Thursday, February 12, 2009

Dose o' Babble

On richarddawkins.net, I posted about wanting to help get the atheist bus campaign going in NYC. No response. Maybe I should just bug the Poohbah, himself?

:/

Finished Hitchens' book on Thomas Jefferson, just started his book on George Orwell--I can't get enough of the way he writes and talks. I'd read a laundry list if Hitchens wrote it.

Also reading "The Anvil of the World", by Kage Baker. Not as good as her Company novels, but still incredibly engaging. After that, the first three novels of Glen Cook's The Black Company series. An omnibus I'm tempted to steal, I love it so much.

Comfort reads, eh?

Stuck on a loop in my head? "This Is Hallowe'en", the revisited version by Marilyn Manson. Weird thing is, I don't particularly care for "The Nightmare Before Christmas". It's Tim Burton, but . . . meh. It's still my least favorite of his movies.

And just when I managed to get the revisited version of "What's This?" by Flyleaf out of my head. . . .

Also peeked into "Descartes ' Bones", by Russell Shorto. Read about thirty pages to see if I could get into it. I like it, so far.

Finally, finally, after a month and half of waiting, am getting my turn at "Doubt", as well as "Infidel", and "The God Who Wasn't There".

"Religulous" comes out on dvd next week, for which I'll do a dignified squee.

:squee:

I'll have to stop by Best Buy or just Amazon it.

"Friday the 13th" comes out tomorrow. I might see that with the movie group, or just get blisteringly drunk at a friend's Friday 13th party. Or maybe I'll just get blisteringly drunk and see the movie, thus killing the de-soberifying and embarrass-my-friends birds with one mighty, Jack Daniels-flavored stone.

I like to multi-task.

Writercon, in July! I'm such ashameless fangrrrl. To the tune of a grand, even. C'est la vie!

I'm gonna watch RoTK till I fall asleep. All hail Frodo!



"No horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace." --HP Lovecraft

5 comments:

  1. I'm gonna watch RoTK till I fall asleep. All hail Frodo!

    You have earned a well-deserved place in Frodo's heart!

    I watched Doubt yesterday. It was very well acted, Philip Seymour Hoffman in particular did an excellent job of being that Catholic priest every alter boy loves to trust. Still, I wasn't enthralled with the film as a whole. The ending seemed like it belonged to a different movie. Let me know what you think.

    Which is your favorite book of Hitchens so far? I've had Portable Atheist on my bookshelf for a while, but haven't got around to reading it. Perhaps because it's in no way portable. I'm still stuck reading The Origin of Species. That Victorian prose I was so excited about? Turns out it makes everything twice as long as it needs to be. *Sigh*

    I've never actually seen Nightmare Before Christmas, and I hated Sweeney Todd. I think I've seen Sleepy Hollow about five or six times though. I remember enjoying Batman Returns too, way back when. And while we're on Batman, am I the only one who thought The Dark Knight was completely overrated? Sure, Heath Ledger's dead, but that's not a free pass to the Oscars, is it?

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  2. Religulous is available on YouTube: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=religulous&dur=3&emb=0#

    I watched it a few weeks ago - it's pretty good.

    I'm interested in seeing Doubt too - the cast looks good.

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  3. FS: Sure, Heath Ledger's dead, but that's not a free pass to the Oscars, is it?

    That is either the best or worst thing I've ever read :)

    Alas, I'll have to wait on Doubt the movie. It left the theater in my town really quick. But Doubt, the book (by Jennifer Hecht, nothing to do with the movie) is almost within my grasp.

    Hitchens' book on Thomas Paine was the one that really kicked off my interest in the Enlightenment, though God Is Not Great was pretty damn good, too. And hah! The Portable Atheist isn't very portable, at all. Well, compared to an Oxford Dictionary, I suppose. . . .

    And who knew Victorian prose wouldn't make for an enthralling read? You got jobbed.

    Loved Sweeney Todd, hated Sleepy Hollow--and if there's on actor I like more than Johnny Depp--and there are many--it's Christopher Walken. Couldn't get into Sleepy Hollow. So, that's actually my least favorite Burton film. I'd sooner watch Nightmare.

    My favorite is Beetle Juice, though Edward Scissorhands often switch-hits for fave. I'll allow Batman Returns was not without merit. Danny DeVito made it worthwhile, and Michelle Pfeiffer was eye-candy :)

    How did you hate Sweeney Todd? It was awesome. The kid that played Toby--decent voice, if it was his. Tragic, wonderful dynamic between Toby and Mrs. Lovett.

    I can't say The Dark Knight was overrated because I actually thought it'd suck, and was blown away when it didn't. Normally, I hate Batman, as a character and a fandom (except for the Joker and Harley Quinn).

    I was only interested in Ledger's turn as the Joker, and I wasn't disappointed, lol. I'd say that if any acting job in the film was Oscar caliber--and I'd have to see who the other noms in the category are to go that far--it'd be Ledger's. His performance made an otherwise okay film into something that wasn't great, but pretty good. Though my mind sometimes wandered when he wasn't onscreen.

    TC: Thanks for the link--dunno why I didn't think to YouTube it.

    I meant Doubt, by Jennifer Hecht, which you were kind enough to recommend. But yeah, the movie looks good, too. I'll see anything with Meryl Streep that isn't Mamma Mia. And Philips Seymour Hoffman is icing on the cake. Sadly, Doubt came and went from our local cinema so fast, I didn't get a chance to see it. DVD will have to suffice. Though--

    I'll check YouTube :D

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  4. I'm glad you got Hecht's book - Doubt. She has lots of good stuff in there.

    Re: Hitchens - I enjoyed God is Not Great. Hitchens writes astonishingly well. I just finished The Portable Atheist the other night. It's not very portable, but I like the fact that one doesn't have to read it straight through, or all at once to keep the train of thought. An anthology like that is great when one wants to read but only has a little bit of time here and there.

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  5. How did you hate Sweeney Todd? It was awesome. The kid that played Toby--decent voice, if it was his. Tragic, wonderful dynamic between Toby and Mrs. Lovett.

    Hmm, a few reasons.

    I suppose if Burton hadn't done Sleepy Hollow, the cinematographic style would have been more novel. It's like when you were 13 and someone insults you, and you think of the perfect comeback an hour later. Burton probably thought "oh, now that would've been a good story to do in my grainy, washed out, high contrast style." But that was a minor gripe.

    The singing sort of pissed me off. Musicals stick their necks out in that the sheer number of songs means you're either going to move people, or seriously piss them off. Add two leads who had trouble singing, and you've got a problem on your hands.

    Other than that, my biggest gripe was that the villain - Alan Rickman's character - was not believable. The scene where he sentences the boy to hanging is so farcical I couldn't really take it seriously.

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