Once a Stranger

The first movie I watched was Trivial Matters by Pang Ho-cheung, which works as a series of shorts only linked by the thematics of sex and miscommunication. Many of those were fresh and hilarious, although not always in a tasteful way. Not usually liking short movies; I was surprised by how much I appreciated those.

The Chaser by Zhang Chi is a noir movie centered around a former cop pimp investigating on the reason why some of his whores are disappearing (a hint : extreme violence is committed against them). The movie got the price for Action movies at the festival, and it is indeed a well constructed, well filmed, well acted movie with tight storytelling. It is also a very violent movie, with most of the extreme violence directed against women in a way that I did not, in the end, found bearable; and with absolutely no ending in the storytelling to redeem or justify it. Slightly more sophisticated than a fridging, but in the end, not worth much more, so I would no recommend it if you care about feminism in the least.

Fireball by Thanakom Pongsuwan was the only genuinely bad movie of the lot, although in a hilarious way. The plot is about a game of basketball where you fight people at the same time, and a guy going out of prison looking forward to avenge his brother who was put in a coma due to the game. It is wonderfully cheesy and full of cheesecake, of course without any hint of real characterisation, and even the action sequence are pretty bad because they're badly cut and quite confusing. On the other hand, I had fun watching it ;)

The Moss by Derek Kwok is a more atmospheric noir movie revolving around several characters, it's a little bit difficult to sumarise : it revolves mostly around a brothel, there's a young girl child who arrives there to try to win money, one of the older whore who takes her under her wing, and she dates a crooked cop, there's the spoiled son of an organised crime lady boss who goes visit the brothel while carrying an emerald as a gift for his mother and who never got home, and the freakishly strong homeless guy who lives nearby. I mostly liked this one, perhaps because it was one of the movie where the whores character fought back (after the Chaser i needed that, although they take as many hits); and because of the overall fairy-talish atmosphere and the way the city itself is a character.

Island Etude by En Chen is a road trip movie where a hard of hearing college boy decides to bike all around Taiwan and meets various people as he goes. There isn't much of plot, of course, but it's still very pleasant to watch, very fresh in its postcard way and succeeds in making you want visit Taiwan :)

Kabuli Kid by Barmak Akram starts when a woman in a burqa abandons a young baby in a taxi cab after a course, the story revolves around the taxi drivers as he decides what to do with this burdensome package. One of the big interest of this movie was simply seeing day to day life in current days Kabul. I'm not sure there was much of a point to story (apart perhaps from life go on, even if it's difficult), but the slice of life aspect was very well done.

The Sniper by Dante Lam is a pretty generic action movie about a swat team of, you guessed it, snipers, which tries to talk about competition and vengeance and only manages being amusingly cheesy and fun looking. It's watcheable, mind you, and not badly done in its over the top way, and it's got some very pretty male lead characters, yummy.

A Frozen Flower by Yoo Ha was a breath of fresh shoujo-ish air after all the testosterone-heavy action movies I'd watched. It's a Historical movie set in Korea about a king who was in love with the captain of his elite guards, and convinced him to sleep with his wife in order to get a successor and not be overridden by another country (which I think is China, but is called Yuan). It's very well done, extremely pretty, melodramatic in all the right ways, has good action scenes as well, and some of the most risky and lush sex scenes I've ever seen.

The Divine Weapon by Kim Yoo-jin is another historical Korean movie, but more of an adventure one this time, and a pretty fun one. Rag-tag team of merchants are charged with protecting the daughter of an inventor in time for her to finish forging the ultimate explosive weapon they need in order to protect themselves from their neighbouring country (China again). There's no much surprises in the plot, but it's beautifully done, entertaining, has cool action, some very sympathetic characters (including several bad ass female characters!), and a rather endearing Excuse Me Princess romance. It's was ever so slightly 'explosive weapons kill lots of people, YAY' at the end for my comfort, but that's the only real criticism I would make.

Departures by Takota Yojiro. A cello player gives up on his musical career as hopeless, and return to his natal city with his wife. The only job he can find is as someone who prepare corpses for funerals. This is a beautiful both funny and deeply touching movie which I could not recommend more warmly for everyone to go watch if they have the chance.

