Geek Heaven

Today Tracy and I went to Salt Lake Comic Con. (By the way no matter what I do Blogger messes with the pictures and text so this post is a little messy)  It was a lot of standing in lines and crazy sensory overload and paying $20 for cold pizza and soda, but it was also amazing.  I've been in love with TV and movies and geek stuff for most of my life, so the kid in me was pretty darn gleeful about all of this.

Some of our highlights:

One of the few things on Tracy's Comic Con To-Do list was his picture with Han Solo in Carbonite - it's one of the first things we did .... he was a little cold though :-)










When I first heard about Stephen Amell the lead actor in Arrow coming to Comic Con I said "It would be so awesome if he did a panel...but that would probably never happen"  ....  well, sometimes you get what you wish for...

The next panel we went to was Shannon Hale and Brandon Mull, a lot of fun, and much lower key.  Nice to be in the same room with one of your favorite actors and one of your favorite authors in the same day.







One thing that was also a lot of fun is that there was a ton of awesome geek stuff there to buy, but we kept it down to a fairly respectable minimum.- Here's our small haul: a Comic Con Pin with a flying superhero, a button with the Arrow's catchphrase and a Doctor Who keychain.  The whole batch cost us less than lunch :-)   We also, at the last minute found some vinyl window stickers so our new car named "Clark" will have a Superman sticker in the back window.


























The other great fun in the vendor row was visiting Chris and Stacia at their HobbyTown USA booth.  It was a busy spot, but I did manage to get Tracy and Chris in the same photo.

And the last stop for our night (apologies for the repeat for those of you on Facebook) was a  picture with Stephen Amell.   The one funny random moment was that while we were standing in line for this photo, Tracy suddenly turned me the other direction as a someone brushed past me.  I turned and had to suppress a squeak when I realized it was actor Manu Bennett (another actor from Arrow that I'm fond of) 

This photo op was super fast, but Stephen Amell seemed really nice and I met some really fun people while we were waiting in line.   This picture also shows off Tracy's "Have you tried turning it off and on again t-shirt" which got tons of comments from people.

I'm not sure I'd go to ComicCon again necessarily, it was a long, crazy day, but I'm so glad I got a chance to do it and that I got to do it with my amazing husband! 

Oatmeal, Jeans, and Captain America

So I don't have it in me to actually post anything serious but here's some random stuff from this week:

-Bought ridiculously healthy/fancy instant oatmeal yesterday (organic with blueberries and flax seed) in the vain hope that I might actually eat it for breakfast - this morning I did, and it actually tasted pretty decent.  Surprisingly the flax seed's crunch made me like the texture a lot better.

-Broke down and ordered some clothes online (after looking for jeans in three separate stores, seriously plus size skinny jeans - who thinks this is a good idea?) and I actually liked all three things I ordered when they got here.  And the really good news, the jeans are a little big, I'll have to go down a size if I order them again.

-Tracy and I went and saw the new Captain America movie on Friday night and I LOVED it.  I sort of feel like Captain America and Superman have a similar vibe, so this is not surprising.  There were so many things I liked - but especially the fact that they actually had a female character in a superhero movie who didn't have to be "the girl."  Black Widow is kind of awesome. 

-Oh, and HAPPY EASTER everybody!

Grateful

This has been one of those spots in my life where things have just been happier.   Even with having two weird flare ups of not feeling well, it's still been a amazing couple of weeks.   On the serious real-life side of things I have an internship with the Church Archives starting in January.  Still only part-time, but it's really interesting work that's going to pay decently.  That combined with teaching for the U and for SLCC actually makes me feel downright employable.  It's an extremely good feeling.

I've also watched three good movies in the last week.  First, Thor 2 last Saturday, then the epic Doctor Who special screening on Monday, and today Catching Fire.  All three of them were respectably clean and thoroughly entertaining.  It was a great run at the movies.  It also reminds me of how grateful I am to be married to the world's best movie buddy.  Tracy isn't nearly as in to Doctor Who as I am, yet he still went with me and we had a really fantastic time. 

