http://www.serenitymovie.org/browncoats/forums/index.php?autocom=blog Community Blog List Syndication Mon, 15 Dec 2014 04:14:45 +0000 browncoatadmin@serenitymovie.org (The Serenity Browncoats) IP.Blog 60
But still I feel like it's not what I'm meant to be doing. And then I think I'm a prat for not seeing what I do as enough. And then I start on this downward spiral of self-pity and maudlin crap. And then I hate myself for being so fucking self-obsessed and stupid, and we go on a downward spiral.

The thing is, I still can't shake the initial feeling that there is something more, something... other. And it's out there and it's waiting for me.

I sometimes think that if I was painted now, and then again in ten years, I wouldn't change, I'd just be older. I'm still life.

Apples in a bowl, never changing, just decaying over time.]]> Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:38:00 +0000 Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:31:00 +0000
Mr. Hero asked me an interesing question this morning while we were discussing the nominations: "What are the Important movies this year?" Of the five Best Picture nominees, The Reader is Important in that way Holocaust movies are always Important, but not Important in a timely way. Frost/Nixon might have seemed more Important if the Democrats weren't firmly in control of Congress and the White House. But as it is, the movie is a nice history lesson, not an Important call to the world today. Slumdog Millionaire could be considered Important if anyone besides Brad and Angie cared about brown orphans in foreign countries. As it is, it's just a feel-good movie, and if it feels good, it can't be Important.

But Milk, we are so lucky to have Milk! A slain gay activist is always an Important story, especially in a year when the troglodyte freaks voted against gay marriage in California. So if Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are duking it out for Best Picture (which is what I expect) and split the vote, will the most Important movie of the year slip through? It just might, and that worries me. No, I haven't had the opportunity to see Milk yet, though I hope to before Oscar day, and it might be a terrific film, but I have a feeling that if it pulls off an upset, it will be because it's Important, not because it's good.

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Fanboys are in a tizzy today, because finally, this year was going to be the year when a summer popcorn blockbuster broke into the top categories instead of being relegated to the tech category slums. But not so much. The highly anticipated nominations for Adapted Screenplay, Director, and Picture didn't pan out for The Dark Knight. Instead, as conventional wisdom has it, TDK's spots in those categoeries were taken, nay stolen, by The Reader, that artsy, Holocaust, Oscar-bait movie that TDK fanboy, Kris Tapley, calls "pornographic."

Perhaps we should try a little perspective. First off, if this hadn't been a generally weak year for movies, no one would have even gotten their hopes up for a movie based on a comic book. Second, I understand the disappointment, but not the surprise. If folks who pay attention to awards are truly shocked that Harvey Weinstein got a Best Picture nomination for his movie The Reader, they must have been willfully blind. The first rule of awards season is never bet against Harvey Weinstein. I thought everyone knew that? Third, and I don't know how to say this delicately, so I'll just rip the bandaid right off--The Dark Knight isn't that good a movie. The script is a mess. For a movie to get the big nominations, a tight, focused script helps a lot. And don't try to argue that the Academy doesn't like crime mysteries with intricate plots. When movies do that kind of story well, like two of the best movies of the '90s, The Usual Suspects and LA Confidential, they win screenplay Oscars. I'm sorry fanboys, but you're just going to have to wait for something better to come along.

(Does The Hobbit have a release date yet, by the way?)]]> Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:11:00 +0000 (Sorry for the long break from blogging, but I suspect that at least for Oscar Season, I'll be around more.)

As I get them prepared, I thought I would share five things I find interesting about this year's Oscar nominees. (For a complete list of nominees, you can look just about anywhere, but here's the official Academy site.)

1. Does the Academy have a problem with brown foreigners?

For a long time, the Academy lived under a cloud of racism, with everyone assuming the members were too old and too white to vote for actors who weren't white and spoke the King's English. It was 24 years between Hattie McDaniel and Sindey Poitier and another 26 years until Denzel Washington. But then it looked as thought things might be changing with wins and nominations for Hallie Barry, Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy, and others. And for years only world superstar Sophia Loren could claim an acting win for a foreign language film, but then Roberto Benigni won, and last year all four acting awards went to non-Americans, including a foreign language performance from Marion Cotillard.

So perhaps the explanation for the Academy's oversight of Slumdog Millionaire in the acting categories is that they like minorities and foreigners now, but not foreign brown people? Especially when the names are hard to pronounce--actually, Dev Patel is pretty easy, but who's counting? Speaking of Patel, he did receive a Supporting Actor nomination from SAG, but Oscar voters decided to go with Michael Shannon, who reports claim is the best thing in Revolutionary Road, so maybe it was the right choice. However, it is awfully suspicious, and rare, for a movie to recieve 10 nominations, including Best Picture, without reaping a single acting bid. After all, how many movies are 10-nominations good without having, you know, good actors?

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Our library was unusual for a ship in this region of space (except for liners of course) but we considered it our greatest asset. We had a semi-permanent population of passengers, nearly 20 just now, who had no real destination except not standing on dirt; and our library (and archives and computers and TARDIS) gave them the illusion of planetary living without the pesky lawmakers who made that living difficult at times. None of our passengers were particularly good, but we did try to ensure newcomers weren't actively evil for both the passengers' safety and ours. Surveying the damage, seemed to me we had fallen down in that regard this time.

