there's going to be another Spielberg/Hanks WWII miniseries! AND IT'S GOT PLANES. And, er, guys who fly in them, obviously. I'm a little dismayed that they've passed up the chance to focus on a theatre of the war or group of people that doesn't get much attention (eg. North Africa, the Philippines, Burma, and anything other than another bunch of white guys), but I'm still terribly excited and particularly delighted by the fact that after dealing with two branches of the armed forces I previously didn't care much about (and convincing me to love them anyway), they're now going for my beloved flyboys. Although knowing what the casualty rates were like for bomber crews, I'm already despairing in the absolute certainty that yet again, I'm going to fall head over heels for someone who'll die a horrible unjust death. Probably in episode 7.

- Went to see Django Unchained last Friday. Really enjoyed it, although it could do with being half an hour shorter. It doesn't do all that much that he hasn't done before - honestly, Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds have almost the same plot, although given the film's subject, this is a fair bit more thought-provoking (at least for me; not knowing as much as I should about slavery in 19th-century America, I'd like to go read up and find out what of the movie was true) - but he does do his ridiculous blood-soaked revenge epics pretty darn well, and the cast were great, especially Samuel L Jackson and Christoph Waltz.

- Been job-hunting lately. It hasn't gone well. Two years of working in a shitty entry-level admin job and all my experience qualifies me to do is, well, work in shitty entry-level admin jobs. All employers want is somebody who already knows what to do, which is fine, but how does one ever learn?

At least I'll be getting a change of scene soon - my employers have hired a permanent member of staff to fill my post, so even if I don't get a job some place else, the temp agency'll send me off somewhere new. I don't entirely understand the reasons given for why I couldn't be hired for this permanent post, especially given they all felt I was doing perfectly well, but if there's one thing I've learned from temping, it's that agency workers are considered basically worthless. Fingers crossed I'll be hearing back from grad school soon and none of this will matter much anyway, but in the meantime, I just hope that wherever I go next is nice.

- And finally! The other day someone posted some pictures of RL Harry Welsh I'd never seen before. It's a shame - although absolutely typical of Tumblr - that there's no source given or links to full-size versions of the originals, but still, new pictures! Including one in which he looks more astonishingly like the television version of himself than he does in any other photograph I've seen of him; it can never be said enough just how good a job the casting people did.

So I really should be packing and cleaning, but I'm not, because packing and cleaning suck. It's typical - for the past six months at least I've been longing for the day I can move out of this house, but now it comes round, it's just too much like hard work. I've already strained a muscle in my back heaving boxes full of books downstairs, and there's still so much more to put away. And then I've got to move to the new place and unpack and set up all my utilities and get a new internet provider - so it's gonna be radio silence from 1st of July to whenever the heck that gets set up.

Hopefully it won't be too long, and anyway, everywhere seems quieter these days. It'll be a good chance to work on some fic, too. I can't believe I haven't posted anything since February; some of which is due to having spent months working on a long story, and some due to lack of motivation when I come home from the working day. And I dunno, maybe I'm growing out of fandom a little. Then again, as I recall, I felt like that a couple of years ago and then The Pacific came along and hit me like a freight train full of emotions.


ANYWAY.

Best thing about moving, so far, is that I've taken some time off work - which, oh god, is so good for my state of mind, the atmosphere in that place is soul-destroying and I just can't seem to get even an interview anywhere else - and TODAY I WENT TO SEE ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER.

Which is exactly what the title says it is, and great fun, if you like kitschy horror and crack historical RPF. It takes a bit of time to get going. I wasn't sold on it for quite a while, and I felt the first half moved along without really developing any of the characters or giving me adequate explanations for why friendships were formed or people did what they did, but by the end I had a massive smile on my face. There's some great action set pieces - I was quite amused by how much it borrowed from the Matrix, and one scene was basically that fight on the trucks from Matrix Reloaded except with horses - and all the Gettysburg stuff just gladdened my war nerd heart. It's far from perfect, and (very pretty 3D asides) you won't miss much if you wait 'til it comes out on DVD, but the concept and the charm of the actors manage to carry it through.

Plus I do love the 'verse, and I do want all the cracky historical RPF spin-off fic. I want other presidents learning to carry on the tradition - Teddy Roosevelt would be a natural, as would Eisenhower, and I could go for Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley teaming up to take on vampires in Vegas. I want the further adventures of Harriet Tubman in that 'verse, with or without Mary Lincoln in tow. I've just finished reading The Killer Angels for the second time, and I could seriously go for Gettysburg-with-vampires from an on-the-ground perspective. Except I rather suspect hardly anyone would read any of it. Ah well.

