InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "PIIIIIIZZZZZZZZAAAAAA"

perverse_idyll (perverse_idyll) wrote,
@ 2009-10-11 12:56:00

Current mood:	procrastinatory
Current music:	Patty Griffin live
Entry tags:	hp, meme, recs

Random meme, and months-old recs
Yes, I know, this is lame. One stale meme and links to old recs. But considering I haven't visited my own journal for weeks, it's better than nothing, right?

I did the movie meme in an idle moment, even though fandom at large used it up and tossed it away two months ago. I am forever belated, and my brain drags its good intentions around for ridiculous lengths of time before finally letting go.

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen movies you've seen that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

1. Children of Paradise (saw this at age 16 – rocked my world)
2. Steamboat Bill, Jr. & The General (my Buster Keaton crush)
3. Pandora's Box & Diary of a Lost Girl (my Louise Brooks crush)
4. Any number of Akira Kurosawa films, but first and foremost Seven Samurai
5. Any number of Ingmar Bergman films, but let's say Persona
6. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (my Gene Wilder crush. No, I am not ashamed)
7. Celine and Julie Go Boating
8. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (filmed RSC stage version) (my crush on practically everybody and everything – oh, theatre!)
9. The Apu Trilogy, but especially Pather Panchali
10. Lord of the Rings trilogy, regardless of its problems (my Elijah Wood crush)
11. La Strada & Nights of Cabiria (my Giulietta Masina crush)
12. Sense and Sensibility (my Emma Thompson crush)
13. Richard III (my Richard the Third crush)
14. Onibaba (true confession: I had to look this one up, because all I could remember was the English translation of the title: Demon Woman)
15. Couldn't decide between The Ice Storm and Withnail & I (my bittersweet yes-it's-fucked-up-and-they-leave-you-in-the-end romantic anti-romantic streak)

