I had it sorted

There are a lot of things to say about the film adaptation of Prince Caspian, and I won’t remember to say all of them, but… Let’s start with the things I loved--and also a spoiler warning (for the film, book, and later books in the series--mostly in my discussion of Susan).

Regina Spektor doing the closing credits song! And it was good. I love Regina.

Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep. Perfect. That’s all there is to it.
Anna Popplewell is now at least eighteen, so I don’t have to feel dirty for finding her so exquisitely lovely as Susan.
All the visual stuff is magnificent. The ruins of Cair Paravel, Miraz’s castle, Aslan’s Howe (which is so much bigger than I imagined it—and than Lewis described it, I’m pretty sure, but it’s fantastic anyway), the scene where the Hag and the Werewolf almost call the White Witch back, played much more dramatically than it was written in the novel, but still brilliant.

Georgie Henley might as well change her name to Lucy Pevensie, for serious. I am convinced no one else on earth could play that part, and I cannot wait to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which remains my favorite of The Chronicles of Narnia novels.
Skandar Keynes, who was really good at playing outcast Edmund, was also really good at playing part of the family Edmund, which I was vaguely concerned about. Really, all four of the children were perfectly cast.
There’s also a fair bit of sweet sibling humor in the movie that is completely absent from the book. In fact, almost all of the books lack humor, and it is a very welcome addition to the movies. These four kids actually feel like a family on screen.
Poor Will Mosely, though, because Peter is an absolute pill in this movie. In the book, it’s Susan who won’t believe in Aslan and is generally a stick in the mud, but in the movie, that’s all on Peter, as he decides it’s his job alone to fix what’s wrong with Narnia. He will neither wait for help from Aslan, nor listen to advice from Caspian. The bickering between the two of them was one of my least favorite things about the movie—but I will say that how they just meet up and instantly get along in the novel is far too neat and tidy to be interesting. Also, I mean, I got behind Peter's message, which was something along the lines of “we can’t expect Aslan to fix things for us,” but he was just a turd about it. That’s all.

Because of the fact that the movie is structured completely differently from the novel, there has to be tension somewhere. Most of the tension in the novel comes from the Pevensies arguing about the best way to get to Caspian and whether or not Lucy has actually seen the lion. The movie creates tension in multiple ways—among the Pevensies, between Caspian and Peter, between Miraz and his men, between Miraz and Caspian—it’s all very interesting, but it’s almost nothing like the book.

I still don’t understand why the Telmarines were portrayed as a swarthy, Mediterranean race of people—because they’re originally descended from pirates? What the eff ever. Caspian’s accent drove me crazy, and Ben Barnes is TOO OLD. And kind of dull. Hopefully, he’s more interesting in the next film.
Okay, so I could probably go on about the differences between the novel and the film, but I won’t. I’ll just say the only thing I hated was the romance between Susan and Caspian. I…still say it’s not necessary, even though… Oy, there’s so much going on in my head here, but let’s say this: It's at least somewhat in accordance with her character, because Susan is the only one of the eight children who visit Narnia from our world to experience a sexual awakening (implied only), and it is (also implied only) her downfall, but since she’s been portrayed much more sympathetically in the films, I really wonder how they’re going to deal with her absence in The Last Battle, which, truth be told, is my biggest problem with these books, but whatever. Let’s get back to how she is in Prince Caspian.

