lotrips fic rec

Since Wednesday night I've been caught up in reading a fantastic fic by semaphore27 called This Is the Way the World Ends. It's Lotrips crossed over with Stephen King's The Stand -- that one where a plague kills off most of the world's population and we follow the adventures of a few survivors, who in this version are actors from LotR. It works really well even if you haven't read the book or seen the miniseries (I haven't), though I think it would be even better if you have. It is very long and angsty as hell and creepy and scary and beautifully written and has been keeping me up at night! [ETA: And there is also lots of love and some good h/c.] Here is a link to her fic index.

movies! (not spoilerish)

I should say though that I had two awesome movie experiences last weekend. On Friday night I saw Children of Men and was blown away; it's one of the most powerful things I've seen in a long time. If you're like me and you like your disturbingly plausible future dystopias, I highly recommend this. ( Read more... )

On Saturday morning I went to a special screening of The Lives of Others, with the director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, there to take questions from the audience afterwards. This is one of the other movies up for best foreign-language film and, though it didn't move me as much as Pan's Labyrinth, it was very absorbing and well done. It's set in East Berlin in 1984 and is about a Stasi officer who has to spy on a playwright (and his girlfriend) to find out if he's loyal to the government.

I love that the word Orwellian is used in reviews of both of these movies.

( The director talked about writing. )

I also watched A History of Violence on DVD this afternoon. Viggo was fantastic and I liked the movie very much, but I'm home alone in a snowstorm and the way the house creaks in the wind sounds like someone walking around downstairs and is FREAKING ME OUT.