"Death is a primitive concept. I prefer to think of them as battling evil in another dimension."

[quadruplify]

I need to go to bed somewhat early tonight, so I'll try to keep this short:

--Now that I've been off Tumblr for a while now, I've started to work my way through the backlog of movies I've been meaning to see for the longest time now. I don't have time to review each one, so I'll just list them:

Movies that were great:

• A Separation
• The Fall
• Super
• Antique

Movies that sucked tremendously:

• Thor
• X-Men: First Class

Guilty pleasures:

• The Last Starfighter
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Ratatouille
• Bolt

If you want me to explain why I classified these movies the way I did, feel free to ask me in the comments.

--I've slowly started taking steps to take on more independence and responsibility and deal with my depression in more proactive ways; I've been driving on a more regular basis, I've been doing my own laundry, and on Sunday I cooked my own dinner. Spinach linguini with cooked bell peppers, celery, and scallions, to be exact. I still needed some guidance, of course, and I charred the vegetables a little bit, but other than that it came out perfectly. XD Obviously many people already do these things on a regular basis and take them for granted, but these are little victories I need to relish however I can. ^_^;

I've also been going to different places in the area we haven't been to before; the weekend before last my dad and I went to Books & Co., a small used bookstore in Hamden, and we were very impressed by it! Sadly, there aren't a lot of indie bookstores in our area, so it was good to find one by chance and support it however we could. Most of the books there are mainstream/literary fiction, and they also sell greeting cards and jewelry made by local artists. Oh yeah, all the books they sell are half off list price, so if you want a good deal....8D I couldn't resist buying a few books while I was there (Assia Djebar's Children of the New World, Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn, and Ntozake Shange's Betsy Brown), and they served a great chai latte at their café too.

And last weekend we checked out Redscroll Records in Wallingford, which also turned out to be pretty great. It's a small store that focuses on alternative/metal/hardcore/punk (they even sell zines there, which isn't too surprising to me since I know there are people out there who still make them, but still), and lots of vinyl if you're into that sort of thing (my dad ended up finding records he hadn't seen for 30-40 years), but there is something for just about everyone there. (Hey two_grey_rooms, it's better than Cutler's, trust me. XD) I ended up buying Soundtracks by Can and the Zol! EP from BLK JKS, as well as two used DVDs -- The Fall and Fargo, the latter of which I rewatched recently and was just as awesome as I remembered it to be.

--So the first two episodes of The Legend of Korra came out this weekend. And it was AMAZING. And AWESOME. And all those other adjectives I like to overuse when I really, really enjoy something. XD No spoilers, but this GIF just about sums it up:



Ugh why do we have to wait another month for the new episodes to come out D:

Seriously though, if you haven't seen this already, you should, even if you aren't familiar with A:tLA or its fandom. If you missed it when it was online this weekend, leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do. ;-)

(BTW, glad to see Community is back on the air too! Wasn't too impressed with last week's episode, but here's hoping this week's will be better.)

--Some links that I think might be of interest to some of you:

• "What Everyone Needs to Know About the Smear Campaign Against Treyvon Martin (1995-2012)" (a definite must-read)
• "Unarmed and Dangerous?" (another good informative article on the Treyvon Martin case)
• "Dangerous ignorance: The hysteria of Kony 2012"
• "The White Savior Industrial Complex" (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED; the end-all-be-all of #Kony2012 commentary)
• "Climate scientists: It's basically too late to stop global warming" (or try this if Grist's snark and doom-saying isn't your thing)
• "Slow ride: Buses are the new vehicles of youth rebellion"
• Skyscrapers made of wood? Skyscrapers made of wood.
• "Has college become too easy?" (This isn't the first time I've posted something like this, but as a former college student I can definitely relate. :PPP)
• "My son, the straight boy" (the most heartwarming thing you'll read this week, hands down -- thanks politicette!)
• "A Catholic Classmate Rethinks His Religion" (the second most heartwarming thing you'll read this week)
• A beautiful animation of the world's ocean surface currents
• Like ninjas? Something tells me you'll like this.
• Wait a sec -- how can wolves manage to be this adorable?

--And finally, a meme I ganked from iron_valkyrie:

Your result for The Avatar: the Last Airbender Bending Test...

Earth Bender

20% Fire, 35% Earth, 30% Water and 35% Air!

Earth is the element of substance, making Earthbenders and their people in general proud, persistent and enduring. Chances are, you are patient and know how wait, and listen, for the right moment to act.

Take The Avatar: the Last Airbender Bending Test at HelloQuizzy

Comments

[esmenet]

Thank you for the links! Now, please tell me what you didn't like about Thor. :D

[quadruplify]

The problems I had with Thor were the same ones I had with XMFC -- the characters were boring, the plot was predictable, the romance felt forced, and nothing really seemed to be at stake. The immortal characters (Thor, Loki, Odin, etc.) weren't all that interesting because they were defined solely by their attributes and had no personalities to speak of (their mock-heroic dialogue didn't help either -- seriously, so played out), and they tended to switch between good and evil whenever the plot demanded it, almost as if they had no motivations of their own. (Some people had felt a strong emotional impact at Loki's Face Heel Turn, but I felt nothing whatsoever.) I understand why they didn't do a lot with the culture clash involved when Thor reached Earth (the coffee cup smashing scene was pretty much all they did), but a culture clash subplot would've made a better movie, IMHO. The mythology was fascinating and the giant robot was cool, but that was about all it had going for it. :/

[esmenet]

Yeah, sounds about right. I rather liked it, because it gave me LOKI FEELINGS, about misunderstandings and bad parenting and people whose personalities just clash no matter how much they like each other. Not so much the Face Heel Turn stuff, but just . . . I think they did a great job of showing how Loki's decisions made sense to him, but absolutely no one else. And I really like that sort of thing.

And also it gave me Darcy Lewis, who is pretty great.

But I really agree, culture clash would have been way better. And I know, established comics canon blah blah blah . . . but tbh I don't really care about comics canon. Except possibly that one bit where Loki is turned into a tiny kid. And I feel like the film could have been much, much better overall. (It's still better than Captain America, though.)

Fandom has done some pretty great things with it, though.

[quadruplify]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Darcy. She was awesome, what little we saw of her. ^_^;

Fandom has done some pretty great things with it, though.

Examples? I'd love to see how fandom improved on the original.

[thousanth]

I got Earth Bender too!

And oh finally, someone else that didn't like X-Men: First Class. *salutes you*

[quadruplify]

That movie got an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. I will never, ever understand that. :PPP