Just stopping by

Just fiddling around to the Facebook overlords' tunes...

April Fools

I've come to conclusion that not having a "home" classroom is detrimental to my blogging. Furthermore, the whole "having to plan a lesson everyday" isn't helpful either.
Spring Break was a lot of fun but went by much too quickly. Kerri came to visit and we played tourist for the five days she was here. Once she was en route home, I chained myself to the computer and finished up the last assignments for my two UBC online courses. Sent those off the night before school started again and that was it for my Spring Break... sigh.
Still haven't seen a movie yet. I know. It's just plain ridiculous.
On the up-side, BER and I have been to seen some live theatre which always cheers me up. I saw the school play before Spring Break and was really impressed with the Drama program at McNair. BER and I took Kerri to see Into the Woods at the Cultch while she was here and then we went to see Cathy in Anything Goes at the Metro. That girl gets carried around by guys in every show we see her in... :o)
I continue to work at reducing the book pile by my bed although I don't know what I'll use as a phone table once I get through them. Most recently, I've discovered the Pellinor series by Alison Croggon and would recommend them but caution that they borrow heavily from Tolkein (but in a MUCH better way than Paolini's mess(es)). I also finished off the Neanderthal Parallax by Sawyer (have started giving serious thought to atheism because of them) and forgot to mention the two Matthew Reilly novels I read in February, The Seven Deadly Wonders and The Six Sacred Stones which, cheesy as they sound, were fantastic high-octane adventures. Oh and there was also a little blitz on yet another Scott Westerfield trilogy - The Midnighters - which was fun but I think I'll take a break from his books.
School's been hectic. Report card marks go in next week and my Grade 10s just learned to write five-paragraph essays last week. At least I hope they learned how to write them. I should be marking them right now... meh.
Plans for the big 3-0 are starting to come together. Double meh.
Turns out good things always get sequels. Enjoy!

Marching Forward

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm probably the suckiest blogger alive.
Since the official New Year started, I haven't seen any movies at all. Zip. Zero. Nada. No one's more sorry about that then I am.
I have, however, read two excellent books by Robert J. Sawyer (among a myriad of other literature), thoroughly enjoyed watching Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and started teaching a new contract which includes an awesome (if extremely whiny) Socials 10 class. I'm getting my butt kicked by the almost full-time teaching, two nights a week tutoring, two regular weekend library shifts and the two UBC online courses I enrolled in back in December. My commute in the morning is about 10 minutes longer because of an extra bus transfew and even though I could go home straight after 3rd block, I'm usually at the school until at least 4pm.

I'm a bit whiny myself at the moment but it's nothing some muscle relaxant can't solve. Spring Break's in 13 days. I promise to do something worth writing about by then. In the meantime, enjoy this. It's my current favourite online video.


Cheers!

The Golden Compass

Considering I saw The Golden Compass on a sneak preview (thanks to the alertness of my House Elf/Daemon who spotted the commercial) a week before most people, it's with sincere apologies that I present this overdue review. (And, yes, I know that I still owe about ten more mini-reviews from the summer.)

Firstly, I have to point out that I read the novels by Philip Pullman last several years ago and so I managed to avoid the error that I made with The Two Towers (wherein I re-read the source material immediately before the screening and therefore continue to remember the second installment of New Line's "greatest" trilogy with deep-rooted animosity and a sense of betrayal). Even so, I loved the first two novels in the trilogy, still consider my day at London's National Theatre watching the double-bill of His Dark Materials: Part 1 & 2 my best day at the theatre EVER and couldn't help but anticipate great things for the film adaptation. For the most part, I was satisfied.

To start with the casting (it's been ages since I've been able to dissect a literature-based cast like I did with Harry Potter), I think Dakota Blue Richards was ideal for the role of Lyra. I can see where critics of her older-than-twelve appearance are coming from but, having had my fill of eleven-year-olds playing eleven-year-olds with the first two Harry Potter adaptations, I think that casting a young actress who could really carry off a fairly complex character was more important than chronological agreement between performer and performed. Besides, she's only thirteen now, so the age thing isn't all that far off. (In the stage production, all roles were played by adults with only costuming, the puppeted daemons and "acting" indicating whether they were younger or older, so I had no trouble buying Richard's Lyra. It was blind-casting as well - Lord Asriel was a fantastically handsome Brit of African descent.)

Large child casts are often the weak point of these movies and I thought the young actors playing Roger and the Gyptian kids came off a little rough in their shared screentime with the talented Miss Richards but since most of the kid scenes were mobs where they simply needed to be herded in one direction or another, they didn't disturb the general polish of the performances. Along similar lines, the adult Gyptians performed more as an ensemble in the film which worked except that I seem to remember having a stronger attachment to Ma Costa in particular when reading the books.

Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig did well in their supporting roles of Mrs. Marisa Coulter and Lord Asriel, respectively. The lore-centric fandom kicked up a huge fuss initially regarding Kidman's blonde-ness but, possibly due to my distance from the source material, I wasn't fussed about the discrepancy (which is, admittedly, a bit unusual for me). I think Mrs. Coulter came across a bit more dysfunctional on celluloid than in print. Brendan wondered why the freaky golden monkey didn't speak while all the other daemons did. My response was that Marisa doesn't have a good relationship with her "soul" as evidenced by her backhanding him after Lyra runs away. Mr. 007, on the other hand, seems quite at ease with Stelmaria, his snow leopard daemon, and embodied the determined and serious nature of his newest franchise character respectably if a bit too suavely to suit the Lord Asriel of page and stage.

