light reading

people seem concerned about me yet again. yes, i am reading a history of suicide. no, i am not reading it for inspiration. everyone has issues in their lives, but mine are not such that i feel i need to take that route out. i am reading it because i feel like it, because it was on the shelf next to a book that a response to a post on gawker this morning mentioned. i borrowed both. the post was about subway jumpers. it's relevant. and i don't really see why i need to justify my choice of light reading to anyone. maybe i'm dabbling in amateur psychology. maybe i'm interested in how religion affected people's lives from the middle ages onwards. maybe, just maybe, i don't actually need to see a therapist.
sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar.

on being a purist

i just watched the trailer for the picture of dorian gray, and i can't decide how i feel about it. i enjoyed the book, but i read it so long ago that it has barely any effect on my perceptions of the movie. besides, while ben barnes is not beautiful the way dorian is supposed to be, he certainly is pretty.
the new sherlock holmes, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal. i've been reading holmes since i was six, and after seeing the trailer i was disappointed to see that it's basically your standard action movie, with only a different historical setting to recommend it. i suppose it might be fine as a movie on its own, but as an adaptation of a novel that i am more than familiar with it offends me.
unfortunately i seem to feel this way about a lot of movies. the past few harry potter movies left me cold; neither the jim caviezel count of monte cristo nor the french version thereof were any good as adaptations of the book (as a matter of fact, the more recent movie was an absolute travesty); and even the lord of the rings trilogy was not quite up to my standards by its close. is it better to miss out completely on what could be a good movie or be repeatedly disappointed by failures?

return of the king

i just finished watching the return of the king for what seems like the millionth time, and i have to say it just gets better and better. there's something about courage-in-the-face-of-insurmountable-odds (how cliche) that makes me want to be a better person. and the accompanying motivational speeches make me cry. come to think of it, this entire movie makes me cry (but definitely in a good way).

part of it is caused by sam. character-wise, he is my absolute favorite person. he's not at all one-dimensional, he isn't just there for amusement (see gimli the Comic Relief Dwarf), and overall he restores my faith in humanity. yes, i rely on non-humans to make me feel better about people consisting of epic and fail. this may or may not be very sad.

some of it is eowyn and her badassery. i love this girl. and at the risk of sounding completely inane, i will tell you that if she actually existed i would have the most ridiculous girly-crush on her. but she doesn't, so * sigh * i can't.

and the rest of it is, well, i have no idea really. i'm just a crier. or something.

might be because i'm a huge dork for LoTR. i've read it thirty-odd times (over a four-year period before high school); own the trilogy, the hobbit, & the silmarillion and have read them all numerous times; and used to be able to quote entire paragraphs. yeah. or maybe i'm just a dork.

but either way, tolkien was a genius.

dan brown

the da vinci code and angels & demons only make me want to go back to italy. nothing more. maybe it's only because i'm not a catholic.

also, why does langdon have a new girl in angels & demons? whatever happened to the girl from the da vinci code? should i go back and read it again? because i honestly remember him thinking he was in love with her.

and why does dan brown have this tendency to insert romance into thrillers? it is frustrating! if i want romance i will go read craptacularly embarrassingly girly novels with pink covers and stupid titles and revoltingly feminine women. give me thrillers. that's all i'm asking for. THE ENTIRE WORLD DOES NOT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT BUDDING ROMANCES AND PRETTY WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE OF EPIC AND THRILL.

don't worry dan brown, you are still awesome.