There's also been a bunch of other things, both serious and silly that have gone on in the last few weeks.  I got to babysit my friend Pam's little boy this week for a couple of hours, and in spite of going through the terrible two's he was a total angel for me.  My long standing favorite show  (Castle) and my new favorite show (Arrow) had great episodes that were again respectably clean and also mushy.   I had a great chats on the phone with my Mom and my cousin Jennie.  Thanksgiving dinner turned out really yummy.  I got the "Jayne's Cunning Hat" card while playing the Firefly board game with Chris, Stacia and Tracy.  Tracy's Mom and Aunt came for a visit last weekend.   It's almost December and I went outside without a coat today. I got an amazingly sweet note from my friend Becky.  In fact, it's been so awesome, I feel like I'm forgetting things.

And can I just say again that I'm married to the most amazing-perfect-fit husband on the planet!

Like I said it's been a lovely few weeks.  I definitely have a lot to be grateful for. 

Hobby Mania

I have too many hobbies.

Seriously -  here's a list of things I do, or am learning how to do, or feel like I should be learning how to do (at least the ones I can think of at the moment):

-Writing Fiction (though this should be a profession, but it's a hobby until someone pays me for it)
-Writing Poetry
-Reading Books
-Papercrafts (Cards, scrapbooking, etc.)
-Crafts (anything not falling into the above category, including jewelry making, decoupage, home decor DIY....I'm beginning to think this list would be freakishly long if it weren't for the word "crafts")
-Learning to play the Piano
-Crochet
-Gardening
-Cooking
-Baking
-Camping
-Postcard Collecting
-Watching TV
-Going to the Movies 

This list does not count the things -  like learning to play the guitar -  that I started enough to actually buy books for, but never did anything with.  (Though this is part of why Tracy talked to me after coming home teaching and asked me out on a date so I'm pretty happy about that one) It also doesn't count things - like playing volleyball - that my younger self was good at, but I can no longer really do.

Apparently I like projects and goals and learning new things.  However, I sometimes think that save item #1, my sheer number of hobbies keeps me from being particularly good at any of them.  Yet they also keep me doing things that are happy and productive.  (Even those last two have helped me make friends.)   I sometimes just wish I had a little better focus, and a few more hours in the day.

The Geek Girl Bucket List

So recently on Pinterest I saw someone's geek bucket list,  a list of amazing - very fictional - things one would like to do if it were possible.  And because I had a cranky morning, I decided I needed something silly and fun to do for a minute, so here's my own version.  

One thing that struck me about the list on Pinterest though was how many of the things sounded cool in theory, but when you really thought about it would be kind of horrible.  Seriously, super powers sound awesome, but I don't know that I want all that responsibility.   So I tried to make my list things that really did sound fun to me.  (And even with that, numbers 4, 6, and 7 I would only want to do on a day when I was feeling particularly resilient.) 


Jenel's Geek Girl Bucket List
1. Temporarily replace Jimmy Olsen as photographer of the The Daily Planet (Superman)
2. Join a book club with Lorelai and Rory Gilmore (Gilmore Girls)
3. Work a case with Castle and Beckett (Castle)
4. Work a case with Sherlock and John (Sherlock)
5. Become the official historian of Starfleet (Star Trek)
6. Co-pilot the Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)
7. Co-pilot Serenity (Firefly)
8. Convince The Doctor, preferably Ten, to take me back in time to meet Abraham Lincoln (Doctor Who)
9. Become Minerva McGonagall's teaching assistant (Harry Potter)
10. Take an archaeology class from Dr. Indiana Jones
11. Visit Rivendell (Lord of the Rings)
12. Visit Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
13. Have Belle take me on a tour of the Beast's castle, before the spell is broken  (Beauty and the Beast)
14. Rhyme with Inigo and Fezzik (The Princess Bride)
15. Be in a position to end a conversation with, "Mulder, I think you're crazy." (X-Files)

I know - silly - but my brain needed a break and I needed to blog, so actually I'm multi-tasking :-) 

Favorites A to X - Part Nine "R-X"

Pardon the marathon finish...I'm about to have a delightfully busy, relatively computer-free week.