The novel sees her as more annoyingly practical than ever, insisting that the children put their shoes back on after frolicking in the ocean (the things I remember...) and that Lucy couldn’t possibly have seen Aslan if the others didn’t. Also, she does a lot of whining. There’s really none of that in the movie—she won’t believe that Lucy has seen Aslan, but she’s not an ass about it—and Peter doesn’t believe her either. Only Edmund sticks up for her, because Edmund’s betrayal and redemption have made him wiser than his older siblings. But once Lucy finds the way across the gorge, she asks her little sister why she couldn’t see Aslan, instead of going on insisting that he was never there in the first place. Susan mostly keeps to herself in the film, which is different for her, but I like it a lot. She’s trying to reconcile her life in Narnia with the life she must go back to in England, and it’s hardest for her and Peter—hardest of all for Peter, as far as the movie goes—and I think, really, it’s ultimately that that causes her downfall. She struggles to leave her old life behind and accept her new one, and the only way she can find do that—later, of course—is to pretend the old life was just a game. Which is very sad for Susan. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
Anyway, the other thing I really wanted to discuss was how much ass she kicks in the film. In the novel, she and Lucy stay out of the way of the battle, just as in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, riding in on Aslan’s back so he can finish things off, and they can watch. The movie puts Susan right in the thick of things, commanding the archers at the top of the How and fighting right alongside her brothers. I do love this, Susan getting to be part of the action, because, honestly, what is the point of being awesome at archery if you don’t get to use the skill? And Susan is the best archer in Narnia, which we get proof of in the book, but it’s not so obvious in the movie. Oh. The other part I loved was when she rode out with Lucy to see if they could find the lion, and the Telmarine soldiers caught up with them, and she jumped off the horse and stayed behind to kill the bad guys while her little sister galloped for help. Of course, she ends up being rescued by a big, strong man in the end—blech—but this is, like, light years ahead of her portrayal in the book in terms of awesomeness.
However, that was the one positive thing Susan had going for her, as I’ve said before: she doesn’t like to kill things. She does, however, hesitate to shoot the bear just like in the book, and Trumpkin is forced to kill it. The movies have made her much more likable than she ever was in the books, though, so I’ll take this version of Susan happily. Queen Susan the Gentle totally no longer fits her at all, though. I shall redub her Queen Susan the Fearless.

The only other difference between the movie and the book that I really wanted to discuss was the scene in which the White Witch almost comes back. Now, for most of the book, the Pevensies are not with Caspian—for most of the movie, they are. In the book, Caspian almost gets duped into calling on the White Witch, because he has already deliberately (with Susan’s horn) called upon Aslan and the four king and queens, but they have not come yet, and so Nikabrik tries to get him to go the Dark Arts way. In the movie, the Pevensies are there, but they’ve failed to bring any help to the Narnians—in fact, Peter’s first battle plan ended in, basically, the slaughter of a fair number of Narnian soldiers. Thus, Caspian is losing faith in the kings of old—and there’s another element: during this first battle, he learns that Miraz killed his father (why he doesn’t know that already I’m really not sure), so he gets a little bloodlusty in addition to being let down by the High King. So he succumbs kind of easily to the Hag’s plan, but when he realizes what’ll happen, that Jadis will once again be unleashed upon Narnia, he tries to stop it, and Peter comes in to stop it, but he gets caught in her snare as well, so that Edmund, the only one who really knows the Witch, has to save them from her. Again. This is a big chunk of the reason that Edmund was always my favorite in the books. After his fall, he’s learned something, and he knows what to trust to. The others, not having experienced anything like what he did, don’t have the same kind of wisdom. "Edmund [became] a graver and quieter man than Peter," after all. Anyway.
Now let’s talk about Peter. Both here and in the film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he’s much more complex than he is in the books. In both books, he’s basically do-gooder Peter, without internal conflicts or any real flaws. In the first film, he is the reluctant hero, which was an interesting angle, and in Prince Caspian, there is much more going on in Peter’s own brain than there ever is in any of the books.

He’s having such a hard time readjusting to life in England after being a king that he’s getting into fights with other boys. When he returns to Narnia, it’s not his Narnia, but he will only rely on himself to put it to rights, because he is High King Peter. He fights with Caspian; he argues with Edmund; he almost falls prey to the White Witch, and he puts almost no faith in Aslan, something the Peter of the novels never would have done. As uncomfortable as it is to watch—and as little similarity as it bears to the Peter I know—this version is ultimately more interesting, because it makes Peter a flawed, human character. He is the least developed in the novels of all the siblings, and I like that the films are giving him some depth. Susan, too, gets layers instead of just one-note nagging, but even she gets to experience a mini-redemption in the novel of Prince Caspian—hard-headed and blind at first, but brought around at the end. Peter’s just always good, maybe a little misdirected at times, but always upright and true. A real wooden-headed doofus, like the princes in early Disney movies. In the movies, he’s much more than that.

