Mom and Tess and I went and saw Les Miserables last night. I was... whelmed. I'd say that I need to see it again to figure out how I feel about it, but I'm not blowing another ten bucks on it in the theater and I'll fall asleep if I try to watch it at home on DVD. So, here are my thoughts.

First, let me say that this musical is my favorite musical of all time, ever ever ever, and I have been waiting what seems like my entire life to see it on the big screen. My expectations were astronomically high, so I guess I was set up for disappointment. I was expecting something along the lines of Chicago, where they took a good stage show and made it into a movie, not a movie of a stage show, if that makes any sense. It was like watching the 25th anniversary special with slightly better costumes. I'd say it had better sets than an anniversary show, but frankly, you couldn't really see the sets with all the intense facial closeups they were doing, so they might as well not have been there. Note on the closeups during ever freaking song- it was boring as fuck. Seriously. I was staring at the ceiling half the time to rest my eyes because visually, I wasn't missing anything. And since most of the movie was filmed this way...ugh. What were they thinking?

The casting was good, basically- Hugh Jackman is an amazing Jean Valjean, and I loved Colm Wilkinson as the bishop. Anne Hathaway was amazing, but when isn't she? I loved how she got progressively sicker- her makeup artist did a fantastic job, too.

Russell Crowe. Oh, Russell. He would have been great playing Javert in the movie. He sucked as Javert in the musical. Well, he didn't suck. He sounded like someone from Panic in the Disco doing a cover of a couple of Javert's songs. His singing was entirely too pretty, and I just wasn't buying the badass cop thing.

WHY DID THEY PICK WHAT'S HIS NAME FOR MARIUS I MEAN NOT ONLY DO YOU LOOK LIKE A BIZARRE CHARICATURE OF A HUMAN BEING YOU SING LIKE MARVIN THE MARTIAN, I MEAN CUT YOUR NOSE OFF YOUR FACE SO YOU CAN DO THE WORLD THE FAVOR OF NOT SINGING THROUGH IT WHILE YOU MOON AROUND AFTER COSETTE WITH YOUR WEIRD FISH EYES.

Cosette was good. I liked Seyfried's portrayal, but then, I like her and I like Cosette. Seriously, people need to get over the Cosette hate. She didn't even know that Eponine existed, she just found a dude that she liked and then married him. Whatever.

I really wish Helena Bonham Carter would retire from acting. This was the one role I thought she would be good in, and imo she kind of bombed. Mme. Thenardier is a very in-your-face role, and HBC played her so delicately- it was strange.

Eponine was awesome. Right? When isn't she? But let's just take a second here to ask the question that's been on everyone's mind. IS HER WAIST REALLY THAT SMALL? Is that natural? Is it a corset? I want to put my hands around her waist just to see if I can do it. I'm pretty sure I can do it. I'm going to creep stalk the actress and put my hands around her waist to see if that was real or if it was the magic of the silver screen. By god, that was crazy.

The death scenes were good- Valjean's was amazing. I think that the problem I had was that I wanted this movie to be like the last three minutes (AMAZING WONDERFUL BREATHTAKING THE FEEEEEEEELS) for the entire thing. I wanted to be swept away and I wasn't. As a result, I've got a case of the blues I just can't shake.

Other notes:

I hate Gavroche. In general.

OH HAY LES MIS WHY DON'T YOU FINISH YOUR SONGS SOMETIMES

Boring boring boring OH HELLO RANDOM STREET FULL OF HOT YOUNG MEN. Suddenly this movie got better.

ENJOLRAS x GRANTAIRE = BROMANCE OF THE AGES. Oh my god, seriously. Their death scene was all, "THE SKY IS OUR CANOPY. GOD'S CANOPY. THE SKY." *bullets*

I was looking forward to Master of the House, since it's a fun song. It wasn't fun. It was gross.

Was it really necessary to add the spine breakage to Javert's death scene? Why couldn't he just have made a big splash? Then the entire theater wouldn't have been all D:

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Eh. Hairstyles were occasionally dumb. Pumpkin went from loveable to annoying. WWII?!?!? When the fuck did that happen? Rob Marshall, you totally skipped like a hundred pages, what the fuck.