Alas, no entries for poor lonely "Q" 

R

Movies 
Raiders of the Lost Ark - Have it memorized.  Seriously, I can mouth the words along with the characters.

Return of the King - yeah, it may have six endings, but after nine-plus hours of film making you can get away with it. 

Return to Me - This is my favorite David Duchovny role, and if that seems like a underwhelming thing for me to say see the TV entry under "X"

Roman Holiday - I really do love Audrey Hepburn, but so often I feel like she was kind of poorly matched in terms of co-stars.  This movie is an exception.  I so love watching her and Gregory Peck wander around Rome. 

Books 
Rapunzel's Revenge (Shannon Hale) - Normally, I'm not a fan of graphic novels.  I don't even own a Superman graphic novel, and I own this one.  Really, Rapunzel in a mythical wild west, that's a good idea.

TV
Remington Steele - In junior high my dream car was a white convertible VW Rabbit.  This is not a coincidence.

S

Movies 
Serenity - The reason I watched Firefly, oh and Tracy and I noticed that both Mal and Han Solo both have striped pants and routinely wear a holstered gun and a jacket.  Is this a coincidence?  I don't think so.

Star Wars - Han is my favorite character, Chewie is my second, and the Millennium Falcon is third.

Superman - Of course.

Books 
The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis) - the most spiritually enlightening book I've read that falls outside the LDS canon, and it's funny. 


The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) - Just downloaded this book FOR FREE to my phone.  The world is a beautiful place sometimes.

Seer of Sevenwaters (Juliet Marillier) - This is, partially, a book about a giant shape-shifting sea monster, and yet I related to it on a very personal level.  You have to love an author who can manage that. 

TV
Sherlock - This is somewhere between a television show, a series of hour and a half movies, and a mini-series.  Honestly I'm not sure what the format is, and one of the six episodes, from my moral framework is relatively unwatchable.  However, I still found this BBC update of Sherlock Holmes to have everything the recent movies lacked.  This is definitely a textbook case of "how to update a classic."

Star Trek The Next Generation - In my opinion, quality wise, this is the best of the Trek universe.  Well, at least once Riker grows a beard and Tasha Yar dies (the first may be a coincidence, the second unfortunately, not so much).  And really Captain Picard is so entirely awesome.

Star Trek Voyager - having just said that I think Next Generation is the highest in quality, I have to say that for sheer entertainment value I like Voyager the best.  Maybe because it's the only one of the series in which I had a crush (at the time) on three different characters at any given time.  And don't worry Tracy knows this, and hopefully is confident that he has no competition, fictional or otherwise.

T

Movies 
To Kill a Mockingbird - I love my Dad, but if I could also be adopted by a fictional character, Atticus Finch would be in the running. 

The Two Towers - as I've said before, my favorite Lord of the Rings movie. 

Books 
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (Judy Blume) - this book is about having an annoying but lovable little brother.  I had three :-)  No wonder I loved it. 


To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) - the magic of such an deep and layered story told convincingly from a child's point-of-view is brilliance. 


A Town Like Alice (Nevil Shute) - Apparently, in looking at this list, I'm a sucker for heartwarming World War II fiction with a romantic bent.  And this book has AUSTRALIA in it, yeah, I kind of think the guy wrote it just for me :-)

Twilight (Stephenie Meyer) - call it a guilty pleasure, a flavor of the month, or just a symptom of my general obsession with the Pacific Northwest, but I couldn't honestly leave it off the list.


W

Books
Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett) - An brainy-tough-little girl witch and a brawling, drinking band of tiny Scottish-inspired men?  Yeah, it's awesome. 


Wildwood Dancing (Juliet Marillier) - a lovely version of the "12 Dancing Princesses" fairy-tale in a great Eastern European setting.

Winter Sea (Susanna Kearsley) - It's an interesting thing about time travel-ish novels, I tend to either love them or hate them.  I really enjoy Susanna Kearsley's books and I think Winter Sea is the best of them.


