Links of interest...

[hawkwing_lb]

Gemma Files on Zero Dark Thirty:

As ever, Bigelow always manages to always frame things for maximum impact and wring incredible suspense out of even the most foregone conclusions. I keep seeing that last track through the post-”Geronimo, for God and country” wreckage of bin Laden’s hideout, where she makes sure that the team’s one Muslim member is the person who gets to see all the broken heads and shot-out eyes up close and personal. And Maya, in her last appearance, sole passenger on a troop transport plane, crying because she doesn’t know where she wants to go, and probably not being entirely aware of it. So basically, what I’m saying is fuck you, fellas; whoever ends up getting that Oscar this year needs to know both that Bigelow is the motherfucker who found this place, and that this is the one to beat.

N.K. Jemisin on Gamefail bluescreen:

It’s obvious the game developers didn’t think much about how the characters in their xenophobic fantasy world would logically react to having a foreigner and a woman — and this is definitely a patriarchial, xenophobic culture — as their much-lauded savior. I don’t think the developers thought much about the characterization for this game at all, let alone on a level that acknowledges the impacts of race and gender and other socioeconomic factors, and their intersections, on worldbuilding. But here’s what’s irritating: the game pays lip service to these issues, even though it doesn’t engage with them on a deeper level.

The comment thread on Where Are The Older Women? is still going strong at 110 comments: lots of useful recommendations and hardly a troll in sight. Which makes me rather happy.

Anyway. Spent yesterday and last night hanging out with a friend who's heading off soon to Brussels to intern at Parliament. We mainlined The Dark Knight Rises (not awful), Resident Evil Retribution (awful: has not even the vaguest glimmer of plot) and Dredd (AWESOMESAUCE), about which probably (possibly) more later.

Now I must get my arse in gear and do more with my day than merely move shelves around...

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Oh, wait. I forgot to log Wednesday's exercise. Mile in 12:00, treadmill; 10K exercise bike, 29:00. Some weights.

Mass: 103.5kg.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am glad you enjoyed Dredd, and would very much like to see your thoughts in further detail; I've been a fan of the original from various very different directions at various points in my life (what the last couple of years in the comic have done in terms of long-wavelength plotting over the previous thirty years is bloody astounding) and I'd never have thought it was possible a movie would be made catching so much of what makes the good bits of that worth having.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have never read the comics. That's never been my geekdom. But as a film, it knew what the hell it wanted to do, and proceeded to do it damn well - which is a change from a lot of superhero/comic adaptations. It certainly beat Dark Knight all to hell and gone on internal coherence of both plot-logic and motif.

If that makes sense.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Yay Dredd! It fell into the same category as the first Resident Evil movie for me. Need to get a copy.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

It seems much more visually - I mean, in terms of cinematography - striking. But it's a lovely little piece of SF dystopia GO BOOM.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

To clarify, it was the sort of licensed movie that I think a lot of people would dismiss out of hand and yet was genuinely good. As a cinematic spectacle, it definitely delivered more than RE.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes, that.

Also, I'm a sucker for Lena Headey in almost any role, and Olivia Thirlby brought her A-game.