The Garden of Discordia

During about 1/3 of the viewing of Black Swan, which I saw with my mother last weekend, my face looked very much like the icon.

I had avoided fannish reviews, since most were spoiler-warned and I figured I might eventuellay possibly see that movie one day. I had only read the teensy-tiny review in the paper which went, basically, "Pretty movie, great acting, see this!"

Nowhere had I caught that this was also a seriously disturbing movie. I mean, jeepers creepers, when I think "ballet movie" I think a movie that might make you interested in watching ballet and, if you're a) young b) impressionable c) both, to perhaps even try dancing it on your own.*

HAHA no chance of that with Black Swan! Yes, it often looks good (though I hate the shaky-cam they do when she's walking in the beginning. Motion sickness, hi there!), the emotions are very raw and gripping and I walked out of the cinema convinced that pro-level ballet will fuck your shit up. Badly.
Though Natalie Portman looked Good with the net veil in that last part, I have to tell you.

*This is not the fault of any reviewer or anything. Wikipedia calls it "psychological thriller" in the first line. I am just dense, ok?

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Further viewings: Sherlock! Only a couple of months after everyone else and, as usual, it was lanjelin who dealt me the crack.

It was good, especially episode one. And three, but it introduced Moriarty and if you fail that well, then you just fail at life Sherlock Holmes.

I still prefer the Granada version, because as cute as young modern Sherlock is, nobody outclasses Jeremy Brett. (He's v. v. cute tho)

There were a lot of interesting camera angles and other tricks going on in this version - the little hovering text links, the all-encompassing usage of cell phones and computers, and probably plenty of other things I didn't catch. Some day, when I have time (lolz) I want to take a class in "Movies and What They Use to Reel Us In 101".

I've done a quick read-through of fics, but I find that I'm not all that captured yet, not in the fannish way. Perhaps it will change when we get more story, I'm still feeling my way around the characters a bit too much to buy into any fannish characterization to be honest. Especially since I know that we will get more - which I will absolutely watch a bit faster

Lastly, I spent a bit more than a week being quite ill and so retreated to my favorite reading: Discworld ♥ And because the upcoming Discworld book, Snuff (working title) is about Vimes, I decided to re-read the watch novels. Yes, all of them - when I don't have anything to do except lounge around at home because even the 20 minute walk to school leaves me sweaty and shivering with exhaustion, I read fast.

( Tiny bit of the blurb for Snuff )

Oh, this'll be good!

I had a sudden craving for Pratchett recently and read Nation and Unseen Academicals again. Perhaps influence by the football fever in Germany...?

Anyway, they're both so good that I get all happy. And sad-ish, because how am I supposed to follow those up? It's not just the story but - particularly in Nation - what the book says. How it says it, too

I look forward to the last Tiffany Aching book so much, and at the same time, I suspect I may well cry when I read it. Because it might just be the last book from Terry Pratchett and that hurts.