Beauty sleep? I must be gorgeous by now

[cleolinda]

God, I hope I'm not coming down with something. Except that I'm always coming down with something, and this time it's being blamed on allergies (my mother seems to be coming down with the same something) since I've been spending a lot of time outside. Basically, I slept all Sunday and woke up sneezing and coughing. Outstanding. Today I still went swimming anyway, since I've only got about two weeks left of viable outdoor pool weather--once the pine needles start falling, summer love is over.

Also, Sister Girl came home a day early (I'm not sure why, but "heat exhaustion" wouldn't surprise me), and she brought us candy from River Street Sweets: banana taffy for my mother, two milk chocolate bear claws for me (and I honestly think they were freshly made that morning, too), and some peanut butter fudge for herself. To celebrate, my mother made pralines, and if I can find a working camera in this house, I'll take pictures. (P.S. Sister Girl said she and her friend loved Moon River Brewery--thanks, eyetosky!)

Linkspam!

Artificial life likely in 3 to 10 years.

Young blogger loses battle with cancer.

Va. Tech starts semester with new crisis.

Painkiller use rising at alarming rate.

Baskin-Robbins plans return to Birmingham. YAYS!

End Of Days: Today God's Creatures Opened Up A Can Of Whup-Ass.

i luvz dis cher.

Cutest. Baby. Whale. Ever.

Sen. Leahy lands role in Batman movie. "He's done voice-overs on Batman cartoons, written the preface for a Batman book and had small roles in the last two Batman features. He said he will donate his earnings from the film to the Kellogg-Hubbard children's library in Montpelier, where the senator got his first library card." Awww. Seriously! He loves Batman! He loves books! He loves kids! AWWW.

Chez snacky: Five videos for "I Would Do Anything for Love" in which the original is the best and most coherent ("What the hell is this song doing with The Thorn Birds ?"). And it's also a poll (TICKY)!

The Dream-Quest of Pooh Corner.

'The Daily Show' feels the heat in Iraq.

Kristen Bell joins not Lost but Heroes. "GOOD, BECAUSE HEROES IS BETTER" squee will be wasted on me, I assure you.

Rowling's 'crime novel' is a red herring.

Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner to revive Cyrano de Bergerac.

‘High School Musical 2’ sets ratings record.

New Sweeney Todd pic.

An Update on the 'Justice League' Movie.

James McAvoy cast as Scotty in Star Trek movie. Either this is a repeat of the original rumor, or the original rumor has come true. I don't know.

‘Superbad’ Goodies: Clips, Interviews, And More.

Kidman Says Religious Content of 'The Golden Compass' Has Been "Watered Down." OH COME ON, LIKE WE EVER THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO STAY IN. We're damn lucky it looks as faithful as it does.

Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman = Box Office Poison. To be honest, she really does need someone else to start picking her scripts. Was Tom Cruise doing it for her before or something?

Bond 22 Location Buzz (spoiler speculation). Over dinner, I ran down a quick list of movie news I thought my mother would be interested in; you may remember that she's a gigantic Bond fan. "It's still gonna have That Guy, though, isn't it?" "LOOK, YOU NEED TO GET OVER THAT." "I CAN'T. THAT MOVIE WAS AWFUL." "YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND." "HE WAS BLOND!" It's tearing our family apart, I'm telling you.

Set pics of Joseph Gordon Levitt and Lynn Collins in Uncertainty.

Right at Your Door Interviews.

De Niro's Frankie Machine Breaking Down?

Jessica Biel to Shed Threads in 'Powder Blue.'

Biggs and Caplan Join Bachelor No. 2. The headline jumped out at me, I guess, because Lizzy Caplan is also in Cloverfield.

Trailer: I'm Not There. "All I can do is be me. Whoever that is." Nooooo kidding. I still can't get over the fact that Cate Blanchett's Dylan looks the most like the real one.

International Trailer for Woody Allen's 'Cassandra's Dream.' Again: Ewan McGregor.

Rod Lurie Plans "Improvements" for Remake of Peckinpah's 'Straw Dogs.'

11 hurt at Tom Cruise film shoot.

More OOTP pics. Yes, the movie that already came out. (Hey, it's Aberforth! And a good shot of the Black family tapestry!)

Paramount to drop Blu-ray high-def DVDs; Fox and MGM Unveil Blu-ray Exclusives.

10 great summer movies that dial it down a notch.

And finally: Psychedelic Hobbits: Elijah Wood And Friends Happy To Inform You The Drugs Are Working.

Comments

[kvschwartz.livejournal.com]

Jessica Biel: It's getting VERY DIFFICULT to find stripper roles where they don't ask you to take your clothes off!

[lauramcvey.livejournal.com]

I kind of figured about the crime novel thing. "My wife saw her writing it!" Um . . . yeah, I'll wait for official confirmation.