Dude, that dance was lame. LAAAAAAAAME.

I don't remember anyone burning the okiya down, but since you got John Williams to do the [wonderful wonderful] soundtrack, I guess I'll let it slide.

Nobu, your arm magically grew back! Hooray.

Um... Americans? O_o

OMFG HATSUMOMO YOU ARE SO COOL I LOVE YOU I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BITCHY PRETTY BABIES!

Memoirs is an okay movie if you haven't read the book at least once every two weeks for the last six or so years and if you don't know a damn thing about geisha culture.

Speaking of which, what the fuck are they talking about when they talk about "Miyako?" "You will be the most famous geisha in all Miyako."

I think you meant Gion. Idiots. *smacks in collective heads*

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First:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEV-KUN!!!!!!!!!

Second:

Last night- after everything got straightened out, after I cooked a pork roast and watched Keeping Up Appearances on PBS- I met Quinn at the mall and we went and saw The Excorcism of Emily Rose. Good movie, with some scary bits, although the whole thing might have been more effective it the rest of the damn theater would have shut the fuck up. Seriously- what about this movie prompted almost everyone to talk during it?

I had parked in the Borders lot, and by the time the movie let out, Borders was closed. We had to walk around the end of the mall to get there; for some reason, this whole trek-through-the-scary-abandoned-parking-lot thing always happens after scary movies, just when you don't want to be passing lonely docking bays and frightening dumpsters. Now, not only are zombies, aliens, and water ghosts out to get us, they're all possessed by demonic forces.

Anyway. I dropped Quinn off at his house and was leaving around two or so, after he fell asleep. I'm fiddling with getting the key in the lock of the car door and happen to glance up at the sky, which is really starry because he lives out in Bumfuck.

Lo and behold, the sky is all lit up and glowing! It's glowing green, which should have been my first clue, but I ran down the check list of what it couldn't be in my head first.

Is the sun coming up?
Not from that direction, it ain't.

Is the Fair still going on?
Nope.

Are there any large cities in the north that I might have missed at some point?
Don't think so.

OMFG! NORTHERN LIGHTS!!!

So I ran tearing back into the house, up the stairs, and barged into Quinn's room. Then I jumped on the bed and shook him awake.

"Quinn, Quinn! Wake up! You have to come see this, it's the Northern Lights!"

"Huh? What? What? What life- where? Who's alive?!?!" He sat straight up and looked around, his eyes still half closed, looking like he thought the roof was going to cave in on him or something. Bah, said I, and dragged him out to the driveway in his underwear- never mind that it was about forty-five degrees out.

Quinn agreed that it was very pretty and cool and wonderful, but he left for a few minutes to go get some clothes on. ("I'm in my underwear. The neighbors can see me. I'm freezing!") Then he got his sister and his mom, and we stood out on the back deck watching it for about twenty minutes. It was incredible; these green ribbons of light pulsating and waving across a beautiful starry sky. Definitely my version of romantic.

("OMG! THERE ARE WEIRD GREEN LIGHTS PULSING IN THE SKY! KISS ME!")

And then this morning, I told Quinn all about the contents of my Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers book. Heart the fact that he doesn't get squicked by my strange choices for topics of conversation- although he did get hung up on the Mellified Man thing.

Spent the rest of the day in bed, sick with a stomach virus.

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Dear Movie Critics Who Said That "The Grudge" Sucked:

FUCK. YOU.

If I wasn't really tired and if I didn't have a lot of other, more important shit to do, I would totally hunt you down and eviscerate you. If someone had told me that "The Grudge" was actually pretty freaky instead of leading me to believe that it was stupid, then I wouldn't have watched it yesterday, nor would I have had nightmares about weirdo Japanese boys who meow a lot trying to kill me and/or bite my toes off.

GAH.

The only way in that it did, in fact, suck, was that the end was left open. Not so much for a sequel, I think. It was like "The Ring"- you just know that the cycle is going to keep perpetuating itself, and that Kayako is going to go on tormenting Sarah Michelle Gellar forever and ever, or until she morphs back into Buffy and does something about it, whichever comes first.

