we got all night

Didn't go to that party from my last post. I couldn't find the address so after walking around for almost an hour and getting unhelpful texts from a co-worker I went home. My sister was gone this weekend though, so I had the room to myself. OBVIOUSLY THIS MEANS NETFLIX TIME.

Things wot I've seen so far:
Black Books
The IT Crowd (first season, gave up)
Stephen Fry in America (first three, will get back to eventually)
To The Ends of the Earth (I... fell asleep twice)

And a bunch of movies I half-paid attention to while I ran around AO3 a bit just to get them off my queue. Some I ended up really enjoying like Different for Girls, even if by that time of the night--after the really chase but also adorable The Decoy Bride--I just wanted to see them bone.

Speaking of The Decoy Bride (I didn't even know he was in it until he was the first one to pop up) I'm obsessed with finding everything Dylan Moran. I dug out Shaun of the Dead, which I own, and the S2 features of Black Books which I also own (randomly, thanks old job of my dad's) and downloaded Yeah, Yeah because it was the only complete Moran-related thing on the ihearts. BUT I NEED MORE. As for Black Books itself, I have so much love for it. I'm amazed at how funny and charming it was. I expected IT Crowd to be more of the same, but that one seems more like the sitcom from Extras. And while I don't exactly ship them, I would not be adverse to Bernard/Fran fic. Or more crappy puppet shows like the Black Dolls extra.

Why am I just getting into series that no one on Tumblr cares about anymore. It's like I don't even know my dashboard anymore. :(

I feel like I haven't spoken about other things I've done this summer because Torchwood/Doctor Who/NETFLIXXX so... bullets:

- Saw Brave, Magic Mike, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. All great for their own reasons, even if Magic Mike showed me more of Olivia Munn than I wanted to see. And McConaughey. WHO EVEN LIKES HIM. I DON'T UNDERSTAND. PUT IT AWAY. Brave was sort of a B-list Pixar movie. It was nice but not their best. And AL: VH was fun and ridiculous and HE THREW A HORSE AT HIM.

- Went to Boston the weekend after July 4th because it was the only vacation my sister could afford and I have been there twice so I was their tour guide. By day two my sister had the hang of the transit system (coming from NYC, ANYTHING is decipherable). We heard "Payphone" almost three times a day so that was the theme song of the trip.

- Saw LeVar Burton at the Bronx Zoo a couple of week ago. He was introducing the Reading Rainbow app and posing for pictures. I wanted to talk to him but the line was long. I went around the zoo to all my favorite spots and rides instead.

- Saw The Amazing Spider-Man; it was cool. Refuse to see The Dark Knight Rises. I don't care.

- Tried learning basic Welsh phrases and changed my FB into Welsh for a while. Was confused as all fuck all around. I'm going to keep trying. I've always wanted a basic knowledge in Welsh, Gaelic and Mandarin. Japanese is slightly like Russian so I've got a foot in that door. I just need to decide on a Nordic language to complete my bucket list of languages.

- Went to The New World's Fair 2012 in Queens Saturday solely because it was at Flushing Meadows and I've always wanted to go to the park because of Men in Black. And then this year MIB3 came out and I felt like I just needed to go. But it wasn't like the grand expo my mind imagined the original to be. It was basically four tents and a stage and completely conspiracy theorists and hippie agendas. So I sat by the Unisphere for a while and then left. I'd tweeted/FB'd asking if anyone wanted to come to The Way Station but no one replied so I stayed in Queens and tried to go to the bar that was the Firecracker from The Black Donnellys. It ended up being packed so I went next door to a Thai shop for curry.

That's been my life lately. I can't complain. Now to get around to commenting everywhere!