The voice cast for the daemons was remarkable. The combining of the vocal talents of Freddie Highmore (who must have the best agent in Hollywood even if it isn't Johnny Depp), Kathy Bates, and Kristen Scott Thomas with seamless and stunning CGI graphics might possibly have been my stand-out favourite part of the movie. If there hadn't been witches.

Sir Ian McKellan and Ian McShane as the voices of the primary armoured ice bears (or Panserbjørn) of Svalbard were awfully exciting for me (but BER commented later that he kept expecting them to pull out bottle of Coke). I probably would've appreciated more exposition (I know, I know) regarding how Iofur (McShane) had lost touch with his true nature and led the entire armoured bear community away from their tradition of sky-iron armour towards human-worked metal which is in direct contrast to Iorek (McKellan) who, once reunited with his armour, proves to be the stronger and truer leader of the bears. But that's just me.

Sam Elliott was obviously born to play the role of Lee Scoresby (did they even have to costume him, I wonder?) and I sincerely appreciate his eloquence in defending the film from the accusations of godlessness being spouted by the religious right. Of course, it would take a grizzled ol' cow poke to speak plainly about the ridiculousness of the "controversy". From what I've seen of the Catholic League's campaign, they're primary concern is keeping kids from reading the books the movies are based on. Funny how life imitates art. If they don't want to be seen as a fascist, totalitarian organization, they should probably eschew the mantra of censorship.

And finally, Serafina Pekkala, as portrayed by the luminous Eva Green, may not have been as central to the story as Pekkala's role in the stage production (wherein the character is more a composite of both Pekkala and Dr. Mary of the third book) but fulfilled the dual purposes of indicating and explaining Pekkala's interest in Lyra and the Gyptians and revealing the witches' prophecies. (The bonus is how great she looks while doing all that). The visual effects that gave her and her clan flight are probably the most effective ones in the film. I actually came close to tears of pure exhilaration when the witches arrived to participate in the climactic battle at Bolvangar.

Finally, on to the movie itself...

As an adaptation, I thought this film was solidly successful in introducing the characters, delivering the plotline, and conveying a sense of an alien yet familiar landscape. However, Pullman's books are extremely wordy and much of the fantastical nature of Lyra's world is described in passive prose. On screen, this means that the first several minutes are filled with rapid exposition, narrated by Eva Green, explaining the nature of daemons (so, for pity's sake, pay attention unlike the woman in the row in front of me who turned to her neighbour fifteen minutes in and asked loudly,"Why do they all have animals?"). For me, my greatest satisfaction was in the fact that nothing truly significant was left out or warped for the film edition (see past rants on the origin of the Marauders' Map and the character of Faramir, respectively). Furthermore, it managed to retain more of the enchantment of the story than Columbus' attempts at the Potter saga did for me. Granted, it could be argued that it was an easier visual adaptation than HP or LotR since most of the technological groundwork had been laid years before pre-production thanks to those two enterprises (and Coca-Cola) and the Dark Materials crew didn't have to worry about Quidditch and Oliphaunts/Mumakil. But, studio-marketing-and-producing-powers-that-be willing, they'll get a chance to really show what they can do in the next two films. (Angels, mulefa, and cliff ghasts... oh my)

As specifically a movie (and the reader can probably tell that I'm having issues separating my feelings for the book and film), I wouldn't recommend it to younger children as the content is quite dark, literally as well as figuratively. Furthermore, despite the declawing of the book's more blatant commentaries on dogmatic beliefs and religious paternalism, the basic concept of Dust and daemons is a somewhat complex one that, from what I've read of the reviews, has bewildered some adult viewers.

Just so my review doesn't come across as some sort of studio-schilling love-letter, there are some flaws in the production. The flow of the action fights the lag of necessary set-ups and explanations to create a strangely choppy rhythm. Frantic chase scenes alternate with very detailed, talky bits, some more interesting than others. Dramatic physical conflicts break up the long travel sequences. The visual sequence used whenever Lyra utilizes the alethiometer gets really repetitive and, speaking of that, I thought that the Master of Jordan College's verbal user's manual for the "Golden Compass" was pretty ambiguous for a twelve-year-old... or a twenty-nine-year-old.

Also, I have to admit that I was a little distracted by the fact that BER hadn't read the books and I would intermittently ask him if it was making any sense. I had a feeling that I was filling in a lot of the exposition in my head with what I knew from the books and wondered if the film was actually leaving lots of gaps for newcomers. My pre-knowledge aided the suspension of disbelief and acceptance of Lyra's world for me. In fact, I might've actually been a little disappointed that there weren't more contrasts to our world.

It is clear that the writer, director and production team of The Golden Compass had to make hard decisions in bringing this project to completion and presenting it to the global audience. They've created a film of incredible beauty, filled with great talent, and (very) lightly underscored with an accessible version of the source material's original message. The books are great... as books. The movie is good... as a movie. The art of adapting the former into the latter is often attempted (ever more so these days) but rarely realized well. As I texted (after seeing the sneak preview) to those who would appreciate knowing it, "Finally, someone gets it right."

