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Two different movies--two very, very different movies, one old and one newish, both viewed this week and both so awesome.
Persepolis: I've read and loved the comics, so it was pretty much a no-brainer that I'd love the movie too. The animation is dead-on perfect, and the textured gray-scale backgrounds only help to highlight the black-and-white characters, who move so fluidly it makes me ache for the days when traditional animation still existed. (Oh, Pixar, I do love you, but the trend you started...) In fact, the black-and-white animation is used to make some truly beautiful and creepy images; a mob as a black mass with arms and legs sticking out; a row of rebels dressed in black, shot one by one and melting down into the black floor as they fall. The books are nicely compressed, and the story's just as engaging and fascinating and emotionally effective as it was in comic form. The characters still pop with reality, the events still horrify you and make you laugh and make you cry, and by god, it should be made required viewing for anyone who still thinks the people of a country should be judged by their government. You want a war with Iran? These are the people you'll be fighting. And this is what happens when you let the original creator have some control over the adaptation; you get something just as good, but in some ways better, and in no ways worse.
Beetlejuice: I saw this when I was much younger, and, to be honest, all I remembered were the monsters. Big stripy sandworms! Elongated toothy faces with eyes in their mouths! And also the model houses, for some reason. I didn't actually remember anything about the characters, because, y'know, clearly those weren't the important bits. But now that I've seen it properly, I am in love with this movie. It's silly, it's shameless, it's got a funky style, the music's awesome, and you do really get to like the characters. Well, the three that are meant to be likable, anyway. My god, Alec Baldwin looks so young! The last thing I saw him in was 30 Rock, and, well. Apparently he developed a fondness for bacon and Twinkies. Seeing him looking young and skinny and wearing big dorky glasses and plaid shirts and really nice hair and, you know, he really looks like early Daniel Jackson. It's probably the glasses. Michael Keaton and Catherine O'Hara must have been having a ball; those are the kinds of characters an actor really loves to be let loose with and just go to town. Geena Davis does great wide-eyed determination and not only does she have great adorable chemistry with Alec Baldwin, they've both got it with Winona Ryder, who rocks the costume department. I've been around goth kids, and none of them ever looked that cool. Possibly I would have hung with them more if they had. Anyway, I like stories that don't take themselves too seriously, I like movies that look cool (prosthetics and stop-motion animation for the win!), I like stories that play around with the supernatural in more than just an "ooooooh, scary ghosts" way, I like dark humor, I like stories about weird, adorable families, and basically this movie was made for me. (The ending, in particular, with Adam and Barbara and Lydia, made that last gen-kink of mine flutter.) And the music! Danny Elfman, man, you just can't beat him. My dad calls this an almost perfect movie, and I'm inclined to agree.
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Hoshit, upon checking out the latest discussion post at ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) best_enemies, I suddenly discover something incredibly insignificant but also incredibly awesome about The Stolen Earth:
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You know, I don't believe I've made a vid yet that didn't suffer from horrendous technical difficulties--although A Day in the Life really only suffered an inability to find the bits I wanted amidst all the inexplicably ten-minute-long clips WMM had handily cut the episodes into--but this, oh, this takes the cake. This is not something I can blame on a faulty computer. This is just really, really, completely unexplainable. So let me elaborate!
As I've mentioned, the song I wanted to use was an m4a file which turned out not to work in Windows Movie Maker; this made me sad and upset, but ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) shizuka_blooms gave me a link to a website that converts media files and thus allowed me to make it an mp3 file instead; this made me happy and not-upset. So I started making the vid! And it was going very well. Except I noticed a bit of lag time with the audio--if I started it from the top, there wasn't a problem; if I started it even a second later, it would inexplicably be a little behind where it was supposed to be. For example, if at twenty seconds in, there was supposed to be the lyric "it's time to shine", it would for some reason be playing a lyric that came a few seconds before that. (This is purely an example. I am far from twenty seconds into this vid. I haven't even gotten to the lyrics yet--still on the opening instrumentals, which still suffer the same problem.) This was very annoying.
So I restarted, because, hey, restarting cures many things. Nope. Still there. Take out the song and put it back in again? Nope. I checked another vid file--that one was working fine. Restarted again. Nope. Closed down all other programs. Nope. Hey, that K-Lite Codec thing really has an insane amount of icons on my toolbar--uninstall that? Nope, and now even starting at the top doesn't work, so reinstall. Hrm. Ooh, there's a new Windows Update! Will that fix it? That will probably fix it. Installed. Did not fix it. Made things worse, actually; for some reason, everything was reeeeally slow when it finished updating, and the tablet function of the laptop was barely working, and then it just sort of froze, so I did a forced restart. Everything seemed to be back to normal after that--except, no, for some reasons all my Collections folders in WMM have been completely wiped, so I'm going to have to reupload...let's see...52 episodes of Doctor Who, plus 34 of Heroes and 16 of Life on Mars...and every episode takes anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes to upload, so, uh, at this point this whole thing is getting kind of ridiculous. WHAT IS GOING ON. And, no, it still doesn't work. Tried putting the song in the other vid file--same problem. SO.