And now I have just realized something. This is the first case in my entire life of the movies besting books I cherished. CHERISHED. I have to curl into a ball now and rethink my entire sense of self.

Goodnight!

Gayin' it up for serious

Oh my god, something actually lesbionic actually happened on Grey’s this week. I wasn’t even expecting it! And I may have watched it twenty or thirty times since it originally happened. What? I said I wanted nothing more than for Sara Ramirez and Brooke Smith to make out, and I got my wish!

Well, kinda. The kiss, while it lasted much longer than lesbian kisses on network tv usually do, was one-sided. Callie just kind of stood there, shocked. So I am hoping for something better on Thursday. Because you know me—never satisfied with what I have.

But anyway. Callie is clearly, clearly into it, but she won’t deal with it. Get over yourself already, Torres, and stop having sex with Sloane. Hahn is hot. And seriously when she was all, "He’s thinking about a threesome. He has been all day," I was like, "Are you sure that wasn’t you?"
"And then somehow the third person just kind of…faded away?"
Also, the other best part when was Mark was like, "So a threesome with Hahn, huh? Nice pick," and he went on about reaching across the OR table and yanking her mask off and just grabbing a hunk of her blonde hair, getting Callie all worked up. You know you want her, Torres.
So let’s go, ladies. Get it on for real. You have two whole hours to do it this week!

Oh gross. I just watched the teaser for this week, and it has naked Callie with naked Sloane. Which, okay, naked Callie—yay! But please get rid of the man already. No one’s buyin’ it, Torres.
And apparently some other stuff happened on the show this week, too, but...I didn't give a rat's ass about it once there were actual girls kissing!

That's a flaw I have.

On the back of a cartoon coaster

So. On Wednesday I went to Canada for the first time ever. It involved a lot of driving. Luckily I had a navigator.
Yes, this trip involved so much driving, in fact, that I showed up on Allison’s doorstep with a sunburned left arm. Um, if you’re not following me, I always drive with my left arm hanging out the window if it’s not freezing or pouring, and I was wearing a t-shirt, so… Eleven hours of one arm being exposed to the sun means hideous, lopsided sunburn.

Then I proceeded to spill burrito juice all over my t-shirt once we’d procured me some nourishment after my fatiguing drive.

Fortunately, things only got better from there. Having one brown arm and one white arm is still weird, though.

Thursday started out AWESOME, as immediately upon walking into a sushi place, I saw motherfucking Adamo Ruggiero, right there, waiting for his take-out order. Tiny gay Marco from Degrassi, people, standing right in front of my face. And then apparently, Lauren Collins walked in to meet him, but I DIDN’T SEE HER, and it was the heartbreak of my life. When they left, the waitress was in my way, and I could have cried. Lauren Collins is so awesome as Paige Michalchuk. So. Awesome. But I saw tiny gay Marco in the flesh! And that was certainly cool enough.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around Toronto and staring at it from high in the air, in the CN Tower, which looks like the Canadian version of the Space Needle. And made me want to actually get off my ass and work out when we’re going to Seattle this summer. Anyway. I took some pictures up there, and it was fun. I love being high above the earth.
After I had had my fill of staring at the ground from 1400 feet in the air, we made fun of various Canada-branded things in the gift shop, and I bought a $4 lemonade that was just delicious, and a squirrel walked over my hand! And got it all dirty! I thought squirrels were afraid of people. Stupid Canadian squirrels, getting my hand all dirty. And me without my anti-bacterial hand-sanitizer.

And then we found this thing:
And spent some time taking stupid pictures in front of it.
On Friday we went to Centre Island and read books out in nature for a few hours. I read pretty much the entirety of the fourth Traveling Pants book, and Allison read, like, twelve pages of The Neverending Story. Then it was time for dinner from a hot dog cart and Prince Caspian, which I kind of loved despite the fact that it changed pretty much every single thing from the book, but I’ll get into that later. You know I will.