I should be doing something else

Monday mornings suck and, despite my best intentions to be productive, I'm taking a little "me" time to do some ridiculously short reviews of the movies I've seen since the strike started.

Pixar's Ratatouille was more appealing to me than The Incredibles, not quite as cute as Monsters Inc. (which still reigns as my favourite Pixar production), and a little more intelligent than A Bug's Life. The visuals of Paris are a love letter to the city (and its vermin) and the human characters in the kitchen are well-developed and interesting. The (steam sanitized) rats running the kitchen was a lot disturbing but, otherwise, it was a sweet, feel-good flick with a realistic humour and real heart.

I'd almost forgotten that I saw Evening earlier this summer. Take that however you'd like. It had one of the most impressive female casts in a long time but my feeling about it was that it missed the mark somehow. Thinking back, I remember thinking it unfair to the younger actresses to be held up in direct contrast to the likes of Vanessa Redgrave and Meryl Streep even if one is Claire Danes and the other is Mamie Gummer, Streep's unfortunately named daughter (the physical resemblance is striking). Collette and Richardson were believable in their roles as the grown-up daughters of the increasingly incoherent Redgrave but the plot seemed muddled somehow and their performances seem superfluous to the love story told by the memory of Redgrave's character.

"Yippe-ki-yay..." you know the drill. I saw Live Free or Die Hard with Pegaroo late in its run and couldn't help but love it for its sheer adrenaline-junkie appeal (and its awfully clever bus ad campaign). The movie is pure popcorn - over-the-top stunts and explosions, wry old-school vs. new-brand philosophies, and the cheap thrill of wondering when the catchphrase is going to be trotted out. Mac Guy Justin Long as the cowardly genius sidekick, Kevin Smith's cameo and Mary Elizabeth Winstead's turn as McClane's daughter backed up Willis' effortless performance as the ultimate loose cannon officer. There were moments, I could swear, that Willis' personal thought of,"What the heck am I still doing this for?" registered on his face while he got his butt kicked by yet another female villain. But, then again, that could be McClane's thought as well.

Call me easily convinced but after watching Michael Moore's newest offering, Sicko, I was all ready to move to France or Cuba. But, wait, the bf points out, we already live in Canada, one of the cinematic bastions of universal health care and you (me, that is) have already lived in the UK, where its NHS is portrayed as another shining beacon of hope by Moore's cameras. In neither country is the health care system seen as a source of warm, fuzzy feelings although most everyone recognizes that what they have is better than what the US offers to its less well-off citizens. As with all of Moore's documentary-style films, Sicko is entertaining and shocking by turns. My personal aversion to blood and injury prevented me from getting as into the movie as with, say, Farenheit 9-11, but it was still educational with that grain of bias-salt that Moore applies liberally to all his projects. P.S. Check out the http://www.hook-a-canuck.com/ website. LOL
EDIT: I went back and found my immediately-after-seeing-the-movie reaction which I posted to Mass Comm's review of Sicko:

"Just saw the movie finally. Don't really have an proper opinion to give on the state of the American health care system, having never lived in it. The representation of the Canadian one seemed typical from what I've experienced. HOWEVER, I have also heard and read the opinions of many individuals who have found Medicare waitlists long and frustrating. Individuals who have flown Stateside to private clinics in order to have their procedures performed. All in all, though, I am appreciative of Canadian health care and hope that the move towards privatization slows and reverses soon. In addition, my time in England gave me an appreciation of the NHS (even though they never handed me cash) despite the seemingly constant complaints about it from those around me. Mostly, that's to do with a shortage of GPs and dentists, I think. Interestingly enough, the day after we saw the movie, I visited a walk-in clinic, a blood-testing centre, and made an appointment at a dermatologist's office. Funny the things that spur one to action.
As for the movie itself as a movie (rather than a commentary), I found it a little on the long side. Usually, Moore films engross me completely but, as I mentioned to Brendan afterwards, my squeamishness about injury sounds (like that guy's shoulder popping out) and what I found to be an intrusive soundtrack prevented me from focussing well on the narrative (?) being told. I thought the Cuban scenes were the most emotionally exploitive which, with some film-makers, I resent but with Moore, I've come to expect and usually respect as one of his best-wielded weapons (since logic and even-handedness ain't). Irony and humour work well for him too. But I'm easily led that way. Brendan's the voice of reason in pointing out the downsides of life in France and Cuba, which I thought looked pretty awesome."

Yes, of course I saw Transformers and, y'know, I didn't hate it. Mind you, the fans were more impressive than a lot of the movie. It's logically problematic (if you could turn into any vehicle, why would you pick a semi and not a tank?). It does little to capture the kitch of the TV series (I really was hoping for energon cubes). And the GM sponsorship downgraded some of the old favourites (Jazz, my favourite Autobot in the movie, pictured left, went from being a Porche to a Pontiac). The action was chaotic and exciting, although it did tend to drag on a little. The eye-candy, token grease-monkey love interest wasn't too annoying. And there were some very amusing visual gags (my favourite is still the Autobots trying to "hide"). Overall, I don't think it was a waste of my money, I was glad I saw it in the theatre, and I might be tempted to see a sequel. Yay, Starscream. Way to keep the dream alive.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was arguably my most anticipated movie of the summer season. Why, I'm not sure since, with the exception of Prisoner of Azkaban, none of them have lived up to my expectations which are, admittedly, pretty high. Since this was the largest book and it was made into the short film, I suspected that there were going to be problems.

