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Snarry Games!; Judas Kiss; and RiffTrax!
Apr. 17th, 2007 01:59 pmHeads up, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yammerhead: The ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
snarry_games have commenced! (Nee "snarry_olympics". Someone actually got the Olympic Committee involved, who issued a cease and desist order to our lil LJ community. Yet Olympic Paint and Olympic Airways (as well as Olympic Parks in countless cities) still stand unopposed.)
I celebrated the Inaugural Ceremonies by marching about the house singing the Olympic theme and the 1812 Overture alternately, until Tery declared that I was destroying everything she held dear...then she began writing lyrics set to the Olympic theme with liberal use of the words "butt sex."
However, my celebration might have been a bit premature. The very first entry in the Games is a 77,000+ word story that I gave the old college try, but it had some sizable strikes against it. First, the author's notes explained it was loosely based on one of the first Snarries I ever started to read, Mirror of Maybe; see here for a reminder of how bad I thought that story was. Still, being theOlympics Games and a different author, I started reading it anyway. Within the first two pages, I noticed that the author is absurdly fond of the word "clearly", as in "Snape clearly didn't believe him" or "Hermione and Ron entered, having clearly just woken up." After noting this phrase used literally once in every other paragraph, I started to resent subsequent appearances. The story would be forgotten as I glared balefully and disbelievingly at the word repeated yet again. This morning, having read about 3/4 of the story, I've decided that these things aside it isn't really a very good story and I'm not wasting another minute on it -- apart from the one I spent using the "find" feature on my computer to actually count the "clears" or "clearlys". There were 96. Lazy. Lazy and inexcusable, especially in a story supposedly beta'd (or proofread) by a second party before posting. I'd say as much in the comments if I didn't think I'd be drowned out by all the sycophants squeeing their adoration from the highest mountaintops. Snarry fans clearly aren't a very discerning lot.
~*~
In honor of the Games (and because I had the day off), I watched one of the older Rickman vehicles I'd caught in my Tivo net, Judas Kiss. This is about a simple kidnapping gone awry when a senator's wife is killed in the process. It starts out fast in the middle of the kidnapping. The kidnappers' dialogue is glib, clever and sounds entirely too rehearsed, with stilted pauses to allow the next actor to speak. Because of that added to my man being nowhere in sight, I didn't think I'd like the movie very much. But eventually they calm down and speak more naturally, and eventually Alan appears as the grumpy, tired cop forced to take on the murder case despite vociferous protests (I've noticed Alan plays grumpy a lot, not that he doesn't do it well. Perhaps this is why I liked Snow Cake so much, he's finally allowed to show an emotion other than peeved). He speaks with an American accent and worse, a pseudo-New Orleans accent which, like his accent in Dark Harbor, fades in and out of existence. To top it off, his partner on the case is federal agent Emma Thompson, who manages a better and more consistent N'awlins drawl but still, in their first scene together I got the feeling they were both secretly grinning madly at being two British actors playing these roles. As Tery put it, "Did they run out of Americans?"
As the film goes on, we get to know the kidnappers better and they become more sympathetic. Alan gets to be very manly in one scene, wielding a golf club to pound the truth out of a corrupt cop. The plot thickens and becomes very twisty and turny indeed, up to a very surprising but satisfying ending. And yes, Alan sort of runs in one scene, but his girlish gait can be excused by the fact that his ankle is supposed to be broken.
My other catch is Quigley Down Under, which I suspect I might not enjoy as much. We'll see.
~*~
Finally, how did this escape my notice for so long? Mike Nelson and friends from MST3k riff on such recent films as The Matrix, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Lord of the Rings, The Fifth Element and Reign of Fire (I would have given anything to listen to that last while Chris' DVD was still in my possession). You download the mp3 file and play it along with your DVD at home, creating your own homemade MST3k session. Brilliant! Last night I gave X-Men a go. Just what the doctor ordered for MST3k fans seriously jonesing for new material.
yammerhead: The snarry_games have commenced! (Nee "snarry_olympics". Someone actually got the Olympic Committee involved, who issued a cease and desist order to our lil LJ community. Yet Olympic Paint and Olympic Airways (as well as Olympic Parks in countless cities) still stand unopposed.)I celebrated the Inaugural Ceremonies by marching about the house singing the Olympic theme and the 1812 Overture alternately, until Tery declared that I was destroying everything she held dear...then she began writing lyrics set to the Olympic theme with liberal use of the words "butt sex."
However, my celebration might have been a bit premature. The very first entry in the Games is a 77,000+ word story that I gave the old college try, but it had some sizable strikes against it. First, the author's notes explained it was loosely based on one of the first Snarries I ever started to read, Mirror of Maybe; see here for a reminder of how bad I thought that story was. Still, being the
~*~
In honor of the Games (and because I had the day off), I watched one of the older Rickman vehicles I'd caught in my Tivo net, Judas Kiss. This is about a simple kidnapping gone awry when a senator's wife is killed in the process. It starts out fast in the middle of the kidnapping. The kidnappers' dialogue is glib, clever and sounds entirely too rehearsed, with stilted pauses to allow the next actor to speak. Because of that added to my man being nowhere in sight, I didn't think I'd like the movie very much. But eventually they calm down and speak more naturally, and eventually Alan appears as the grumpy, tired cop forced to take on the murder case despite vociferous protests (I've noticed Alan plays grumpy a lot, not that he doesn't do it well. Perhaps this is why I liked Snow Cake so much, he's finally allowed to show an emotion other than peeved). He speaks with an American accent and worse, a pseudo-New Orleans accent which, like his accent in Dark Harbor, fades in and out of existence. To top it off, his partner on the case is federal agent Emma Thompson, who manages a better and more consistent N'awlins drawl but still, in their first scene together I got the feeling they were both secretly grinning madly at being two British actors playing these roles. As Tery put it, "Did they run out of Americans?"
As the film goes on, we get to know the kidnappers better and they become more sympathetic. Alan gets to be very manly in one scene, wielding a golf club to pound the truth out of a corrupt cop. The plot thickens and becomes very twisty and turny indeed, up to a very surprising but satisfying ending. And yes, Alan sort of runs in one scene, but his girlish gait can be excused by the fact that his ankle is supposed to be broken.
My other catch is Quigley Down Under, which I suspect I might not enjoy as much. We'll see.
~*~
Finally, how did this escape my notice for so long? Mike Nelson and friends from MST3k riff on such recent films as The Matrix, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Lord of the Rings, The Fifth Element and Reign of Fire (I would have given anything to listen to that last while Chris' DVD was still in my possession). You download the mp3 file and play it along with your DVD at home, creating your own homemade MST3k session. Brilliant! Last night I gave X-Men a go. Just what the doctor ordered for MST3k fans seriously jonesing for new material.
