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This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* hell (3x)
* dead (1x)
_________________________

I guess they missed the FUCK in the last post?
 

Costume Hell

That's where I am right now, in case anyone is wondering why I'm not posting. I hate my life. FUCK!

Keeping Mum - Delicious British Black Comedy

What would you get if you merged Mary Poppins with So I Married an Axe Murderer? Keeping Mum (2005). A little delightful English movie with a stellar cast including Dame Maggie Smith, Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Patrick Swayze, Keeping Mum is in the best tradition of Black Comedy.

A country vicar who has lost his way, a lonely wife who is fooling around with her American golf pro, their nymphomaniacal teenage daughter, their bullied young son—they all get a little help finding their way from the sweet new housekeeper, aptly named Grace. It's a quirky film, great for a quiet night's entertainment. While not epic or earth-shattering, it's certainly worth the rental. B+

Eragon, the Movie: I Want my Money Back!

Ok. Here's the deal — the movie Eragon is absolute crap. The biggest hackneyed ripoff of both the original Star Wars Trilogy and Lord of the Rings, with nothing original, nothing worthwhile, and a ton of annoyance to boot. 40 minutes in, I had to turn it off — I felt fairly soiled. I'm asking Blockbuster for my money back—shame they can't return me the 40 minutes of lifespan I wasted on this drivel. F
 

Living in Lord of the Rings

My Dream.

"The measure of a man's worth is equal to the worth of his dreams." —Marcus Aurelius


 

Serenity Now / Equality Now 2007

Browncoats, it's that time of year again. SERENITY NOW/EQUALITY NOW is happening all over the world next weekend.  Charity screenings of "Serenity" on Joss Whedon's birthday weekend, benefiting Equality Now, an organization with a goal of empowering women and girls around the world.  Not only is it a good cause, but it's also a chance to fly your browncoat flag and see our Big Damn Movie once more on the Big Damn Screen.

For those of you still asking "What is Firefly?" Umm, who are you?

In the words of the Bedlam Bards:

Big Damn Trilogy  .MP3 tune and lyrics by James Hazlerig Trilogy, O trilogy, I want my trilogy, Don't stop at one, Don't stop at two, Gorramit, gimme three! Trilogy, O trilogy, that's what I want to see, Someday I'll own a boxed set Of that Big Damn Trilogy! They said we couldn't do it, They said our show should die, They took our love, they took our land, They cancelled our Firefly. But one thing they didn't reckon, in our fan psychology: Browncoats carry Greenbacks, And we want our trilogy! CHORUS KAZOO AND BOWED PSALTERY BREAK CHORUS They say the best things in this 'verse, Always come in threes, Musketeers and stooges, LOTR DVDs. When a show's got ships and shepherds, The Alliance and Blue Sun, And Gina and Jewel and Morena and Summer, It's too pretty to stop at one! CHORUSX2 AMEN FINISH

Here's what Joss Whedon had to say about Equality Now and the answer to the most asked question: "Why do you write such strong female characters":



More info on CantStopTheSerenity.com
 

Happy Day

All Quiet on the Western Front

Hey folks, yeah I'm still alive and kicking. Sorry for being so much in absentia this month, just very busy. Last night I also got a flu or some weird bug. I started having chills and body aches and have been in bed for nearly 24 hrs straight; but I've no runny nose, no other symptoms, just a low-grade fever (I think it's low grade - I don't own a thermometer). I do feel like someone beat me up with a baseball bat while I was sleeping. Weirdness!

The costuming is going OK. Not great, but ok. Having little to no budget is hard for a perfectionist. Love my director, who now answers his phone with "Hello, Costuming Goddess" - strokes my fragile ego. I've been on stage with many of the actors before, so they're fun to work with. Have one difficult actress in a minor role who, if she doesn't watch out, will be attired in puke green. What these fledgling divas don't seem to understand is that the one person you NEVER piss off is the costumer; the costumer can be your best friend or your worst enemy. My philosophy as a costumer is I want the actors to have costumes that support the characters as they (and the director of course) see it, and I want everyone to look damn good. But even Shakespeare said, "Hell hath no fury like a costumer scorned" (ok, fine, I'm taking liberties with that, but I'm sure Shakespeare thought it!).

My daddy is coming for a visit on his summer vacation! Yay! My mom's going to visit her friends in Hungary, so she won't be coming this time, but that's ok - she just visited in December. My dad and I will be playing computer games, going to the movies and renting videos, eating brekkie at IHOP, shopping at Ross and TJMaxx, and maybe do a little home improvement around the house. Some day we're going to have our own painting firm called "Jokinen & Son" (we haven't decided conclusively which one of us is going to be "Son", but we do know that we're getting a sparkling van, either red or white). Ok so we're not probably ever gonna go pro, but it's our little inside joke/dream thingy.

That's about all she wrote. And so I leave you.

XO,
A

2007 Best Fantasy : "The Name of the Wind"

Once in a rare while a book comes along that is so good one almost dare not review it, knowing it cannot be done justice by a mere few lines of praise. Patrick Rothfuss' debut, The Name of the Wind is just such a book: a delight for a jaded fantasy reader, who thinks perhaps the best have all come and gone, but to his/her surprise finds a new star in the fantasy constellation.