All About Women by Tsui Hark is an over the top, extremely crackful and rather cynical comedy revolving around three women and their misadventures revolving about romantic (and unrequited romantic) lives. I found it highly hilarious and fun to watch. It is not feminist (by a lot), but the female characters are pretty well rounded and strong (if not exactly sympathetic), and they don't all end up happily in couple, in a turn of event that rather cheered me up (although the narrative may not have intended it this way).

That's all!

It was pretty cool : saw a friends I don't see often, and saw friends I see often, listened to a few panels, got some books signed, met some writers, watched a couple of movies, played pool, caught a cold, and bought too many books.

Of the panels my favourite one to listen to was one about Fantasy and Folklore with Ellen Kushner, Pierre Dubois, Robin Hobb and Karen Miller, because they were a lot of spontaneous urban legens telling, even if there were relatively few relevent discussions. There was also a Roleplaying Game and Literary influences panel which was pretty fun to listen to, although few of the RPG exeriences of the people speaking wen't farther than Door-Monster-Treasure D&D playing. Hal Duncan's interview was fun despite the horrible translation going on (I know translating someone as they speak has to be the most difficult kind of translator job, but that had to be most horrible job even by the Utopiales' standard which is never great); but he's even more fun when discussing while drunk. I couldn't listen to Robin Hobb's interview because the interviewer was too crappy, and missed Richard Morgan's interview, althought when I caught bits of panels where he was at, he sounded very smart and interesting - I couldn't find my copy of Black Man before leaving , and none of his books were available in English at the local store so I couldn't so I couldn't get anything signed by him and didn't dare broach the subject of our previous discussion at Ran's board without that, though.

Of the movies I watched :
Nirvana, an early 90's cyberpunk movie with Christophe Lambert (where he's actually good, no, really), which was pretty fun, well told and not even much aged. Definetely interesting to watch to compare to the other movies made about virtuality and games as metaphores for level of reality eXistenZ, Matrix, Avalon.

Sleep Dealers a Mexican Science Fiction movie that's going to be released soon. It's actually very good and... credible, with the acting especially very fresh and realistic. The movie has a pseudo-documentary feel to it which works extremely well for it, reminded me a bit of BSG. In themes it tackles the idea of a wall between the US and Mexico, and Mexican workers working in the US via remote control of drones, as well as American soldiers fighting "aqua terrorists" with remote control drones... and it's very well done. It's interesting to see a move done with that kind of cyberpunk themes without having the noir & Blade Runner like aesthetics.

The Evangelion movie You are (not) alone which is pretty cool. Extremely close to the anime series if I can trust my memory (it's been, what, 10 years since I watched the series?), but awesome all the same visually and psychologically. I'm pretty happy of having watched it on a big screen. It's going to be hard waiting for the rest of the movies.

In terms of books I was wiser from previous years, I only bought The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon which I've been wanting to get for a while now since it's been recced to me repeatedly; Mary Gentle's Golden Witchbreed in the French translation which is probably unfindable in English and which I've already read but it was a long time ago and it was a bargain sale; one volume of Pierre Dubois's Grande Encyclopédie des Elfes et autres petites creatures which I've only been drooling on with envy for years and with a very pretty signatur and drawing ^_^; a couple of pulp fanzines and one short stories book by Sylvie Lainée which I read in the train back to Paris and which was ok but not great.

There was a cosplay contest which was also pretty fun to watch, and which my friend Isabelle won for the indiviual with a very impressive Mazinger. There also were a lot of various CLAMP characters, and I think one of them, the Chobits won for the group (it's true they had gorgeous dresses). I was pretty fond of those who did the XXXholic cosplay, too!

And that's about it.

I think having missed the start of nanowrimo, and having felt too sick since I got back, I'm dropping it without even starting, sorry!

So I watched the new Indiana Jones movie. Am I the only one thinking...

( spoilers I guess )

If you ever want to hurt me, ignore me. There's absolutly nothing that screw up with my mind as much as that.


Today's being horribly cold in Paris. We've had a nice weather the last few days. Very beautiful sunny days even if it wasn't warm as such. Today is cold and grey and humid, and I want to crawl under a cover with a nice hot tea.


It's kind of funny how unsettled I can be about just having my parents around. It feels oppressive, even if they're not saying much to me as such. I really need my own space back.


Yesterday I went to see No Country for Old Men, which was pretty good. Dark, but beautiful. I like how it subverted our expectations.


Tonight I have a roleplaying game. And another one tomorrow.