X

Movies 
X-Files Fight the Future - If I hadn't seen the movie, I wouldn't have watched the show.

X-Men - This movie, in part, helped inspire the current series of books I'm writing and introduced me to the awesomeness of Wolverine.

TV
X-Files - It seems appropriate to end with X-Files.  It's the most truly geeky I EVER got over a television show, at least in my adult years.  I even dressed up as Scully for Halloween once.

Favorites A to X - Part Eight "M-P"

Sorry for the delay, an awesome writing conference and a bad cold kept me thoroughly distracted, but I'm back now and ready to resume :-)

M

Movies
Maverick- Beyond the fact that Graham Greene gives one of the single funniest performances ever, and one of, in my opinion, the best portrayals of an American Indian on film.  This movie is just the perfect blend of adventure, romance and western silliness. 

The Mummy - the sequels are extremely inferior, but the initial movie with Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and John Hannah is so much fun.  One of my favorite lines (especially since I was working in a library at the time) is Evie's proud declaration, "I...I am a librarian!"

The Man From Snowy River - this movie probably has a great deal to do with the fact that the second place entry on foreign countries I'd like to visit is Australia.  It's also partly responsible for my desire to play the piano. 

Books
Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett) - My adviser has actually thought about assigning this book in her women and war class.  Plus it's awesomely funny. 

My Antonia (Willa Cather) - I have always kind of thought that Willa Cather is what Little House and the Prairie fans read when they grow up. 

N

Movies
National Treasure - In spite of the fact it stars Nicholas Cage and the fact that the Archivist in me almost has a heart attack every time they touch the Declaration of Independence, I still love this movie.  Plus when I start missing the D.C. area, this movie is a good way to get a fix.

Books
Nation (Terry Pratchett) - On a deeper level, I think this book does lead you to question tradition and religious beliefs, but it does so while giving room for them to still be true and still mean something.  It's another of those books that makes you think long after finishing it.

O

Movies
Ocean's Eleven -Why is a movie about thieves so much fun?  I don't entirely know.  But I do love how clever it is, and how well it juggles so many characters at the same time.

Books 
One in Thine Hand (Gerald Lund) - Before Gerald Lund wrote epic church history books he wrote this great novel that takes place during Israel's Yom Kippur War.  A few years after reading it the first time I took a Middle Eastern History class, and was surprised with how well that novel set me up to start understanding what was going on in modern Israel. 

Outlaws of Sherwood (Robin McKinley) - the first book I read by Robin McKinley and still one of those books I'd put on a list of ten I'd take to a deserted island.

P

Movies
The Princess Bride - Of course, I mean I even dedicated a blog too it once.

Pirates of the Caribbean - The first one is the best. 
 
Books
The Princess Bride (William Goldman) - Uh yeah, it's here twice.  It's one of the few times when the book and the movie version of something are equally good. 

TV
Pride and Prejudice - So is a miniseries a movie or TV?  Not sure.  Anyway, the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth is something I watch at least a couple of times a year.  So much frothy British fun.

Favorites A to X - Part Seven "J-L"

J

Books
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) - some classics really do deserve the title
Jenna Starborn (Sharon Shinn) - an awesome sci-fi retelling of Jane Eyre. 

TV
Jeopardy- I love random trivia, and Jeopardy gives me my daily fix. 

K

Movies
A Knight's Tale - possibly the most anachronistic movie on the planet.  I love it anyway.

L

Movies
Little Women - this is slightly sacrilegious but I honestly prefer the Winona Ryder/Clair Danes version of this movie to the book.

Books
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis) - Really all of the Narnia books are good, but I don't think any of them are quite as magical as the first adventure of the Pevensie family.

Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder) - this was pure pioneer escapism for my elementary school brain.

TV
Law and Order - just recently started rewatching this show via Netflix and find it as fascinating as ever.  Though I can't watch too much of it or I start to think that everyone is out to get me :-)

Lost- I've already written several previous posts about Lost. For a convoluted show about a bunch of murderers, adulterers and other assorted miscreants it was quite uplifting.

