Ordinary Day

I got tagged on a 15 Film Challenge meme on Facebook, and since I don’t tag people on memes as a general rule, and since I have Opinions on this in general, I thought I’d make this a blog post. A few blog posts, in fact, since like I said, OPINIONS.

So here you go, my 15 all-time favorite films, Part 1! Here are the first three!

1) Raiders of the Lost Ark

(Because in my house, it’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, dammit, not Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don’t care what it says on the Blu-rays. Which I do own. Because yes, I have this movie in multiple formats. Laserdisc AND DVD AND Blu-ray. DON’T JUDGE!)

This should surprise exactly NONE of you, particularly those of you who spent any length of time roleplaying with me on any MUSHes, and were accordingly familiar with my longstanding fangirling of Harrison Ford. This was the movie that did it, with a strong helping hand from The Empire Strikes Back.

I love every frame of this movie, and every single character interaction. Especially the characters, and especially Marion. Marion was the template for how I played Shenner on Star Wars MUSH. It doesn’t suck either that this was Harrison Ford at the absolute apex of his swoonability. There were reasons I spent a long span of time on roleplaying MUSHes swooning hardcore over characters who were based on Ford, and the first and foremost of these reasons was Indiana Jones.

Musically, this movie also has a strong and special place in my heart. John Williams did a splendid job on the soundtrack for this one, and every time I listen to it, I can’t help smiling. Especially because I have fond memories of playing the Raiders March in middle school band, because there’s a particular sweet, prolonged note on the violins in the final track that is the very first time I remember swooning to the sound of violins, and because I happily match up every note of the soundtrack to the corresponding action in the movie.

2) The Lord of the Rings trilogy

This would be #1 on my list if Raiders of the Lost Ark didn’t exist, and it’s a HARD call to make, I assure you! But if you’ve followed my blog or its mirrors for more than five minutes, you know what a big raving Tolkien geek I am. I have to take the whole trilogy together, too, because it is after all one great big story.

Suffice to say, I’m entirely on board with Jackson’s realization of Middle-Earth. I could devote entire weeks of posts to all the various reasons I love these films so much, but I’ve already recently posted about all the bits in them that make me sob. That I regularly re-watch them AND keep crying over them is all by itself a huge indicator of how much these movies have meant to me every since they came out.

And as with Raiders, the music is critical here as well. Howard Shore did masterful work on this soundtrack and I would give much to be in an orchestra that performs works from it, just once.

3) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Russell Crowe has been the only actor to date to ever surpass Mr. Ford for my fangirling affections, and while I’ve loved a great many films Crowe’s been in, Master and Commander is my hands-down, uncontested favorite. It beats out Gladiator, even though Gladiator was the first Crowe film I ever saw in a theater and what made me a Crowe fangirl to begin with, because I do rewatch this one semi-regularly.

Jack and Stephen are wonderful. The story is wonderful. And yet again, the music is critical. I always adored that Crowe made a point of learning how to make coherent noises on a violin to lend his portrayal of Jack additional weight, and I love the bits where he and Paul Bettany play their instruments. Mutual love of music is what made these characters become friends, and Crowe and Bettany do a splendid job of communicating their love of music throughout this movie.

The soundtrack’s a joy to listen to, too.

You may be seeing a common thread here to my top favorite films, and if you’re saying “music”, you would be correct. Just about all of my top favorites are important to me because of musical strength. But I’m also putting in a thought to how often I rewatch them, and whether they involve top favorite actors, and whether I’ve done any fan activity based on them (e.g., MUSHing).

Next post on this to come as I think about the next ones on the list! Expect more Harrison Ford, more Russell Crowe, Elvis, MST3K, and Superman!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

It’s now a week after the fact, but I must give some public thanks to everybody who wished me such nice birthday wishes last weekend–whether on LJ, DW, Facebook, face-to-face, or what. In particular:

• Thank you, jennygriffee, for the lovely card!
• Props to technoshaman for getting me a signed copy of this, and a card as well!
• Big smiles over to janne who actually hand-made me a book cover, with a suspiciously familiar face cross-stitched onto the front. How sweet was this? Handmade gift, people! <3
• mamishka knows me very, very, VERY well and sent me this awesome Han Solo shirt.
• Extra big smiles to my beloved solarbird for the new instrument rack where the General, Rags, and my bouzouki Spring are all now residing! There’s room on it for my octave mandolin Autumn as well, although Autumn’s getting more play time at Dara’s hands these days.

This Guy Looks Familiar

My birthday technically isn’t even over yet, as spazzkat‘s present is still pending! It’s been late showing up on the mail, although he informs me that he has been charged for it, so hopefully Whatever It Is will show up soon. I have my suspicions, and am dying to see if I am correct.

