afterbite

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman has moved to the top of my various lists, at least for the moment. When Sameer said he was both "frightened and aroused", I concurred with the latter half but would have reconfigured it as "proud and aroused". Aside from the badassery, which was its own brand of yummy, those eyes tho. That smile. That hair. That confidence.

And in the fun fact category - This quote was also voiced by Gillian Anderson's character in The Fall.

@Katy M, that is indeed ridiculous. I've yet to figure out any sort of schedule for this train. I've gotten caught by it in the morning at 7:15 and in the evening at 4:15, but it only happens once or twice a month. This is freight rail, not passenger rail. Sometimes the train will be short and fly through. Sometimes it will be long. Sometimes it will stop for no apparent reason for 5-7 minutes, blocking the road (when it could easily stop just a bit behind and not block the road), before starting up again. I know there's a rail yard close by because I can see it when I get caught by a train and backtrack to the alternate route that bypasses train-based traffic, but it generally looks deserted. Not that I'd expect a random freight train rail yard to be hopping, but the lack of bustle does make me wonder why in the world the train just stops sometimes. (And why it doesn't stop 50 feet back from where it chose to stop, so the road wouldn't be blocked. Basically, it's an occasionally frustrating mystery that causes more frequent frustration because it necessitates the 'no right on red' that started this whole rant.

This could lead into one of my current pet peeves. There's a light I often get stuck at on the way to work. The right hand turn light generally lasts for 15 - maybe 20 - seconds. (I try to count it, and it seems to fall somewhere in that range. Apparently, I am not good at the counting.) Often, there are several semis or other slow-starter vehicles waiting to turn, and by the time they get revved up, only maybe 1-2 cars make it through the light in addition to them. There's no right turn on red because there are railroad tracks situated between the stopping point for the light and the intersection proper. Why in the world is that turn light only 15-20 seconds? The light running perpendicular to this road stays green for at least a couple of minutes each time, but the line of traffic coming from my direction only gets 20 seconds? We're turning right, so we're green alongside the people going straight, who likewise only have 20 seconds. True, the volume of traffic coming from my direction is a bit lighter, but not 'you only get 20 seconds' lighter. And, heaven forfend you get caught by a train. It could take you 20-30 minutes to make it the equivalent of a block and a half because of that light.

Drivers get 2 seconds from me. If there's no indication they're going to move, they get a short beep to alert them to the light. I drive in high volume traffic. Missing a light isn't just a 5-10 second delay. It could cause 5-10 minutes of delay for me, if not more, and I have no desire to be stuck in traffic for that long because of inattentiveness. I also don't mind if I'm honked at in that situation. I don't want to be the cause of traffic inactivity. People get more leeway from me in low volume areas. Then you might get your 5-10 seconds. Eh, who am I kidding. 5, probably.

I rewatched Bloodsport last night. I imagine this was much easier to do before MMA became such a big thing, but interspersed with some really great fight scenes were knock-out blows that would in no way incapacitate someone. Maybe people picked up on the incongruity before and I was just woefully naive, but as an adult with a better sense of which fight moves are actually effective, it cracks me up now. Apparently the variety of blows which will render someone unconscious is endless, and often don't even need to be targeted at the head. ETA: This is not specific to Bloodsport, but it's what reminded me of all of the glorious martial arts movies in which this predominated.

For those of you struggling to get through Anansi Boys, I'd recommend trying the audiobook. It's narrated by Lenny Henry, who absolutely makes the story. I thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook while at the same time realizing that I likely wouldn't have been as invested if I'd been reading the story. In it's audio format, though, it was a treat.