Favorites A to X - Part Six "H-I"

H

Books
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling) - My favorite of the Harry Potter books, I
especially love Fred and George's dramatic exit from Hogwarts. 

Heart's Blood (Juliet Marillier) - a lovely moody fantasy that's a great take on Beauty and the Beast. 

Heist Society (Ally Carter) - one of my favorite contemporary young adult novels in recent years.  Sort of like a sweet version of Ocean's Eleven for teens. 

The Hero and the Crown (Robin McKinley) - honestly, picking a single favorite Robin McKinley book would be impossible for me.  It changes depending on my mood.  If I want tough, independent girl power then this is the book I turn to.  I like the Disney idea of "princess" don't get me wrong, but sometimes I think we need a few more princesses like smart, stubborn, sword-wielding Aerin in the pop culture mix.

The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova) - no other novel in the world makes historical research look so adventurous and glamorous.

The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (Jaimie Ford) - Another gorgeous historical fiction novel that tells a great young-love story set in the extremely diverse world of Seattle during World War II.  Plus, even though it deals with difficult history it manages to do it with such warmth and hope that it never becomes to difficult to read. 

I

Movies
Incredibles - There isn't a lot of super creative filmmaking going on in mainstream movie making these days, unfortunately, but I think Pixar is an exception.  They always come up with great new ways of dealing with beloved elements and the Incredibles is my favorite example.

Independence Day - there needs to be some special sort of Academy Award for best odd couple buddy comedy, and it needs to go to Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith for Independence Day.  This is exactly what a summer action movie should be. 

Favorites A to X - Part Five "F-G" and some Real Life Stuff

My Mom and John came to visit over the weekend.  It was a lot of fun!  On Saturday we went out to lunch at one of Tracy and I's favorite restaurants, Tin Roof Grill.  After that we went and flew our stunt kite for awhile.  The gusting wind made it quite and adventure to fly, but Tracy and John especially had a great time with it and were excellent kite pilots.  We were really glad they came! ....and now back to the list....

F

Movies
The Fellowship of the Ring - For anyone who knows me, this entry is not a shocker.  I think it's funny though that this movie, like Star Wars, doesn't really get interesting until the locals walk into the bar and meet the shady character who will help them finish their journey :-)

Books
Fire (Kristin Cashore) - When I heard about this novel and knew that it was about a young woman so beautiful and powerful it was a curse I was extremely skeptical about whether I would like it.  But I love it, which says a lot about Cashore's writing talent.

Fools Crow (James Welch) - This novel is told from the point-of-view of a young Blackfoot man just as white society begins to really change their way of life.  The native characters are dynamic and extremely easy to relate to.  When I read it as an undergrad it really changed my perspective on how native people should be depicted in fiction.

Forest Born (Shannon Hale) - My favorite Shannon Hale book, and that is definitely saying something. 

TV
Firefly - So again I have a hard time wholeheartedly recommending Firefly to anyone because there are content problems. One of the characters is a "companion" and I find her character extremely grating, and not just for moral reasons.  But I have to be honest and admit that deep down in my fangirl heart I am a little bit of a Browncoat.  (For the non-geeks out there, that's what Firefly groupies call themselves.)

G

Books
The Goose Girl (Shannon Hale) - Lovely, lovely, writing.  Period.  Even my Mom who doesn't really like fantasy liked this book.

Graceling (Kristin Cashore) - When I read this book I was both annoyed and delighted.  Annoyed, because I feel like this book is very similar, genre wise, to my book Rell, and I was a bit jealous that this got published and mine didn't.  But I got over it, very quickly.  I do think Kristin Cashore's books (see Fire above) got better as they went, but this book still makes the list.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer) - So if you haven't read this book, ignore the silly title and read it.  It's a stunning historical fiction novel.

TV
Gilmore Girls - Recently I was trying to decide what my favorite tv show of all time was.  The Gilmores are tied for first place.   The other first place finisher has something to do with the fact this list ends in X.

Favorites A to X - Part Four "D-E"

D

Books
Daughter of the Forest (Juliet Marillier) - I've written about the characters from this book before, so I'll add another note about why I like it.  Marillier writes historical fantasy, in this case an era when their were still druids but Christianity was also just taking hold, and Marillier balances this really respectfully.