I have Rowling-related linkspam: Fake eighth HP book getting pulled off shelves. Also, if you scroll down in the article, it says that slash sites are getting shut down. I have a bad feeling about this. I mean, my OTP *points to icon* is safe, but I don't like the idea of censoring fanfic. I'm not big in the HP fandom, but I respect the pairings, barring a) Insane fans, like the ones who went nuts after HPB, or b) Stuff like Harry/Sirius, because that is wrong on more levels than I can contemplate.

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1312472007

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I think I saw that article earlier--people are thinking, since it doesn't name any actual sites, that it may be a very garbled version of the deletions here on LJ, plus some statements WB made for a previous article about fanfic.

[lauramcvey.livejournal.com]

God, I hope so. One of my favourite fandoms (Anne Rice) was utterly destroyed when the author went on the warpath about fanfiction. What did WB say?

*is thankful that the author of my slash OTP died in 1885*

[iczer6.livejournal.com]

OH COME ON, LIKE WE EVER THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO STAY IN. We're damn lucky it looks as faithful as it does.

I just hope they keep the gay angels.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

All they even have to be is male. Fandom can supply the rest.

[count-01.livejournal.com]

Wicked, wrong, and utterly vulgar.

I salute you, madam.

[evilbearhunter.livejournal.com]

You know what's weird about that? One of them was a woman when they were alive. I don't understand why everyone thinks they're gay. One was a man, one was a woman, and now they are both just angels. Maybe I missed something -- I read the books a while ago.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, I think it's because Pullman's angels are still sexed (he mentions that they're naked, and you can tell if they're male or female), and in this incarnation or whatever, they're both male. Which I would really think of as meaning that love is genderless, but everyone sticks to the more controversial surface of it, which is "omg gay angels."

[iczer6.livejournal.com]

But those who pass on don't become angels in Pullman's world, what happens to them is a huge plot point in the third book.

[tabbyclaw.livejournal.com]

Oh, badness. I could see Kristen Bell maybe fitting in on Lost. Maybe. But not on Heroes.

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

That "10 movies" article lost me about two paragraphs in, right where they said that Becoming Jane was "superbly written". I swear, nothing has made me want to smack people through the internet more than reading all the glowing reviews for that...thing.

And seriously, cutting the anti-religious bits out of The Golden Compass? Not a surprise. I feel like I should really finish The Amber Spyglass before that movie comes out, though. I guess I have a couple years.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Cynic that I am, I've started a pool on how Compass was going to chickenshit its way out of religious controversy, because godforbid we do something that makes the CHRISTIANS mad. (My best guess is looking to pan out--if I were a spineless producer, it's what I'd do to water it down.)

I expected it, but it still annoys me verily: we atheists have to put up with being portrayed badly in movies and TV, and watching movies with messages we don't agree with, but Christians don't, because Hollywood will bend over backward to keep them from seeing something that might make them mad.

That being said, DAMN I WANNA SEE IT. And I'm glad Philip Pullman got to sell the rights. I want him rolling in dough for that series.

[thyroyalmajesty.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear! I read all three books in a row about a month ago, and I was stunned that they were being made into a movie. I just didn't see how the anti-religion stuff could fly. I could totally see a bunch of Chronicles of Narnia-brand-fantasy Christians coming to see Golden Compass and coming out a little shellshocked.

I do want to see the movie, because I want to see how that plays out, and because it looks so very purty, but to be honest I hated the last two books with a passion.

[syneblue.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm not even religious and I hated the last two books. All the preach-y bitching on Pullman's part make me retroactively hate the first book as well, which is a shame, since it's a good fantasy...but good fantasy does not make good philosophy.

[thyroyalmajesty.livejournal.com]

I'm a stone-cold atheist myself. It wasn't the religion (or anti-religion) that turned me off in the last two books -- I just thought they were boring. And the kids became creepy to me; no one really talks like that. I suspended my disbelief with Lyra in the first book, but when they brought in Will, who's supposed to be a normal kid from our world, his overly-formal manner of speech was grating.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* He did get a little carried away in the last one and hit you over the head ... but it was a good story nonetheless.

I was mostly happy because, even if it was a little clumsy in the presentation, at least SOMEONE had a version of religion I agreed with in a fantasy book.

[eruvadhril.livejournal.com]

it still annoys me verily: we atheists have to put up with being portrayed badly in movies and TV, and watching movies with messages we don't agree with, but Christians don't, because Hollywood will bend over backward to keep them from seeing something that might make them mad.

IAWTC x 100

[maid-line.livejournal.com]

Probably because moviemaking is a business, and they don't want to offend over 80% of the population and thus lose their money?

*apologies in advance if that was rhetorical*

[yarha.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a candidate for independent cinema. Maybe one could get George Soros to fund it and whatnot.

Yarha, Who Has No Idea In Re George Soros' Religion

[agentsculder.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the trailer for I'm Not There. It looks really interesting, and it is eerie how much Cate does look like Dylan.

Also that baby beluga whale was the cuteness!

[scornedsaint.livejournal.com]

Kristen Bell joins not Lost but Heroes. "GOOD, BECAUSE HEROES IS BETTER" squee will be wasted on me, I assure you.

I don't care if she thinks Heroes is better, I would work on a crappy public access show if it meant I was payed to live in Hawaii.