I read somewhere that the posted speed limit is generally about 15 MPH lower than what the engineer rates as an appropriate speed for that road. (Take read somewhere with the grain of salt it deserves.) If that's the case (and I go with 'is the case' because it aligns with my driving world view) then perhaps it feels psychologically satisfying because with time and experience, humans can more or less accurately judge what a safe speed for a given roadway might be and so feel constrained when it is artificially lowered. You're right - there were a couple of 'take a pill' replies, along with 'just confine them to 1-2 rooms in the house and have the allergic person avoid those rooms'. So, what I'm hearing here is that someone who already needs someone there as a caregiver (hence, moving in with mom to provide care) should just take a couple of pills or avoid entire areas of her house like it's no big deal? These are not trivial considerations.

My pet peeve of the day: I should probably stay away from the posts on nextdoor regarding pets, but I see them sometimes as I scroll through looking for things I might want to otherwise know about my neighborhood. Sometimes people post about needing to rehome their pets because, you know, life happens and sometimes situations change. Inevitably, though, someone will rush in to shame these people, and it really, really irks me. Right now, there's a lady looking to rehome her elderly cats because her father passed away and she's moving to take care of her mother, who is allergic to cats. It's a sad situation all around, right? Clearly a trying time for her. Why, then, do some people feel like the proper response is to scold her, demand that she find a way to make it work despite the aforementioned hardships, and generally do everything short of literally calling her scum? This is just an example - it happens every single time. It's like, I love cats too, but this in no way entitles me to harangue people who are making a good faith effort to deal with a hard situation by rehoming them.

Thank you for that absolutely amazing revelation. She's so totally unashamed about the whole deal. I have a whole new appreciation for her. Those vampire movies I mentioned (the Underworld series, obvs) were often filmed in Eastern Europe, which she specifically references. Now I'm imagining her spending the day as a badass vampire warrior and the evening romping through hotel hallways in her horsie costume. What a time to be alive.

This is a true fact. My list would also include Jessica Chastain (of the superhero jawline), Michelle Rodriguez (if you just look at the pretty and don't pull back the curtain), Chiwetel Ejiofor, Zac Efron and Dave Franco (so the Neighbors series has been a joy for me), Janelle Monae, Michelle Yeoh, and probably eleventy million other people I can't bring to mind right now because my memory is carp. ETA: How could I forget Famke Janssen and Kate Beckinsale (but only when she's being a vampire)!?!

I'm with you on this. Depending on how full/not-full the theater was, I would have either made them split up or recommended they scavenge for another seat. For movies I'm really excited about, I'll get my tickets well in advance. I'll even get them on the day they go on sale. No way someone else's last minute trifling is going to preempt my meticulous planning. If I planned ahead by 3 weeks to get the seat I absolutely wanted, then I'm going to sit in that seat. This is especially true if there are other seating options someone could have picked but didn't because they also wanted a premium movie watching experience. If they wanted to sit together, they could have either chosen differently or done a better job of planning ahead. Or, they can try to convince someone else to move so they can sit together, I suppose.

I've finally admitted that I'm quitting Cornwell too. She had that run of books a bit back in the series, around the time of the loup garou, where it seemed clear (to me) that she hated all of her characters. She made Lucy mysteriously fat, turned Marino into that thing he became, etc. It seemed as if she was punishing her readers for wanting to read more about these characters she was obviously done with. Things got a little better once she worked through that, but I miss the old days, when Scarpetta would describe each coroner's tool in meticulous detail and everyone was more or less happy. Now I hear she's written a second non-fiction book on the Ripper, and yeah... The first one was so poorly written it nearly made me cry, and I speculate that obsession is what drove her over the edge. Now that she's written another, I can't see anything good coming of it.

