Princess Sparklefists

On the bus ride from Ottawa back in October I read Evelyn Waugh’s bizarre satirical novel Vile Bodies. You know those books that you finish reading and think “I’m not quite sure what to make of that, but I think I liked it”? It was one of those. Upon further reflection, I decided it was a good book, and when I found out that it had been adapted into the film Bright Young Things I thought it would be worth a look.

The film stars Stephen Campbell Moore (Evan from Ashes to Ashes) as Adam Fenwick-Symes, the hero of the story, such as it were. Adam and his fiancée Nina (Emily Mortimer) are members of the exclusive set of English high society—the bright young things. They and their friends live a hedonistic lifestyle and are constant fodder for the London gossip columnists, and the film follows their amusing but self-destructive antics.

I really enjoyed the film, which is very faithful to the novel—even retaining much of the original dialogue. It’s also quite visually pleasing; I’m a sucker for a period setting. The ensemble cast includes a number of great actors, including Stockard Channing (an American evangelist), Jim Broadbent (a drunk major), Peter O’Toole (Nina’s senile father), James McAvoy (a frazzled gossip columnist), and David Tennant (Adam’s rich rival). My favorite part of the movie—which was also my favorite in the book—is when Adam takes over as gossip columnist at one of the papers. He invents his own new celebrities, who are soon the talk of the town, and starts ridiculous fashion trends.

That said, though I enjoyed Bright Young Things, I’d have reservations recommending it generally, because I think I lot of people would really hate it. Period satire—modern relevancy notwithstanding—just isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The characters are entertaining but difficult to like, their ridiculous natures sometimes humorous, sometimes bleak. But if Waugh’s type of humor is something you enjoy, definitely check it out.

Anyone else excited for the new X-Files movie? Cause I sure am!

I was a huge X-Files fan back in the day. When I started watching, my mom wouldn't let me stay up late enough to watch, so I taped the episodes to watch on Mondays. They were all fuzzy because we had terrible reception without cable, but I enjoyed them just the same. I even managed to convert my vehemently anti-Sci-Fi sister to it. The show also led to my first foray into online fandom. There were fan communities aplenty back in the late 90s, though the sites and forums I used to frequent are long gone now. (If it hadn't been for The X-Files fandom, who knows if I'd have made it to The Sugar Quill and met some of my LJ friends! X-Files fandom even prepared me for ship wars.)

The new movie is non-conspiracy related, which is a very good thing, in my opinion. The conspiracy was plenty convoluted when the show was still on, and I certainly don't remember all the details now that the show has been off air for years. Most of my favorite episodes were "monster-of-the-week" eps. Talking about it kinda makes me want to dig out one of my videos and watch one!

I read an article about the new movie in USA Today, and they have a picture of Mulder and Scully along with it. No one is wearing a suit! Scully isn't wearing black! And has long hair! Craziness! Heh. I can't wait for more Mulder and Scully. The mysteries and alien conspiracies are cool, but the interaction between Mulder and Scully always drove the show. I can't wait to see my favorite alien hunting FBI team on screen again!

So who wants to go to a movie in July?

I originally didn't think that coming home for Thanksgiving would fit into my plans for the semester, mostly because flights from Montreal to Columbus are pretty expensive, and partly because I'd have to miss several days of class. But at the last minute, I decided to do it anyway!

I was quite proud of myself for successfully navigating the public transit system to make it out to the airport (one metro train and two buses), which saved me the 40 dollar cab fare. I could've done without, er, lugging my luggage up and down the stairs at the metro, but I lived through it.  My flights were on time and unextraordinary, which is just the way I like it. Rachel came to pick me up from the airport, and she brought Murray! He was a little bit more interested in sticking his head out the window than in me, but oh well. He's a dog, he can't resist an open car window.

Yesterday Rachel and I made pecan pies, and I tried to make pie crust. I say tried because my crust was a dismal failure. I've only made pie crust once, one year ago, and I was supervised. I think I also used  a different recipe, because last year I used a food processor, but this time I used a mixer. At any rate, the crust was all crumbly. I finally was able to roll it out, but then it just fell apart again when I tried to put it in the pie plate. Oh well. One of these days I'll get better at baking. At least the pie filling turned out right! Pecan pie is great. Almost all the ingredients are some kind of sugar. Mmmm...

I can never talk about pecan pie without thinking of the movie When Harry Met Sally. "Waiter, there is too much pepper in my paprikash, but I would be proud to partake of you pecan pie!" It cracks me up and drive Rachel nuts. So basically, a win-win situation. For me.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, of course. Grandma, predictably, kept trying to get us to eat more food. Haven't had potatoes? You should have some potatoes! Do you need another roll? Have you had any vegetables yet? Fortunately, eating lots of food isn't a problem when all the food tastes great.

After dinner we visited with family, then I went with Rachel to her boyfriend's house. We all played Goldeneye on N64 on Phil's gigantic TV (it's seriously the biggest TV I've ever seen--Phil said it's 63 inches). I'm awful at video games. I think I lost almost every single round, but I did manage to kill Bond (Phil) once by slapping him. Who needs weapons?

It's so good to be back here. Dad asked me on Wednesday night whether it was weird being here, and I was a little bit surprised to find that it's not. It feels... normal. Which is strange, since I haven't actually lived here at any point in the last four years. Which is nothing against where I'm living now, because I really like it there too. I'm here until Monday, so I've got the rest of the weekend to relax a bit and maybe even do some shopping. School? What's that?

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, six weeks before its American counterpart. We got the day off from classes today, which would be much more exciting if I had a class that meets on Mondays. All of my Canadian housemates took advantage of the long weekend to take a trip home, so it was just me and the other international students at home this weekend.

Yesterday, I got together with some of my LIS friends for a Thanksgiving potluck. We didn't have turkey because none of us really know how to cook one, but we had both chicken and ham instead. We also had cheese and crackers, corn muffins, macaroni salad, potato salad, rice, corn pudding, cranberry sauce, scalloped potatoes, pumpkin pie, apple pie, chocolate cake, and, of course, plenty of wine. The food and the company were both very good! I have leftover apple pie and ham, so I'm sure I'll be eating plenty of those this week. I think for dinner, I'll use some of the ham in an omelette. I love Thanksgiving leftovers!

I was less than delighted, however, to discover that Provigo (which is a Quebec supermarket chain) doesn't carry stuffing or yamrs (either the canned or fresh variety). I could have plenty of those for Thanksgiving at home, but unfortunately I have class on American Thanksgiving and can't afford to fly home anyway.

Today I've been "celebrating" by getting work done for my group projects, or at least I'm trying to. (The database project, incidentally, has made me more aware of the "controlled vocabulary" of my LJ tags. Is the Montreal tag useful if everything I do takes place somewhere in the city? Classes are corrupting my internet timewasting!) I'm having huge concentration issues today, so I've decided that as a reward for reading my really boring cataloguing book, I get to watch The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I loved (and still love) the book; it's one of my all time favorites. When I was young, PBS used to air the BBC film version every December. As adaptations go, it's not that great, but at the time I really enjoyed seeing the on-screen version of a favorite book. The 2005 version blows that one away. It's true to the original story and visually stunning. In my opinion it's one of the best, if not the best, film adaptation of a novel that I've seen.