Thanks much to you all! I feel loved. <3

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

The Intarwebz are informing me today that he is apparently going to be in a remake of the 80’s TV show The Equalizer. My fangirly brain was dubious about this, and had the following conversation with itself:

Rational: Oh god not another remake!
Fangirly: But, but, but, RUSSELL! Shooting things!
Rational: But it’s ANOTHER REMAKE!
Fangirly: What part of RUSSELL SHOOTING THINGS are you not getting here?
Rational: This is yet another movie that’s standing between him and making a Master and Commander sequel.
Fangirly: …… well, you do have a point there.

I remember when The Equalizer was out, mind you, though I never watched it; I was too young to be its target audience at the time. Intellectually I can appreciate though that it seems like Russell would be a good match for the character. Wikipedia says the show was well-received and ran for four seasons, which matches my own vague recollection of it.

Anybody out there actually watch the show? If you did, what are your recollections of it?

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

And now, my entirely fangirly, irrational picoreview of Robin Hood: THAT. WAS. AWESOME!

*pauses to wave tiny!fists of glee, particularly over Robin and Marion, and ALSO over Alan! Doyle! Movie! Star! and his Action Lute!*

Ahem. Now let’s try this again, only a bit more coherently, shall we? (Please, dear husband, won’t you share my spoilers?)

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

jennygriffee has convinced me that the Meridian downtown will be the best possible place for her to view a movie, so I am hereby aiming for a plan involving seeing Robin Hood at the Meridian on Friday at 7pm! Local folks, if you’d like in, please feel free to join us! Chances are high that spazzkat, solarbird, and I will be eating dinner beforehand somewhere immediately close by.

Anybody who wants in, please either drop a comment or just email me so I know who all to fling plan mail with more specific details to!

And now I will spend the rest of the week trying very hard not to imagine Russell Crowe bellowing “YOIKS AND AWAY”. Hee hee hee…

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

For those of you who haven’t seen this already, here’s the latest trailer for the forthcoming Robin Hood movie. Look for none other than Alan The Doyle, showing up around the 0:54 mark or so–with a line, even!

Is it May yet? Is it May yet? Is it May yet? Also, elf needs icons, BADLY. And desktop backgrounds! And, Big Trailer is Big, so behind the cut it goes!

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

What with solarbird being out of town this weekend, I’ve taken it upon myself to have some quiet me time, which I really rather needed. Just getting caught up on my sleep is a win. But so is doing various and sundry small chores and errands that needed doing, such as getting the checkbook caught up, buying reflective red tape to go over the broken lens on our right rear taillight*, picking up some more long and therefore work-appropriate shorts to wear to work as well as some badly needed sports bras, and washing clothes and sheets and towels.

Friday night we had all the Bothell crowd as well as jennygriffee come over for more tabletop gaming, and while that was quite hectic, it was also fun. I continue to be full of Win for little Moira and Lillian, and this time around I also got little William’s attention; the boy thought it was great fun to try to help me play my guitar. He’s shyer than the girls and doesn’t talk nearly as much, so it was pretty neat to see him perk up.

Lily and Moira love going up our stairs and peeking in my bedroom because I have a big bed they can bounce on, and also, we have a cache of stuffed animals in there. But they also love making me (as well as any other convenient grownups) chase them in circles around the main floor of the house. Lily in particular commanded me to “be a dinosaur!”, so I apparently need to get right to work on my T-rex impersonation. Meanwhile, Moira wanted to further investigate our DVD collection, and when she spotted the pink boxes that contain our Cardcaptor Sakura anime episodes, I went ahead and let her watch that figuring that it wouldn’t be too scary for her or Lily. kathrynt tells me that Lily in fact is experimenting with being scared, and likes to identify things as “scary”.

This led to one of the cutest things I’ve heard coming out of a two-year-old mouth lately: “scary toilet paper lady” to describe the antagonist character in the movie I showed them. Hee.

And, Moira insisted that I “protect” her while she was watching the movie, and sat in my lap. Aw. <3

It should also be noted that Lily furthermore kept asking me for "Donkey Riding", and when she spotted the background pic of Great Big Sea on my computer, pointed at it and said "that's a picture of Donkey Riding!" She's still a little shaky on which name goes with the band and which name goes with the song, but she clearly now knows the faces of Great Big Sea when she sees them. Mostly. She also thought Eddie Izzard on my T-shirt was Sean, I think. I put her straight!

Yesterday morning Q then IMed me to tell me that Lily told her "we put on shoes and go over to my Anna's house!" I am apparently now Lillian's Anna! Who knew?

Unrelatedly, last night while working on checkbook balancing, I re-watched TOS's "Doomsday Machine" episode (some awesome mileage of The Kirk), Master and Commander (which I think is now well and solidly my favorite Russell Crowe movie Ever), and another 4th season episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (which is still bringing the wacky).