There was also a lot of drinking taking place that I have glossed over. And a very serious drunk conversation about why I can’t write and why the Iraq War is fucked. I mean, what else would you talk about while you’re blasted?

Saturday was recovery day, for we’d both become gimped after all the walking we’d been doing, so we just lay around and watched internet things until we got hungry. I kept falling asleep on the couch and generally being a very bad houseguest, but all those nights of drinking had taken their toll on me.

Sunday was another eleven hours in the car, and it rained the whole goddamn time—until I returned to New England, which makes it clear that New England is the only place to live. As much as I admire Canada for things like gay marriage and free healthcare, and as much as I rage and storm and bitch about this country, the United States is my home, and even if John McCain becomes our next President, I’m not leaving.
Although, on the serious, please don’t let John McCain become our next President.

And now it’s time for a postcript!

Oh my god, I have to tell this story, even though I am pretty sure it’s only amusing for me. But! I shall plow on. Somewhere on the way to Toronto—either at the beginning of the New York Thruway or the end of the Mass Pike—I got cut off by this bulldozer of a woman in a silver Subaru* with New Hampshire plates and a rainbow cat sticker on the back bumper underneath an overpass for Dyke Road. Just as I was going, “What the fuck, dyke-o?” I looked up and saw the sign and just laughed and laughed and laughed. Dyke Road! That that exists at all is fun enough for me. I wish I could have taken a picture.

*I actually have no idea what kind of car she was driving, but I thought I’d just make it as gay as possible.

PPS:
Arguably, the greatest thing about Canada is its overwhelmingly awesome selection of junk food not available in the United States. Mostly, I am speaking of their chip selection, and specifically I wish to talk about these beauties:
Yes. Jalapeno and cheddar Doritos. One of the greatest ideas for a Doritos flavor if you ask me. And I checked on Frito-Lay’s website, just to be sure, and these bastards are not available within a 50 mile radius of Nashua, New Hampshire. Heartbreak! I know they’ve been putting out all these fancy new flavors of Doritos even over here lately, but they all suck—except for Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ, but I can no longer find those anywhere. Why don’t we have better junk food than Canada, America? This is the land of fat people! Make it happen.

When Canada is dead and gone, there'll be no more Celine Dion!

Nah, Canada was okay. When I got home last night after nearly twelve hours on the road, my furry little monster was waiting for me in the kitchen doorway, my mom was boiling edamame, and my brother was grilling kosher hot dogs for me. God bless America! Er, and my family.

I had a lot of fun, for real, but I'll talk about it later. I also have to talk about the latest lesbian development on Grey's, obviously, and Prince Caspian, so... The blog will be back in full force, it seems.

But now, sleep!

Vacation!

I'm off to Canada, my lovelies, so you'll have to look to the whole wide rest of the internet for entertainment. I'll be back on Monday. Maybe.

I love women

The best thing I have ever read, and I am not even exaggerating a little tiny bit: “If the infinite blowjobs of high school were replaced with infinite cunnilingus, I think the result would be Tina Fey automatically becoming our next President. Like within a week of the new rule, this would happen. Read Lysistrata! Tell your friends! Girls of the world, it is cool! Start demanding your right to oral sex, it is awesome!”

This is from Jacob Clifton, who recaps Gossip Girl for Television Without Pity, and who I think is so awesome I should probably email him and tell him so, but for some reason I just don’t do things like that. And it would probably have been the best thing I’ve ever read even if he didn’t manage to work in Tina Fey ruling the world, because, oh my. One of my favorite parts of last week’s Gossip Girl was that when Jenny Humphrey was lying about the sexual activities she and big gay Asher had engaged in, she said, “We went to third,” and one of the bitches was like, “You went to third?” and Jenny’s like, “Oh, no. He did.” Like, yes! It is so much better if you get your boy to go down on you than if you give out blowjobs with no reciprocation. Please, please learn this, young straight women of the world.

Correcting my most egregious oversight to date

As Jess so kindly pointed out, I left out probably the best example of a movie about a boys’ little league team that nevertheless includes a girl: Little Giants. And the girl? The awesomely nicknamed Becky “Icebox” O’Shea. Check it:
Tomboy awesomeness right there. She’s super good at football, but her uncle Al Bundy won’t pick her for his fancypants Pop Warner team, the Cowboys, so she teams up with her dad Rick Moranis to start the Giants, a group of ragtag weirdos who manage to come together to defeat the Cowboys.