1) shizuka_blooms, have you ever had any problems with a song converted by that website?
2) Has anyone here ever had similiar problems with Windows Movie Maker?
3) Will anyone buy me some ridiculously expensive new movie-making software?
4) Have I offended God in some way? Does He have some fundamental objection to the song, or perhaps vids in general?
5) Is there some physical representation of Windows Update that I can punch in the face?
EDIT: FIXED YAY
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auuuuuuuuuuuuugh
Okay, so, the song I want to use in my next vid, the vid I have been vaguely planning for weeks, the vid that will finally allow me to get off my ass and get back into vidding, is an m4a file. I thought there was nothing wrong with this! m4a files do, after all, play in Windows Media Player; clearly they are different from no other file. Ahahahahahaha NO. No, Windows Movie Maker refuses to acknowledge that m4a files even exist, APPARENTLY. So. Does anybody here know either
1) How to convert an m4a file into an mp3 file, or
2) Where one could acquire a copy of Carbon Leaf's "Echo Echo Shine" that is not an m4a file?
Because that would be really helpful and stop me from breaking down quietly into an unproductive heap. And you don't want that to happen, do you? You want to see a really bouncy, joyous New Who vid, don't you? One with lots of Donna in it, but also Rose and Martha and fair bits of Jack and Sarah Jane? You want that, right?
...please?
EDIT: Aaaand found! *hugs shizuka_blooms muchly, for she is awesome*
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TERRIBLE US LIFE ON MARS PILOT IS TERRIBLE.
...unfortunately, it's not terrible enough to get immediately canceled, unless the US television-viewing public displays a sudden and astonishing burst of scruples. I wouldn't say it's good--oh, lord would I not say that--but it's not quite OH DAVID E KELLEY NO material, and people who haven't seen the original would probably think it was okay. Admittedly, that would be because the okay bits were directly copied from the original. And because they wouldn't have been spoiled by the glory of John Simm and Phillip Glenister. There is at least one bit of good news--the new Annie ain't half bad, even if she is conventionally attractive, and she appears to be inexplicably redheaded rather than inexplicably blond, which I consider to be acceptable for some reason. Aside from that? It's meh. I had only a couple of genuine "wait, what?" moments; the rest of it was just a general field of annoyance.
There is a moment in here that, I think, perfectly encapsulates why this pilot irritates me. In the original, when Sam first hears the TV talking to him, he's still dressed--he's unbuttoned his shirt, but there's an undershirt underneath that. In this, he's completely shirtless. To show off his manly, manly muscles. And that, in a nutshell, is why I didn't like it.
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I changed the name on my profile from "making future love tonight"--a song lyric utterly unrelated to my username--to "the cries of strange birds"--a quote from the very first episode of Doctor Who: If you could touch the alien sand or hear the cries of strange birds and watch them wheel in another sky...would that satisfy you?
...I just think it's pretty, that's all.
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God, it seriously cannot just be me who gets all confused about their own opinions of something when they read other people's opinions of that something, right?
...that being said, here are some things I know I can definitively say are My Thoughts about
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Remember my desire to associate Avril Lavigne's 'Girlfriend' with the Master? Of course you do. Then you must be unspeakably thrilled to know that rionaleonhart has keyed me in to the fact that a vid for such actually exists, and it is unbelievably awesome, even if the vidder had to leave it unfinished due to a sudden attack of taste. (Fie, I say. A proper vidder should have no such thing.) In any case, behold, one of the greatest things that this or any other world has created.
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I'm sure I've hit a new low when--although this is not actually a recent thing--that one Avril Lavigne song, you know, the one that goes Hey-hey you-you I don't like your girlfriend, no-way no-way you should get a new one, hey-hey you-you I could be your girlfriend, reminds me of the Master. (I don't even know any of the lyrics besides those. Well, that and She's like, so whatever, but I have no idea where that one goes.)
