Erin Watches Movies

In March, I read The Big Short, and over the past weekend, I finally watched the movie version on Netflix. 

It’s a very good film. Although it's no secret I’m a big Christian Bale fan, and I really enjoyed his performance as Dr. Michael Burry, I thought Steve Carell’s performance was the best. (I did appreciate how Bale was framed so that the left side of his face was de-emphasized to help create the illusion that he had a glass eye, like the real Michael Burry. Good cinnamon tography.)

I didn’t realize it while I was watching it, but later when Tit Elingtin watched the movie at my suggestion, I noticed Tracy Letts in the cast list. As you may recall, I heard his name in “HardcoverBound 2,” first thought he was a female and probably quite feminist playwright, and then thought to associate him with the films Bug and August: Osage County. 

Tracy Letts has a small role in The Big Short. It makes sense. He’s a theatre kid, writing plays and acting in movies. Also, his mother was the writer Billie Letts, who wrote Where the Heart Is. It was turned into a movie starring Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd. (I saw it in the movie theater with my friend Jamie in 2000.) Judd, who was in Bug, has thus appeared in films by two different Lettses. 

I didn't read this.

But I digress. In trying to find out a little more about Letts’ acting career, I found upon a photo of Letts with Rebecca Hall and Michael C. Hall (no relation to one another). The Halls and Letts are involved in a film called Christine, scheduled to be released in October (next month).

I recently saw Michael C. Hall in Kill Your Darlings, the drama in which Daniel Radcliffe played Allen Ginsberg. I loved that movie. David Cross was adorable as Ginsberg’s poet father, Dane DeHaan* is dreamy even though Lucien Carr was a shit boyfriend to Allen (repressed much?), and Radcliffe is now my second-favorite movie Ginsberg after James Franco. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the Norman Reedus/Keifer Sutherland/Courtney Love film Beat, with my sweet sweet baby Kyle Secor as David Kammerer, Carr’s creepy stalker. The Kammerer character in KYD is much better written and sympathetic, and Hall does an excellent job playing him.

Rebecca Hall, of course, played the long-suffering wife of Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) in The Prestige. It’s one of my favorite movies, and I’m not the only fan. The Simpsons had its season premiere this past weekend. Mr. Burns re-instated a vaudeville-like stage show like he remembered from his childhood, including a magic act performed by twins Sherri and Terri that referenced The Prestige.

I DID read Christopher Priest's novel - after I saw the movie

I’ve also been watching Rebecca Hall as Edwardian narcissist Sylvia Tietjens, opposite Benedict Cumberbatch, in Parade’s End. She will play the title character in Christine.

Christine is Christine Chubbuck, a real person whom I read about in He Who Shall Remain Shameless. 

Sylvia Tietjens isn’t a very sympathetic character. One tends to feel more sympathy for husband Christopher, who is desperately in love with spunky suffragist Ms. Valentine Wannop (Adelaide Clemens, a young Australian who played Myrtle Wilson’s sister in The Great Gatsby), but too old-fashioned to divorce Sylvia. I'm on episode 2 of the 4-part miniseries, and so far the most scandalous thing Christopher and Valentine have done is get lost in the fog and stay out together all night…sitting next to each other. Just sitting, physical contact at an absolute minimum. It’s like the opposite of Jane Eyre. Where Edward Fairfax Rochester was not concerned enough about pursuing the woman he loved while in a bad marriage, Christopher Tietjens was probably too concerned. Lots of unresolved longing and surreptitious eye contact ensue.

Christine Chubbuck, conversely, is a very sympathetic character. Life dealt her a hand so much worse than she deserved. Her severe depression cost her her life. Live on television. We can't see the actual footage, thank Something, but we will see a dramatized version. 

*I saw him in the trailer for Tulip Fever while waiting for Love and Friendship (a Jane Austen adaptation) to start in the movie theater. I want to see that. Christine might be too sad, even though I'm sure Rebecca Hall's acting will be great. Let's see Tulip Fever instead. As of this writing, its release is planned for February 2017. 

No, I did not read this book.

The Hanukkah Hotness, Night 2: Daniel Radcliffe

Happy second night of Hanukkah!

