Posted on

An Adorable Monster and other good things

I did not exercise all last week, unless you count my playing with my niece, a.k.a. The Monster — following her as she ran around the park and rolling with her in the grass and spinning in circles and then hauling her over my shoulder to get her back to her parents at the picnic tables — which I totally do.

The Monster had a lovely Easter. She got to paint eggs and then “find” eggs during an Easter egg hunt (which was more us just tossing plastic eggs into the grass and playing pick up with a plastic bucket, because she’s not yet two).

Words Here and There

I haven’t been putting many expectations on myself in terms of writing lately, due to the many, many things going on in other arenas of my life. But I’ve managed to feel a few sparks of inspiration over the past couple of weeks, which is awesome.

Despite my previous protestations that no poetry would be written this month, I’ve added a number of poems to The Poetry Project over on Wattpad. You can read each of the poems at the following links:

I’m planning to close The Poetry Project to new prompts as of April 30th, so if you would like me to write you a poem, then please leave me a prompt in the comments either here or there.

I’ve put together an excel sheet of chapters of the werewolf novel, noting things that need to be added and major problems that need to be solved along the way. It’s not a complicated layout, but it was enough to start getting my thoughts in order and I’m also using the tabs to start trying to keep track of characters and places that are important. I still have NO IDEA to solve the one major problem I have at the moment. The most obvious solution is to cut out the problem entirely, but I’m not sure that’s what I want to do.

I also met with the Writing Gang over the weekend, all of whom continue to be awesome. They gave me some feedback on some of the later chapters, which was valuable as always. I think I need to look at solving the big problems and work my way through edits from the beginning at this point. *le sigh*

Good Movie Watching

The Host (2006)I saw The Host (Gwoemul) for the first time over the weekend and it was SO FREAKING AWESOME. The story involves a large genetically mutated creature that rises up out of Han River in Seoul, South Korea and begins to attach the population. A young school girl is taken by the creature during the initial attack, and amidst a virus scare and government lockdown, her family escapes quarantine to try to rescue her.

It sounds like just your typical monster movie, but the story is intelligent and the family is both charming and silly in their bungling attempts to save their daughter/niece. It offers fantastic action sequences with a spice of humor, alongside an interesting social commentary. The monster turns out to be the least terrifying aspect of the story. Instead it’s the failed efforts of the Korean and U.S. government to solve the contamination problem, as well as the cold calculating treatment toward the patients in quarantine by officials and doctors alike that becomes truly frightening.

This is one of those movies that was so cool, I want to now see everything done by the director, Joon-ho Bong. The director’s most recent movie is Snowpiercer, which I’ve heard is amazing. So, I that may be the next movie I seek out by him. If you want more evidence of Joon-ho Bong’s awesome, you can check out this post.

Things to Do This Week

  • Edit chapter one of werewolf novel and try to solve big plot problem
  • Find a publisher to submit chapbook manuscript to
  • Continue research/do homework on business thing that I can’t talk about yet
Posted on

New-to-me movies watched in February and March

Since I never got around to posting February’s movies, you get two months of reviews at once! Yay?

February:
1. Sympathy for Mr. Vengence / Boksuneun naui geot (2002)
2. Oldboy / Oldeuboi (2003)
3. Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

March:
5. Nebraska (2013)
6. Captain Philips (2013)
7. Her (2013)
8. American Hustle (2013)
9. Gravity (2013)
10. The World’s End (2013)
11 13 Sins (2014)
12. Veronica Mars (2014)

REVIEWS (behind the cut):

Continue reading “New-to-me movies watched in February and March”

Posted on

A long time ago, we used to be friends…

Both my sister and I were fans of the show and fell in love with it, even though our introduction was the not-great third season. Still, there was something about the witty, smart-ass, I-will-destroy-you-if-you-cross-me petite blonde that filled us both with glee.

Though the third season did kinda suck, we were still sad when the show was canceled (just as we fell in love with it, too). So, imagine our joy when we learned of the Veronica Mars movie.

Anyone else excited for the Veronica Mars movie?

From IMDB: “Years after walking away from her past as a teenage private eye, Veronica Mars gets pulled back to her hometown — just in time for her high school reunion — in order to help her old flame Logan Echolls, who’s embroiled in a murder mystery.”

A simple analysis: if you loved the TV show, then it’s highly likely you will love the movie. If you hated the TV show, then you’ll hate the movie. If you never knew anything about the show, then the experience will be hit or miss, you may hate it or fall in love with Veronica and find yourself obsessively watching all the episodes.

Kickstarter funded, the movie was clearly made for fans, bringing back well-loved characters to show them how they’ve changed in the past nine years and in some cases how they haven’t changed at all. There were hints and reminders of the show, both overt and subtle. One of my favorite such instances appeared near the beginning, when a street performer in the background played the theme song for the show. It was just subtle enough that my sister didn’t even notice until I pointed it out to her and we both giggled in gleeful joy.

I’d say the most awkward part of the movie was the voice over rehashing of information. It fits with the Veronica Mars style, in which she fills viewers in on what’s going on, but it didn’t really work here. It basically gave a general overview of the show, which was meant, I suppose to fill in those who were new to Veronica Mars as to who she is. However, for Veronica fans this was known information and for non-Veronica fans this information wasn’t pertinent to the storyline of the movie (for example, Lily’s murder, though important in the show has no bearing on the movie). I think it probably caused more confusion instead of helping, and it would have been better if, instead of summarizing the TV show, the narration introduced the plot of the movie and maybe provided some info on the past nine years.

As a fan, the movie gave me exactly what I was looking for — a good, solid murder mystery and a revisiting of favorite characters. Veronica was the same queen of sass that she always is and she and Logan continue to smolder. (Their relationship is funny, because they are always drawn together in states of crisis and then fall apart when the reality of being together on a day to day basis comes into play, though maybe since they’ve both (hoefully) grown up some over the past nine years, they’ll work it out this time.) The story maintained the same dark noir and sharply humorous tone of the show. It could almost be called a two hour episode, especially since the ending made it feel like the pilot for a new TV show — and oh, the SQUEE I would have if that were to happen.

Walking out of the theater, I felt the Veronica Mars’ great big tada. My sister and I were both smiling, feeling as though we’d visited an old friend.

Also, one more gif, because I just can’t resist:

Yes, Veronica, even after a tasering, I would still love you.