And problems there were. But, to keep to the "ridiculously short" length that I promised above, I'll stick to my biggest disappointments and greatest pleasures in this adaptation.

Disappointments:

1) The total disregard for every other plotline besides Harry's (specifically, Neville's)

2) The villification of Cho (but then everything about Cho's portrayal and her relationship with Harry has been a disappointment).

3) The total lack of detail of the Ministry of Magic (I wanted some talking statues, dammit)

Pleasures:

1) The portrayals of both Luna Lovegood and Nymphadora Tonks

2) Thestrals looked pretty cool

3) Teenage angst was turned down significantly

To rank the adaptations of Rowling's work so far, Azkaban remains #1, Goblet of Fire takes second for being perhaps the most faithful adaptation, Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets remain at the bottom simply due to the terrible acting and heavy-handed directing, which plops this one smack in the middle. Not a terrible showing, but bad enough to irk.

Well, that's six so far and, by my count, nine more reviews before I'm caught up. Hopefully, that won't take another five months.

Brushing Fame

A little late but I thought I'd give a quick rundown of my last 48 hours in LA.

Sunday morning was slightly problematic timing for several of us. The time change confused Jewel and Matty as they rushed through their breakfast only to discover that they were early when we ran into them on the corner of Hollywood and Highland. One of our morning panel was still hungover (but when is he not? Oh, right, when he's plastered). Still, he managed to get to his LA storage unit to pick up some "prizes" for us, thereby lightening his load of things requiring moving to NYC. We were a quiet bunch which again left it up to a few of us to keep throwing out inane, and sometimes amusing, questions/comments. The "prizes" were awarded for answering trivia questions about the folks on stage as well as for particularly interesting questions and extraordinarily witty comments. I won a book, a screw (seriously), and a pair of NYC subway handles. I kept the first two and donated the last (pictured below) to Jen and Lynn.

The ladies (not that Rose isn't one) were next and the trash talking continued, this time with Christina jumping into the ring with great enthusiasm.

When asked which Muppet they would be, Christina answered Janice and Jewel said The Count while Morena was informed by Jewel that she would be Oscar. "Why," she asked,"because I live in a garbage can?"

"No," interjected Christina, shaking her head,"It's because you're grouchy. Really grouchy."

The subject of fan fiction was brought up and Christina was fairly innocent about the extent of the adventures that their Firefly characters had gotten up to in the minds of the masses.

"I think our characters have hooked up a lot in fan fic," Morena said to Jewel.

"What about me?" asked Christina,"Have I hooked up?"

"I'm sure you've hooked up a lot," commented Jewel.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Morena,"Just spit it out."

"What? That she's a whore?" remarked Jewel.

"Oh, whore," exclaimed Christina,"I was just thinking pretty."

The talk would probably have continued for a long time in this vein if they hadn't been so rudely interrupted by a backlit figure from the back of the room asking,"Excuse me, ladies, but do any of you know what it's like to make out with Nathan Fillion?"

Cheering and applause erupted as folks recognized their captain (although someone's sure they heard Jewel mutter,"S**t") and he bounded to the stage and leaped onto the women present. Being Nathan, he immediately took centre stage and took control of the questioning. If Firefly were still on the air, where would you live now? What would your character wear? On (insert new program actress is working on), who is your Captain? Does he or she wear pants as tight as mine? The energy level in the room had spiked.

And yes, it was asked,"How much?" in reference to Nathan's shirt. His response? "If you have to ask, you can't afford it," which was amended to,"The shirt's the rental. My usual shirt's in the shop."

Jonathan came out at one point with a bottle of champagne and four glasses, saw Captain Mal and gave a WTF? expression. "Ah, Jonathan Woodward! Let me guess, he's hammered," commented Nathan.
With Nathan there, Jewel and Morena asked him whether he thought Joss would mind if they revealed Inara's backstory. (This had come up during the Saturday Q&A where Jewel and Morena had gone back and forth on it several times before Morena decided that she needed to get Joss' explicit permission first. I believe her exact words were,"He will punish me." When pressured to call him, she said that he wouldn't pick up her phone calls. She didn't seem to believe us when we promised not to tell if she told us. :o) Anyhoo, Nathan didn't think that they should but he did call Joss for us. At least he acted like he did.
My theory is that he called and pretended to talk to Joss except that it was to the machine. He got off the phone and told Morena,"Joss says no and that I get to smack you."

Morena, looking up at Nathan with an adorable expression, said,"Okay!"

Smack = kiss on the cheek apparently.

Suddenly, Nathan's phone rang and it was Joss phoning back to tell them that they couldn't reveal Inara's backstory but they could reveal Book's... and that Nathan gets to smack all the ladies on stage. "Okay!"

Book's backstory (invisi-typed for those of you, like Ron Glass, who would rather not know: Turns out that our good shepherd was not an Operative. Not even an operative. He was a high-ranking and very dirty Alliance police officer. It all makes sense and yet leaves us with more questions. Was he found out? What made him change? Why is his identification still treated with respect by Alliance members? Damn you, Whedon!