* Why the hell can’t I buy just a replacement lens for that taillight, anyway? The light itself is intact, it’s just the outer lower bit of the lens that’s broken. But according to the guys at Schuck’s the assembly is all they have, and they wanted $130 for it. I bought a $5 roll of reflective red headlight repair tape instead and used that. Which should do me for now and hopefully satisfy the next cop that tries to pull me over for having a broken taillight.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Today has been a day of general awesome, in the following chronological order:

1. Went to have me a nice chiro appointment, even though I was told by my chiropractor that my insurance had denied me coverage for the orthotics in my shoes
   
2. Had a nice little breakfast at Caffe Ladro and started working on the Millicent character vignette I'll be doing for this month's Drollerie Blog Tour
   
3. Had a nice massage
   
4. Scampered downtown to meet mamishka and jennygriffee to see State of Play, the new Russell Crowe movie; more on this below
   
5. After the movie, solarbird came to meet me so she could drive and I could have a pomegranate margarita with Jen, and we all had a pleasant hanging-out
   
6. And after that: Dara and I went and got her a shiny, shiny new BOUZOUKI!

The movie was good. Very solidly acted all around; Russell was as usual quite competent, and he was nicely paired off against Ben Affleck and Helen Mirrin, and the girl playing his young partner at the newspaper was good as well. Nice understated sort of thriller, and if you have any connection to the newspaper industry at all, particularly timely.

I particularly liked the dynamic between Russell's disheveled, crufty print-side reporter character, and the bright-eyed young blogger girl who teamed up with him on the story. They had good professional chemistry and some decent potential romantic chemistry as well; nothing's ever stated outright, but there's one amusing bit at the end where he tells her not to tell him how old she is, because it'll make him sick. ;) Also, Helen Mirrin was suitably awesome as their editor, upholding the tradition of being a hardassed bastard (or in this case bitch) when playing the part of Editor at a Major Metropolitan Newspaper.

But all of that was really almost incidental for me given that in the very first scene, we see Russell's character Cal McCaffrey driving along in his beat-up car and singing along with... wait for it... Great Big Sea. Jen, Meems, and I all lost it when we heard "The Night Pat Murphy Died" and Russell singing along with Sean McCann! <3 I loved that. I loved that SO MUCH. And we hung out watching the credits roll after the movie was over, just so I could have the pleasure of seeing "The Night Pat Murphy Died" and the all-important words GREAT BIG SEA in the soundtrack credits.

Which ties in very nicely to the aforementioned bouzouki purchase, not to mention my icon. Dara's been very much in love with this Trinity College bouzouki that they've had at Trading Musician, and we finally went and got it for her tonight. It's the same maker of instrument as my octave mandolin, and in fact looks a lot like the instrument played by The Doyle in this icon. And while I have acknowledged that this instrument is Dara's, I've demanded visitation rights. Because BOUZOUKI.

So far our mutual impression of it is that LONG BOUZOUKI IS LONG, because dear god the neck on this thing. Dara's done a bit of Interneting and has read that Trinity College makes the longest-necked bouzoukis you can get without going to a luthier for a custom job. Also, LOUD BOUZOUKI IS LOUD. It's much louder than my octave mandolin. It'll be fun to find other differences, too!

Dara has named the bouzouki Kohaku. It seems appropriate, as it does have a bit of a River-Dragon-y feel about it.

Longest Night has started here at the Murkworks, and it'll just be me and solarbird tonight, pretty much. Friends came by this afternoon to say hi and drop off a few small gifts, much appreciated, although they had to go ahead and scamper off for shelter ahead of the muck we've had rolling up from the south.

I expect tonight to be fairly low-key. Unless the wind does actually pick up and we lose power, in which case Dara and I will be hanging out in the living room by the gas fireplace, possibly playing instruments. Until then, though, it'll be a lot of just peering out the window every so often to see how the snow is progressing.

Last night we watched some old Star Trek in honor of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, and in particular, the first season TOS episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Nurse Chapel did have an unfortunate habit of falling in love with guys with brains like computers, didn't she?

Tonight, I may have to break out 3:10 to Yuma. Mr. Bale and Mr. Crowe can do their part to help keep me awake.

Happy longest night of the year to you all, and here's to the sun coming back tomorrow morning in so much as it can with Snowpocalypse Round 2 upon us!

So, um, yeah! Much, much larger video of the Russell/GBS/Carbon Leaf appearances have been made available by GBS show veteran Lynda Elstad (go straight here to drop her grateful comments for sharing the loveliness). The vids have converted down quite nicely to my iPod. <3

And boxer_ferret, all hail be her name, has gotten a whole pile of lovely screencaps off these videos. I am particularly fond of the good shots of Russell, Alan, and Séan, which is a musical OT3 for me if there ever was one. I'm going to have to see if there can be ICONS.

(This should tide me over quite well over the weekend, while I go down to Norwescon. Assuming that I hang in there with the Martian Death Cold trying to make a comeback--I just can't shake this cold for the life of me, and have had to get more Nyquil and some Rite-Aid-brand Mucinex clone to see if I can wrestle it into submission. Bah. I had BETTER NOT get sick over a convention weekend, that's all I've got to say.)