TV
Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman - While there were some things about this show that bugged me, especially in its later seasons, I am constantly wondering why Netflix hasn't managed to add this to their instant play offerings. 

E

Movies
Empire Strikes Back - This is my favorite Star Wars movie, probably because it's the mushiest.  Apparently when Princess Leia says, "I love you" and Han Solo said, "I know" it was an ad-lib by Harrison Ford. George Lucas wasn't sure it worked.  He was wrong.

Ever After - Cinderella has never really been my favorite fairy tale.  This was the first version of it that I really loved.

Books
Ella Enchanted (Gail Carson Levine) -There are other books by this author that I like, but this is my favorite.  And the book is definitely much better than the movie.

Enna Burning (Shannon Hale) - the grimmest of Shannon Hale's books, but also one of the most powerful.

The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde) - An impossible to describe book  Alternate history?  Fantasy?  Science fiction?  All of the above and hilariously funny.

Favorites A to X - Part Three "C"

C

Movies
Casablanca - some classic movies don't age well, but this one is definitely timeless.  I'm not even a huge Humphrey Bogart fan and I still love Casablanca.  There is a reason that half of the lines in the film have become famous quotes.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - with subtitles of course, the voice over makes me a little nutty.  I heard that this is a Chinese take on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and I can completely see that.  Plus, women who can be feminine and still action heroes - I love that.

Books
Chalice (Robin McKinley) - a stunning short novel that makes bee keeping seem infinitely magical and cool.

Christy (Catherine Marshall) - I have at times been a little bit dismissive of "Christian fiction" but I shouldn't be - because Christy definitely falls into that category, and I love it.  The story of a woman who travels deep into Appalachia to teach school and tests her faith in the process.  Plus it has a good love story, which never hurts.

Crocodile on a Sandbank (Elizabeth Peters)  - Again, I've written about Amelia Peabody before and how much I enjoy her as a character.  I didn't think I really liked mystery novels - and then I read this.

Television
Castle -  Of course :-) 

Favorites A to X - Part Two "B"

B
Movies
Beauty and the Beast - I've written before about how much I like these characters so I'll just add that this is my favorite animated film of all time.

Better Off Dead - okay, so honestly this movie is stupid, really it is.  It's essentially about a guy who is really into skiing and keeps having delusions and trying to kill himself because his milktoast girlfriend dumped him.  However, it is also hilarious and extremely quotable. ("Gee, I'm really sorry your mom blew up, Ricky")  I read somewhere that John Cusack kind of hates this movie, which made me sad.

Bourne Identity- One of the best action movies there is.  Whenever I need inspiration for action sequences in my writing, this is the movie I turn to, it's my favorite car chase ever. 

Books
Beauty (Robin McKinley) - there are a lot of good retellings of Beauty and the Beast, but this is my favorite.  I think McKinley stays true to the original tale, while giving it a fresh and lovely spin of its own.

Bitterblue (Kristin Cashore) - oh, just realized I was wrong when I said The Avengers was the newest entry on the list, as I just finished this book last weekend.  Kristin Cashore has written three books, they are all on this list, and I think Bitterblue is the best of the three.  Also, since they are traditional fantasy and on the bestseller list it gives me hope that someday my books might have a chance.

The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley)- For a recent Relief Society activity we were asked to bring a favorite book to share.  I took this one.  The first time I ever thought "I want to write a book like this" I was reading The Blue Sword. 

Book of a 1000 Days (Shannon Hale) - I like that Shannon Hale took the inspiration for this fantasy world from Asia rather that Europe as is usually the case, it's a sweet, interesting story that I highly recommend.

Favorites A to X - Part One "A"

So in the spirit of giving myself something to blog about this month, I'm going to do a list of my favorites in fiction (Books, Movies, TV) from A to X.  Why A to X and not A to Z? Well, because I apparently can't think of any favorites that start with Y or Z.  This might be mind numbingly boring reading, but hey, it's something right?