For a long time, I didn't realize Daniel Radcliffe was Jewish. When I found out, I was really excited. Not that there's anything wrong with being non-Middle Eastern. It's just nice to belong to the same tribe as the cool kids.

From Sorceror's Stone and Chamber of Secrets, Daniel Radcliffe was just "that kid who plays Harry Potter." In Prisoner of Azkaban, Daniel Radcliffe became "that cute kid who plays Harry Potter." Then, right around the time of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - right about the time he starred in Equus on London's West End - it became, "Wow, Dan Radcliffe is an actual hot guy."



As I wrote here, I do not mind his vertically-challenged status. Height is not required for hotness.

Grace Norwich published Daniel Radcliffe: No Ordinary Wizard in 2005, when Radcliffe was 15-ish and still in the "cute; I'd be into him if I was in high school" phase. I bought it (at a card shop that also sold books, now out of business) because I was as Potter-obsessed then as I am today, and I read it, too, although the writing is clearly intended for a teen/tween audience.

For your edification, I'll quote a few passages.

"...Dan shares a lot of similarities with the fictional character that has made him a household name. First off, they are both British, and very cute!...'We have curiosity [and] loyalty,' Dan told People magazine...Another similarity that Dan and the fictional wizard seem to share is a level of wisdom and maturity that is beyond their years, which is probably due to the fact that they both had to handle a great deal of responsibility at such a young age."



"Daniel Jacob Radcliffe was born on July 23, 1989, in London, England, to Alan Radcliffe and Marcia Gresham. He grew up in the well-to-do neighborhood of Fulham, in the southwest part of the city. Daniel attended Sussex House, an exclusive all-boys private school in Chelsea, where his favorite classes were gym and science."



On how Dan came to audition for the role of Harry Potter: "One summer Dan went to the theater with his parents to see Stones in His Pockets, a comedy about two extras on a big American movie shooting in Ireland. In the row directly in front of the Radcliffe family were two men who knew his father. And they were behaving oddly. Instead of concentrating on the play in front of them, the men kept turning around to stare at Dan....The two men turned out to be none other than David Heyman and the screenwriter, Steve Kloves."



"More than ten thousand fans gathered to scream and swoon when Dan arrived at the world premiere of Harry Potter in London. At the momentous event, Dan watched the film for the third time. Although he loved the final product, he hated seeing himself on the screen, especially that evening."



"There were a lot of people who would weigh in on this film, but perhaps there was no one more important than J.K. Rowling. She made her firm pronouncement after seeing the film. 'I think Dan nailed it,' she said in a written statement later published by the Toronto Star..."



"Not surprising are Dan's sophisticated tastes. He likes music from bands that broke up way before he was even born. But Dan has been hanging around adults on film sets for a long time now, and has picked up a thing or two. He also is the only child of two very sophisticated parents, who took him to the theater regularly and exposed him to a lot. Dan wasn't going to settle for any Britney Spears or the latest boy band. Instead Dan is into edgier stuff. In fact, with his main musical passion, punk, he doesn't even like the current bands."



"He has a ton of crushes on the leading ladies of rock. He admitted to Radio 1 that he is a sucker for Brody Dalle, the lead singer of the punk band the Distillers, who sports enormous tattoos and thick black eyeliner. 'I'm madly in love with her!' Dan said. He also professed love to Marcie Bolen, the adorable red-head guitarist for another punk band, the Von Bondies."



"When the inevitable time arrives for Dan and Harry to go their separate ways, Dan's future will be wide open and anything is possible. Who knows what he will try next?"



We do! We've already seen him in The Woman in Black. Next up, we'll see him in the adaptation of Joe Hill's horror novel Horns and as Allen Ginsberg (squee! He's my dead gay Jewish boyfriend) in Kill Your Darlings.

Oh How Pinteresting! - Books, Cartoons and Tea

(Note: There was more to the beginning of this post, but I accidentally deleted it. - May 31, 2013.)






This is what Daniel Radcliffe tells people he's doing this weekend.



This is what he actual does.



After the Harry Potter reference, I might as well just own up to it.



One book that I recently read and got really into was The Count of Monte Cristo. This is the minimalist movie poster.



Yesterday I started watching the anime series Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo. This is the beautiful Haydee (of Eastern Space) in one of her most fabulous dresses.