I kinda of wish this mood of not-reading-books would lift up, it makes me bored very easily.

So I watched OotP yesterday evening. Yeah, finally. I know, this is so last week's news and everyone'd rather talk about leaked book rather, but I don't care (also, I love my flist, everyone's talking of spoilers but nobody spoiled me yet and I'm not even being extra careful! That's how awesome my flist is!)

( the bad, the ugly, the hot, the missing )

And I'm finally excited about getting HP7 in two fucking days! No, I wasn't before. Weird, huh? And very much looking forward the Wankpocalypse!

I had a long week end. 1st of May is Labour Day and a Holiday in France, and my work had given us the Monday free to make a "bridge" (not a free, free day, it's a free day among a specific number of free day we're supposed to have anyway); and I'm depressed because I didn't manage to do anything much during this time.

I went to the movie theater, though. We went to see "Life of Others" which was really, really good. Though I found it was slightly self-indulgent in parts, and I was a little bit uneasy about the thing about women, but overall a great movie.

By the way, the Earthsea movie was just as bad as expected. I didn't hate watching it as much as I should have because I read the books so long ago I was half remembering throughout without being able to compare, and because I love watching animation even when it's subpar, but it was really not that great.

And Sunday, I missed out Bog's game because I was trapped at a friend's house by a thunderstorm, but we finished watching all of Slayers : Next, which was great. (I'm in Xelloss withdrawal as I speak ^^)

While looking for Slayers fic to remedy to my withdrawal, funnily enough, I found a Snupin fic by amanuensis1 (of all people), and an mpreg fic at that, and I loved it, and I'm not a big mpreg lover.
Here it is : Random drabble
Read it and then don't kill me.

And I tried writing, but I don't think I managed to write more than two lines in one specific fic. No very much inspired.
I've been looking at all files of half-finished fics too. It's amazing the number of started-never-finished fics I have out there. (well not amazing, I s'ppose, but given how ot prolific I am...). I even found a Kotori fic that looked finished, and a Salazar/Godric preslash fic. And lots of other stuff I never finished... it's a bit depressing.

I didn't even manage to clean a bit. My sink is getting so dirty molds have civilizations building skyscrappers in it. I shall not mention my bathroom.

Otherwise I've been reading The Princess Bride. Wached the movies many times, but had never read the book before. It's pretty good. I like... how he talks about the way we look back at stories from our childhood. How they become mythical, you know. Filled with some sort of glamour and meaningfulness, but then if you look back at them later on, they're often not that much (or they are, sometimes, but you have to squint a little bit ^^) I've got books like that, of course. Well I had the Last Unicorn, except not the book, the movie, except not even that. I had a postcard of the movie, with the castle and the redbull and the unicorn and the big wave with little tiny unicorns on it. It belonged to m sister. I don't know - don't remember - if I actually watched the movie when I was little, but probably not. Even though I was obsessed with that postcard, with the story I wove from it. I was drawing unicorns everywhere (i know, not that's outstanding from a little girl), and to this day I feel this is part of the reason why I got into fantasy, science fiction, and mythology, and everything (it was much later when I was a teenager that I actually watched the Last Unicorn and realized I hadn't dreamed the whole thing! before nobody else had even heard of it, and TLU? doesn't even need squinting). There's also all these cartoons I used to watch younger (we ha some real good cartoons in the 80's in France, mostly Japanese and a couple of Franco-Japanese ones), stuff like the Mysterious Golden Cities, and Ulysse 31 (space opera + greek mythology, two great tastes that go well together), and Les Mondes Engloutis, and Cobra (not the one from GI Joe), and many others. Loved these stuff, growing up.
What was your own mythic story when you were growing up? The one that still fills you with nostalgia?

It also got me thinking (okay, this is going very very far from The Princess Bride), about one trope I've always loved, the one about the relationship between a young kid and an ambiguous adult figure, one who's half a mentor or a protector, and half an ennemy. You get that in the Mysterious Golden Cities, with Mendoza (who's one of the most kick ass ambiguous character from a children's cartoon ♥) and Esteban, and you got that in that Japanese cartoon version of Treasure Island (I don't remember if it was as strong in the book) with Long John Silver and Jim. And I was wondering how it related with the Snape/Harry ship. Because it's not relationships I particulary wish to sexualize, generally speaking, but I do find them pariculary fascinating, and I remember really loving them as a kid. I wonder, is it at least a little bit of a trope, generally speaking? Does it play a role about why I like Snarry (when I do like it)? Anyone has any imput about these kinds of relationships (wether sexualized or not)? (ASOIAF gets that in a way, with Arya and her various unsavory protectors : Jaqen H'Gar and Sandor Clegane, and Yoren a little bit. Arya really got a "boy's story", I think, I love that about her).

