Do you still think that way about me now?

So, my opinion of My Little Pony The Movie? It's... alright. The plot is on the picaresque side and feels rushed. Elements like the city where everything is for sale, the airship pirates, the sea ponies, are skimmed through rather than solidly established. Similarly, the chief villain is a non-entity; he gets talked about a lot but doesn't actually do anything until the final act. Yes, I know the real focus is on Tempest, the redeemable second-string villain, but in order for that redemption to have impact, you need a sense of how powerful the evil entangling them is.

( Cut for spoiler )

So it's a bit rambling, shallow and scattershot. But then, I'm looking at it with an adult's eye; ankle biters may be more forgiving.

Does anyone else feel queasy when they hear Elle Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do" or Beyonce's "Crazy In Love", because of their connection to a certain half-century-long spectrum of an intermediate achromatic colour? I really liked "Crazy In Love", and I know that if it had been released without the abovementioned association, I would have liked the creepy/slowed-down edit even more. (I have a thing for creepy "love" songs; the only Justin Timberlake songs I can stand are "Cry Me A River" and "What Goes Around".) "Love Me...", I can't be sure about, since it has never been unconnected with the variety of ashen tones, but my suspicion is that I would have thought of it as an ok tune: not one that would grab my attention but I might sing along unconsciously to the chorus.

I haven't read the books; I wasn't interested in them before they went OMGPublishingphenomenon! and after hearing complaints of bad writing and unease over the central characters, I was even less interested. On the principle of that non-interest, I will not be seeing the movies, either. So it's really disturbing to find that it is damaging my enjoyment of media which I am interested in!

This Monday, I like... "I Won't Say (I'm in Love)" from the soundtrack to Disney's Hercules.




I was skeptical when I heard Disney were going to make a movie about Hercules. How were they going to get around the whole illegitimate-son-of-a-god thing? Or Hera's vendetta? The twelve labours being punishment for Hercules going insane and murdering his first wife and children? The Hydra's poison coming back to bite him on the ass? And the answer was... they were just going to ignore all that and make something up. Also, there are nine Muses - NINE, Disney, not five!

Ok, so the mythology purist in me is not amused. But I (kinda) forgive them because of Megara: a sassy, sharp-witted and conflicted "anti"-heroine with impossible hair, tiny boobs and a tragic history (yay, angst!). ( Tiny spoiler ) Megara's story is far more interesting than the eponymous hero's: from innocence and self-sacrifice to disappointment, bitterness and cynicism, back through a hesitant emotional and moral reawakening to find love and hope again. And it all gets summed up in this song, one of the cleverest and possibly the most truthful of Disney's love themes. Megara, defensive and prickly, is countered by the Muses, acting as chorus/conscience/gaggle of girl friends, who persistently and kindly persuade her to accept her real feelings - if only to herself. Those last four lines always make me tear up a little. Plus it's a great tune and Susan Egan is an awesome singer; I love the fierce little growl she does when she sings, "Get off my case".

This song, this character saves a movie that would otherwise turn me into a grouchy bore. That's got to be a good thing.

This Monday, I like... Kronk.


Image taken from Fanpop - character of Kronk copyright the Walt Disney Company


Oh, Kronk. What would The Emperor's New Groove do without you? You were only meant to be the secondary comic relief but you turned out to be the best damn thing in that movie. You have a shoulder-angel and devil! You do your own theme music! You talk to squirrels! You are AWESOME!

You're also cheekily self-referential. The movie-makers use Kronk at various points to poke fun at their own film. The Emperor's New Groove is something of a mess; my sisters and I always joke that it has no plot whatsoever. ( Cut for spoilers ) That the character voicing the sly digs at the movie's faults and quirks is also supposed to be the stupidest one in the room, gives those audience members who are more than five years old something to laugh about - and somebody to root for, in a film where the "protagonists" are a self-centred egotist and a rather bland family-man type.

There are inconsistencies in Kronk's characterisation which irritate me ( Another spoiler ); then again, the whole film is one big inconsistency. But his cheerful silliness, love of cookery and nature, and quotable dialogue make him one of my favourite Disney characters. Long live Kronk!

First aid training makes me ver' ver' sleepy.

Don't you just hate it when a storyline you've been playing with runs off into depressing territory and you can't get it back? Do Not Want, brain.

