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Greatest video ever:*

I’ve been playing a lot of turn-by-email Scrabble lately via Scrabulous, which also has a Facebook app so you can play through the Facebook interface if you prefer (which I do, mainly because I check Facebook a lot).

And if you really don’t feel like working, Name 50 states in 10 minutes. I missed four, but I’m not going to give you an edge by telling you what they were.

Not the best video in the world, certainly lacking the broad appeal of the first, but if you like a) Highlander (and/or, you know, bad TV/movies) and b) the post-apocalypse,** you cannot help but be intrigued by this totally unauthorized mystery trailer for Highlander: The Source:

The voice-over totally sounds like they slowed some tape in an attempt to mimic Ian McKellan, doesn’t it?

Thanks to Keely and j00j for the video links.

I’m going to see the Simpsons movie tonight on Travis’s recommendation. Spider-Pig better not be the funniest part.

Oh, and as I was alerted by another friend, e.l.f. (Eyes Lips Face), a make-up line, has been bought out by Nordstrom’s and is clearing out their inventory. Virtually everything is $1. The website is a little wonky, but if you get a weird message box just hit “cancel” and hit whatever link you wanted again. Let me know if you want an “All Over Color Stick” in Pink Lemonade, as I accidentally ordered two.

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*I know I say that a lot, but this time it’s REALLY TRUE, srsly. And it doesn’t even make crude insinuations about anyone from Harry Potter.

**This could be wishful thinking on my part, but it sure LOOKS kind of post-apocalyptic.

If you’ve never seen the 20th anniversary Goonies actors’ commentary, I highly recommend it. You can tell everyone is pretty much amazed that Sean Astin showed up.

Yesterday CNN ran an obit for Tetsuro Tamba. The headline was “‘You Only Live Twice’ actor dead,” which makes sense given that their audience is likely to be most familiar with the 1967 James Bond movie, but I was surprised to discover near the end of the piece that he had also starred in the 1973 film adaptation of Japan Sinks.

As a connoisseur of the post-apocalypse, I read Japan Sinks in translation in college (I had to get it on interlibrary loan). The basic premise of the novel is that Japan is going to be completely dragged under the ocean by tectonic activity; while there is some earth science fiction going on there, the real story is a speculative fiction description of the frantic attempts of the government to secure a future for Japanese culture. While other governments are happy to take custody of art treasures, they are less enthusiastic about refugees. The influence of the immediate post-WWII/atomic bomb era is obvious in the general sense of the rest of the world’s indifference/hostility to Japan;* the story does not really close on an optimistic note.

It’s not EXACTLY the (post)apocalypse, unless you consider Japan to be the entire world, but then again, this was not then and is not now an unimaginable attitude among the citizenry. Consider The Day After Tomorrow, as well, which was basically the story of a North American apocalypse with similar social issues, although less drawn out. (And really was just a USA POST-apocalypse, since I assume the entire population of Canada was just supposed to be dead.)

Interestingly, when I searched the IMDB for information about the movie, I also uncovered this year’s remake–of which I had been aware although I hadn’t realized it had been released yet–and I discovered that while the 1973 version was titled Nippon Chinbotsu, the 2006 remake is Nihon Chinbotsu.

The implications of this shift are unclear. In the present day, the use of the pronunciation “Nippon” makes you sound a little right wing. I don’t know if there were similar implications in 1973. I also don’t know how you would indicate this difference if you were writing in Japanese, which uses a two kanji character compound for “Japan” and as far as I know it’s the same regardless of your political leanings. I tried and failed to find an indication of how the book was originally titled/pronounced.

In fact, I think “Nippon” is probably more appropriate to the tone of the story, which as I recall had a fairly strong “wareware Nihonjin” (”We Japanese”) kind of feel to it, what with the tragedy of diaspora and all.*** The user review I saw on the IMDB remake page complained that it had largely ignored the sociological story in favor of big budget disaster effects–so closer to The Day After Tomorrow, although I assume without the dire wolves loose in the big city. It would be interesting to see the 1973 and 2006 versions together, although I don’t know when the latter will be available in English.

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*Although as I recall, this focused mostly on the white Western world and less on the rest of Asia, which has more immediate and arguably justified reasons to be hostile toward Japan.