Anyway, to go back to the Princess Bride, I loved how the book played - even more than the movie - with the way we interprete things that we read. There's something very fanficcy about it. Take the good parts, and write around the missing ones, y'know. Except of course the aesthetics are very different.

There were some stuff I didn't like in the book, but they were mostly the stuff I didn't like in the movie, except in a way even more disturbing in reading them. You know, Buttercup's general uselessness. Part of the parody, but still get me meh. Did love the additionnal background about most characters though.

Oh, and, last Changelings : the Lost soon to be released cover. I'm so excited!

It's been 3 years and 6 days since I'm on LiveJournal, yay.
I doesn't feel so long. It doesn't feel so short either.

My Paid account has also terminated recently, and I'm feeling too lazy to renew it, even if I think I'll do it eventually. Not lack of money (LJ is cheap and I just got a raise), but because I don't really like most of what they did recently so I'm not sure if I want to support them with money (since they're going to ignore me and my wishes anyway)... then again, going out of LJ doesn't seem workable. Alternatives may exist, but all the people are there, and that's who matter. Damn you, social network services! A big trap it is ^_^

Friday I went to see El Labirinto del Fauno, which was a very good movie. It's set after the end of the Spanish civil war, but with socialist insurgists still hanging on trying to survive. There are two parellel storylines : a fairy-tale like tale where Ofelia must pass tests to prove her faery inheritence (and go back to her father's kindgom), and a realistic around the fight between the Franquist army outpost led by Ofelia's step-father and the Rojos who attempt to escape them. Both stories interract in a wonderful manner, and both are equally grim and dark (some scenes are extremely violent and shocking, and I had to hide my eyes because I'm a wimp ^^).
I really enjoyed the movie, though I found sometimes the Direction was a little bit heavy handed where it should have been more alusive.

Blogging can be such an odd thing to do. What you write about. How you write it. All the various kind of things you write that end up there in public or not, all mixed up the fics with the icons with the rants with the essays with the day-to-day enigmatic tibits.

wonder what kind of image people have of me based on what I write. Is it faithful or very biased ? How does it compare with what people who know me in real, who listen to me talk very-very fast and laugh a lot and stumble over anything and hop along when I'm in the mood, see me ?

Is it a very spare idea ?

Do you feel like you know me at all ? (Do I know any of you at all ?)

---

I saw Tideland by Terry Gilliam on Thursday. I'm a bit amazed how Gilliam's movies don't actually make any buzz on Livejournal. I mean, come on, Terry Gilliam ! Brazil ! 12 monkeys ! All the Monthy Python stuff ! You'd think it'd be first grade Geek culture.

Anyway, Tideland was amazing. It's a pretty weird story that gets into a little girl's head as she lives all by herself because her parents are junkies (there's these really disturbing scene in the beginning where she prepares the heroin shot for her father and makes sure he doesn't burn the house with his cigarette). It's almost all the little girl's games and play; and it absolutely captures something about childhood. A candidness that's both innocent and terrifying. The movie's full of images that beautiful and horrific, sordid, grotesque and wonderful.

And the music's very good, I need to find it.

I wonder how it compares to the book.

Happy birthday to _sasayaku ! *kisses* May you have a great day

Happy first day of Hannukah to my Jewish friends

Happy christmas to my Christian friends

and happy vague oecumenist winter holiday to the others !

*throws kisses around*

Went to see Narnia on Friday, which was a bit disapointing.
It was good, too. I especially liked the children and their dynamics (then again I'm a sucker for family - and especially sibling - drama) however the world of Narnia itself and the atmosphere of the story totally failed to awe me and to make me feel any kind of feeling of wonder and magic. Maybe I was both too spoiled from seeing lots of people talking about it over the years without having myself read the book to get the nostalgia and amazement of it.