Oh, then Mark and Adam had a Q&A. Poor guys. It was fun but it's kind of hard to follow an act that includes Nathan.

And that should've been all my celebrity moments for the weekend (and for the next couple of months) but, as I sat in the LAX boarding area awaiting my flight on Monday morning, I suddenly found myself surrounded by tall guys in matching tracksuits. The LA Galaxy soccer team were travelling up to Vancouver on my plane to play a friendly match with the Vancouver Whitecaps on Wednesday (0-0 draw, btw). David Beckham was the major draw, of course. He sat opposite me for about 40 minutes and was unfailingly polite to all the people, big and little (see right), who came up for photos and autographs. The little girl in the picture was having a tantrum as her mother wheeled her up for an autograph but went very quiet when suddenly face-to-face with Becks. The other players also tried to make her smile. It was very cute to watch as these professional athletes made eye-contact with the toddler and complimented her on her hair-do and doll. I had nothing relevant to sign (boarding pass? laptop?) so I had my picture taken with him instead. Several students and one staff member (interestingly, all female) have since informed me that they hate me. Once again, the nature of celebrity confuses and eludes me. And, if it's news to any of you, other women are weird. Me, I'd be more impressed by my picture with Adam Baldwin.

Still Shiny

... if a little poorer.
These fan conventions are not for the frugal nor, probably, the sensible. In any case, today was The Big Spend. I wonder on some level if the organizer isn't using this first North American convention to test the waters as to how much people are willing to spend. Compared to the Serenity Squared, and this is factoring in the exchange of GBP to USD, this convention is extravagant. Grants, the organizer wanted to bring his own staff which meant the costs of flights and two weeks' accomodation for a dozen people had to be covered by the ticket sales and photo/autograph fees. Even so... did I mention that the main venue is a nightclub and that the bar charges $4 for a Coke and $6 for a bottle of water? Apparently a glass of wine is $10. Anyhoo, enough bellyaching about the cost. It's a given for these sort of things, really. If one were to exert some self-control, it doesn't necessarily need to be such a money-pit. Yeah... but then if the one in question were me... HYPOTHETICALLY :P

Today, the photos were a priority since autographs started in the afternoon and many fans wanted their photos with the guests autographed (I didn't). I had one picture taken yesterday with Ron and three taken today with Christina, Adam and Morena. I'd had one taken with Morena at Serenity Squared but there was a stain on her shirt and I wanted a do-over. I'll scan them in when I got home but I'm pretty happy with them overall since I don't photograph well usually. Of course, the guests don't have that problem. We like our Big Damn Heroes pretty. Unfortunately, some of my friends ended up with blinks and blurs despite the photos being digital. The line-ups were handled pretty efficiently I thought and they managed to get them to us before the autograph session today. The line for Adam was the longest since this is the first Starfury convention he's ever attended and he's had to cancel all of his other appearances this year due to work commitments. He's a high-demand commodity in short supply to the fan-verse. The dude's really tall. And clean-shaven. Totally threw me off this morning. One of the female fans was positively giddy from her exposure to him today. It was cute but I'd hate to think how she would've been if Sean and Nathan had been able to attend as well.

The Q&As were a lot of fun today. Not that yesterdays weren't but because the guests were onstage in pairs or trios, there was a lot of banter that you don't get with singles. First up were Yan Feldman (Mingo), Christina Hendricks, and Ron Glass. (Steven, I don't think I'll be able to remember every word Christina said but I'll paraphrase the best parts that I can recall...)
Yan was mostly asked about being a twin and costuming. One of the most interesting things he mentioned was that when he and Raphael were deciding to try for the roles, which called for Cockney twins, they decided that since they didn't look typically English but were able to carry the accent, they thought they'd go through the entire audition as if they were English. They got through the initial readings and meetings speaking totally in their Cockney accents until they were finally face-to-face with Joss who asked flat-out where they actually were from.
Christina got the biggest laugh of the three although perhaps the credit should go to the person asking the question. To begin with, the question was how she felt about her kissing scenes with Nathan in Firefly. Her response to that was that she couldn't remember specifically except for thinking,"Acting is FUN. Work is FUN." The follow-up to that was,"Did you blow 'em on purpose?" (meaning, of course, whether she had messed up the scenes in order to have a few more takes). But Ron's facial expression and Yan's comment "How could you do that by accident?" left nowhere to go but forward with that train of thought.
Because he had had a Q&A yesterday, Ron didn't feel it necessary to hold a microphone during today's session. His contributions were spoken unamplified but that suited us Browncoat Pass holders in the front tables just fine but I can't speak for the poor schmos in the chairs and standing area. I asked probably more than my share of questions simply in an effort to minimize uncomfortable silences. One of my more embarrassing mis-steps was asking the guests where they thought their characters' lives continued onto after their time on Serenity or Firefly ala Jewel Staite's most recent blog entry on Myspace (wherein she whimsically decided that River and Zoe hook up, Mal, despondent over Wash's death goes crazy, Kaylee and Simon have genius triplets, and Inara takes Jayne to the Companion House for training). Of course, the moment the words were out of my mouth, I looked at Ron (aka the late Shepherd Book) and promptly apologized. Yan tried to propose some sort of necrophilic epilogue but our good Book was having none of that. Yan decided Fanty and Mingo gave into their narcissistic natures and fell in love with each other while Christina saw Saffron taking on new and more interesting identities possibly under the name Dominique. Ron refuted this possibility, stating that Dominique is what they always named the powerful black women in shows like Knots' Landing. Christina's response was that Saffron could do whatever she liked and that included being black. So there.