Turning on the lights had illuminated a scene right out of Bedlam. Books apparently had been tossed around like confetti with coffee cups and framed photographs smashed on the deck. Once I walked further in, however, it looked likely that all of the debris had been used as ammunition aimed at invaders. I groaned in dismay. This could only mean that our pursers had been caught out without a weapon. Again. Jamie had the excuse of being from a planet where guns were outlawed (and was periodically fined by the Captain whenever he was caught weaponless) but Larraby knew better.]]> Fri, 12 Dec 2008 03:58:00 +0000 My footsteps sounded so loud! I resisted the urge to tiptoe -- hard to tiptoe in workboots at any rate -- and paused only when I reached the main entryway. I glanced quickly into the library then through the opposite corridor to the dayroom, both of which were dark and silent, then picked up my pace again until I reached the closed hatch to the Captain's office. The status board showed that it was sealed but of course as First Mate I have access to all parts of the ship, even the Captain's office.

It was empty and in its usual state of cleanliness, making my nose prickle at the smell of spoiled coffee cream and moldy sandwiches. From the extent of the mold, I calculated that it had been at least a week since the assigned flunky had cleaned it last, but that was more or less average: it was hard to catch the Captain on the lower decks; he spent most of his time on the bridge or in his cabin.

I reached under the back of his desk, flicked a switch, and pulled the desk away from the bulkhead. A little drawer slid out of the bulkhead. Checking my clothes, I found a stray hair and spiraled it into the drawer. It slid back into the bulkhead and, a second and a faint gasp of compressed air later, a much larger drawer spanning the entire width of the desk sprang a centimeter or so out of the bulkhead.

I wrestled the desk further away from the bulkhead (costing me one smashed index finger and a future bruise on my right knee) and pulled the drawer completely out. There was no way the Captain had accessed its contents when the ship was taken over -- every weapon lay snugly in its little plastic cradle, every piece of ammunition packed tightly in the small bins set into the sides of the drawer. This was our last-ditch arms stash in the event we were cut off from the cargo bay and armory.]]> Sat, 15 Nov 2008 06:29:00 +0000 Well, if that didn't inform the invaders I was here, nothing would! I waited several minutes, rubbing my sore hands, but there was no sound, no comms, no vibrations except the normal background ship noise. Which meant the status display was correct and I was completely alone. I shuddered in despair and buried my face in my hands.

When I finally stirred from my grief and fear, I went through my desk and found dressings and gloves to protect my bleeding hands and the bottle of gin I kept for restorative purposes (it's amazing what a shot of gin can do for people expecting vodka). I used a bit of the gin on some extra dressings and patted the area over my head wound until one of the dressings came back clean, waited a bit, then patted again -- no blood. At least I wasn't bleeding out. I checked my weapon, grabbed another box of ammo, and opened the hatch a couple of centimeters.

The corridor seemed brightly lit after the near-dark of the office. I squinted but it was impossible to see the corridor on the other side of the library hatch: the emergency light over it was aimed right at me. I also couldn't see through the main corridor hatch across from the library. I took my pistol out of its holster, kicked my hatch wide, ducked and spun to check the corridor the other way. Nothing. The TARDIS door at the end of the corridor looked stable, although it wavered and swung in a way that still unsettled me after two years on this ship.

I peeked back starboard which was still as clear as I could make out. I didn't know why I was bothering - it was perfectly obvious that I was the only human on the ship. What was I expecting, an alien monster? But that brought back memories of childhood and sneaking off to watch horror vids with Artemis, then hiding in the attic until Father promised all the monsters had gone to Beatrice's house and were terrorizing her instead. That trickle of doubt kept me from relaxing. I wished Father were here.

I sighed and stood up. This is ridiculous, cab! I scolded myself. You've always been sensible and prepared for whatever happens. What's up with this? I sniffed in disgust at myself, squared my shoulders, and walked as boldly as I could to the library hatch.]]> Sun, 02 Nov 2008 01:21:00 +0000
With love,

Hero

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I looked around again. The comm was right where I had seen it last although it may as well have been yards and yards away for the amount of time it took me to crawl to it. I rested a moment when I finally picked it up -- the room was spinning again and I couldn't have read the screen anyway -- and as the sound of my breathing softened, I heard a |clang| from somewhere on the ship. I froze. The clang didn't repeat immediately and there were no other sounds so I took a much-needed breath, crawled to the hatch, and squinted up at the status screen. It had gone to black, which meant it had been at least half an hour since the intruders had left. Considering the stickiness of my blood on the floor, I figured it had to have been at least a couple hours. Unless they had been in and out more than once. That thought made me grimace -- if I had woken up while they were in here... But I hadn't and I was still alive so no sense in dwelling.

I brushed at the black screen and it came alive. Normally green was the predominant color of the display, but I was dismayed to see our systems status was very nearly solid red. I wavered to my knees to reach up and lock my hatch. If there was anyone still on the ship they could see the hatch had been locked on any status screen, but since I was in no shape to defend myself I could at least slow them down.

The screen cycled automatically to the next display, which was life support and biometrics. I checked for other survivors -- "No!" I gasped. According to the display, I was the only one alive on the ship! How could -- how was I -- what ... I couldn't get my thoughts straight. We were a tight crew, we would have died to protect each other... I shook my head and then I couldn't stop until I cried "NO" and pounded on the hatch loud enough to wake the dead.]]> Sun, 26 Oct 2008 03:56:00 +0000