Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings

I watched Master and Commander with a couple of friends last night.

Why has nobody told me Bryan Dick and David Threlfall are in it?! The way people talk about it, I've always thought Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany were the only two people in this film. But far from it! Everybody is in it. Sadly, I couldn't share my joy at recognising the faces with anyone, because I watched it with people who know nothing about British actors. I missed N.; watching films with N. is fabulous and usually goes something like this:

N: "Oh, look, it's that bloke, I always forget his name... the fake Mr. Darcy."
Donna: "Oh, yeah... he's married to that woman I don't like."*

N: "Hold on, didn't that one play a priest once?"
Donna: "Not quite. That's the evil brother from Tom Jones!"**

N: "That's Lydia Bennet's dad from Cranford!"
Donna: "And the Jew whom Georgianna wouldn't marry."***

We would have had a ball with Master and Commander. Especially since N. has watched Shameless recently, and David Threlfall (Killick) was my favourite.

*Matthew Macfadyen
**James D'arcy
***Jim Carter

shocolate! I'm sure you know this one already, but it's a dead cert to happy you again and again, whenever you see it (it certainly happies me), so have a Surprise!Richard III:



And for everyone else: Check out this super-sexy Glam!Dick Turpin. A ruthless killer's heart indeed:

So, Misfits 2.03.

I bet Iwan Rheon loved it.

Simon is a brilliant role, and I'm sure he enjoys playing the character very much, but he was probably dying to prove that he's got an, ah, broader range and can do, um, one or two things other than weirdness and creepiness.

(I was slightly worried I might be inappropriate. But then I looked up Iwan's age, and he's 25, and the last bloke who hit on me in RL was 25 - so all is well. Iwan's well within my target age bracket.)

Last night, I dreamt that Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who, as it turned out, lives just across the road, asked me out (as he damn well should!). I had flirted with him by drawing hearts on the frosted windowpanes, and he couldn't resist.

My subconscious is so crafty.



ETA: Aaand I'm off Joseph G-L again, because all the time I've had the nagging feeling that he looks like someone I know in RL. And then I narrowed it down to "someone I'm related to". And then I watched this interview:



...and with the short-cropped hair, dear Joe looks like my cousin, only in dark, whereas my cousin is blond and blue-eyed.

So that was that. It was nice while it lasted, Joe!

A few weeks ago, I have started watching QI (because I got my hands on the pilot episode with Eddie Izzard, and I like Eddie Izzard), and it kinda snowballed. Now I'm through with the complete series 1-5 and watching series 6, and have branched out towards Have I Got News For You. I wonder: What do you think of any of the QI and HIGNFY participants? Alan Davies? Bill Bailey? Jo Brand? Dara O'Briain? Rob Brydon? Ian Hislop? Paul Merton's wit? The Angus Deayton scandal? David Mitchell? Andy Hamilton? Sean Lock? Jeremy Clarkson?

I went looking for, ah, in-depth information on both shows and the more regular participants, but so far, all that I could ascertain has been that Stephen Fry and Alan Davies are Totally Doing It, as are Ian Hislop and Paul Merton. And whilst I'm not entirely opposed to this idea, I'm more interested in casual chat, personal opinions (Alan Davies' hair - yes or no?), warnings ("Whatever you do, stay away from all Jimmy Carr material; he's fine on QI, but he's horrible in anything else."), recommendations and squeeing.

(Personally, I have become rather taken with Andy Hamilton - not in a crush way, I hasten to add. And went from finding Alan Davies an annoying twerp to "Hey, he's actually quite witty and squishable!")

My last post was in September! How did that happen?

Happy New Year, dear f-list! I've been lurking around here lately once again and if I commented on some long-forgotten post of any of you, that's because I was skipping=thousands and losing track of how far back I went.

So, what have I been up to?

Mainly, I've fallen in love with Philip Glenister at last (but he's had it coming) and been catching up on his work. I fell in love with him over "Cranford" and, dare I say it, Mr. Carter is by no means a less worthy candidate for my eternal* devotion than Mr. Darcy was. Even more worthy. - Jane Austen's never sold me on the Mr. Darcy character, even though Colin Firth did.