Between the first two guest Q&As, while many of us were getting photos taken, there was a presentation by the fellas at QMX who have the creative license for Serenity merchandise. (http://www.quantummechanix.com/HOME.html) Their portfolio is truly incredible with beautifully actualized Serenity ship papers, blueprint reference guides (I love the fact they figured out by watching the episodes and movie over and over again that, like many sci-fi vehicles, the insides don't actually fit inside the outside), travel posters & postcards for 'Verse planets, dog tags, Alliance money and replica weapons. For shouting out a correct trivia answer, I manage to nab myself an uncut sheet of Alliance money which would've cost a heap of real money if they were actually available to be purchased. The Serenity model is in the works. We were made privy to their half-scale model, still in development after a year and many expert denials that it couldn't be done, and, although, I doubt I'll ever be able to justify the purchase of one, it was very exciting to see something like that in its early stages.

The second guest Q&A paired Morena with Jewel and the two of them have this incredibly close (Morena was Jewel's maid of honour) and amazingly crass (who, during the maid of honour's speech announced to everyone present that Jewel wasn't wearing underwear) relationship. Jewel took most of the flack in this outing as Morena pulls no punches in trying to entertain us ... at Jewel's expense of course. Thus it was how we learned that Jewel had a particular hate on for a specific Kaylee jumpsuit which was a bit short in the body resulting in discomfort and "camel toe" (Morena's words). The ladies hadn't seen each other in almost a year but Morena sent a gift with a fan to Milton Keynes where Jewel was attending Collectormania last week. It was a photograph of Morena with a speech bubble which read something along the lines of,"Jewel is so wonderful... if you don't mind eating horse s**t!" Still, being the awesome friend, Jewel had ordered a bottle of champagne to arrive midway through the session to keep Morena's spirits buoyed. One very interesting question posed came from an Aussie Browncoat who asked Morena (because he had already asked Jewel at a previous con) who she would choose to make out with in a film if she had to pick a woman. Before she could answer, he informed us all that Jewel had picked Jessica Alba. This elicited a very dramatic reaction from Jewel's husband, Matt, who was sitting by the side of the stage. Apparently, he had put Jessica Alba on his "Top Five" list last night and she had taken him to task for that. Meanwhile, Morena was "hurt" and wouldn't pick Jewel since Jewel hadn't picked her. Jewel relented and decided to change her choice... and picked Gina. Morena eventually picked Eva Green. Yeah, guy readers, you can all just stop reading now. It doesn't get better than that this post.

Adam and Mark came out for the last of our guest Q&As. A lot of the questions posed to them centred on acting technique, character development, and props. Mark said something along the lines of the simulation of authenticity in an environment of the imagination which struck a neat chord with me and both of them stand by the motto that no one plays a villain. Mark, when asked about the roles he chooses, made the statement that there are two kinds of great roles in acting - that of the last sane man in the universe and that of the guy who sold him out before leaving. He feels that all his best roles fall into those categories. Adam explained that the hardest scene he ever played was one as a teenager where he had to emote about killing a man with absolutely no acting training. It was a pivotal scene in his career as it sent him running to New York to learn how to act. Of course, he also said that he got no work while in NYC. Mark shared some intriguing bits of backstage drama. First, when he was despairing over his first Firefly scenes, Adam strolled by and told him to take it easy, that the reason Badger's lines were written so difficult was because Joss had been writing for himself. He had fully intended to play the role himself but the higher-ups decided against it in the end. Mark credits Adam with saving his sanity to no small degree. When he did a guest spot on Star Trek: Voyager, he fell victim to the Janeway vs. Seven of Nine battle wherein the battlelines were drawn between the two camps and because he had spent some time discussing their scene with Jeri Ryan, Kate Mugrew played her entire scene with him without looking at him. He discussed Katie Sackoff from Battlestar Galactica as an actor savant in that she doesn't seem to realize how good she is and stated that her instincts are so accurate that one would be a fool not to go with them. He also let it be known that at least one actor on BSG has been told that they are the fifth Cylon when they AREN'T. The scripts for the final season are under such tight wraps that the producers have admitted that it is possible that they will shoot red herring scenes. He did say that his character, Romo, would be having a very informative discussion with one of the three (?) Adamas in this last season. I hope that was interesting to some of my readers.

Finally, there were the autographs. Once again, Adam's line was the longest and this time, because autograph times are chances for more personal interaction than Q&As and photographs, it was also pretty slow-moving. Two of my four freebies were gifts for friends since I had as many autographs as I needed from those particular BDHs. Ron signed a black and white headshot which I'll add to my 8x10 wall display at home. I ended up with SIX items for Adam to sign including my freebie and one which was requested by a friend. (By the way, anyone who really wants my money just needs to arrange a Gina signing session...) My impulse buy today was a Fanty and Mingo 8x10 which had been pre-signed by Raphael who couldn't attend due to his honeymoon (sheesh) and which was such a great companion shot to my Buffy Xander x 2 picture from Collectormania. (If they'd had a Joanie shot from Mad Men, Steven, it would've been in your stocking this year but there were no pics better than the one you already have.)

