I’m there, anyway, just because: NPH, Nathan Fillion, Joss Whedon.
They have lots of graphics to put up so that the word gets out. I like this one because you can see NF’s nip.
I’ll put it up on the sidebar as soon as I can figure out why I can’t edit my template, grr.
The OTHER evil plan (mine) involves RWA nationals … and, okay, it’s not so evil. I just bought my tickets, but I’ll only be around on Friday-Saturday. The Berkley signing is on Friday at 3pm. I’ll be hanging out pretty much the rest of the time. So if you see a redhead lurking behind a potted tree somewhere, it’s probably me — come and say hi!
It’s also one of those movies where you have to suspend your disbelief (really suspend it), or I don’t think it’s quite as enjoyable. Wanted would never work as a book, because so much depends on the visuals: from the letters that fly off the broken keyboard, to the final (gun)shot — and the plot, if you think about it too much, just doesn’t hang together very well. Luckily, it’s fast-paced enough that you don’t have too much time to think — and some of the more absurd things that happen are so slickly presented that instead of rolling my eyes, I just ended up having a really great time.
Recap of the last couple of days: nephew, born; daughter’s birthday party, finished (next year I might do something like Chuck E. Cheese’s, even though I HATE that place, because, man … I am not an organized arranger-party person. Luckily, the weather turned out nice (after two weeks of freaking cold, rainy weather, it finally warmed up in time for the party)); preschool graduation, survived; get-together with people from my alma mater, over; second visit to see nephew and Father’s Day bbq, done (with only two tears shed for gasoline prices). Upcoming: family reunion.
Real accomplishment: I have convinced my daughter that we don’t need to listen to Toddler Tunes anymore.
Questionable accomplishment: This is my (almost 5-year-old) daughter’s new favorite song.
She asks, “can we listen to the zombie song?” Or, the “little girl” song, which is here in a Dr. Who fan-vid.
Yeah. She’s so going to grow up emo. These were both songs that were on my Demon Night soundtrack (although “Fallen” has become more of a theme song for the series to me (others include McLachlan’s “Full of Grace” and The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.”) The Cranberries probably won’t be on the soundtrack for the new, as-yet-untitled book (it’ll probably sound a lot more like Demon Angel’s than Demon Night’s) but the others will.
I think Toddler Tunes might have a happier message. The question is: can my sanity take another few years of it?
I think not. So, emo-kid it is.
Anyway, the accomplishment that was not really done this weekend (actually, since I got news that my sister was in the hospital)? Writing.
WARNING: This post contains spoilers about the endings of several horror movies/graphic novels/books.
A review at the Book Smugglers reminded me that I had this post in my drafts. I’ve been thinking about horror and happy endings since I read the two widely different reviews of the movie THE STRANGERS at Pajiba and Roger Ebert. Now, I’d been dying to see this movie — it looks like the type of horror movie that I love, the kind that relies upon suspense to scare you rather than gore. Well, check out the trailer (which all by itself kind of freaked me out):
And ‘nihilistic’ killed all of my anticipation. Maybe I’m wrong (and if I am, please feel free to spoil me because I’d have loved to see this movie) but I’m guessing that means that the couple is dead at the end.
I talked about this before when I watched the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD. There has to be a payoff of some sort in these movies/books*, and I have a feeling that my idea of payoff differs widely from the apparent popular/artistic** idea of a payoff. For me, the payoff is that someone gets out alive (and if no one does, then there has to be a point to their having lived). There doesn’t have to be a romantic HEA. In 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, for example, Eben gets ashed by the sun, and Stella is left alone. It’s a bittersweet ending, but it works for me because Eben’s sacrifice meant something. If, in 28 DAYS LATER, they’d gone for the Cillian Murphy-is-dead alternate ending, I’d have been fine with it … because someone got out alive, and there was a payoff to my sitting through the movie.
It’s not enough to be scared; it’s not enough to jump in my seat. If I’m invested in the suspense, it’s because I’m interested in the characters, and I’ve become invested in the outcome of the movie. (I don’t necessarily have to like them, but I do have to be interested in them.)
The last thing I want to do is to turn off a movie and say, “What was the point of that?” (The final death in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD had a point IMO, so that movie is one of the few exceptions to that; so is the end of I AM LEGEND (the book)). If a couple is going to die at the end, and there is nothing gained when they die (either in the world they live in, or in me through their journey, where I come away with more than just a heightened heart-rate (see again: I AM LEGEND (the book)) it actually makes me wish they’d died at the beginning. I mean, seriously — how much does it suck to be tortured and/or terrorized for two hours and then die? What’s the point of that? Doesn’t it pretty much say, “There’s no point in fighting, so to save yourself some pain, you should probably just give up?”