I tried doing this 5 movie marathon thought experiment, and it turns out that a lot of actors I really, really like don't have 5 movies on their resume that I'd plow through in a single sitting. Surprisingly, my 5 movie marathon would be Keanu Reeves: John Wick, John Wick Chapter 2, Constantine, The Gift, Bram Stoker's Dracula... and actually quite a few more. I wouldn't say he puts in amazing performances in any of these, but I guess he's the guy who gets cast in the kinds of movies I like. Though if I were to go with someone I think is excellent at their craft and who maybe squeaks in over the 5 threshold, it'd be Emily Blunt: Edge of Tomorrow (which I might watch 5 times in a row without problems), Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Adjustment Bureau, The Devil Wears Prada, and possibly Looper. It is interesting, because there are a lot of people I say I'd watch in anything. When I look over their resumes, though, finding 5 movies that I could watch in a row and actually be interested in them as opposed to just tolerating them (which is frankly possibly 3/5 for EB above) is harder than anticipated. For example, I adore Chiwetel Ejiofor, but I'd only be happy about a marathon if you told me it was going to be Serenity, Z for Zachariah, Salt, Kinky Boots, and Children of Men (and that's because I vaguely remember liking the last one and never seeing it again after the first time.) A couple of those I wouldn't really call his movies.

I actually kind of love this one, if only because of how utterly unconcerned Janeway and Paris were that they'd made salamander babies. IIRC, they just kind of shrug it off with an 'ehh...', like it was just one of those things that happens, you know.

This is, in part, why I'm torn about the notion of being upset/not upset about non-gay actors playing gay roles. On the one hand, it'd be great to have more good gay actors be able to get work, but I also think that this could promote the idea that there are gay roles out there for gay actors, so it's totally okay that they aren't considered for "straight" roles. This seems like an area where there should be cross-over - straight folks can play gay folks and vice versa. I realize that this doesn't necessarily conform with the state of where we are, because that ability to cross over is more heavily weighted for the straight to gay than vice versa (with the caveat of 'for out actors'). Then again, I'll confuse myself further by thinking of it in terms of race. If a character is written to be Latinx and described as Latinx, I don't think just anyone with a skin tone in the socially acceptable range should be in the part. It's really all a matter of parity and the lack thereof, of course. If a plethora of well-rounded roles that were written without resorting to damaging stereotypes were available and were awarded based on how good someone is in that role, the conversation wouldn't feel so necessary. But, we have things like appropriation, harmful stereotyping, inequity between who is awarded a role and who should have been considered for it, etc., so I will continue to give myself headaches about this when I think about it.

I misquote this one from The Brave Little Toaster, but only because I think it's slightly better that way: "We're trapped! Trapped like rats! Small, hairless rats with just one leg!" Other surprisingly useful ones: "I have no response to that" from Joe Vs the Volcano; "I have to return some videotapes" from American Psycho; "I'm going to come at you like a spider monkey" from Talladega Nights; and "Fuck you, I'm going to Guam" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. (The first two as outs in an odd situation and the second two for faux [mostly] anger.) Of course, any time there's something appropriately small about: "What is this, a center for ants? How can you expect the children to learn to read if they can't even fit in the building?" from Zoolander. (Other good all-purpose ones from that imminently quotable movie: "I think I've got the black lung, Pop"; "Oh, the files are in the computer".)

I've never actually watched the show, but as a Kryptonian and, you know, Supergirl, wouldn't they be more likely to bring her in as a Title 42? (Nerdy, esoteric joke is nerdy and esoteric.)

+1000. John Murphy's scores are my absolute favs. For a while, the score to Sunshine was in legal limbo and so not available, which felt like a personal punishment. (I did eventually find a copy in the town of Tube, population You, which sustained me until it exited said limbo.) Adagio in D Minor is an obvious fav from the 28 (Days, Weeks) saga (along with In the House/Don Abandons Alice), but there's really not a track on either I don't like. Frank's Death Soldiers is gorgeous. And, even though it's clearly not from a movie, his Anonymous Rejected Filmscore is absolutely worth a listen. Beyond that, I'm surprised that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' work on The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford hasn't gotten a mention. It stands on its own, but combined with the lushness of the movie, it's haunting beauty really sticks with you. I haven't seen the movie yet (only read the book), but Cliff Martinez's Solaris is also a fav for me (also love his OST for Severe Clear). I generally just gravitate to sci-fi/horror scores, I think, because I also love Clint Mansell's Moon score, Tomandandy's work on Sinister II, Michael Giacchino's work on Let Me In (which is amazing), Paul Leonard-Morgan's Dredd, and Christophe Beck's Edge of Tomorrow. I'd also put in a plug for Alexandre Desplat's Zero Dark Thirty, even though I usually am not blown away by Desplat's work. (Bonus plug: Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy. Bonus bonus already loved on by many here, The Last of the Mohicans. Oh wait, lest I forget, the score that, along with Mohicans, probably initiated my love for scores: Bram Stoker's Dracula by Wojciech Kilar.) If we're talking scenes just made all the better by the music, then Solomon from Zimmer on 12 Years a Slave really sticks out in my mind. Chiwetel Ejoifor owned that scene, but there's something about the muted hope mixed with sorrow from the score that really drives it home.