Dinner was at California Pizza in the Hollywood Blvd Center tonight and at least four booths were Browncoat dens. This was followed by the second Meet 'n' Greet with a slightly different crew. Adam and Nectar joined Jewel (and husband Matt), Morena, Ron and Mark. There were surprise drop-ins by J. August Richards (Gunn from Angel) and Adrienne Wilkinson (Livia from Xena:Warrior Princess. Jonathan was hosting the Alliance Pass holders' party at a different venue and Christina and Yan might've attended that one or called it an early night. I stayed a little later tonight but actually spent more time chatting with other Browncoats. Morena made a thorough circuit of the room so she stopped by our table for a talk and I discussed the idea of a Vancouver con with Sean Harry a bit more. Nectar came by our booth right when she arrived and she let us know that she'd tried to make it to the party last night (still painted gold from the shoot) but that she was falling asleep at the wheel as she drove back into LA and Sean had told her to just go home. I had a quick chat with Jewel (who still thinks hosting a cocktail party at a tequila bar is strange yet effective) and Matt and came home to report on this very full day since I'm sure that if I don't do it promptly, things will get badly muddled in my head.

Geek Girl Glee

So I probably didn't approach my La-La-Land getaway in the most sensible fashion. Instead of having all my luggage packed and ready to go early on Thursday night and getting a good night's rest, I went to my knitting cast-on party (I'll write something on the other, badly-neglected blog about that), then came home and packed and prepared until about 3am. I catnapped until 4:30am and then called a taxi to take me to the airport for the surprisingly crowded check-in. 0630hrs saw my flight take off and we landed at LAX some three hours later, me being unconscious for most of that (the snack cart left a cookie for me on my fold-down table). There was a long wait for the shuttle to the hotel and more time spent by the driver circling the airport, hoping to pick up more passengers. I fell asleep again en route to the hotel. When we arrived, there were plenty of obvious Browncoats hanging around, checking in, and making their way to the registration and event venue so I knew I was in the right place.
Registration took place in the front room of the Element Night Club. Slight typo on my Browncoat pass (they left out the "i" in my name) so not only am I skiving off from school this weekend, I'm all incognito as well. I had my picture taken with Ron Glass and then managed to take over 70 photos of him, Jonathan Woodward and Nectar Rose during their respective Q&As. Having played Mr. Universe's Lovebot, Lenore, in Serenity, I naturally assumed that her name was assumed for career purposes. Nope, really and truly, she was born and named Nectar Rose. And she's a very funny and genuinely sweet speaker who recently filmed a movie with Christopher Walken and is currently working on a Fellini-esque project where she gets painted gold and which she freely admits she does not understand. Ron was more a no-nonsense sort of a speaker and Jonathan had difficulty distinguishing his whisky glass from his microphone.
Managed to connect with Jen, the Travelling Aussie Browncoat, who had left some stuff in Vancouver when she moved home. I packed most of it down here with me and we made the luggage transfer once we got back to the hotel. As it was dinner-time, a group of us headed to the Italian restaurant next to the Element and had a nice meal in truly amazing surroundings while being serenaded by various members of the wait staff. The restaurant, Miceli's, is a family-run place in its original building from 1949. Heavy wooden beams, parquay floor and hundreds of Italian wine jugs strung everywhere give it's multi-floor set-up a very unique vibe. Especially with the piano-man playing accompaniament to the auditioned waiters (we didn't hear any woman sing but there were a couple women serving tables). www.micelisrestaurant.com The food was simple, flavourful fare and they don't skimp on the cheese.
Following dinner, we headed to La Cantina for the Meet 'n' Greet. Several cast members had been contracted to come out for a few drinks (Jonathan's always looking for a topper) and I had some very nice discussions with Christina Hendricks (it's a travesty that they don't have Mad Men photos for autographing), Mark Sheppard (who likes Vancouver very much, thank you) and Yan Feldman (raised in Toronto, it turns out). Jewel, her husband Matt, Morena (with short, short hair), Jonathan and Ron were there as well, extremely gracious and welcoming to all the eager but tongue-tied masses.
Tomorrow, Adam joins the throng (he was busy filming Chuck today) and the big Browncoat autograph session is in the afternoon. Squee! Adam's autograph will be the second last on my matte-framed nine-shot of the cast. Gina (and Joss, of course) remains the glaring hole in my collection. Now if I can just convince Sean Harry to host a convention in Vancouver!

Once a Month...

That's apparently all I'm capable of posting these days. Apologies to my loyal readers (but I'm still doing better than the bro. :P

The big news would be that the strike is over. As our main issue was that of pay equity and the Library Board refused to admit that there even is a pay equity issue at VPL, Library Workers had the hardest battle to fight and ended up having to content ourselves with the smallest victory. I'm admittedly a bit bitter about the whole thing. And, sadly, the knitting seems to have aggravated the RSI from last year. However, our final tally was about $4000 raised with over 200 other items going to the less fortunate.

I'm off to Los Angeles next weekend for Serenity LA and am looking forward to spoiling my inner geek-girl for four whole days. There was some stress about how to get some time off in order to be able to take in all the events but that resolved itself beautifully.

Weekend after that is the "in lieu of Christmas" visit to San Fran to see the aforementioned bro and Mum.