The other crazy dream I had involved me, Kevin Beesaw, and a random North Syracuse winterguard person conspiring to commit murder in Pittsburgh.

I should probably go find something to eat, so my stomach won't make embarassing noises in CRJ class.

I really hope I did well on my test.

GAH- reprise: Have to rewrite my English paper after Chemistry. Damn you, Heisenberg, for spawning EnglishPaper!plotbunnies.

Cath is screwing everyone again, quel suprise.

What the hell. I suppose I should give up GeekLove and force myself to make Cath my favorite character, since she's the one who's got the most drama going on. But there's some stubborn part of me that just won't do it. She gets away with so much shit- and Sara blows up once, and almost loses her job. WHAT. EVER. So Cath making out with Nick/Warrick/Grissom/Ecklie/Another Club Owner/etc--- grr. I dunno. Don't get me wrong- I love the YoBling- but why is it always Cath who gets the drama?

ANYWAY. I did three things of note this weekend.

I drove to Oswego with Manda, Jason, her cousin, and their friend. We drove through a blizzard to get Oreo flurries from McDonald's, and Manda shared hers with me when I went into a hysterical CCE rant. I think I may have scared them, but I couldn't help it.

Yesterday my sister and I made a lemon-pear pie, and it's the best fucking thing on the face of the planet.

Then we went and saw Constantine. It was good for what it was, but it begs to be spoofed. I've been m15m-ing it all night. It's a giant crossover between The Matrix, The Mummy, The Prophecy, Dogma, and a two-part episode of Angel.

If I have time later, I'll spoof it. However, English might just get in the way of this.

I love Puccini's music, but he puts his heroines through so much shit. It's really kind of ridiculous. I particularly like the one (Manon Lescarut? I think?) where she dies of dehydration in the desert outside of New Orleans.

You see, I wasn't aware that there was a desert outside of New Orleans.

And Turandot is a psychotic ice princess bitch, but I love her anyways.

One of these days, post new computer and post getting photoshop, I'm planning on making a CSI icon set (primarily Grissom/Sara) with the lyrics from Madama Butterfly on them. Particularly the "pin me down" scene, with the lyrics "I hold you, trembling... You're mine." I can't remember the Italian for that, except "you're mine" which is "sei mia."

Speaking of which, ( Does anyone else think that Sara's mellowed out a bit? )

Had another weird CSI dream again the other night. Long story short, I dreamed that the team was a Jang circle. For those of you who don't know what that is, I suggest you read Tanith Lee's "Biting The Sun." It's like The Matrix, but so much prettier. Anyway, Jang are the teenager type people. In my dream, Grissom and Sara had gotten married for an afternoon or something, and he was being a real ass to her- but whenever anyone else was mean to her, he would smack them around and get real pissed about it. They were all kind of sitting there, and all of a sudden Sara gets a nosebleed, except it's not blood, it's chocolate. Everyone just ignored her, and she just said, "Yeah, I'm dying. I expect I'll be dead in about fifteen minutes or so. It's no big deal." And she's trying to talk through this chocolate hemorraging through her nose, and it's getting all over her electric blue corset. I remember her top because I woke up wishing I had one just like it. (Sans chocolate.) Oh yeah, and everyone had Memento-style tattoos.

I need to stop dreaming. There was the dream about my boss from CCE and the vampire pomeranians, but I'm not even going to go into that.

Billy Petersen/Grissom question: Does Billy Petersen have lots of tattoos? A friend's mother said he did, and I've been curious ever since.

.......................

I need new shoes.

.......................

I need new ballet shoes, too. I really want canvas flats, with a double cross elastic. I was looking at these new ones that just came out that are two pieces, since my arches are horrible and when I have shoes on you can't really see them, but I don't think it's worth it at this point. With my luck, they'll keep falling off my feet.

.......................

My transcript finally came in the mail. My English teacher handed in his grades late, so that's why it wasn't up on the STAR system when I called in on Christmas.

English: A
Algebra: A
Biology: B
French: B+

GPA: 3.390

Yeah. Rock my world.

.......................