"HE WAS BLOND!"

I still don't get why that was such a big issue for Bond fans. Of all the things to criticize about the series, they go with hair color?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, she also complains that Casino Royale "wasn't cheesy enough." It's an opposite kind of planet that my mother lives on.

[greyduck.livejournal.com]

I watched it a couple of weeks ago with my secondary girlfriend (for my third viewing and her first) and she complained, in all seriousness, that it had "too much plot." There wasn't, you see, nearly enough asskicking and stuff done blowed up.

It's okay. I love her anyway. *wry grin*

Also: She agrees that "the new Bond" is awfully easy on the eyes. So there's that, I suppose.

[skyblade.livejournal.com]

To be honest, she really does need someone else to start picking her scripts. Was Tom Cruise doing it for her before or something?


Interestingly enough, her biggest hit, and I think her only real unqualified hit, The Others was produced by Cruise. She's been in movies that did some money but Moulin Rouge! and Cold Mountain, were also pretty expensive. The Hours, contrary to popular belief, wasn't a huge hit at all.

I think she has no concept of what the public is into, and I think she trusts directors more than thinks about the scipts herself. (Though Invasion did eventually become a different movie than she signed up for) And I think she this strange thing with her, where when she isn't playing dour or tortured, she's doing this strange Marylin Monroe riff.

Still, even she's delivered better numbers than this. I've noticed most of the terrible performances from this summer's movies (Besides horror, which doesn't sell well this time of year, and Evan Almighty, which was fronted by a guy not yet familiar enough with audiences to peddle any old crap) have been vehicles for actresses who's personal lives have eclipsed their professional ones. It's perhaps unfair to compare Kidman to Lohan, but I do think at some point celebrity for celebrity's sake starts to corrode the foundations. I don't know how that goes for males, as Brad Pitt was himself tied to a franchise (Though in theaters, Babel totally ate it)

[theatre-angel.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't think anyone expected the religious content to stay exactly as it was in HDM, but it still bothers me that they're "watering it down".

[pescivendolo.livejournal.com]

Congrats on getting your Baskin Robbins back! It was a sad sad day when the one in the Gadsden Mall burned down. They never bothered to give us another one after that; I think it was the same time they disappeared from most of Alabama. I was THRILLED to get to Florida and find that they still have them. To quote my husband, "Before I dreamed about naked women, I was dreaming about Baskin Robbins ice cream sandwiches."

I'm so giddily, nerdily excited about that Bob Dylan movie. Like whoa.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

God, it's been so many years. What flavors should I go try, when it gets here? I think I stuck to variations on chocolate and/or chocolate chip when I was younger.

[pescivendolo.livejournal.com]

I'm obsessed with the mint chocolate chip. Best I've ever had. When I was little, I'd get a cup with a scoop of that and a scoop of the World Class Chocolate (dark chocolate mixed with white chocolate) and mix them together.

Last time we went Matt got one of their iced chocolate mocha drink things, and it was amazing.

[jaded-lady.livejournal.com]

My first semester Poli Sci. professor is married to Sen. Leahy's son, which I always thought was pretty cool. At least, they were married, I think they're divorced now, or are in the process of, or whatever, but she's on good terms with Leahy, and he came and gave a lecture at the college once.

"I must be gorgeous by now."

[kvschwartz.livejournal.com]

When You Are Old
by William Butler Yeats (W. B. Yeats)

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

====

Oh, Cleo, to me, you will be gorgeous even when you are old and grey and full of sleep. Even when you are dead, you will be gorgeous. ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU ARE DEAD. No, wait. That sounds creepy.

[bardintraining.livejournal.com]

God damn it, Bond has not once been to Canada in the entire series, that I know of.

Come on! We could harbour a criminal mastermind! We have the space to hide SEVERAL nuclear missile bases and bunkers deep under the Canadian Shield! No one would EVER think to look here!

...or not.

[chocotaku.livejournal.com]

Communism and crime novels...who'd have thunk it?

[hey-montana.livejournal.com]

Hot damn, sir, I'd heard The Dark is Rising film version was...inaccurate, but I thought I was watching an ad that was coming on before the trailer at first. O_o

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank God. Don't wanna read a JKR crime novel. Would, but don't wanna.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Kidman Says Religious Content of 'The Golden Compass' Has Been "Watered Down." OH COME ON, LIKE WE EVER THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO STAY IN.

I know. We're so grateful for the crumbs, these days. :P

[eleigh.livejournal.com]

Chez snacky: Five videos for "I Would Do Anything for Love" in which the original is the best and most coherent ("What the hell is this song doing with The Thorn Birds ?"). And it's also a poll (TICKY)!

Thank you for this. I needed the laugh.

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

Baskin-Robbins plans return to Birmingham.

I got very excited when I read that. Then I realised you meant the Birmingham in Alabama and not the one in the UK. Now I am sad. :(

[ironclad1609.livejournal.com]

The low religious content Kidman is talking about makes me especially worried about the Amber Spyglass movie if we ever get there...