Then on Dec 21st, the House Elf and I are off to the Big Smoke and two weeks of proper British hospitality! Tickets for the Ewan McGregor & Chiwetel Ejiofor production of Othello went on sale last Monday, 0900hrs GMT, which meant, of course, that I was up until 0200hrs PST Monday morning repeatedly dialling the Donmar Warehouse box office phone number until getting a ring-ring, being put on hold for 20 minutes and then placing my reservation with the "you live in such a beautiful city" lass on the other end. (Online tickets were not available.) End result: we have excellent seats on exactly the evening we were hoping to get. The late night was worth it too since the entire run was sold out by the time I got to school. Woot!

In between the upcoming globe-trotting (and, to be fair, I've been very much the homebody for the last year or so), I'm still waiting to hear if my teaching contract gets extended past the Christmas holidays. My classes have been filling up. Last year, I don't think I had more than one of the seven classes with more than 5 students. This year, I've only got one left with less than 5. Mostly nice kids, though. Mind you, as I've said before, nothing fazes me after my experiences in England. Which makes it a little strange that I'm so eager to go back, I guess.

In less interesting news, I've apparently developed a penchant for picking fights with pregnant acquaintances. Or they have with me. First, there was the mass Facebook sending of this YouTube video:


which seems pretty counter-intuitive since the sender, someone I knew in my teenage years, actually spends her entire commentary saying that the message is from the "loonie left" (I've since corrected her on the spelling of looney) I responded that the video may be a bit idealistic but the tenets seemed sound and not all that radical and pointed out that at the end of the video he asks everyone to forward the video on, which is exactly what she did. Her response was extensive and it seems that her spelling gets even worse when she's agitated.

In the second case of fight-picking, I was sent a mass forwarded email from one of my classmates from Chilliwack wherein it (the email) proclaims that the upcoming release of the film The Golden Compass is one of the most anti-Catholic, dangerous and evil things to ever come about. I'll point out first for the uninformed, the story in The Golden Compass takes places in an alternate universe. The Catholic contingent is focussed on the fact that the clergy who serve The Authority in this alternate universe are corrupt. I responded to this email by letting her know that I enjoyed the books and that I am looking forward to the movie. I might've even recommended that she read them as they are a fitting homage to John Milton's Paradise Lost. Her response was as you'd expect (long) but she did promise not to send anymore propaganda my way at the end of her diatribe on how the popular media targets the Catholic Church. I replied "Thanks" and left it at that.

In both cases, I find myself frustrated that I've wasted as much time thinking (and fuming) on these incidents as I have. I know that people's feelings about politics and religion are impossible to debate logically with. I know that I'm not even that logical a debater. And in both cases, I politely informed the ladies-in-waiting that I was not interested in trying to convince them to change their views and that I wouldn't be appreciative of their attempts to sway me from mine. Well, maybe not in so many words but I was polite. Except about the spelling.

It's All Been Done

Wow, has it ever been a long time... and yet very little has actually changed.
Vancouver Library's still out on strike although there may be a little light at the end of the tunnel. We know better than to get our hopes up too high after nine weeks on the picket line but it's something at least.
Also, I'm back in the same classroom as I had last May and June. The usual suspects are pushing my buttons and making my days (alternately and at the same time, some days). There was also a huge element of chaos at the beginning of the year with an unexpected extra 102 students enrolling.
The combination of full-time teaching, getting my 20 hrs of picket time in each week, and still trying to have a social life is getting pretty exhausting. And it seems to be affecting my mood.
Life goes on, as they say, and some days it really does seem to be an exercise in futility. I observed this morning that I don't understand how anyone gets out of high school alive and yet sometimes it seems that we're all still stuck in "high school". Cheerful, eh?
If I were to focus on the positive, it would have to be all about the truly inspiring things that have been happening on the picket line. We started the "Knitting in Solidarity" right at the beginning of the strike to give knitter/picketers the option to get some projects done while putting in their strike duty. It evolved to become an educational and charitable program when several people who have never knitted (or knitted a long, long time ago) picked up the needles and started creating some amazing items. Those who felt confident enough started knitting hats for the homeless and those in need. Soon we had over a hundred hats! Then the idea to sell some of the hats took root, with the proceeds going in their entirety to the Hardship Fund which is providing loans for CUPE 391 members who are suffering the most - deferring mortgage payments, tuition, credit card bills, etc.
To date, the Solidarity Knitters have produced over 300 items (scarves & wristies have been added to the repetoire) and raised well over $2000 for the Hardship Fund. I am constantly amazed at how productive and selfless the group has been. Not only that, but there have been donations of knitting needles and yarn from all quarters. Early on, one donation of three new skeins came from one of the "bottle collectors" that works the downtown core. Said his father had been an active member of CUPE 500 in Winnipeg and that he wanted to help us out. Nearly made me cry.
Besides the Knitorious Knitters, there have been rallys, potlucks, BBQs, concerts, auctions, haiku days (just TRY writing a relevant 3-line poem with a 3-9-1 syllable structure) and human alphabet soup. We have a virtual library of videos addressing all our major issues and celebrating the solidarity that has only grown stronger with every day of this mean-spirited and unnecessary strike.
And the other up-note for me today? Only THIRTEEN more Fridays until Christmas holidays!