Although Pitch Black is obviously the best film of the Riddick-verse, I even enjoy the ridiculous tonal shift that was Chronicles of Riddick. Then, though, they made Riddick and ruined the character for me completely. Riddick (the character) was always doing his creepy bit where he was a lot closer to the naive characters who could be his prey if he was interested, but he didn't come off as a sexual predator. Just, you know, a predator. Poor Katee Sackhoff in the third film, though. Riddick goes full-on sexual predator with her, and they pull the grossly uncomfortable 'lesbian who can be cured by the right dick' trope out and lean on it, hard. (Whether she was a lesbian or only saying she was so that the [non-Riddick] bad guy merc would quit sexually harassing her doesn't really matter.) They also leaned heavily on the bad-guy merc being relentlessly sexist, homophobic, and racist, which was completely unnecessary. I mean, he was a merc. We already know that he wasn't a nice guy. They didn't have to provide additional ammo in our 'not a nice guy' armory of facts. Instead, it just made the movie painful to watch. Who wants to watch someone be needlessly offensive? Why needlessly alienate a substantial proportion of the audience? I say needlessly offensive here because there was literally no need for the bad guy merc character to be that way. It didn't further the plot. It wasn't key to setting the scene. It wasn't an artifact of the time/place the movie was set in. No - it was just another way for us to know he wasn't a nice guy. We already knew that. Bashing us over the head with unnecessary awfulness made the movie unpleasant to watch and served. no. purpose.

This soothes my sponge-uncertainty anxiety so much. Thanks! Now I can relax about the 'what the *()&_ is a sponge' thing and continue to be gently amused by the very, very vast gulf between what Americans generally put in desserts vs what Brits put in a dessert.

He's too old for the role now, but I've always thought Colin Salmon would make an excellent Bond.

Pretty basic question, but it's baffled me since the beginning of my GBBO odyssey: When they say sponge, do they just mean cake in the way people in the US call things cake? They're always talking about making the sponge for their layer cakes, etc, and I can't determine if it actually differs from what we'd use here for the cake layers in a layer cake or if they're essentially the same thing but just with different names.

See, to me, that's all about fetishizing the exotic with heavy, heavy dose of ugly call-backs to the days when African-Americans were bought and sold for their physical characteristics. You can probably throw in a history of white folks thinking they can do whatever they want with brown bodies because they don't really value the person inside. You might be right in saying it's not condescending, because it's likely far more toxic than that.

I keep seeing trailers for this, and the more of them I see, the less I want to see the movie. I've been with this franchise since the beginning. I enjoy seeing fast cars driven well by pretty people. Now it all seems, I don't know, a little too puffed up? I mean, they used to be about street racing. Now they're like some kind of Mission Impossible hybrid? I want to watch pretty people drive fast cars well. I don't want to have to worry that they'll becoming the kind of movies to very seriously mention the seemingly ubiquitous 'dark web' with stern, earnest expressions. (Note that I don't know if the dark web is mentioned, but I've come to associate those words with movies/shows that are trying too hard and/or are just not very good.)