movies and tv and things on the Internet

[sophinisba]

I watched Whip It last week and it was great. Even the things that bugged me about it in the middle worked out in ways that I liked. That is, I was bored to have this romance with a guy in the middle of a movie I thought was going to be about girl companionship, and I was annoyed by how arrogant and dismissive Bliss was toward her mom. But in the end she realized that guy was was kind of a dork and that her mom was a person. Yay! I thought Marcia Gay Harden did a good job with a difficult role but my favorite was Kristin Wiig as Maggie Mayhem. I would ship Bliss/Maggie but I haven't found any, but I did enjoy this Maggie/Pash fic, Searching for Something That Makes Hearts Move by mazily.

Then last night I rewatched Bend It Like Beckham, which I had just seen once a long time ago. It's similar movie in a lot of ways - the girl's joy in finding out she can do something she loves with other girls, the lying to her parents so she keep doing it, the inevitability of the MOST IMPORTANT THING in her sport happening on THE VERY SAME DAY as the MOST IMPORTANT THING in her family life, and other stuff. It's got a stronger femslash vibe in that so much of the movie is about Jess and Jules whereas Whip It's more about the team, but then the femslash gets refuted more with the "OMG Mum no we are not lesbians!" and with the Jess/Joe story carrying through to the end. Anyway, that was fun. It was neat to see the girls so young and cute and, well, kind of awkward and amateurish, after years of watching Parminder Nagra on ER and so many other movies with Keira Knightley. Oh, and what a trip to realized that Jess's older sister Pinky (the sort of ditzy one who doesn't care about anything but her wedding) was played by Archie Panjabi, whom I've been fangirling as Kalinda on The Good Wife. The characters couldn't be more different and I seriously wouldn't have recognized her if I hadn't gone to look up something else on IMDB.

Hey, I think a lot of you saw Philipa_Moss's Yuletide fic Looking Behind Now, in which Tony from BILB meets Johnny and Omar from My Beautiful Laundrette, but did you see that they posted a sequel last month? Bring Your Mother to Work Day is similarly clever and adorable.

So yeah, Kalinda's pretty awesome, isn't she?! And how about that Diane Lockhart?! Actually I love pretty much everyone on The Good Wife except for Peter, and he's okay too. So much chemistry between everybody too. I'm about two thirds of the way through the first season now. The show took a little while to hook me, idk, at first I thought the way they'd do the exposition was awkward and kind of boring. But the characters have really won me over and I've also really gotten to like the balance between the case of the week plot and larger arcs. It's become my go-to show when I'm ready to be entertained (and not challenged too much) for an hour before I go to bed, the way I sometimes watch Law & Order and used to watch House.

(Is it me or has House been really bad lately? Like, a lot worse than it used to be?)

I'm also watching the first season of Community! I don't usually watch a lot of sitcoms but I decided to check this out after all the campaigning for Troy in Fandom March Madness. All those gifs etc. had led me to believe that Troy and Abed were the main characters so it was sort of disappointing to watch the first few episodes, which were so much about Jeff trying to get in Britta's pants. Still, the ensemble stuff is wonderful and Abed is the wonderfullest (I hope he wins March Madness next year!). Besides the main characters, Señor Chang and Professor Whitman make me laugh a lot.

Speaking of people who want to be the guy from Dead Poets Society, cereta had a really great post a few weeks ago on Why I hate "one teacher who made a difference". I also really liked reading the discussions over the last few days in her Grading Hell Theater: Misconceptions post, especially the stuff about what English teachers and professors do in real life and what people think they can/should do.

[A smooth transition,] I am so excited about remix_goes_wild, an open-ended challenge for writing lots of different kinds of remixes, for points! I think it'll be really good both for those of us who are remix addicts and also for folks who like the idea but have not wanted to deal with the deadlines, restrictions, and other pressures of the big exchanges. (Actually, I guess I'm a bit of both - I have done a lot of remixes but I decided I couldn't handle the pressure of Remix Redux this year.) Anyway, signups will open on April 1st and posting will be open through the end of the year. You can sign up to write and/or to make your some or all of your fic available to be remixed.

Comments

[anatsuno]

You're not wrong, House has been TERRIBLY BAD this year. I can't tell if it's because there's really not much they COULD do that is not retreading the overbeaten path anyway, or if better people COULd do better, but all I know is I'm only hanging by a thread there, inexplicably still watching the boring, boring dreck.

[sophinisba]

I'm only hanging by a thread there, inexplicably still watching

I was watching and I was bored, and having weird conflicting feelings about Masters because I'm not used to disliking female characters that much but UGH, NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD, and then I watched the episode where he shot the prostitute and it was supposed to be funny, and I'd been reading and hearing about Charlie Sheen (and people who think what he's done is funny), and instead of being bored I was just angry. So yeah, I think I might be done.

[netgirl_y2k]

This is me not saying I told you so about The Good Wife. La la la la. But, yes, my favourite pretty much alternates between Kalinda and Diane on a weekly basis.

Ooh, thanks for pointing out that remix challenge, that looks like much fun.

[sophinisba]

You know I reread my paragraph about The Good Wife and I sound kind of blase, but I'm really loving the show. And yes totally on the episode, "She's the greatest! No she's the greatest!"

I thought of you last night when Jules's dad was trying to explain the offside rule to her mom.

LET'S WRITE ALL THE REMIXES!

[zulu]

Awww, I loved Whip It. And Bend It Like Beckham! I had no idea Pinky was Kalinda until you said it, and then it was so obvious!

[sophinisba]

Archie Panjabi looks so different though! And sounds so different! I just couldn't get over it, even though we did the IMDB check fairly early in the movie.

*needs a Kalinda icon*

[glim]

Ah, thank you to the links about teaching! I can sympathize with both of cereta's posts so much, but especially (and predictably) the one about English teachers + professors.

Wild Remixes! I think I'm going to sign up for this so I'm super happy you linked to it. :D :D

[sophinisba]

You are very welcome! I've been taking more of an interest in composition studies and pedagogy lately, but probably shouldn't say more than that in a public post. :)

I really love the idea of writing remixes all the time! I'm happy that posting on this one will be open through the end of the year.

[kaizoku]

All those gifs etc. had led me to believe that Troy and Abed were the main characters so it was sort of disappointing to watch the first few episodes, which were so much about Jeff trying to get in Britta's pants

I had a similar reaction - I tried it after seeing this hilarious Annie vid. The conclusion I came to is that I just get more enjoyment out of watching a handful of clips of Annie, Abed, Troy and Shirley on youtube than watching a full episode.

[sophinisba]

I finished watching the first season a few days ago and I really did love it. At times the show goes into montages that are fabulous like a fabulous vid. I love the writing and I love the physical humor - Pierce in particular has some great pratfalls. Jeff and Britta are less interesting to me than some of the other characters but they're still pretty fun.