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Probably I should have linked this earlier, but, for the Whofans here who aren't part of the fandom at large and thus might not have heard of this--some unparalleled genius listened to Skullcrusher Mountain, perhaps too many times, and thought "why, yes! This song is totally the Master's big dorky evil declaration of love to the Doctor!", and then they made this, which is just too awesome for words:
It features both New Who and Old Who, so--swingerzetta , I'm looking at you--if you're familiar with the former but not the latter, it's actually still very watchable, as long as you know the dynamic. And if you know the song, well, you're pretty much golden. (The bit about the half-pony half-monkey monster, in particular, will just make you cackle.)
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| 2008-05-19 17:17 |
| i know, you know, that i'm not telling the truth; i know, you know, you just don't have any proof |
| Public |
| doctor who, episode ramblings, gay gay gay, i like actors, i like music, i like television, icons, kiss kiss bang bang, psych, torchwood, tv tropes is the bomb, yes i am really very odd |
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Late, late, yes, I know, it's my thing. *grumbles*
In other news, a conversation with vanitashaze inspired me to create this.  Wee bit illegible, I know, but I had fun. In other other news, I've acquired a taste for Five/Ainley!Master without having seen any of their episodes; I think it's pretty well-established at this point that I'm a special person.
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It is probably a bad idea to be driving at night, in wonderfully warm weather, while listening to rock music, right after having seen Iron Man, but I didn't crash into anything, although I did take a wrong turn. Anyway, my point is, I may be late to the party as always, but by god if the party isn't friggin' amazing.
So did you know Jarvis was voiced by Paul Bettany? The credits think so! There's pretty much no way this could get even more amazing, is there.
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Also, did anyone else think Guest Star looked rather like Sally Sparrow? I think she did. And, because I feel like sharing, have a link to a silly little Doctor Who vid. Oh, Ten. You shameless accidental man-whore.
AND ANOTHER ONE. Less of Ten being a shameless accidental man-whore, more of the Master being the star of a Disney movie. No, seriously. Check it out.
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Hey, you know what we need right now? POINTLESS MEMES.
Comment with the name of one of my stories and I'll 1) upload a song that I associate with it and 2) give an explanation as to why I associate the song with it. Warning: reasons may not be very good ones.
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I think it is a very good thing I have neither the ability to use nor access to an animation studio, because if I did, you would all be subjected to a very silly animated music video about the Master and the Doctor set to "I Love It When You Call", even if it would be actually kind of awesome.
(These are the things that I think about when I should be doing my homework.)
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I decided to go ahead and upload all the songs from the last meme, so, if you are so inclined, head back to the post in question; I assure you, listening to 'I Love It When You Call' will not fail to improve your day. Unless you do not like it, I guess, but I am having difficulty picturing that. SO ANYWAY.
And does anyone else think the "the bees are going missing" thing is going to become inexplicably significant? They've mentioned it twice now. This season's Bad Wolf, Y/N?
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| 2008-04-20 09:22 |
| (no subject) |
| Public |
| apparently i really like the master, big damn wwii au, doctor who, heroes, i has a meme, i like music, life on mars, mylar, omg i can write fanfiction, omg other characters, vids |
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Tagged by shizuka_blooms : List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.
Oh, gosh. Let's see. Music, music, music...*ponders*
1) Fiona Apple - "Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song)"
Those boom times went bust
My feet of clay, they dried to dust
The red isn't the red we painted
Its just rust
And the signature thing
That used to bring a following
I have trouble now
Even remembering
I get the majority of my music off of fanmixes. This came from one for Mylar. I like it! It is surprisingly bouncy. Also, I totally did not know it was Fiona Apple; her name does not appear anywhere on the file, so I thought it was by some band called Tymps. I fail at knowing things about music.
2) No Doubt - "Bathwater"
I still love to wash in your old bathwater
Make me feel like I couldn't love another
I can't help it... you're my kind of man
I can't remember where I got this, but it's another sneakily bouncy song. I like bouncy! I also like sneaky.
3) Garbage - "The World Is Not Enough"
The world is not enough
But it is such a perfect place to start, my love
And if you're strong enough
Together we can take the world apart, my love
Moar Mylar. I think. Maybe. Or maybe I just associate it with Mylar, which would make sense. And I am being sneaky and combining this with Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name", because 1) they are both Bond movie songs and 2) I associate both of them with Sylar. (And also the Master, but we're going to get to him next.) "You Know My Name", incidentally, is the song that inspired a particularly nasty part of the still-unfinished WWII AU. It's mean. Actually, it was originally going to be used in a Victorian stage magician AU, where it would have been even meaner, but it shifted into something a little more bearable. Dammit, one of these days I really need to get back to that story.