Just finished (honestly: the credits are still rolling and this song is hauntingly beautiful /tedmosby) my Anton Yelchin marathon, or as I call it my Can Get Zat (and if you get that portmanteau reference, you win ten points) marathon. It included his episodes of Criminal Minds, Law and Order: CI and Fright Night, The Beaver and Like Crazy. Criminal Minds was the more entertaining of the episodes; he was barely in Law and Order and L&O just bores me to tears unless it's SVU. Fright Night was poorly characterized at first, and the story was very much, "hey, so, here are the characters--keep up, the action starts NOW!" And then Christopher Mintz-Plasse stole the movie yet again. And I just ordered the BD edition from Amazon, so there is that recommendation.

The Beaver I almost bought on a whim back when I was buying my mom's birthday gifts in October. I'm so glad I didn't. It was basically equal parts The Squid and the Whale (which I found painfully awkward) and Lars and the Real Girl (which I just found flat). The only redeeming part was when I started to notice that the entire movie was filmed in and around The Bronx. It's something I think I already had known about, but forgot.

BUT LIKE CRAZY. I saw the trailer when I went to see Our Idiot Brother and felt very, "NOT SURE IF WANT" because it looked like a non-musical 500 Days of Summer... with Anton Yelchin. But eventually I thought it might be more along my lines and put it on my list of things to watch. Because if it wasn't... HEY, ANTON YELCHIN TO STARE AT FOR MOST OF THE MOVIE. And when it started I thought it WAS 500 Days of Summer, but then it gets good and ugh, guyssss. It's a movie that gets you in the heart. Maybe more so for me because I would ultimately like to know what that's like, to have someone I care about that much and I would do crazy things for, but at the same time I'm very "INTIMACY? WHAT IS THAT. DO NOT WANT." I... am very much a robot, who knew. Anyway, this is going on my Amazon list, so there's that rec.

ALSO I REALLY NEED THE SOUNDTRACKS TO LIKE CRAZY AND FRIGHT NIGHT. HNGGGGGGGGG.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I spent mine with splits_thesky since Hurricane Irene ruined our plans last weekend. Actually, it still ruined our plans this weekend because the hiking trail we were supposed to go on was still closed because of it. And the movie we wanted to see, Fright Night, wasn't playing anymore at the theatre we were planning on going to. We saw Cowboys & Aliens instead, and it was fun even if it didn't explain ANYTHING about the aliens.

We also went shopping at Wegman's, a grocery store I had never been to before but is AWESOME and has almost everything in one spot. I loved the ethnic food section, not only because there was one, but because the Spanish section was entirely Goya brand beans, rice and seasoning. *dies* I bought a Malta though, because I hadn't had one in a while and I like them, lol. I don't think I've ever had Goya's Maltas, but it was decent. Also the vegetable section was crazy large. Wegman's is basically what happens when you put Stop & Shop, the hot food section of Key Food and the dry goods section of a bigger Manhattan Duane Reade together. Food you can feel good about, indeed.

Other things we did included planning out our entire trip to Chicago next week, watching The Perfect Score (I fell asleep, but it's okay because I own it and have seen it before) and some National Geographic documentaries on Dinosaurs with terrible graphics and horrible decisions when it came to dinosaur reactions to events (I also fell asleep here, different night, but the cliffhangers were boring). Earlier that same day we cooked ourselves lunch (everything we had bought at Wegman's) that consisted mostly of vegetables: vegetable soup with carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions, broccoli, spinach, parnips, etc. and portobello mushroom sliders with avocado pieces in a sandwich. I even had roasted garlic hummus as a spread. And then for dinner we went to a barbecue with delicious vegetables and watermelon. We also took splits_thesky's dog to the dog park where we got bit by the most mosquitoes I have seen since I was eight. I'm sure it was a mix of the barbecue and the dog park, but my legs are currently sporting 14 different bites. :(

Also, neither of us got our Pottermore emails yet and we are highly frustrated about that. POTTERMORE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

I also took video of the cooking portion of the weekend, so we shall see if I can turn it into a vlog. I meant to vlog more and kept forgetting. This is the problem with not vlogging and then really wanting to start. You don't remember to start.

