Cleolinda everywhere

Many things! So many that I only culled the very best links for the spam, and it's still hugelong. Well, it's not that bad. JUST READ IT.

To begin: the new Made of Fail, "Self-Esteem is for Everybody," is up. I'm not on it (Scarlett is of Scarlettopia and the Spoony Experiment is, much to Dayna's twitterpation), but Dayna and I were talking a few days before, and she had me write down what I was saying so she could read it on air (about 28 minutes in), and it was: my advice to geek boys. My sad, hard-won, somewhat embittered advice. Alas, earwax.

Also, the Christopher Pike thing just got better. (Scroll down to "ETA again.") Not only is he now accusing caligirl_08 of being the one with an army of Amazon review sockpuppets, he's claiming that bookfails is "a livejournal community sponsored by someone of Turkish background who has taken things much too far and is trying to rob fiction authors of their artistic license." Such artistic license includes claiming that the Aryans of India are the same as the "Nordic ideal" Aryans.

However: sad news as well.

Hollywood legend Tony Curtis dies at 85. 

Bonnie and Clyde Director Arthur Penn Dies at 88.

'Marty,' 'Chinatown' actor Joe Mantell dies at 94.

More linkspam: ( Read more... )

So. Tired in a very lazy, self-indulgent way. I don't know if it's the holidays or the birthdays or what, but I've got to get over this dragginess--however pleasant it might be at the moment--at some point. I am, however, going to see Avatar on Sunday, and am working on some kind of zen meditation to rope off my EXTREME WEARINESS of the hype I've been hearing for an actual, literal year about how this will CHANGE THE WAY MOVIES ARE MADE. I don't know which way they mean, but if involves 3-D becoming the standard movie format I'm going to be pissed off, because it gives me headaches like whoa, and keep in mind that I have to balance those damn glasses on top of my real ones. I'm afraid to ask what other ways they might mean, because so far, "Huge effects spectacle with an overly familiar story and clichéd dialogue," "The nation divided into warring tribes of Fanboys and Haters," and "Would you like fries with your topless Neytiri figure?" kind of seem like business as usual.

@cleolinda: RT @flickchart: Director Michael Mann said of AVATAR: "There's before this movie, and after this movie."

@cleolinda: RT @flickchart: Spielberg quoted on AVATAR: "The last time I came out of a movie feeling that way was the first time I saw Star Wars."

@cleolinda: People, you realize now that I'm not going to be impressed unless Avatar delivers orgasms AND hot fudge sundaes. Knock it off.

@cleolinda: @jamevph The only thing more obnoxious than the hype would be if the movie actually turned out to be that good.

@cleolinda: @gorgeousnerd Oh, I mean, I'm going on Sunday, and I'm going to try to be zen about it and set all of that aside.

@cleolinda: Although I do wonder--"Doomed romance on the Titanic" is an easy sell. "Giant blue cat people do... something," I don't know.

@cleolinda: It could be the Second Coming, but I don't know how well it might actually do. Interesting to see how it shakes out.

@lilithsaintcrow: @cleolinda "Giant blue cat-love on the doomed Titanic! It's a sure thing!"

@cleolinda: @lilithsaintcrow Aw, man, giant blue cat-love screeching in the back of a Model T, do not want.

Then, from gfrancie: I Hate James Cameron, but I Love His Movies. Yeah... that's probably going to be me Sunday afternoon, after I recover from my 3-D headache. I will hate myself for liking it after being battered with hype for TWELVE SOLID MONTHS, but I also feel like it's intellectually dishonest to blindly hate something just for the sake of hating it. Meanwhile, I don't even know if there will be anything Not to Be Spoken Of, but I wouldn't count on it. Also, I'm still not sure if The Lovely Emily and her husband were kidding about painting their faces blue or not.



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

... which could probably change on a dime.

First off--had a couple of requests to talk about saving the show Chuck: library_of_sex says, "There's the usual letter-writing campaign and voting at E!Online's Save One Show, but there's also the Finale and Footlong, involving Subway, a big sponsor of the show," and foresthouse has more ideas here.

Oh, by the way: super cute charm necklaces. I have the Love Letter (wearing it right now, actually) and the Chat Noir.

( Linkspam! )

I had a couple of thoughts today while I was making breakfast after posting the True Blood recap:

1. Are sunlight-phobic vampires so angsty because they don't get enough vitamin D?

2. Could you kill a vampire with a full-spectrum lamp?

(Not sure when I'll post the second episode. Writing recaps needs to be contingent on my getting actual work done.)

Linkspam! ( I kissed a doll and I liked it )

Lexicongate ETAs march on: a bunch of blogs weigh in without actually reading the ruling; I can't even believe what Stanford Law said; NORA ROBERTS HAS SPOKEN.

I will say this: if you actually read the ruling, or summaries of it, you'll see that Judge Robert Patterson (no, Patterson. He does not sparkle in direct sunlight. That I know of) is very careful to note that this is not a ruling against the general concept of fan comment and critique, for profit or not.¹ The issue is not that the Lexicon is a derivative fan work; the issue is that it isn't. It is, in large part, copy/pasting of the original books' phrasing with little to no criticism or commentary--it's Rowling's work alphabetized. It is, in fact, an enterprise that makes the rest of creative fandom look bad. That's the issue. That's why she isn't suing the other guide books and commentaries² (or me, for that matter, and I also published): because those works actually contributed original thought.³ ( More )

And also, if you're going to play the JKR IS SO GREEDY OMG card, keep in mind that she said she'd donate anything they won to charity, and that His Honor did, in fact, award her and WB the princely sum of $6,750. No, I did not leave any zeroes off.

