(no subject)

Nice afternoon with my niece yesterday, who's somehow managed to grow up a lot since I last saw her six weeks ago. (She'll be three in a couple of months.) Until now I used to be able to kind of talk over her head a bit (I've no idea if this comes across in writing, but I have this slightly ironic, occasionally self-mocking thing going on in real life that I don't really know how to turn off, because I have no idea how to actually talk to kids...), but now she wants to know everything. 'What?' and 'why?' at every other sentence. We had a discussion about life and death watching a bit of some zoo documentary with dead mice as food and a tiny dead lizard that didn't manage to make it out of its shell.


Dreary evening, though.

Ice Age 3 frankly sucked. I'll watch romantic stuff. I don't hate children even I don't have any. No, seriously. But the whole movie turned around romance and procreation from beginning to end. Ellie is pregnant. Manny fusses. And builds a nursery/playground. Sid adopts three Tyrannosaurus eggs. Even Scrat has a romance plot. Diego wanders off in, well, actually more disappointment at the loss of his 'herd' than disgust, and one shares his feelings. (There's no escaping it, though.) And the rest of the plot is just too far-fetched. Ice Age on the first floor, dinosaurs in the basement? I'm not usually over-nitpicky, especially when something works for me on an emotional level (*cough*Torchwood*cough*), but give me a break.

What I loved about the first part (that I'll still shamelessly squee about) was the chosen family theme, and there's not much more than a formal nod to that at this point.

It's also the first movie I've seen in 3D, and while in some respects the effects were certainly impressive, I mostly found it exhausting to watch, and maybe I'm getting old, cranky and pessimistic, but that looks just like another step towards visuals instead of content.


Then we (G., a couple of his - kind of boring, especially the woman - friends and I) went for a drink, except no drinks for me, because my stomach was still pretty much turning at the mere thought of alcohol (in which case I really don't appreciate to be told that beer, or tea with rum, or whatever, helps, thankyouverymuch), so there wasn't even that to alleviate the general suckitude of the evening. Finally gave up trying to be polite and left at one point around midnight when they were playing their second game of darts, and okay, I guess it's my fault for not joining in, but I've never done it before, was way too tired to learn, frankly generally suck at throwing things at a target, and really, really hate not being good at something and making a fool of myself, especially with people I don't know. So I sat there, tired and bored and wanting to get away, sipping lukewarm apple-juice with mineral water, and at one point my thoughts drifted towards CoE, which seemed suddenly so much... if not more real, than at least more relevant that everything around me, and how I keep sometimes whining that I ought to focus more on Real Life instead of fiction, and I pretty much thought, fuck that. It's all relative. When TW seems more real than my niece, then I'll worry.


At least my stomach is better today. Also, HP6 with B., which is bound to suck less, if only because it's B., and I don't need alcohol to have fun with her.

Writer's Block: Proven by Science

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Yes.


But the thing is, for me that doesn't make life any less wonderful (or terrible) or meaningful. Which may sound a little odd, coming from me with my bouts of depression and self-doubt, but while I may not always believe this when it comes to myself, I do think humanity has the potential for great things, as well as terrible ones. (Slightly related, it struck me a couple of days ago that all the TV shows I really love have some kind of, broadly speaking, humanist leitmotif, even if it's often bordering on the existentialist.)

I don't think there is a soul in the sense of something separate from the body. For me it's all in the brain, the body's chemistry. But why would that make me or anyone else less of a person, less of a human being? Is my niece growing up any less amazing? Is all the writing, all the art, philosophy and thought humanity has produced over the millennia worth less under that assumption? Are love, friendship or compassion less meaningful because they are the result of how our brains work instead of some kind of non-tangible 'soul'?

This kind of non-logic always baffles me. Why is it the mysterious, the inexplicable automatically worth more?

(no subject)

Talking with B. was nice, but the HP movie was incredibly dreary. Half-way through I caught myself thinking that maybe CoE had spoiled me for anything less dramatic, but B. completely agreed, so it clearly wasn't that. I don't know how it's even possible to so utterly suck the life and meaning out of a book. The first two thirds or maybe three fourths were almost exclusively about teenage romance (and please tell me that Ginny didn't tie Harry's shoelaces in the book, wtf, is this shit supposed to be romantic?) to the point that I almost asked B. whether the whole horcrux thing had already been in the last film. Almost nothing about the consequences of Harry using the book. No pacing whatsoever, no dramatic build-up, just one random scene after the other. I don't remember THBP too well, but some parts definitely left an impression, and I certainly didn't expect to laugh when the Inferi showed up. And I guess we weren't the only ones looking at each other and making Gollum jokes at this point? And could you make Dumbledore's death any less dramatic and meaningful?

That the kids aren't the best actors is nothing new (although I seem to remember I've seen them all act better, too), but whatever did the director do to get such complete non-performances out of actors like Alan Rickman and Helena Bonham Carter? Both look like they were mostly closing their eyes and thinking of the pay-check. Then again what do you do with lines like 'I am the half-blood prince, ta-daaa' when they come out of nothing like that?

The best part of the movie is mind-numbingly boring, and the rest is completely ridiculous. (Except for Luna. Luna is still awesome.) I've really no idea what went wrong there, because I found the OotP movie fairly decent, maybe my favourite after Cuarón's PoA.

Am I the only one who imagined Slughorn completely different?

Also, broomstick placement. *sigh* Once you see it, you can never unsee it again.

In conclusion, avoid.