Saw Deathly Hallows part 2. I liked it. I'll refrain from saying I loved it because it didn't feel like a full movie. It just started where we left off and continued. And I only saw DH1 once, at midnight with a foggy brain. And I figured everyone would enjoy it and couldn't wait to see what everyone had to say online. When I got online and saw all the negative comments I ended up agreeing, too. So not a perfect movie and not a great translation of the book but a nice ending.

Snape made me tear up and all my emotions for him, Remus, and Neville came back. So I'll probably be annoying for a while just getting wrapped up in this world again. Being late to the fandom, I can't say I'm devastated that it's all over. I caught myself yesterday saying something about how DanRad needs to stop yelling spells so much and I went, "Well, next movie! ....waaaaaaait." But besides that, I'm actually okay. I'd read more things in the universe but I think I'm okay with just the epilogue. And I actually thought that part was cute, although Ginny still looked oddly young. I want to go back and watch all the movies again, read the books again, read Shoebox, watch AVPM (which I'm finishing today--why is the first act SO LONGGGGGGGGG), watch AVPS, catch up on Wizard Rock and start paying attention to when artists I like are nearby, go to at least a few HP cons nearby... and that's about it. I sort of want to join a land comm or RP but I'm horrible at remembering a lot of things from this universe and wouldn't be accurate or much help. We'll see how long I can resist.

Also just bought the remaining bits of my Ravenclaw uniform. For at least one day for NYCC I will dress up like that.

Didn't go out last night. The bus took forever to get me where I was going and I would've been a half hour late to the play. But I have somewhere to go tonight and the play is only running Sat/Sun/Thurs. So I hope I can go Thursday night. Instead I watched Act 1 of AVPM. Tumblr has converted me into a Darren Criss fan. I won't watch Glee. But anything else D.Criss related, send my way.

Also, related to nothing else in this entry but it needed to be said: I'm officially done with my sims legacies. I haven't updated them in forever and no one cares about Sims 2 anymore. I still play them now and then, but I also have other families I started so it'd be 2022 before I reached the 10th generation on either legacy.

I saw Thor last night and I don't really have anything to say about it. I read a free comic book I got at Free Comic Book day all about the Saga of Thor and it was pretty much the only reason I decided I was actually interested in seeing the movie. I mean, besides Portman and Dennings and the wannabe!Michelle Monaghan that is Jamie Alexander.

Uh, but I do want to read everyone's reviews now but the movie's been out for two weeks in other parts of the world and LJ doesn't have a "search your friends' journals for this one term" search yet (afaik? if it does, link that too?), so uh, if you can kindly link me to the entries that contain your thoughts on the movie/experience?

Thankies.

I prefer criticism to compliments, but today a classmate of mine asked for a copy of my poem that we went over in class Tuesday, and it's buoyed the rest of my day, lol. But this entry isn't about poetry.

For my screenwriting class I'm making a horror movie. Generally I don't watch horror movies unless they're super-gory or have some actor I like in them. It's usually the latter, although I've been known to see horror movies with actors I can't stand specifically to watch them in pain (I'm horrible, I know).

Anyway, now I'm in a pickle because I really like this one story I'm doing, but the teacher is discouraging making movies that rely too heavily on genre tropes. So that only makes me, in my naivete and hardheadedness, want to prove myself. But I'm not a horror movie buff. He also wants us to watch a movie a week and analyze the plot points and three-act structure. I usually do that kind of thing anyway during movies (I focus on imagery and writing more though), but I barely have time to relax, much less watch movies.

So I'm thinking, to help myself out, I'm going to make my one movie a week movies in my genre. So here's where y'all come in! I need horror/thriller/psychological movies, especially with possessed objects like cars and houses. Here's my list so far:

Amityville
The Shining
Cold Creek Manor
The Changeling
Saturday the 14th
Poltergeist
13 Ghosts
Monster House
The Others
Burnt Offerings
The Haunting
Legend of Hell House

Aaaand SPN episodes: phantom traveler, women in white, route 666 (stfu)...