**Do not discount the possibility that I am talking out my ass here.

When I was eight years old, I spent part of a summer in Tucson, alternating between my grandparents, who lived just outside the city in Sauhuarita, and my father, who was doing something with a lab at the University of Arizona.**

My clearest memory of this summer is of watching episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series on the old black and white TV in the back bedroom with the red batik bedspread and the ancient faded red corduroy chair. I loved Star Trek. Most of all, I loved Mr. Spock; he was my second non-animated crush, the first having been Michael Praed as Robin Hood in the BBC’s Robin of Sherwood.*** I spent many happy hours, perched on that red corduroy chair, imagining myself aboard the Enterprise in Mary Sue-like glory.

Some years later, I discovered slash fan fiction on the internets. This was initially through Highlander, but you don’t spend much time looking at slash without encountering ST:TOS. And then, yesterday, Daniel sends me this:

This is a slash vid set to “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails. As you should know, this means it is Not Safe For Work. It’s “Closer,” for fuck’s sake. And the arrangement of the video clips strongly suggests that Kirk and Spock are making turbulent man-love aboard the Starship Enterprise.

It was just too good not to share. My favorite part is the grainy, sepia-tone quality of the clips, which is what reminds me, more than anything else, of watching the show on that old black-and-white at my grandparents’ house. The more things change, and all.

On a related note, I used to have an “Amok Time” t-shirt that I got at the Salvation Army in Kirksville, Missouri. Like so many other awesome things I have owned, it has vanished without a trace. Lame. At least I still have my HighlandsBarbarian!Duncan McLeod nightshirt.

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*Pon farr

**Unless I made this up in my head. But I was right about John Lennon.

***The animated ones were Lion-O, leader of the Thundercats, and Optimus Prime, leader of the Transformers. What can I say, I have a lust for power. Although apparently it is not a sufficient aphrodisiac for William Shatner.

I went to see Little Miss Sunshine last night with Kristen and her friend Candy. It was really good; it reminded me a little bit of my childhood, when I desperately wanted to participate in Cape Girardeau’s annual street festival Riverfest’s Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher lookalike contest. Even at age seven or eight, I knew my strengths and limitations; I wanted to compete as Tom Sawyer.* I don’t want to spoil the movie, but I will say that Olive’s talent entry was exactly the kind of thing that I would have gone for at her age, with probably about the same awareness of its appropriateness for the venue.

Really, though, I felt a particular kinship with the suicidal Proust scholar** who was finally broken by the award of a Macarthur Foundation genius grant to the academic rival who had already stolen his lover–

And then, I read the news today (oh boy) and:

The newspaper suggested that rival Betjeman biographer Bevis Hillier might have been responsible [for a fake love letter that British writer A.N. Wilson was duped into publishing in his latest biography].

The best part is that while Hillier denies culpability for the letter in which it turned out that “the first letter of each sentence in one section… spells out ‘A.N. Wilson is a s—,’”*** he had no qualms about asserting to the press that “he thinks Wilson is ‘despicable.’” Oh, academe.

Anyway, I highly recommend Little Miss Sunshine if you’re one of the two people I know who hasn’t already seen it. All the characters are engaging, not just the suicidal Proust scholar, and the child beauty pageant contestants are just as disturbing as they should be.**** Candy and I were laughing so hard at many points that we were panting.

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*In fact, this contest was really geared towards the Best Families of the area, which, I think you will find unsurprising, would not have included mine. If only there had been a Huckleberry Finn division.

****They’re actually all real child beauty pageant contestants, too. Performing their actual talent acts that they’ve done in actual pageants. Creeeeeeeeeeee-py.

It’s here: X-Men: The Last Stand trailer

Aside from the fact that they’ve given it pretty much the dumbest POSSIBLE title–what exactly was wrong with the simplicity of X3, dudes?–and that the guy they have playing Angel is not even 20% urbane enough, it looks TOTALLY AWESOME.

I admit, I’m a little biased. I spent most of the 9th grade memorizing random facts about the X-Men to distract myself from the horrors of junior high. I had a denim duster that I fancied made me look a little superhero-ish myself, if you squinted. I used to get up early on Saturdays to watch the cartoon.