Random Phantom of the Opera notes:

~ Raoul is really hot when he's half drowned, tied up, and distressed. Other than that, he leaves me cold.

~ Christine has Magical Disappearing and Reappearing Makeup. She gets points for riding sidesaddle, but loses them for showing the tops of her garters, the tart!

~ Love the "Let's kill Buquet!" scene. I echo Karen in her opinion that the way Erik and Buquet were intercut with the ballet going on below was awesome.

~ I was looking forward to the swordfight, but it kind of sucked. Too many close ups and moving the camera around- that really detracted from it; you couldn't see what was going on half the time.

~ I loved the way they added little pieces from the book.

~ I also loved Mme. Giry. She totally kicked ass and OMG I want her Masquerade outfit SOBAD. I thought it was great how they made her into kind of a sassy younger version of herself, as opposed to other productions, when she's a hardcore ballet mistress with a really tight bun and a walking stick. Which is what she really is, when you think about it, but I love this characterization of her.

~ And Erik beat Raoul to the grave in the end. WHO'S THE PUNK NOW, BITCH?!?!?!!? Muah ha ha.

...*facepalm* And now I have to go home. Bugger.

I so need my computer back.

Meh. No time to update, really, plus I hate typing anything here at the office. It's cold and uncomfortable and I can't keep my thoughts straight.

New Years was alot more fun than I thought it was going to be, since I wound up staying home. Andy came over, and Kelsey and I blasted hip hop since Dad wasn't there. Then we blasted Chicago after he got home, and he didn't complain about it! Also, we did some reels around the kitchen. And tried to teach Andy to dance. And watched Resident Evil 2. Danced some more, ate party nibbly food stuff, and drank champagne (I made mom get the Veuve Cliquot, and it was great. Mmmm. I love champagne, kthnxbai.)

Yesterday was alot of fun, too. Kelsey and I went to go see Phantom. Second time for me- I am so buying that when it comes out.

Karen. I totally, totally agree with you. My little problems with the movie were less problems than little snerks.

"Wow! Christine, how did you get on that much dark eye shadow in two twists of the hallway???"

I. Love. Mme. Giry.

And Carlotta rocks my world. "BYEBYE!!!" lol. I have got to get me some Carlotta icons.

I'm going to review it better when I have more time.

Andy came over last night, too, and we watched Shaun of the Dead while we ate dinner. That is one of the best movies I've seen in a while. In fact, I think Mom and Dad are going to go out an buy it. Heheh. Heart zombies.

Notes to myself:
Today: David
Tomorrow: Daniel
At some point: Tom, Oliver
Call the Alicias, GA re: pics
Write down ideas etc. for Umeka-san re: ochaya

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- re: ochaya *squees*

Scan Bree's thingamajig

Carpe cakem. Seize the cake.

Sally Jo gave me food and Daniel gave me a bracelet- whee!

Did Sally Jo's essay this morning and helped set up Daniel's webpage. Much was accomplished, yea verily, and I feel all kinds of productive and stuff.

-- I want to eat the food that Sally Jo gave me, but I'm afraid I'll look like an idiot eating French bread and brie in the lobby. Am also debating on getting a cookie- I didn't before (will power? Go me?) and might be regretting this now, as I'm kind of hungry.

Also, don't know if I have lab tonight. Hope not, in the interest of cake. I tried to talk Mom into putting extra icing on it, but who knows if she'll take the bait.

Saw all kinds of movies since Friday. I'm going to talk about it all now because I've been losing track of time and can't place things again. Daniel and I saw "Polar Express" after class on Friday, which was pretty cool. I don't know what I got more of a kick out of- the movie itself, or Daniel's reactions. Every time something !!! happened, he'd go "Jesus Christ!!!" Hee. Also introduced him to the wonders of underground parking, which he hadn't come across yet. He was very impressed with that. And stromboli from Sbarro's. He told me about the first time he and his friends went to the mall and didn't know what an escalator was, and they walked up it instead of standing still. That in and of itself isn't that odd to me, since everyone in New York does it. Going up from the platforms at Penn you get in one of two lines- the people walking, or the people standing.