I asked Tumblr last night, but there's more people on here. :p

So rec away!

P.S. Ugh, I can't pick icons on this thing. Android fail!

Last night I watched this movie called After Sex. I LOVED IT. It's a series of vignettes of couples talking right after sex. If you liked Waking Life or movies like that where it's all just talk (I call them "straight plays on film" even though most films can technically be called that), I recommend you seek it out. :) It was only on my radar because Emmanuelle Chriqui was in it but the rest of the cast is pretty good, as are the conversations. Also, James DeBello was never really on my radar much before (creeper from Swimfan!), but in this movie I realized he looks like a cross between Seth Rogen and Brendan Fraser and that kinda blew my mind.

THERE'S A NEW PSYCH COMMERCIAL, EVERYONE. Apparently they can't officially upload it until January due to licensing or something but omg, I love this showwwww. I just wish Henry was in it too. There's six people in the original video. :/

( White Collar )

( Monk )

( Month of December meme )

Lia

I've been in the mood to watch movies that I haven't seen a million times, but also things that I don't have to pay attention to.

What I meant to do: make fun of male CW stars and their bad movies.

What I realized: "I've seen all of Welling's movies. I refuse to see Sorority Boys or Christmas Cottage. All the rest of Jared and Jensen's I've seen somehow. And Chad ...all that's left is A Cinderella Story."

What actually occurred: JULIE GONZALO & CMM MOVIE MARATHON!

Eh, it was worth it. I got my laughs in.

I have nothing to say on Melrose, Flash Forward, Modern Family or Sunny.

( Supernatural )

( The Office )

( Psych )

I'll get to SGU after I finish re-watching the pilot... when I'm done with this movie I'm in the middle of now.

Lia

My plans to see The Final Destination in theatres keep falling through. I never saw the first one until DVD and my plans to see the second and third in theatres fell through until I missed my chance. Taking Woodstock is already out of theatres, too and I was dying to see that when it first teased during Important Things earlier this year. But seeing a Final Destination movie in the theatres is just not in the cards for me. I JUST WANT TO SEE ONE OF THEM IN ACTUAL THEATRES. IS THAT SO HARD. I DON'T EVEN CARE FOR THE 3D. ZOMG. UGH.

There's other things to talk about, but right now I just want to zone out in Hyrule and collect Poe souls. So here's some reviews while I go do that.

( Supernatural )

( Psych )

Lia

Just got back from seeing Shorts and it was hysterical and adorable. I've seen like three Kat Dennings movies this week (The House Bunny and Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist are on cable TV now :DD). My life is a happy one. My dad and I keep having conversations about Tarantino and Rodriguez and the differences between the two and I think I might just make a picspam about my favorite things about the two. But that's for another time.

I also thought about Inglourious Basterds some more and I think it lands third in my Tarantino list. The list goes Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds, Pulp Fiction, Death Proof. I haven't seen Jackie Brown and I don't count Four Rooms or that scene in Sin City (also, if we're counting writing-wise, True Romance comes before Inglourious Basterds and Natural Born Killers comes after Pulp Fiction.)

Every time I see the ads for this Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie coming out, I bristle. Everyone's clamoring about the Where The Wild Things Are movie, but that book was so short and so devoid of storyline (this is the story: Kid gets sent to bed without supper. Dreams about being the king of monsters. Wakes up) that you could develop the characters in any way and it would probably work. But Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs... that one had a story. It had characters and flashbacks and lessons to learn and I don't care if this is supposed to be a prequel movie. That's not the story in the book. But I don't think I know anyone who even heard of the book. I feel like making a vlog where I read the book but like, "Storytime with Lia" doesn't seem like a fascinating idea when you could just go buy the book if you cared that much.

As for a movie I am really excited for, this movie!! I'm one of the maybe ten people in the world who didn't like Arrested Development, so Michael Cera isn't a big draw usually, but I believe he's the only one who could pull this movie off.

Lia