As a result, I have watched "Cranford" over and over again**, have rewatched "State of Play"*** and have started watching "Vanity Fair" (the BBC mini series with Philip Glenister). So: Becky Sharp - how great is she? I love that woman. I read somewhere that the script didn't smooth out the character's edges in the BBC production as they did for the Reese Witherspoon film, and I am baffled: what is there to smooth? Seriously, I vaguely realise that I'm supposed to find Becky's conduct somewhat reprehensible and her character questionable, but so far, apart from the fact that she wants to benefit from her acquaintance with rich people and seeks them out purposefully - just like just about everyone else in the story does - there's nothing about her that I find in the least questionable. And, though this might be due to Natasha Little's performance, I don't find her overly flirty, either. More sort of naturally sparkly and witty. - Quite unlike the horribly, painfully dull Amelia. Were they going for shy and quiet? Because what happened is that she's stupid and dull. And even the marvellous Philip Glenister, despite being my love of the hour, can't save Capt. Dobbin from being a painful bore, too.
The heading of this post, BTW, is inspired by the "Vanity Fair" Captains, whose interjections of "Damn it!" make me quite tingly inside.

*as in: two-three months
**the good bits
***the good bits

Anyway. Philip Glenister. What I actually wanted to say was that I was checking out lifein1973, came across a challenge I couldn't resist, and so I actually wrote something.

It's The Life On Mars Cracked out Crossover Challenge, and the prompt that tickled my fancy was:

Eats, Shoots and Leaves: Sam is actually stuck in a comma.

This in itself is fucking brilliant. And I came up with the following:

( Don't worry, despite appearances, this is NOT an emo poem )

That was both more and less difficult than one should think. After I decided to give it a try and started writing, I realised that it went quite well. The tricky bit, obviously, was the middle where I had to make both parts fit - I fiddled with it for ages. At some point I gave up in despair and tried a different approach, this time with plot, which wasn't easier at all. But there is a plot. Two plots even:

( Read more... )

I wish I could get back into the swing of creative writing. But every time I write something, I feel it's so inadequate that I give up. In despair. Woe!

So, I've been fandom-hopping lately, never staying long enough to get involved with a new fandom and only checking them out superficially. And so I don't have much to say with profound fannish contents and instead I've made some screencaps. They are brought to you by a realisation that had dawned after I've been watching Life on Mars. A trend has been developing that is as unexpected as it is alarming: I realised that I found Gene Hunt quite irresistible. - An, to use Sam's famous quote, "overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding" - and that despite the fact that I've always thought I like the skinny, fragile artsy types. And then I realised that it had happened before, when I was watching Blackpool, where the sleazy, sexist homophobe Ripley Holden quite managed to charm me. It wasn't much of a stretch to draw the parallels, and to illustrate my point, I've made screencaps of the relevant scenes. The post is quite picture-heavy (30+), but it's got some nakedness and chest-touching as redeeming features.

( Meet the crime-citizen interface consultants )

I finally watched Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion and would like to say something insightful, but I can't think of anything. I can think of a couple of shallow things to say, though:

What did they kill the hot Major Blake for? I mean, how pretty was he? He should have stuck around to be the contact person for Torchwood and flirt with Captain Jack as soon as the project kicks off. Bad RTD.

David Tennant. It's such a shame. I could really love him madly, and he just so happens to be pretty much my type, what with the dark eyes and pointy cheekbones and the healthy skinniness (I bet he's got delightful collarbones), and I really like the hair and the mouth - but his propensity to emphasise the mania by raising his eyebrows and opening his eyes wide grates on my nerves. Act more with your mouth, David.

What does it say about me that the thing I find hawtest about Jason Isaacs (apart from his conversation skills, of course) ("What, sex?! You mean sex?") are the freckles on his arms?

Mmh, freckles...

It takes my inner fangirl a long time to catch up on new crushes interests, but when she does, she becomes rather single-minded about them.

Right now, she urges me to write slash featuring a Johnny Depp character (I have conquered the unhealthy RPS compulsions at last), preferably Cpt. Jack Sparrow or Agent Sands. Now, when I watched PotC last year, I wasn't particularly impressed, neither by the film, nor - blasphemy, I know - by Johnny's performance. But a healthy dose of well-written fanfiction has convinced me that the character is hot, and when I watched the film again, I was prepared to agree. I love Johnny, mind. I've been crushing on him on and off for, oh, 14 years, since I first saw him rocking, rebelling and ripping his shirt off as Cry-Baby. Not to forget the scene where he rubs (rubs!) himself with body and tongue against the glass wall separating him from his girl.

So I've been catching up on some Johnny films recently, re-watched Arizona Dream and watched Once upon a Time in Mexico for the first time, my reaction to which was predictable. Agent Sands? Guh! The film? What film?

Anyway, I need to write something, because the tension is killing me. But it takes me ages to get into a fandom (as elaborated recently on scribbulus_ink's poll.) *sighs*

It also got me wondering on the general slashability of other Johnny characters. Gilbert/Arnie anyone? *beats sick bunny with a stick*