Without giving away the plot, this book is the first "chapter" in the story of Kvothe, a legendary hero presumed dead by many. From his childhood with his parents' travelling theatre troupe to his time learning magic at the University (a place with ten thousand times ten thousand books), with street children, thieves, whores, storytellers and musicians, and the threat of the Chandrian, a mythical (or are they?) people set on destruction, the book has everything any fantasy lover could desire. The system of magic is inventive and appealing, the plot moves believably, and the characters are complex and engaging. The voice of the narrator, Kvothe, is entrancing throughout and the reader's empathy and identification take place quickly.

This is one of those books one would read cover to cover in one sitting, if one could stay awake long enough. This is a book one wants to curl up with, maybe with a hearty bowl of stew... I actually read it a second time right after finishing it—something I haven't done with a single book in over 10 years—THAT's how good it was.

If you love Robin Hobb, Raymond E. Feist, or Terry Brooks, then chances are this book is just waiting for you to read it. Published in March 2007, the next book in the trilogy is not out for another year, so we can commiserate together once you've read it and begun anxiously awaiting the next chapter.

Here's what Fantasy Biggies had to say:

"Because the characters are real and the magic is true to its own world, I closed this book feeling as if I'd been on a journey with an entertaining new friend, rather than sitting alone looking at words on a page.

"This one is well worth some of your precious reading time. I'll wager that the books to follow it will also be."
—Robin Hobb

"THE NAME OF THE WIND marks the debut of a writer we would all do well to watch. Patrick Rothfuss has real talent, and his tale of Kvothe is deep and intricate and wondrous."
—Terry Brooks

"THE NAME OF THE WIND has everything fantasy readers like, magic and mysteries and ancient evil, but it's also humorous and terrifying and completely believable. As with all the very best books in our field, it's not the fantasy trappings (wonderful as they are) that make this novel so good, but what the author has to say about true, common things, about ambition and failure, art, love, and loss."
—Tad Williams

Technorati Tags: patrick rothfuss

Everything Still Coming Up Monkeys

Yup. Still coming up monkeys. Haven't read The Golden Compass yet, but I have it on my nightstand... will get to it soon, so I have it read by the time the movie comes out. Whee!


 

Wayne Shakespeare

I'm raiding the costume room tomorrow, so will have a better idea on what is and is not executable costume-wise, wheee! The actor playing Baptista (Kate and Bianca's father) has his heart set on looking like John Wayne in "The Searchers" — he also requested an eye-patch à la John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, but that I am nixing. Our stage conditions are going to be a lot darker than the outside and film lights Wayne worked under, plus it's going to raise curiosity from the audience and become a plot point, which the text does not support. Here's what I sketched for him. Directly ripped off from John Wayne, heheh.

Heineken's Salute to Smart Dogs

My mom just sent me this:

*purr*

Westspear, Part the Third

OK, Lucentio and Tranio didn't pass because the director wants them "non-Western" and "other" - I am not clear yet on what he wants, but I submitted these... I took the idea that they are maybe from the East Coast, citified and monied... who knows. Tranio reminds me of "Badger" in Firefly, or a bit like Charlie Chaplin... wasn't my original intent, but that's what came out, tehee!

Wild Wild William, Part II

Good news. Director liked the first batch, so I've been working on more.


It's a fun project. Going to rip apart the costume room this weekend, methinks.
 

Shakespeare in the Wild West

Hi folks, I haven't disappeared entirely, I've just been hard at work — I got hired to do costuming for my favorite director's production of Taming of the Shrew and I've been killer busy. He's decided to set it as a Western. We don't have the budget to go authentic Victorian-era Wild West, so my task is to create a Wild West as if it were Wild West on another planet or universe... think that episode of Star Trek Next Gen where Picard and pals visit the wild west planet, or the episode of Firefly with the whorehouse. Or any 1960s western that didn't go authentic on the costume — not High Noon, but within our budget.

I'm hard at work on the costume sketches for the main characters right now. With some 20 ppl in the cast and some costume changes, it'll be wild until it's done. I can't draw to save my life, but I'll upload a few sketches when I have more time.

*mwah*
Anniina

*Update* Sketches:


For Kate's first outfit, I figured it would be less "girly" than the prissy Bianca's; and the Western chicks had skirts that were split like that in the middle, so they were actually pants, to facilitate riding. I also thought it would help out Kate as she's whisking around the stage. As a contrast I made the wedding dress very feminine and vulnerable, to show that Kate actually is setting herself open and vulnerable and actually wants to get married, so that Petruchio ruining the wedding will make her crash bigger and the audience's sympathy more maybe.

I was thinking that Petruchio when entering Padua and presenting himself as suitor to the dudes and Kate's dad would look sort of respectable and sort of Mel Gibson in Maverick, but when he starts chasing Kate around the stage would doff the hat and jacket and look more like Douglas Fairbanks / pirate Petruchio, so wilder and more sexual. What we now think of as the Renaissance or pirate shirt was still the basic form for a man's shirt in the Wild West, and cowboys often had head-scarves under their hats to absorb the sweat.

We'll see what the director thinks of these first ideas.

TTYL,
A

Sonnetsday 39

XLI. hose petty wrongs that liberty commits,       When I am sometime absent from thy heart,   Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,       For still temptation follows where thou art. Gentle thou art and therefore to be won, Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed; And when a woman woos, what woman's son Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed? Ay me! but yet thou might'st my seat forbear, And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, Who lead thee in their riot even there Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth: Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.