A 
Movies
Aladdin - A few times a year Tracy and I have a Disney song listening fest - and almost every song from Aladdin makes that list.

The Avengers - The newest entry on my favorites list.  The more I think about this movie the more I like it.   I imagine we will be quoting it for some time. 

Books
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) - This is one of those books that works as a great adventure read and as something deeper.   I had to read it for school, and it still survived to make it on the favorites list, that's a rare event.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie) - OK, this book definitely has mature content, so I'm not really recommending it.  But I still think it's a fabulous book about teens in general and Indian teens specifically.  It's one of those books that I found myself thinking about long after it was over.  

Television
A-Team - Not all childhood favorites age well, but Tracy and I watched some of these a few years ago and they were still fun.  I remember one of my elementary school teachers being somewhat startled when I said this was one of my favorite shows.  It might have had something to do with the fact I grew up with three brothers :-)  

 

Avengers

So apparently so far May is "superhero references month" on the blog.

We went and saw Avengers last night and honestly I can't remember the last time I had that much pure fun watching a movie in the theater.  It was really pretty clean, laugh out loud funny, and I was impressed with the way that the plot both made sense and gave a satisfying character journey to a pretty large ensemble of characters.  Plus, since I really liked both Thor and Captain America it was like watching a sequel to two movies I liked at the same time.

People actively clapped and cheered in the theater.  It was pretty awesome. 

Breaking Dawn Part 1

So I've written about every other Twilight movie on my blog and though I'd pretty much like to pretend the series ended with Eclipse, last night we watched the first installment of Breaking Dawn. The fact that I didn't go see it on its opening weekend tells you that I was already a little leery of it. Yeah, it's really not a good movie. In fact it's pretty awful. Telepathic werewolves work in a novel, but a scene with them on screen was just crazy-bad.  I had to fast forward through two fairly large sequences because they were either too racy or just too grim.  I really think they could have mashed all of this gory/freaky stuff into thirty minutes and made one decent movie from the whole book, because in my opinion, the book starts to get a little better right at the point that the first movie cuts off.

Here's the good news - The personality they surgically removed from Taylor Lautner before he filmed Abduction seems to have been returned and, most importantly, Tracy's narration/horror/mockery of the movie was vastly entertaining.

Edit: I've had second thoughts about how harsh this is.  There were in fact, moments that I did enjoy, still I don't think I'll be adding this movie to my collection. 

Beautiful But Soulless

I've been anticipating watching the new version of Jane Eyre since I first heard it was coming out.  I was finally able to watch it today and was fairly disappointed.  It's not that the movie is bad, it isn't, the cinematography is beautiful and foreboding, it is a respectful treatment of Charlotte Bronte's book, and there were a couple of really nice moments.  I can even forgive the actors for being far too attractive for the characters they are supposed to be playing.  However, there wasn't a lot of emotional spark between the Jane and Rochester characters in this movie (they seemed to try to make up for this with  lengthy make out scenes) and Jane's resilient spirituality and quick and direct intellect, perhaps my favorite things about the book, are almost nonexistent in this version.  To me Jane also comes off as a bit pouty and petulant, which may be the most unforgivable problem with the film.   In any case, it's the third or fourth time this year when I've gone into a movie wanting to love it and come out disappointed, maybe I'm just too hard to please.

The Conspirator

Tracy and I just finished watching the movie The Conspirator about Mary Surratt who was tried and hung as a conspirator  in the plot to kill President Lincoln.  The movie was fascinating and what I liked most about it was the way it really dug into thorny historical issues while still telling a compelling story.  

A lot of historians (including me occasionally) gripe about historical films, and while I still think it's important to try to be accurate to the issues and events of history, I also think there's something to be said for using a good story to interest people in the events of the past.  As I've mentioned before, I'm not sure I would have become a historian without things like the Little House books and Young Riders.    I think historians need to look pop culture straight in the eye and acknowledge it's strengths and it's weaknesses. 