Icebox is one of two actually good players; the other being ringer quarterback Devon Sawa (Junior? I think is his character name), and of course—of course!—Icebox starts getting a crush on Junior. But she, like all tomboyish girls in the movies, does not realize that Junior digs her just the way she is, a dirty, tough, football-playin’ girl.
Thus, Icebox thinks she needs to be more girly in order to get the boy to like her, and following the example of her cousins, she becomes a cheerleader just in time for the big Cowboys-Giants showdown, to the consternation of her entire team. And the entire viewing audience of tomboys. Or maybe just this adolescent tomboy. At any rate. Sigh.
I mean, she’s cute as a cheerleader, but she’s clearly better as a football player. Fortunately, she gets over it and dons her football gear in order to participate in the big game. Which, of course, the ragtag moppets win. Hooray!

But I have this vague memory of her actually playing in her cheerleader skirt. Did that actually happen? I should watch the movie again. Cuz that’s insane.

As a postscript, let us see what has become of Icebox since her football playin’ days:
She got pretty hot, eh?

Apparently, I blog about Grey's Anatomy every week

Okay, so Grey’s was pretty stupid last night, except for poor gay Santiago and his gay soldier boyfriend. The thing that bugged me the most, though, was Bailey’s reaction to the date-and-tell bananas. When George told her she was the only person in the entire hospital exempt from filling out the form, I was like, “That’s right! Bailey is awesome!” because Dr. Bailey is clearly the only professional person in that entire motherfucking hospital. Why? Because she is the only one who knows better than to fuck around with someone she works with. But then she got all offended! Like, because she doesn’t have to fill out the form, she obviously is incapable of finding a man to date her! That is NOT how Miranda Bailey would have reacted. JESUS CHRIST, what is happening to the awesome women on this show?

Another thing, there was one woman in the gaggle of nurses at the end who clearly, clearly has never slept with a man in her life, so why even was she there?
Female solidarity? I could see that.

“I don’t make friends easily. I’m awkward, and I’m bad at small talk, and I generally don’t like people I don’t know. And I have a big crush on this hot straight girl I work with.” Hahn didn’t say that last part, but it is also something we have in common! We’re exactly the same. Except she’s a heart surgeon, and I am a professional proofreader. Only a slight difference there, really.

Also, laughing? Not the appropriate response, you boob! But it’s probably what I would have done too. See? The same!

But there was no denial—from either of them—so it’s totally going to happen. The soldier boys making out was just a preview of the explosion of gay that’s about to come on this show that has forgotten about its one gay recurring character. I miss you, Joe. Now that I remembered you in the first place.

A post inspired by lesbians cooler than I

My favorite girls in sports films:
A League of Their Own
The Mighty Ducks
The Bad News Bears
Ladybugs
Bend It Like Beckham
Love and Basketball
Bring It On

I know The Mighty Ducks movies and The Bad News Bears are about little league boys’ teams, but there were two girls on the Ducks, and the Bears had Tatum O’Neal as their star pitcher. And The Bad News Bears is full of racism and homophobia, but I don’t even care. (Like, really. I just watched it again recently, and one of the little shits—Tanner, maybe—uses a whole slue of racial slurs—and gets one in there about fags, too. Naturally.) And, I know, in Ladybugs they needed a boy in a wig to not suck, but whatever. They eventually won on their own. I think. It was funny. I think. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I know I enjoyed it. I mean, it had Rodney Dangerfield and Jackee! And Jonathan Brandis as the boy in a wig. Heh.

But clearly the best of this bunch is A League of Their Own. Baseball and pretty ladies and Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna as comic relief. And who could forget Marla Hooch? What a hitter.