So I love the X-Men. Although they still haven’t given me Gambit, dammit. Iceman is no substitute. I’m sure Rogue would agree. And I have no idea what tortured retcons were implemented to bring the Phoenix entity into this storyline, or why she is dressed up sort of vaguely medieval-ish in that one impressive mutant-army-on-the-move shot, except that it’s a kind of cinematic shorthand for “Hey! I was recently dead!” Whatever. The Phoenix entity is COOL.

And Kelsey Grammar as Beast is TOTALLY my superhero boyfriend. zomg. Whisper sweet equations in my ear, Dr. McCoy.

This is wrong. But fairly entertaining.

I finally got to see Brokeback Mountain with Anne the other night. I’ve been wanting to see this movie since before anyone knew anything other than the title, the leads, and “gay cowboys;” my mother yelled at me for bringing it up over Thanksgiving dinner in front of my sister’s boyfriend in 2004. As the movie received more publicity, I continued to want to see it, even though it became obvious that it was going to be really fucking sad, which is something I generally try to avoid in my entertainment choices (exception: Cold Case).

It was really fucking sad, but I liked it anyway. Not that I want to see it again–too sad. Read on for spoilers: (more…)

I have way too much yarn. Last night, I started making a scarf out of some stuff that had originally been slated for Terri, but then I ended up making her Christmas scarf out of something else that was much nicer, leaving me with two skeins of Lion Homespun. So there I am making a scarf out of one of them because my parents are watching The Island* and I JUST saw it and it was a one-eye movie the first time around; I have to do SOMETHING with my hands, and I ask Sophie if she likes it and she says no, and god knows I don’t need any more scarves than I already have/have purchased materials for.

Hannah liked it, though, so I guess she’s getting an additional scarf (I made her a scarf and hat combo for Christmas). It did work up into nice stripes.

And yet, I feel like I should go to Hobby Lobby this week, because all their storebrand Yarn Bee yarn is 50% off, and it’s not like I won’t be buying more yarn at some point anyway, and it’s not like it GOES BAD or something. And the sparkly blue stuff that I want to use for a scarf for myself is Yarn Bee, and crazy expensive, and I need another skein of it.

I actually bought knitting needles a few days ago; all the Christmas stuff was 75% off, and there was this pack of candy cane striped knitting needles in like seven different sizes, which for $4 was a damn good deal. Not that I know how to knit, but it would sure make my mother happy if I learned. And I think some yarns just look better knit than crocheted. And maybe someday I’ll actually be able to make a sweater–it only took me about four years to graduate from rectangular objects to hats, after all.

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*My father is a geneticist, so you can imagine how excited he was when Ewan McGregor learned Latin from his CLONED DNA. Meanwhile, my mother made a pointed remark approximately every ten minutes about HOW MUCH BETTER The Island was than Fantastic Four. I’m not saying Fantastic Four was great art, but I think she has an unreasonable prejudice against it.

My sister and I both did a “four things” meme on LiveJournal recently, which included a category for “four movies you could watch over and over again.” Both of us put Real Genius, which I have recently discovered that some people of my acquaintance have not seen–people who, for one thing, should have been a lot more movie-conscious than I was when it came out in 1985, and also, people who just seem like the kind of people who would enjoy Real Genius, and it is wrong that they have not experienced it.

When I had to pick a gynecologist in Wisconsin, all I had was a list of people associated with my insurance plan. You know how I picked one? Well, first I found a conveniently located clinic. But then I went down the list of names and immediately flashed on:

“How’d I come off? Too stuffy?”
“Well, you certainly don’t act like one of the top ten minds of America.”
“Really? How many of them have you met?”
“Seven.”
“Really?”
“Mm. You’ll be eight. Professor Hostetler at M.I.T. was number six.”
“Old Professor Hostetler? Isn’t he dead?”
“He is now. “

And now, my gynecologist’s name makes me smile. See? It’s a good method.

I just hope that I haven’t done my “Well, maybe you ARE smarter than me… but can you do THIS?” shuffling-slipping-flailing dance routine for any of these non-Real Genius-watching people. Because it probably made me seem weird.