I caught the tail end of Mary Poppins last night, and if Karen Hallion hadn't convinced me already, the movie itself is proof that Mary Poppins is a Time Lord. "I never explain anything", indeed. XD

We are painting the dining room in a colour I chose! Yay!

jellostar! Currently watching 5ive's video for "Keep On Moving"! So many good memories to that song... :)

Watched After Earth last night. It got a trouncing from the critics but I didn't think it was that bad. Sure, Will Smith was grumpy and po-faced, but he was playing a guy who had taught himself to suppress fear, and if you suppress fear, you'll wind up suppressing every other emotion too. The kid was a decent lead, the special effects were fine, the story was enjoyable. The whole "fear isn't real" premise was interesting. And the weirdly stilted accents struck me as being rather true-to-life. After all, the first white people in America didn't speak with "American" accents; that took time to develop. So in a couple of millenia, how likely is it that the American accent of today would still be around?

There was one false moment when an animal's actions seemed too anthropomorphised, but it was over pretty quickly. So yeah, overall I liked it.

Well, here goes nothing:





I wish it was less smudgy-looking; the lines looks like they're made of tiny little dots of grit - which I suppose is what they are, anyway - but hey, there you go, my first week's worth of doodling! I think my favourite is Thursday's efforts. The woman's curly hair worked out really well and while her nose is bigger than I wanted, the face looks generally in proportion. Also, the cartoony prawn-thing on the right, which I did on a whim after finishing the woman, is weirdly adorable. Monday's mermaid also turned out better than I expected. Adding the fancy goldfish/koi carp colouring to her tail made her come to life in a way that leaving her as a pencil sketch didn't.

All in all, pretty happy. If I do this again, though, I'll use a bigger diary. I bought a slim-style one and the restricted space gets annoying.



I saw Frozen yesterday. I have... mixed feelings. There's too much singing in the first half and the songs aren't that great, the exception being Elsa's "Let It Go". Kristoff isn't a patch on Tangled's Flynn Ryder as the male "anti"-hero. ( Spoiler ) Similarly, Olaf the snowman and Sven the reindeer aren't as memorable as Pascal and Maximus. Olaf's existence is never fully explained; we're told that Elsa made him but we don't see it happening. ( Spoilers ) And what is with the weird way they kept pronouncing Anna's name? Yes, I know it's set in a Scandinavian-esque nation, and that's most likely the way that "Anna" is pronounced in that part of the world, but pretty much everyone talked with very American accents - EXCEPT when saying that one name.

BUT I did love the twist on the whole "true love" cliche ( Spoilers ) the reveal of the movie's villain was unexpected and clever, and Elsa is a fantastic character, all emotional damage and low self-esteem. As I said earlier, "Let It Go" is the best song in the show and it's also the point where I started to enjoy the movie. The animation as she makes her ice castle is beautiful; I think if I got this movie on DVD, I'd probably play that scene over and over again.

( And yet more spoilers )



I'm reading Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service at the moment. It's actually a lot of fun! Bond's got a little bit more of a moral core in his attitude towards women (only a little, mind) than he does in the movies; he mentally tells himself off as he seduces a woman under false pretences. My only quibble with Fleming's writing is that he overuses the exclamation mark; seriously, he must use about a dozen in each chapter.

The book does have the most horribly eighties cover, though: this big-haired blonde with black roots, in a shiny pink bomber jacket and equally shiny purple leggings, posed on top of an oversized gold handgun, ugh.

...Aaaand this has taken me absolute ages to write; I started around 4 o'clock and it's now 20 past 5 >.

1) A dream in which I was stranded with a bicycle in a very empty New York (which looked a lot like the local towns here but never mind), depopulated by a zombie plague, and then I had to eat a lot of chocolate desserts (don't ask; I certainly didn't).

2) Sharon brought me home a cute pen with a wooden chicken head on the end. And it's black ink too! (I prefer writing in black.)

3) While washing up the lunch dishes, Mum let slip that we were going to the cinema as my birthday treat. Sharon's face was a picture!

4) We went to a matinee showing, just like I used to do when I was at uni *nostalgia*

5) We saw Les Miserables and we all cried (except Sharon, who never cries at movies). And Mum loved it too :)

6) We then got take-out for supper. I had chips, peas, gravy and sausages mmmmmmmm...