Bought O'Brian's Master and Commender from schemingreader's recomandation. It was good, but boy was it difficult to read. Between lotsa technical terms and the historical language, I'd never had so much trouble reading a book in English since Mary Gentle's Book of Ash. I quite enjoyed the wittiness of it, and the characters were very vivid and likeable (even in the main character was so cluelessly adorable that I had to start vizualizing him as a wide-eyed uke if you see what I mean) The story somewhat surprised me by its lack of plot. Not that lots of things didn't happen, just that they were more along the lines of : stuff happens, then other stuff happens, then other stuff happens, with no feeling of overeaching plot or climax.

Also bought a new book by Barbara Hambly : Sisters of the Raven, which I haven't started yet.

Last week I got myself the lattest XXX holic and Tsubasa, which were respectively book 6 and 7. Tsubasa is soon going to reach the part which I hadn't yet read in scanlations, and Holic is already there. I still adore Holic even if I still don't like Watanuki, he does show some redeeming qualities and I found him sweet in some of those chapters. I also got vol 15 of Fruit Basket (Mmmm, Akito) which was very interesting, I need to buiy all the Furuba tomes soon to re read them, too. And vol 12 of Nana, which was good as ever. I'm forseeing a peculiarly tragic ending for this manga. And very little yuri, sadly. At least the Reira x Shin is still the cutest thing ever.

And that's all for now. Gotta prepare for the wedding this evening.

Meme ganked from rahael and others : Leave a comment with three words to describe me. Love or hate. You can do it anonymously, but do say if you've met me in real life.


I WILL get around to answer everyone for the characters meme of previously. And answer those people who answered for those I asked. Eventually.


Went to see H2G2 yesterday, it was very fun and overall I was impressed by their ability to adapt such a difficult book to a movie.

ETA : and this one from imadra_blue



Nocturnal gratification, exploration and rational education ? Does that mean I'm a Firefly Compagnon ? XD

My cousin's gone home yesterday. Bye, bye Yael.

I took her to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show saturday night before, we had much fun and had to run to catch the last subway afterwhile.

We watched the Last Unicorn together, on Sunday, which she liked. I was strange watching it in the english version. I think I actually like the Unicorn's voice better in the french dub heh.

The night before I had dreamed that my sister had killed herself. I was on the computer answering all her internet friends messages to tell them the new. My parents didn't even look like they were upset. It was the most terrifying dream I ever had. I was so relieved when I woke up and realized it had only been a dream.

Read Changing Plane by Leguin, which was almost more like a Jack Vance than a Leguin, but was very sweet and nice to read. Especially the short story about the Immortals.

All the delivery service supposed to bring me furnitures unfailingly run into troubles and fail to deliver it for the one half-day during which I'm waiting for them. It's starting to feel like a very unfunny running joke. Someday, mayhaps, I'll get my fridge and be able to move in. I dare not hope for my couch yet.

Much love to all of you and good wishes. I know I don't post a lot currently, but I do read, and I think of you.

Not sure of what I think of the lattest Miyazaki.

( Not even that much spoilery content )

and a very good happy birthday to sakuraragi and belated one to su_chan

On other notes, posted a drabble over at la_mer_allee, and posted Betaed version (by the extra wonderful tammaiya which I'm so glad to have lent my Yuuto muse ^^) of the One Eyed Man to fanfiction.net.

Went for registration earlier (than the move I mean) today. I'm not officially a student in MBA. Classes start tomorrow. Also got my clock fixed (for free, whee !) and reac muchos mangas to catch up lateness since vacation (found one very cute romantic shounen called "No bra" with crossgendered romance <3)

Am doing okay.

Got an A for the Macroeconomics exams.

Got a deal for the appartment I talked about before. Now it's only a matter of formalities (France is the countrie of administrative hell)
( Wanna see some pictures ? )

Yesterday we reunied with my old Nephilim rpg crew, for just a restaurant and we watched Dellamorte Dellamore; which was nicely cheesy, weirdish and fun. Was nice seeing those people again as it had been a very long time. Too bad Vincent was insisting on being grumpy and generally mean to me. (He hates I'm not much available for rpg those days)

Am trying to organize my winter vacations, which is proving to be difficult what with how complicate it is for my boyfriend to get days off from job, and my parents wanting to go to Vienna, then Bratislava to meet the family I got there. And that even though I have so many time off for this vacation (yay for American callendar !)

Did I mention I had a new mood theme ?

And much love to halcyon_libra for the gift of this icon <333