Got out to Santa Monica last week to meet up with my brother and his coworkers as they returned from a conference in Taiwan via LAX. Must remember to post pictures of dinosaur topiary and sundry oddness. (Edit: I finally got around to it.)
Speaking of photos, alenxa and I managed to get some really interesting cloud & sunset pictures yesterday.
Saw Stardust w/ andrea_wot and zehntaur. It was good. Disappointed to find how few people went to see it, though. Seriously, Rush Hour 3? At least it didn’t lose to Daddy Day Camp. Anyway, Stardust is highly recommended. If you haven’t seen it, try to catch it this weekend while it’s still in theaters.
Apartments are resurfacing the parking lots this week. Tomorrow through Saturday we’ll have to park on the street. This place doesn’t have enough street parking normally, never mind when 1/4 of the spaces are unavailable.
I was at an equal level of confusion about Rush Hour 3. Unless of course zombies now make better wages.
Nah, with zombies it’s always sheer numbers that overwhelm you.
WARNING: Stardust SPOILERS ahead
I mostly really liked Stardust, except for the climax, but I’ve always felt that endings were Gaiman’s one true weakness anyway, so it didn’t really take too much away for me because I wasn’t expecting much there. In particular, I felt that the dramatic tension fell flat when Lamia released Yvaine and Tristan only to ensnare them again moments later in a less threatening position. While her reasoning proved sound enough, the ploy was unexciting and the punctuating maniacal b-movie villain laughter ruined any shred of hope that I might take the moment as seriously as the filmmakers seemed to want. Also, closing his eyes protects Tristan from spontaneous combustion? Yvaine’s a star, not the ark of the covenant.
Nevertheless, the movie lived up on the whole to Gaiman’s endlessly fruitful imagination and clever, dark humor. I enjoyed it immensely, albeit not thoroughly, and I hope it picks up at the box office.
Re: WARNING: Stardust SPOILERS ahead
Yeah, that was more or less the moment that killed the climax for me. Actually, I think it was the subsequent breaking of every pane of glass in the hall.
As for the “close your eyes” bit, I rationalized that with the “hold me close and…” lead-in, figuring that the damage started at some small radius outside her, and as long as he was inside that radius, he was safe from burning up. Then closing his eyes kept him from being blinded. I did, however, like how it inverted the damsel-in-distress trope to have Yvaine be the one to ultimately stop (and actually kill) the main villain.