Well, that was less than cathartic. ;) And yes, I realize that I could probably come up with an entirely different list on an entirely different day in an entirely different mood. But once is enough.

~~~~

I keep postponing links to the recs I made during my respective driving/flying months at crack_van and crack_broom. Since I like to have a convenient record and tally of favorite fics and my thoughts on them, I'm going to use this as a bookmark post. These are several months old, but if there's anything here you've never read before, I urge you to give it a chance. And if the spirit moves you, leave the writers some love in the form of feedback.

Crack Van HP recs. Snape-centric but not particularly Snarryish.

Fallen Far from the Tree by joanwilder

We Should Have Loved More and Feared Less by maelipstick

The Soul Adores by maeglinyedi

Slow Convergence by Iteration by dracofiend

Mustard Seed by rinsbane (excerpt NSFW) (you need to have Rinsbane friend you to have access to her HP fics)

Match Point (Unforgiven) by snegurochka_lee

Jigsaw Pieces by florahart

All the Dreaded Cards Foretell by lilith_morgana

Silver and Green: A Quarter by alena_hu

Playing for Keeps by vissy

The Courtship of Benjamin Jink by atdelphi

Hard Bargain & A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by magnetic_pole

Also, two vid recs, one Snape-centric and one not:

High School Never Ends by Samus McAslan

Beautiful Struggle by nightchik

Well, that got long. Perhaps it would be wise to save the Crack_Broom recs for a follow-up post.

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enname
2009-10-12 11:52 pm UTC (link)

*imbibing tea in a squinty eyed-near-coma manner* Ergh, morning. Who put that there?

Films.... here are the ones that come off the top of my head, which of course means that I can't recall at least one third of their names, but I can recall their entire plot. There are possibly more than 15 here.

Weeping Camel
Time for Drunken Horses
Trois Coleurs (Bleu, Blanc, Rouge)
Film-that-I-can't-recall-the-name-of but is short, harsh look at suburban US life, and the inner mutilations of families Humurous as well, but very fucked up, and I never want to watch it again as it is branded on my mind.
Babette's Feast
Les Tripelettes de Belville (I quite possibly have a crush on the person who sings the title song)
Akira Kurosawa (No he is not a film, but I refuse to choose)
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring
The General
Requiem for a Dream (Not something to ever watch whilst under the influence of any narcotic, I can assure you.)
Apocalypse Now (What? It is beautiful)
Arsenic and Old Lace. (I am all for poisening everyone :P)
Water (of the trilogy Fire, Wood and Water by Deepa Mehta)
Fist of Fury (Crap film, stunning martial arts.)
Japanese Story (Who wants a happy ending?)
The Tracker (I have a crush on Gulpalil, so possibly include Ten Canoes in here too because of my corresponding love of Rolf de Heer)

Etc. I don't watch many films, and often not even the ones that I want to see at the time they are released. So the ones I do see usually leave an impression on me.

Ta for the recs, I will have a walk through sometime.

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perverse_idyll
2009-10-16 04:35 am UTC (link)

So it's my turn to imbibe, although of the decaf variety, which scarcely deserves the name of tea. But it's evening here, unseasonably warm and with mist rising off the fields like thick smoke, silent and ghostly. If I intend to sleep tonight, I must resist drinking anything liable to make my mind race.

I've added your first two choices to my movie queue, although I'll have to be in the right mood for Time for Drunken Horses or it will make too deep an impression. Also, I'm moving Japanese Story higher up the list. I, too, rarely watch films, although I have the best intentions, and I have a long list that's been sitting there untouched for ages. I tend to default to music and print over movies.

I've never heard of The Tracker, but I'll check that out, too. I skirted around Requiem for a Dream because I've known addicts and watched people smash their lives to pieces because they couldn't quit, and I have a feeling the movie would just depress me.

Heh, the short film about suburban US life sounds like The Ice Storm, which tied for fifteenth place in my list.

I have to try the Color Trilogy again. My first attempts to watch it was in company with someone who was too impatient to allow the films to cast a proper spell and annoyingly vocal about it, so they were ruled "pretentious" and sent back to the video rental. Needless to say, I stopped trying to share my intermittent movie experience with this particular friend.

Mm, I liked Fire but haven't seen Wood or Water yet. *adds*

Reading over your list reminded me of two films that I should have mentioned, considering that they sent me out of the theatre in a daze, at odds with reality because my head was still caught in their alternate universe. So I'm going to append:

The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Moliere (the 1978 version directed by Ariane Mnouchkine and apparently unavailable on a US-compatible DVD, damn it. Because now that I've thought of it, I want it)

Mornings are always an unpleasant surprise. I wish I could claim to be one of those people who springs out of bed eager to greet the world, but the opposite is, alas, closer to the truth.

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enname
2009-10-16 06:01 am UTC (link)

I am having a late afternoon cup of tea, with teapot sitting on the desk beside me steaming away. Admittedly, it is only green tea, but that has more to do with fitting the weather. I think perhaps that it is being unseasonable at both ends of the world, because we have been locked in a bitter swirl of low pressure from the Antarctic, with icy wind and rushing storms that sweep through violently on the hour. Not that I mind, I rather like my weather unstable and cold, but today has cleared up to a bright spring day with the palest of blue skies and whisps of crystal. In a rare moment before the burn of summer, the world is looking refreshed and relaxed from rain and sun. So, green tea it is - the colour of my rose bush as it is washed clean after rain.

The Weeping Camel is perhaps the antidote to Time for Drunken Horses, but yes, pick the time wisely. Mind, Ghobadi does not though truly leave you in pieces, unlike some directors I know and love. There is always a little fragment of hope. Japanese Story was a pleasant surprise, I went in expecting one film (possibly forced by a friend to see it) and came out with another. Alas, saying anything more rather ruins the film though ..

The Tracker is, hm, very much a summary of a lot about Australia in terms of a fictional yarn, almost mythical in quality. I also love the sound track, and of course the scenery is beautiful. It and Ten Canoes are my summer watching for when it is 120F, I can't move, can't read and just want something to carry me along. Well, that and the Godfather I and II, for sheer length. Many Australian films I love (they have their own category) - Rabbit Proof Fence, Lantana, Samson and Delilah... but they really are often quite grim, or very weird as the other option. Mostly not heard of outside of well, here.

Ah! I remembered, it is Happiness by Todd Solodnz. Something I do believe that was watched at the same time as Requiem for a Dream (and no, I would not have watched it voluntarily either. It made the list for sheer trauma induced, especially in the other people at the open air cinemawho were using drugs whilst watching.) making for a rather horrific evening. I might have well as gone the route of Nihilism Night - could only barely be worse. Some David Lynch would have just rounded it out. Still, for better or worse it did make an impact on me, no matter how I rather wish I could erase it.

It is quite possible that I just fell in love with the score (The requiem that Preisner wrote for the Kieslowski at his death is an old favourite) to the Colour Trilogy, and that affected everything else, although being late at night and tired, also helped with the finding the pattern. Then again, many would say that I am pretentious and I'd have to agree with them. Speaking of films that go at their own pace, the recent 'The Band's Visit' is lovely like that. A somewhat happier version of many of my more beloved films from the region.

I like fire, but ultimately Water is my favourite of the three films and the one that lingers the most in my mind.

*adds the Tree of Wooden Clogs to her list* I've not seen that, and although I might be ninety before I get there and do see it, it looks lovely. Strange - you can get the Moliere here in the correct region. It seems to be willing to sell in most regions. Ah... I remember seeing this late one night on television. It sucked me in and I got very little sleep.

Mmm, I would rather read a book that be forced to pay attention to film, or make the effort to go out and spend money to do so. I also live closer to an art house cinema rather than a mainstrea one, so I am more likely to go see something small, or something from Jacques Tati than a recent big release. Those can download if I want, and I know I tend towards snobbishness or the more experimental.

Right, more tea, I have papers to write and I am still not recovered from staggering out of bed three times in a row when it was still dark. I hope you managed to get some sleep, or at least be soothed by the warmth of the air and the quiet.

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	enname 2009-10-16 06:14 am UTC (link)
	Oh bugger, this is an annoying meme. I mean I managed to not include any Fellini, or now I think about you mentioning the filmed version of an RSC, that particular version of Lear .. or.. or! Lots more. :P (Reply to this) (Parent)