So, anyway. I tell myself sometimes that I put too much emphasis on the ending, and should just be pleased with the journey … but more and more, I just can’t. I don’t need everything to be wrapped up tidy and happy, but I find that I have no interest in a nihilistic message.
*But not necessarily in short stories. (For example, I really like that short story by Stephen King where the guy is a drug-addicted surgeon stranded on an island, and slowly self-cannabilizing. Or the one on the raft, where the oily thing in the water eats all of them.) The investment of my time and/or money is in direct proportion, I think, to my need for a payoff — but this is across the board. A romantic/erotic novella, I don’t need a huge, sweeping love story. A single-title paperback, I’m wanting more out of it. And if I pay hardcover price, hot damn that story had better be good, because the page length isn’t going to justify the difference in price.
**I’m not sure what, exactly, is driving the current trend of torture-porn horror (which THE STRANGERS isn’t) and nihilism — a sense that it will be make money or that it is “truer” and more hard-core realistic. For example, the ending to the movie THE MIST — I loved the ambiguous ending of the short story, and would have much, MUCH preferred that to the movie ending. Stephen King, though, disagrees with me; I read somewhere that he wished he’d written the novella with that end. So *shrug*.
As a final note, my little sister is in labor. And, thanks to the poll at your left, he’ll be named Fox.
As a final, final note: If the X-Files and/or Batman movie has a nihilistic message, you can expect me to be absolutely nutzoid at RWA the next weekend.
“My Own Kind of Freedom,” the Firefly book Steven Brust wrote as a proposal for a tie-in Serenity novel back in 2005, has finally been released as fanfic. Really, really good fanfic.
*Note: Joss Whedon doesn’t mind this kind of stuff, and loves fan participation. So go, read, if it interests you.
I think your little girl is cute; I really do. It’s undeniable that she has a great head on her shoulders. But we really need to talk about your parenting skills.
Dora’s like, what — six years old? Seven? When I was that age, I was traipsing around the woods near my house, sure. I usually had my older sisters with me, but I was pretty capable when I was all by my lonesome. So it’s not exactly that I’m objecting to Dora running around the jungle with her Map and Backpack. I think it’s great when kids are allowed a certain amount of freedom to explore and learn about their surroundings.
But Mami and Papi, I really wonder: do you know where she’s been exploring? As responsible parents, how can you possibly condone this? And if you are unaware … well, I think it pretty much amounts to gross neglect. A dumb little monkey is not a responsible nanny!
Do you know that a thief is lurking in the jungle around your home, and he seems to lie in wait for Dora, stalking and attempting to swipe something from her every single day? I’m impressed that Dora knows exactly how to deal with him — but sometimes, she’s not fast enough. And then the thief always throws whatever he’s stolen as far as he can, forcing her to recover it. Once, he threw a necklace to the top of a mountain. A mountain! My GOD will someone tell me why a little girl is climbing a mountain all by herself? And not just any mountain, but the Tallest Mountain! Do you know how many people have died on Everest? I don’t either, but I’m sure it’s a lot.
Then, she almost got caught in Goo! Icky Sticky Sand! She’s almost been flattened by rolling watermelons! Don’t you care that your child is throwing herself into these dangerous situations, Mami and Papi?
And that’s just when she stays in the jungle. I’ve seen her ride rafts down snake and crocodile-infested rivers. I think it’s fantastic that she always remembers to wear her life jacket — but how will a life jacket save her from a crocodile? She’s confronted dragons and witches. She’s been chased by bears. She and her friends — not an adult among them — have commandeered a pirate ship and taken it through the seven seas (I know there were seven, because I helped count them — and I still shudder to think what might have happened if Isa hadn’t turned that wheel.) She’s taken a sentient plane to Antarctica with her cousin Diego (I seriously need to sit down with his parents, too.)
I do think you’ve done a great job raising her. She’s kind and smart. She can dance dance dance.
But maybe you need to take a page from the Backyardigans. They go on all kinds of cool adventures … but it’s all in their imaginations. They never leave their (child-safe, I’m sure) backyard.
Just a concerned parent with a little girl almost Dora’s age,
Meljean
“For me, The X-Files has always been a romance,” [Chris Carter] says. “They had an intellectual romance that’s very rare and restrained compared to so many relationships on TV. I think that’s what appealed most to the fans. And they’re back.”
Loading ...
So, I went and saw Wanted, and thought it was great. Pretty much everything 
Excuse me while I die of happy.
From 