So, I went to see the Avengers this weekend! And it was very good, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My non-spoilery thoughts are as follows: It was good, solid fun, which did a good job of carrying on the continuity from previous instalments in the shared universe while making it (reasonably) accessible to those who might not have seen all of it. The script does a really, really good job of fleshing out minor characters and making ones that might not be the easiest sell likable and compelling - I couldn't give the tiniest of fucks about any of the previous Hulk films, or really the character in general (at least in the comics), but everything about the set-up and the way Mark Ruffalo plays Bruce Banner works perfectly. Black Widow and Hawkeye are both excellent, and the script implies a lot of backstory between them without info-dumping all over the place. Agent Coulson, after having been in the background for years, unexpectedly gets a chance to shine.

The actual plot is not anything ground-breaking, but I've felt the same way about all the Marvel movieverse films that I've seen so far - they get away with it by being strong on character and doing a good job of actually making it feel like a comic brought to life without it being campy. I couldn't see a single weak point in the cast, but Tom Hiddleston does effortlessly out-do everyone else as usual.

Also, props to the costume designers for making Cap's suit cling to Chris Evans' backside like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth. It was slightly distracting, but certainly not in a bad way.


Okay, that's the stuff I can safely say. If you've seen it - or just don't mind spoilers - other thoughts and flailing around are under the cut. ( Read more... )

Happy Monday, everybody!

And for once it is a pretty happy Monday, as spring has arrived with a bout of unusually sunny weather, and in their charmingly excitable way, the Great British public have responded by immediately flinging off their clothes and going to buy disposable barbecues.

I realise I haven't posted on my own DW/LJ for ages now, but that's half due to very little happening, and half because for the past few weeks I've been desperately trying to get ready for my GRE. It's taking place tomorrow morning. I'm reasonably confident I can do okay, as long as I read all the questions thoroughly and don't rush it; I'm fairly resigned to the fact I'll be lucky to get over 33% on the maths side of things, but I doubt it'll count against me too heavily as a prospective Humanities student. Still, any last-minute advice, always welcome.

I'm thinking of going to see a film that afternoon, and I'm currently torn between The Hunger Games, 21 Jump Street and The Muppets. Which one I end up seeing probably depends on which one's showing times fit best into the day, but again, if you have recommendations/criticism, I'm all ears.


Asides from that, what else have I been up to? ...not much, is the short answer. Very slowly working on various fics, none of which will probably see the light in the next month. My writing pace has been terrible this year, and I keep getting distracted by other things.


Like Round The Twist, for example. You can blame that one on sapper.

For those not familiar with it, it's an Australian children's TV show from the late 80s/early 90s (well, there were two series in the 00s... it's kind of confusing, it ran over about a decade, but with a very big gap between seasons 2 and 3). It was on British TV when I was a kid, but I never watched it, although I was a fan of the Paul Jennings short stories that most of the episodes are based on. Pacific fans may find it worth noting that a wee Tom Budge is in seasons 3 and 4.

Anyway - I don't quite know how it happened, I checked out a few episodes on Youtube and first wasn't sure, then slowly got drawn in. It's pretty good at balancing thoroughly ridiculous plotlines (mostly involving restless ghosts and mysterious magical items) with good characterisation and teenagers who actually act like teenagers - the kids in this remind me so much of the actual sort of people I went to school with, and the terrible outfits and special effects are giving me all kinds of warm fuzzy memories of the TV shows I did get round to watching when I was that age. (Oh man, I wonder if you can get Sabrina the Teenage Witch on DVD? That show was awesome.)

If you're in Regions 2 or 4 it's easily available on DVD - I can't speak for Region 1, but there's quite a bit on Youtube, though not full series. I would recommend giving it a shot if you've any time to kill; it might not grab you at first, but stick with it, it grows on you.


The other other thing I've been distracted with over the past month was finally finishing The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which I was reading in fits and starts for about six months - if you can find a copy, get it, because it's possibly my idea of a perfect novel. That might just be me, as it encompasses most of my pet subjects (comic books, the 1940s, World War Two, even a smidge of gay romance), but it's a damn good read, incredibly densely detailed without being pretentious or hard to read (I honestly can't stomach much 'literary' fiction), and I enjoyed it immensely. I'd ramble on more but I don't want to give any of it away.

Next up? Well, I'm saving it so I have something to read on the flight to Berlin, but my parents got me the first three books in the Temeraire series for Christmas, so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into them.



...I've got to stop going so long between posts, that all came out in a jumble. Anyhow, f-list, how are you lot? Seen or read anything good lately?