A great example of this - On the first day of my graduate level "History as Archaeology" class my professor showed a pivotal scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark,  not as a cautionary tale, but as a way of acknowledging it as the first place many of his students heard about and became interested in the field of archaeology.  He then used it to prompt a discussion about what archaeology is and what archaeology isn't, all while admitting that he too wanted to be Indiana Jones. 

I Feel the Need...

The need for speed!

Today the Internet Movie Database reminded me that among the other news of the weekend, there was a "milestone" that was overlooked.  This weekend marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Top Gun. 
Please travel back in time with me, before couch jumping Tom Cruise and the Anthony Edwards' ER brain tumor to my sixth grade self, who, along with my best friend Lesli, was obsessed with this film.  While I do remember most of the film fondly, in my opinion the real stars of that movie are the planes.

For four years after I saw this movie, before I met something called Geometry, I wanted to grow up and design jets, get a private pilot's license (even then I knew my vision prevented a commercial one) and make my life about airplanes.  I even won my very first writing award, in part, for a poem called "The Jet."

Do I think that version of myself would be disappointed with my current life?  Hmmm...I mean I can't fly a plane, and the closest I've come to designing one is the models I made back in junior high.   Still, that little girl is around and evident in the fact that I once managed to write a well received graduate history paper on the F-117 Stealth, the giddiness I felt at finally making it to Seattle's Museum of Flight (the photo below) and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and the fact that I'm delighted to have married a man who is at least as fascinated by planes as I am.  

That little girl is also the reason that every time I fly, no matter how routine it's become in the last year, there's always a moment when I look out the plane's window at the stunning blue sky, stare at the clouds below and the glint of sun on the wing and have an "I can't believe I'm really flying moment."  So while I may not design airplanes, thanks to Top Gun, and eleven-year-old me, I still think they're pretty darn cool.

Fictional Characters #9 - Chicks in the Thick of It

[This post contains big fat spoilers for Robin McKinley’s Outlaws of Sherwood, and Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment.  If you care, skip those entries]

Eowyn (played by Miranda Otto in the Lord of the Rings films)

I love the Lord of the Rings movies, but after the first one I couldn’t help wishing there were more women in it (preferably human).  Then, in the second film, along comes Eowyn.  There are a number of reasons I love this character, but I think the most important one is that she pulls off being both tenderhearted and tough-as-nails, and somehow keeps both firmly in place while falling in love with a man she can’t have.  It’s pretty brilliant in my opinion.

Princess Leia (played by Carrie Fisher in the Star Wars films)

Ok, so there are some hair and fashion choices we could live without (Cinnamon roll hair and metal bikinis? Please.)  Still this blaster toting, rebellion leading, Hutt strangling, scoundrel kissing woman is not your average pop culture princess.  Thank goodness!

Hari (from The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley)

I love the Twilight books (as earlier entries in this list will attest), but what sometimes drives me nutty is that they can be so wildly popular and get made into films while a book like The Blue Sword, and a cinema ready and fabulous character like Hari stays so far out of the mainstream.  If Elizabeth Bennet and Aragorn had a literary child it would be Hari, half proper Englishwoman, half sword-swinging hero.

The women of Monstrous Regiment  (by Terry Pratchett)

I found it hard to believe this book was written by a man.  I mean that as a compliment.  The absolute empathy and sheer awesomeness of the bevy of women in this book is amazing.  In one bit they are women masquerading as men masquerading as women, and it’s beyond hilarious.  Oh, and if you’ve ever wondered how trolls flirt, this book will teach you. 

Cecily (from The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley)

Just putting her name on a list is a big fat spoiler since she starts out as “Cecil.”  I think it’s interesting that it’s the character of Cecily, not the character of Marian that makes this list.  Not that Marian isn’t spectacular, she is, but my favorite part of this book is the relationship between Cecily and Little John, and the way that Cecily (uh, like Eowyn and the Monstrous Regiment, what is it with these girls?) pulls off the big gutsy move in the end. 

And there it is, the list is done.  I thought this series of blog posts was going to bore the crap out of people, but I’ve got more comments on these posts than anything I’ve done.  Thanks everybody for being so nice to me!