Aw, man. Sarah Warn says that Jess and Jules were supposed to do it in Bend It Like Beckham, but the director took it out so American assholes would watch it. That makes me so sad, because they were a little bit gay. Or a lot bit gay. In my head, Jules is in love with Jess, but trying to play it like she’s in love with Joe, so she doesn’t have to deal with coming out—and unrequitedly loving a straight girl. Which, what? I have no idea what that’s like.

Also gay and in love with her straight teammate? Missy Pantone. You know it’s true.

I think about hypothetical lesbians too much, huh.

Anyway, this list is pitiful, since it only actually includes five movies about girls in sports. The other two focus more on the boys playing sports. And the only sports movie I’ve ever seen (possibly the only sports movie ever made) with an actual lesbian relationship in it sucked my left ass cheek clean off my body. Depressing.

Giant dyke does not equal man-hater

Just because I felt I was getting all estrogeny, I have decided to compose a post dedicated to the men I love. First, we have my imaginary boyfriends, the top four men in my life:

Josh Beckett
Seth Green
Dustin Pedroia
Phil Hanseroth
Other guys I love:

Johnny Depp
Mike Lowell
Jared Padalecki (a leftover crush from high school)
Rupert Grint
I wouldn't marry--or sleep with--any of them or anything--except maybe Mike Lowell, if he weren't already married--but I totally dig these dudes. So, there.

Don't worry. Tomorrow, your regularly scheduled girlblog will return.

Worst video blog ever

Ever. And yet I'm so narcissistic I felt compelled to post it. Really, I just felt that Allison would probably get a kick out of it. So. Here 'tis.

Once again, I have nothing to do but dissect lesbian subtext on television

Oh no! It’s Hahn who has the unrequited crush! I have to say I really didn’t see that coming.
But it’s not really unrequited, is it?
All right, it’s become apparent that Callie and Hahn totally dig each other in the fun way, but Callie’s not cool with it. Why? She has terrible taste in men—Hahn would be, like, an upgrade and a half. I wish Addison were sticking around so she could talk some sense into Callie; their friendship is one of the things I miss most about when this show was good.
What I don’t understand is why there’s still this rumor of hooking Hahn up with Cristina. Cristina is probably the least gay character on that show, with Meredith just behind her. Or ahead of her. Whatever.

(Even though this picture I just grabbed of them is lookin’ a little subtexty…or that could just be me. It probably is.)

Also! Everyone’s like “Hahn is such a lesbian,” blah blah, but seriously, the first thing she said to Cristina this season was, “I sleep with men.” She did. That’s what she motherfucking said. Lesbians don’t sleep with men. Sometimes they pretend they do, because they’re scared, but Hahn doesn’t seem like the type to be scared. Or like the type to be bisexual but say things like, “I sleep with men, so don’t try any of your sleeping with your mentor tricks on me, Yang.” (I paraphrased the last bit.) Does anyone but me remember that part? I think I remember it because it was such a letdown, because, I mean, Hahn is pretty dykey, no matter her words to the contrary.

Seriously, Cristina and Burke’s relationship was so one of the worst things about the show. I am so glad Isaiah Washington turned out to be a homophobic asshole and got himself fired. Brooke Smith, as I said before: upgrade and a half.
But back to the lady on lady action. Callie’s turning into a whore for Sloan is only okay if she’s not so much afraid that she’s attracted to Hahn, but worried that Hahn wouldn’t see her that way. Then I could understand being all, no, no, I’m straight. STRAAAAAAAAAIGHT. So Hahn doesn’t know how she feels, and she doesn’t embarrass herself and get her heart broken. Uh, not that I have any idea what that might be like.

(Notice how she’s still totally looking at Hahn while she dances with Mark…)

Oy. I don’t know why I care so much. Even if anything does happen, it’ll end two episodes into next season. Fuck you, network television! Fuck you!

Still, if Brooke Smith and Sara Ramirez make out just once, it’ll all be worth it. They are that hot.













In related news, how sad am I that the other foxiest lady of Seattle Grace has apparently left for good? I miss you again, Kate Walsh!

(Even more now that this picture made me remember that you would wear glasses sometimes.)

For some reason I thought Private Practice had been canceled, which it should have been because it sucks! Bring Kate back to Grey’s where she belongs!