amelia_petkova

I've been watching more movies than usual this week as a result of being sick. Today one of them was Effie Gray about the woman who was married to the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Ruskin, had her marriage annulled due to non-consummation, and later married the painter John Everett Millais. The costumes are wonderful, the actors are great, and it's a good movie. But for my main reaction:

Wow. John Ruskin. Was. An. Asshole.

I don't know exactly what his deal was, but for whatever reason he decided to marry Effie and then it turned out he was completely unprepared to deal with the reality of an actual woman. They got married when she was twenty years old and the marriage ended six years later. In the movie Ruskin neglects her as soon they get to London and becomes more callous as the movie goes on. It gets to the point where I'm surprised she didn't go completely bonkers.

It's hard to choose the peak of Ruskin's asshole-ness, but definitely in the top five comes near the end, when Effie's young sister is visiting and Ruskin says the next big book he writes will be about how wicked Effie is.

( spoilers )

Reading the Wikipedia entry on real-life Effie Gray later, it turns out Ruskin later wanted to marry a teenage girl named Rose La Touche when he was a teenager and he was in his 40s. Rose's family wrote to Effie for advice and her response can be summed up as, NO. A WORLD OF NO.

ETA 24 hours later to add a spoiler cut. It's been so long since I posted about involving spoilers that I forgot to do it!

I finally got to watch Crimson Peak! I knew it was a gothic movie and there were ghosts, but I hadn't known that it was going to turn into ( spoilers ) and that was AWESOME. Longer entry to follow.

1. Guillermo del Toro is directing an episode for Season 3 of Hannibal! Does this mean that the Pale Man can kill Hannibal? That would be awesome, even though I'd never be able to sleep again.

2. Speaking of del Toro, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out that his upcoming horror film Crimson Peak is set in Buffalo, NY.

3. I have started seeing flowers when I go walking outside and it's wonderful.

4. I couldn't stand the Taylor Swift song "Blank Space" until somebody on FFA recently said that they want a Will/Hannibal fanvid set to that song, and now I laugh whenever it comes on the radio because I can't stop mentally matching up clips from the show to go with the lyrics.

5. I'm signed up for the Conlan Press/Peter S. Beagle newsletters and there's going to be a new edition for The Last Unicorn DVD released this June and among the extras will be an audio commentary track and a documentary OH MY GOD GIVE IT TO ME NOW. The most recent newsletter also includes a link to a vid of somebody doing a cover of the title song and it's lovely.

You guys, I was poking around on IMDB today and realized that Hugh Dancy, who's currently best known as Will Graham on Hannibal also played the prince in that godawful film adaptation of Ella Enchanted. Ugh. I don't know how to feel about this... At least he's moved up in the world.

I'm watching Catching Fire for the first time after reading the book a couple of weeks ago and the scene with the monkeys now really reminds me of the ROUS's in The Princess Bride.

I was watching Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" recently and realized that Maleficient's scenes when she's storming around in her castle with her goblins/gremlins/servants/whatever remind me of Jareth and the goblins in "Labyrinth". Though whereas Jareth does a good job of keeping an eye of things, Maleficient isn't so good at it. She let her creatures search for a baby for sixteen years without checking up on them! (As my mother would say when we're discussing movies, "That's one of the things you're not supposed to think about." Also, I absolutely love her reaction to the news.) It sounds like she could use a few tips from the Goblin King.

It makes me kind of want a fic where she finds Aurora right off the bat and...then what happens? Does she kill the baby right away? That would ruin the fun of seeing Aurora effectively kill herself and cause agony to her parents in the process. Would she allow Aurora to grow up in her castle to accomplish this and if so, would Aurora be aware of it. Do the fairies try to get her back?

You know, when I started writing this entry I had planned only to talk about comparisons between "Sleeping Beauty" and "Labyrinth". I haven't written more than a few paragraphs of fan fic at a time since Yuletide. Damn plot bunnies! (Ohmygod, I want to write this one so much now.)

Context: I live with my parents in a multi-story house. Last night I was on the second floor while my parents were watching TV on the first floor. I hear somebody grunt on TV. Not any dialogue, just a grunt! Muffled by the walls and stairs, no less. And yet...

Me: *thud thud thud down the stairs* I HEAR "THE PRINCESS BRIDE"!!!!!!
My parents: ...
Me: :) :) :) :) :)

I will always know when it's "The Princess Bride".

Last weekend I finally watched the original horror film The Mummy from 1932 with Boris Karloff. After watching the old Dracula my hopes weren't that high but I think The Mummy is a better film. My favorite part is at the beginning, when the archaeological assistant is reading the spell that brings Imhotep to light. He's alone and sight-reading it quietly to himself, almost whispering. There is no other sound, not even a soundtrack (although I love listening to soundtracks, I think a lot of movies today could benefit from less background music in some of their scenes). As he's reading, you see the mummy's eyes sloooooooooowly start to open and his body slooooooowly start to come to life. And then, a bandaged hand creeps onto the desk and the assistant sees the mummy silently standing before him.

It was so good! The crowning touch is that the assistant starts laughing hysterically after the mummy leaves the room and can only say things like, "He went for a walk!" when the boss finds him afterward. The main portion of the movie takes place ten years later, at which time we find out that the assistant went insane and died in an asylum.

My main issue with the movie is that the female lead's love interest is stupid and non-compelling, but that's hardly unusual.

Watching this film made me think about the 1999 Mummy with Rachel Weisz. Now I want to read/write an AU where Evelyn does believe in curses from the very beginning.

Title: Roses and Swords

Fandoms: Revolutionary Girl Utena and El laberinto del fauno/Pan’s Labyrinth
Summary: A princess meets a witch.
Disclaimer: I don’t own either Utena or Pan’s Labyrinth.
Author’s Notes: Most of my Utena crossovers are written with the intent of being as silly as possible. This…is not one of them.

( there is not much difference between a princess and a witch )

Last night I saw the original Dracula movie, starring Bela Lugosi for the first time. Some thoughts:

The atmosphere in this film was great, although I thought some of the pacing stunk. After Renfield arrives at Dracula's castle the brides turn up almost immediately, Dracula leans over Renfield (but not seen biting him; according to imdb trivia, the studio wasn't allowed to film an attack because of perceived gay subtext), in the next scene, crazy!Renfield and Dracula have already boarded the boat for England. Also, I think Dracula attacking Lucy was a "blink and you miss it" scene because I have no memory of it whatsoever.

Interesting detail: wolfsbane is constantly used as vampire repellent and garlic is never mentioned.

The actors who did the best job were Bela Lugosi and the actor who played Renfield. Lugosi exudes atmosphere and Renfield absolutely nails the insane facial expressions. I have to say that the main characters are stupid: Renfield escapes from the asylum on a regular basis and turns up at the heroes' mansion several times, just wandering around while they make no attempt to stop him! Also, in one scene a maid who sees Renfield's leer faints dead away (very funny when you see it) and he starts crawling towards her, implying to the audience that he wants to attack her. Just as he gets close, the scene changes to the other characters. We never find out what happened to the maid!

( I do not believe in putting up spoiler warnings for a book this old but I will do it for part of the film conclusion )

On a lighter note, I was surprised to hear one of the themes from "Swan Lake" used during the opening credits. Since I now automatically associate Tchaikovsky with Princess Tutu, I kind of want vampires in Princess Tutu.