93 Icons

As always, take what you like, but credit :) I love to see my own icons being used by people.

3 David Hewlett
1 Natalie Portman
1 Viggo Mortenson
1 Joe Flanigan
4 Orlando Bloom
3 Johnny Depp
1 Cary Grant
1 Bones
14 Final Fantasy X/X-2
1 Harry Potter
1 Pirates of the Caribbean
18 Stargate Atlantis
23 Stargate SG-1
1 Princess Diaries 2
2 Troy
2 The Last Unicorn
3 Miscellaneous (including 1 kitten)
3 Gackt
1 bunch of hot naked filipino guys
2 Data from Star Trek
3 Peter Pan (2003)
4 Fandom Wank inspired

( Oh crystal ball, crystal ball, save us all, tell me life is beautiful... )

Movies Wot I Have Seen (in the past three days)

Non-spoilery, I promise :)

ETA: tarayith made a spoiler-ish comment, so please bear in mind, don't read the comments if you don't want spoilers.

In the last few days I've watched quite a few films. (Six, in fact.) Five on DVD, and PotC2 in the cinema. I wanted to talk a little bit about what I thought of each here. This is the list of what I've seen, so you can decide if you want to read on:

Spiderman
Spiderman 2
Goodnight and Good Luck
Howl's Moving Castle
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Spiderman (and Spiderman 2, because I'm too lazy to do them separately.)

I'd forgotten how much I loved these (and how much I'm looking forward to the third film, later this year.) Toby Maguire was an inspired choice. I love the way that he helps people because he feels he has to, the way he doesn't even question it. The relationship between him and MJ is wonderful - the play of emotions between them. (I remember reading that the woman producer insisted it be based around a love story, and that it wasn't going to be originally. Good for her.) It sort of reminds me of the whole thing with Superman/Clark Kent and Lois Lane - how she's in love with Superman but not with Clark, and how much that hurts Clark. Except, obviously, Spiderman's story is kinder than that. (In the entirety of Superman's existence as a character, the only time he ever got together with Lois Lane as Clark was in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, the show from the early nineties which I was watching the first season of a little while ago.)

I love the way, in the second film (and a little bit from the first, on the bridge) that the filmmakers portray the New Yorkers - as caring people who pull together in adversity to try and help Spiderman when he needs their help instead of the other way around. (Whether or not I believe this portrayal is a different matter, but I like it just the same.) Also, that scene where the Green Goblin has Spidey drugged and at his mercy on the abandoned rooftop? Totally sexual. Was sitting there going, 'oh my God, eurgh, but can't stop thinking it...

Goodnight, and Good Luck

What a wonderful film! It got nominated for lots of things at the Oscars, and I'd been meaning to watch it for a while, but only just got around to it. It's all in black and white, which turned out really classy and really fitted the period, and the way it was presented - explaining the McCarthy era through the journalists who fought to end his reign of terror - was really moving. The feel for the time in which it was set was perfect, I got really absorbed. And it was really interesting, too, as an era I didn't know much about. I'd heard the term 'McCarthyism' before but never really got it. Now I do. Also, George Clooney! Yay!

Howl's Moving Castle

I can't believe this got the slating it did when it came out. I suspect the critics were expecting another Spirited Away, which of course was wonderfully Japanese. This was based on a Western story, so, y'know, not going to be the same?

I spent the whole film squeeing and laughing and loving it. It was wonderful. The italics are to differentiate it from films which get a 'wonderful' but aren't as good as this. Howl is so funny! And I love the shifts they do with the transformation spells and the way they handled it all. I really want to read the original book now. As always from Miyazaki, beautiful, beautiful animation. If you haven't seen it, please, please do.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

OHGODITWASFANTASTIC. Dad asked me what I thought when I got back last night and I said, 'Multiply all the things you loved about the first one by two or three times. Then add to that all the things you wanted to see in the first one but didn't.' The action scenes! The CGI! The CHARACTER DYNAMICS! (God knows Amy loves character dynamics.) They made both Will and Elizabeth so much deeper, they were an absolute joy to watch. And JACK! And the Jamaican scary woman! And the Kraken! If this was an eBay review for a seller, the one line you get to type in would read A+++++++++++++++++++ (most people on eBay are too lazy to write proper reviews, so tend to write stuff like this.) I'm going to see it again as soon as I can and I'm going to squee inside my head the whole time, all over again. I'd write more but I'm being non-spoilery, and anyway whenever we all see each other again we'll all natter about it forever anyway.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

This was... well, it was a Miyazaki, which means it was beautiful. I liked it a lot, but still, I've read the books, and the books are just so... the books are so far beyond the film, which I know is because of time constraints, but the books are one of the very few things ever that I finished and just had to sit for half an hour doing nothing and thinking about them because they moved me so deeply. I watched this (and, in fact, Howl) in the English dub because I was too tired to fuss with subtitles, but the dub is very good, as I'm sure Disney paid a lot of money for a good dub.

(I decided to watch the previews for some other Studio Ghibli movies I haven't seen yet, and there was this annoying patronising American voice nattering over the top of them, and she pronounced Ghibli 'Gibli' as in 'giblets'. Urgh. Just urgh.)


Next week I will report on Superman Returns, if I remember that I said I'd do it XD)