4) Pink - "Cuz I Can"
So I'll cash my checks and place my bets
And hope I'll always win
But even if I don't I'm fucked because
I live a life of sin
But it's alright
I don't give a damn
I don't play your rules I make my own
Tonight
I'll do what I want
Cuz I can
(ice cream, ice cream, we all want ice cream)
I associate this song with the Master. In fact, I sort of want to vid him to it. It's just so...him. (And yes, I have a few ideas as to what the ice cream would be.) Also, bouncy!
5) The Feeling - "I Love It When You Call"
Oh, I-I-I-I-I-I
I'm flipping with a coin that’s got a tail on either side
Oh, I-I-I-I-I-I
I'm gonna be the one who makes you stop and realize
You could have it all
We should have it all
I love it when you call
I love it when you call
I love it when you call
But you never call at all
So what’s the complication it’s only conversation
I love it when you call
But you never call at all
Guess what kind of fanmix I got this song off of? A Master fanmix? Why, yes! I love this song to an unbearable degree. I really, really do. It is probably not even worth mentioning the bounciness at this point.
6) Lemon Demon - "Knife Fight"
Let me tell you something-- I can't be beat
Oh yeah?
Yeah, cause I'm the king of the street
Well guess what man, I'll pin you to the wall
Oh yeah?
Yeah, your knife is way too small
Hey, my knife is super sharp, and that's what counts, I'm gonna make you bleed copious amounts
Yeah, well I'll be sure to thank you right after I shank you
This song, like all Lemon Demon songs, is so ridiculous, and so awesome, and by God, the moment I have enough material for it, I am so making a multi-fandom vid set to this. Knives! Fighting! CAN'T YOU PICTURE IT? (Probably I am the only one who can picture it.)
Man, it's so hard to pick a final song, so I'll just go with something relatively at random:
7) Aqua - "Freaky Friday"
Freaky Friday, things ain't going my way
Everything is gone, my life is a country song
Freaky Friday, go play on the highway
Everything is wrong, what the heck is going on
I, uh. May have originally planned to use this as my Life on Mars vid, and in many ways I think it could still work, but the lyrics repeat too often, and there's really only so many times you can use the clip of him getting hit by the car. So I picked something else. I do love this song, though. Also, I will upload any of these at your request, should you be so interested. And, one last time: BOUNCY!
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You know, I could really get used to this 'being able to watch an episode soon enough that I'm not far behind everyone else' thing. I really could.
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Scads of free time + itch to do something that will not deplete precious levels of Due South fics before DVDs arrive + sudden burst of determination = oh hey I finished that vid I started like two months ago. You know, back when I was obsessed with the other randomly supernatural fish-out-of-water cop show. (Due South is randomly supernatural too. Ghosts, mostly. In closets.)
Summary: Sam Tyler is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Contains spoilers through the end of the show.
Download here at Mediafire (.wmv, 75 MB)
Watch here at Youtube
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Watched Master & Commander, as am very weak-willed. Good movie. Jack Aubrey's hair does not really fit my requirements, but that was tolerable as it turns out Paul Bettany is actually quite more adorable than I remembered. Also, I had a couple lovely bits of spot-the-actor; "dude, that's the kid from Rome!" came easy, though "holy shit, that's Sam Tyler's dad!" took a little longer. (The hair threw me off. I must say, he looks considerably better without that horrible seventies haircut.) And then there was Billy Boyd, of course, who was actually the reason I first saw the movie when it was out in theaters--well, actually on the very day it came out; my mom is a very dedicated Patrick O'Brian fan. I went with her because, well, it was 2003 and I was fully in the grip of a powerful obsession with Lord of the Rings, but of course I liked the rest of the movie too, especially the parts with Stephen, because seriously, Stephen. I think my slasher tendencies may have been rising even then, at the early age of thirteen, as I have vague memories of taking an active interest in those scenes in the cabin with the violin and the cello. I have totally come up with an overwrought rationale as to why they chose those particular instruments, by the way; violins are the flashier, more in-your-face breed of instrument, whereas cellos provide the backbeat and move much smoother and more subtly. They both produce quite lovely sounds on their own, but put together? Even better.
...yeah, I've actually been reading the odd bit of fic about them for the last couple years, because I was already vaguely familiar with them and I never say no to a good story. I suspect I'm going to have to read the books now. Drat it all to hell.
Incidentally:
ME: Do we have the Master & Commander DVD?
MOM: Yeah, I think so. Why?
ME: Sudden urge to watch it.
MOM: Hunky Paul Bettany, or hunky Russell Crowe?
IT'S LIKE SHE KNOWS ME.
...ooh! Almost forgot. They are almost certainly going to eventually make a movie out of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, so: Paul Bettany = Jonathan Strange, Y/N? TOTALLY Y.
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