7) Now I'm planning to go to Belfast tomorrow with Sharon. I haven't been up to the city in a long time; I'm looking forward to it.

So yeah, the wangsty stuff is still around, but I've had a really nice day and just forgot all about it ^.^

I am alive! And I have *drumroll please* broadband! Yay! I am now part of the twenty-first century. :DDD

I've had broadband since last Friday, but between my mum, my little sister, going to the ballet and needing to take a shower, this is the first night I've been able to get on it lol. My mother is officially an addict.

Oh, and the ballet? Well, you know you're getting old when you prefer Classic FM to Radio 1, and I'm getting old fast. I'm a complete newbie to classical music - sang somebody's Requiem when I was in senior choir, can't remember whose, that was as close as I got - but I guess that, like comics, I've had a curiosity about it for a long time and now the curiosity has grown to the point where I'm getting involved.

I went to see Sleeping Beauty and it was lovely. I didn't wince half as much as I expected ("ow, my toes, ow, my toes"). Also, the king and the doctor were hot >:D. There was a while when I was kinda hoping the doctor would get the princess. The king and queen should have had more dances of their own - the queen was very pretty and I wanted to see her dance more.

Work is... well, work. We've got a guy on our team who has put a number of backs up. It's part clash-of-personalities and part Tony-please-just-shut-up. If it's just the two of us, I can rub along with him, but when you add in others - Mary in particular - things get badly strained. She can't stand him and the feeling seems mutual. Then he complains to others in the office (oh such a bad idea), which leads to all kinds of gossip and hush-hush meetings.

My trick for dealing with all this is pretend none of them exist the second I walk out the office door *sigh* I keep thinking about the line from Kate and Leopold: "I'm tired, and I need a rest, and if I have to peddle a little pond scum to get one, then so be it."

(BTW, Jill, my other little sister, Sharon, is completely in love with this movie and has addicted her best friend to it too *cackles evilly*)

Still doing web reviews for Waterstone's; actually, a new set of books arrived from them today, including Helen Garner's The Spare Room, the one the publisher kicked up stink about when it wasn't included in the Booker list. I did want to read it, so it's great to get it for free :D

Errrrrr... oh, Christmas! Great Christmas! Lots and lots of Wii games were bought (most of them by me, for I left it late and had no imagination this year). I got a new handbag, which I call my Mary Poppins bag; everything fits in it. And long-legged socks, which have been a godsend in this freezing weather we've had recently.

...Ok, can't think of anything else to say... except that The Dark Knight rocks and Heath Ledger was a genius :( And apologies for not putting all this spew under cuts but I've completely forgotten how to do them, and will have to go re-educate myself >.

( Dear Santa... )

The moral of the story is, if you give a kidney you can do whatever you like the rest of the year XD

I have the terrible feeling that I missed someone's birthday... But nobody talked about birthdays so I'm going to assume my instincts are being weird.

I have the cold: sore throat, stuffy/runny nose, sinus headache, general blahness. Thing is, I wasn't in contact with anyone who has the cold; I just woke up yesterday morning with the worst sore throat in the world. I think I may have got it because I had my room window open on Sunday night. But my room was so stuffy when I came up that it needed the air.

Does anyone know if there's something you can put in steaming water which will relieve sore throats and blocked noses and clean and refresh your face at the same time?

Eimhear, I love you. You ask fantastic questions and you TALK TO ME!! THANK YOU!!! My Monday classes are so much better when you're in them. And I love you too, Paul. Paul and Eimhear win teh intarwebs *channels featherypony*

My brothers and I went to see Doom last night. I'd heard mixed reviews: some awful, some quite enthusiastic. My opinion: it was alright-sih. Thrills, scares, action and special effects have all been done much, much better elsewhere but it's entertaining enough if you don't ask it to be more than what it is: a DTV film about steriod-pumped men shooting the shit out of not-that-convincing slimy things with token blonde female (who, for once, wasn't the love interest). It's redeemed from the boring side of alright-ish by the first-person-shooter scene. Ohmiword, that scene is FANTASTIC!!! If I were to rent the DVD, I'd just put it to that scene. Really well done, and yes, it does look exactly like the game. I would like to have seen the whole movie done like that, but I suppose it might not have worked for story-telling purposes. Though really, what more story do you need to know other than there are lots of slimy things on Mars that you have to shoot the shit out of?

So yeah, I thought it was OK.