Tom and I saw "Spongebob Squarepants" for his birthday on Saturday. It was okay- definately better when drunk. However, now have lots of ideas for LOTR/CSI icons, using movie lines. *facepalms* I'm so warped.

Last night Andy and I went and saw "National Treasure." Again, great for one-liner icons and stuff like that. Overall it was a great movie and I'll probably buy it when it comes out on DVD. I like the sidekick guy- he was pretty cool. It kinda made me want to go steal the Declaration of Independence.

And it had Boromir in it! Score!

And "crazy CSI shit"- as Andy called it- planting fingerprints! Score!

... am I the only one who can see Grissom calling Sara BooBooKittyFuck?



I am still tripping about whether or not Mookie did the right thing.
Yay for garbage cans through windows.

Okay, no more listening to Amanda Rogers while I fall asleep.

Something I’ve discovered about myself: the music I sleep to generally dictates what kind of dreams I’ll have. I’ve been listening to Amanda a lot lately, but not after I go to bed. However, I was lazy yesterday and didn’t feel like going all the way downstairs to get my Village soundtrack out of my bag, so I put her in.

Then I dreamed that [xxx] and I were supposed to get married, but he died the day before the wedding. So I was really grief stricken/pissed, and I was bitching about him while walking around through the hotel kitchens, wondering what to do with all the food, the flowers, so on and so forth. People kept trying to talk to me but I wouldn’t listen to them. Finally Anna and Jeannette pulled me aside and explained things to me- [xxx] wasn’t dead, I was. I was the one who had died, after getting cancer a couple of months before. So it was my fault that the wedding was off, and [xxx] was crying at home. At which point my hands and then my arms and then the rest of me went see-through, and I floated away.

Mom and I watched Cold Mountian last night and laughed our asses off through the whole thing. Like that part when he gets shot in the ear? Hysterical. Or when the old guy dies? We cracked up. The sex scene was the best, though. Between Renee Zellweger’s character and all the weird angle butt shots… we almost wet our pants laughing. Yeah, that’s real mother-daughter bonding time I guess; laughing through a Civil War drama. -_-

Although the Porch Kiss goes on my list of Great All Time Movie Kisses.

In other news, I got registered for all my classes at OCC. I missed two that I wanted, since I registered so late, but at least I got into a biology class. So now I’m in Bio, Math, English, and French. Yay, go me. I suppose. Now I have to get a job.

Kate’s coming up from Albany today to go to all her post-surgery doctor’s appointments this weekend. I’m going to make her watch Last of the Mohicans with me. wOOt!

Take the quiz: "Which God or Goddess are you?"

God of Beautiful Death
Elegant, regal, and beautiful. You accept death for what it is, and unavoidable part of life. You often feel higher than others, more mature or sane, and tend to wear dresses and skirts if your a girl, or collared shirts if you're a boy. You bring those who have died a peaceful death to their resting place.

Tom, here is another version of this for you.

Did you ever see a hearse go by/
and think some day you're going to die?/
They put you in a wooden box/
and cover you over with dirt and rocks/
The worms crawl in/
The worms crawl out/
in your stomach/
and out your mouth/
There was one little worm who wasn't so shy/
went in your ear and out your eye!"

My japanese name is 清水 Shimizu (clear water) 美晴 Miharu (beautiful clear sky).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Thoughts on Troy:

~I am hella jealous of the Trojans' furniture. I loved Hector's room. Want it. Badly.

~ WTF happened to Cassandra???? She was like, my favorite.

~ Yeah, I liked the eye candy. Who wouldn't?

*drools in general*

Also, why did Minas Tirith go with a Romanesque architecture theme? You'd think that they'd go with Gothic. I sat pondering this last night at the cathedral, when I should have been paying attention to my sister getting confirmed; I also spent some quality time doodling on the program. Just like old times.

It's okay. Mrs. Cassidy was bored too. We're planning to descend on Sux's parents up in Oswego one of these days.

Mrs. Cassidy also knows the lyrics to the Milkshake song. She sang it on the way home last night. It was vastly amusing.

And, um... That's it, I guess. For now.

So I'm sitting here, next to Link...

The guy from Legend of Zelda. I wish I had a camera for this.

Wheee!