Anyway. Linkspam. (I was promised a Suantum of Quolace Quantum of Solace trailer! Where is my Something of Boris Quantum of Solace trailer?) ETA: IT'S HERE!

( When Oasis Fans Attack, This Fall on FOX! )

So on to the linkspam!

Nobel winner Solzhenitsyn dies at 89; Remembering Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; Putin honors late Solzhenitsyn.

Pauline Baynes, Narnia Illustrator, Passes Away at 85.

Morgan Freeman Involved in Car Crash - Serious But Stable; Morgan Freeman suffers fractures in wreck; Morgan Freeman is gonna be okay!

( MOAR )

I have something to editorialize about, here on the eve of the Oscars, and it involves this Oscar Watch article (by "Jeff," not Sasha the editor):

I am also making plans for how I will handle the Lord of the Rings sweep. A straightjacket may be necessary. For the sake of my blood pressure, I might just grab the clicker whenever it wins something, which is what I did the other night when Rings won the SAG ensemble award; apparently, however, Sean Astin made quite the ass of himself while accepting the prize, and that I am truly sorry to have missed. Maybe I will just tell myself that this is the end of the Rings Oscar madness, and we can all go back to normal next year. However, it wouldn't surprise me if the Rings fans attempt a write-in campaign for Peter Jackson next year as well, even without a new film. Of course, he deserves it, don't you see? It was such a massive undertaking, don't you know?

I don't deny the skill and craftsmanship that has gone into these films; they are indeed incredible technical achievements. Those who have read and loved the books obviously have more invested in these films and apply Tolkien's philosophies and perspective to them, adding a dimension and depth to them that I just don't see. They work fine as escapist entertainment; anything more than that, and I'm at a loss to explain. But these are just my bitter sour grapes here on Oscar Eve; two further ranting and raving paragraphs on the Rings have been deleted, because at this moment, what really is the point to continue the fight? Sunday's results are a foregone conclusion.


Jeff can bite my ass. Not because Lord of the Rings is so almighty fine and perfect. Jeff can bite my ass because watching a movie you loathe sweep the Oscars is sometimes part of the Oscar-watching experience. I hated Titanic. Vladimir and I were discussing this--he was surprised to find that I saw it once in the theater and instantly did not like it. It was not some "Ewww, everyone else likes it!" backlash; I didn't get around to seeing it three months after I'd decided to hate it. I saw it in December, the first or second week it came out, with half my entire family and a row of wailing DiCaprio fangirls behind us. ("Leeeeeoh!" they squealed woefully as he hung onto that debris with ice in his hair. Not even "Jaaaaack!," mind you. You know, if you're so worried about Leeeoh, I can assure you: they pulled him out of the water after the scene was finished, dried him off, and he was fine.)

That was a tough year, moviewise, because I felt like everyone I knew had been swallowed up by pod people. Everyone loved it, everyone saw it sixteen times, and I thought it was badly written and cheesy and melodramatic. I mean, sure, the effects were great, but I couldn't see them because the first half of the movie had caused my eyes to roll out of my head. And it's funny to me now that most people I talk to are sort of ashamed they liked Titanic, or deny they ever did; here's an Ananova poll, for example:

Titanic has been voted the least deserving Oscar winning film of all time in a new poll. And Titanic director James Cameron was voted least deserving recipient of the Oscar for best director. Russell Crowe, for Gladiator, and Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love, were voted the least deserving best actor and actress winners.

(Favorites, in case you're wondering, are The Godfather, Spielberg for Schindler's list, DeNiro for Raging Bull, and Jodie Foster for Silence of the Lambs. What, no Meryl Streep?)

So I'm sorry I was so bitter about it now--not because I feel justified, but because I've come to realize that it's just part of the process as an Oscar watcher. I'd started really watching the Oscars when I was thirteen (1992), and that (1998) was the first year I'd had to watch as a movie I hated took the gold. It's happened again since then, of course, and I didn't even handle it all that well the second time around. What I've finally learned from the whole thing, particularly from running the Digest, is that really good movies and actors survive, Oscars or no. No movie has been ever obliterated from the collective public memory just because it didn't win; in fact, a lot of "losers" become even more fixed in the mind than the movies that actually won. Quality is quality, and if the movie you love is really all that great, you have nothing to fear if it loses.

My point is, maybe you hate a movie now. Maybe you'll be vindicated later, and maybe you won't. But them's the breaks in the Oscar race, sport. Another year will come when I'll have to sit and watch some movie I loathe make a sweep. But I'll handle it a lot better, I think, because I've seen the cycle through a few times now (turn, turn, turn) and I know, in terms of being a fan, that a victory year will come back around. So you can just get over the condescending attitude towards Lord of the Rings fans, pal, because someday you're going to be them, crowing over your favorite nominee finally winning. Not only that, but we Lord of the Rings fans have had to watch the movies lose for two years in a row. And if you're upset that the race is "a foregone conclusion" this year, imagine how everyone felt the year that Schindler's List, a movie so important that it should have just been given its own platinum Oscar and moved out of the race, came out! It's someone else's year to win the ball game, and your turn as a fan will come back around soon. So until then, kindly stuff a sock in it.