Oh! and look at this clever thing that Meg made. It's a tea based on Bear the dog from Person of Interest! If I hadn't recently splurged on various media acquisitions (the first season of Veronica Mars, a paperback Middlemarch of George Eliot, the Bust Magazine with "The Thinking Girl's Guide to Erotica") I would have ordered some already.

What Happens at @GoodReads Doesn't Necessarily Stay at #GoodReads

A huge topic of discussion at GoodReads is always which actors should play certain roles in the movie versions of our beloved books. There's only one answer, really: no one. What mortal human is ever good enough to compare to the way we imagine our favorite fictional characters (and, let's face it, fictional boyfriends/girlfriends) in our heads? The fun of fictional people is that they're better than real people, possessing only those flaws with which the author lovingly bestows them, as needed for the plot and/or to make them charmingly quirky.

Therefore, I have no very strong opinions on who should play Finnick Odair in Catching Fire and Mockingjay. Whoever gets to play Christian Grey, I'll be disappointed in, because he won't be my imaginary Christian Grey. I won't hate seeing Michael Fassbender or Cillian Murphy get the role, but I won't love it, either.

(Okay, I'll probably come to love it eventually, the same way I wholeheartedly embrace Dan Radcliffe - whom I just recently found out is half-Jewish, the kosher icing on a cake I already adored! - as Harry Potter and Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen.)



I definitely, definitely have no strong opinion on who should play Matthew Clairmont, the medieval knight/modern vampire in A Discovery of Witches. My opinion is "nobody." Matthew Clairmont is so utterly inhuman, so otherworldly, so supernatural. How could he be played by a mere human? Still, I had to take a peek when a GoodReads discussion was labelled, "Who would you like to see play Matthew in the movie, if one were made?"

The first suggestion is Fassbender - an excellent choice. Then, a few comments down, Ms. Jackie Frye throws out Jim Caviezel as a suggestion...and I die a little, 'cause that's what happens when you take two of my sexual fantasies, jam them together and make them wrestle over who gets to be on top.

Some people agree. Some don't. One who doesn't is this chick Suay, who writes:

"Didn't really like any of the suggestions I have looked up so far. Jim Caviezel looks a bit too sleazy in my opinion (I apologize for the choice of words but can't think of a more polite word for this right now), Fassbender looks more vulnerable than I would have imagined Matthew to be. I agree with a previous comment that an unknown or less know actor would probably be best. I would have thought that a dark / sinister character would depict him best. But there aren't too many of that type around I suppose." 

...and I choke my chai latte, just a little. Oh no, book bitch*, you did not just call James Caviezel "sleazy." That is no way to talk about my own personal Jesus. I grant you the following points:

1. He's a dick to Demi Moore in G.I. Jane. Being a dick to Demi Moore is not cool.



2. He's a total dick to Ashley Judd in High Crimes, trying to kill her and all. He also makes being ambidextrous look creepy. But he gets punished for it, 'cause as Kat Bjelland sang/shrieked in "Bluebell," "You're dead meat, motherfucker/Don't try to rape a goddess."



3. His redneck domestic terrorist character in Deja Vu is completely sleazy. I give you that. He set a woman on fire. Again, he's severely punished. (He does, however, totally rock the back-of-the-neck tattoo. Makes me wanna be the chick who inked that, with the needles and the blood and the pain. Be still, my injury fetish.)



His style of acting can best be described as "intense," but "intense" can be a good thing, too. Intense can be passionate, and not just in the Christ sense. Suay says sleazy; I say man-pretty. I know I wrote in "Womb Pride," quoting Rob Bell's brilliant book Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality:

"Picture a group of high school boys standing by their lockers when a girl walks by. One of the boys asks, 'How do you rate that?' They then take turns assigning numerical values to the various parts of her anatomy, discussing in great detail how they evaluate her physical attributes...The problem is that 'that' is actually a 'she.' A person. A woman. With a name, a history, with feelings. It seems harmless until you're that girl, and then it hurts. It's degrading. It's violating. It does something to a person's soul."

So, please believe me when I say I mean no disrespect when I ask you to consider the following.



Those beautiful blue eyes.



These lips.



The cheekbones.



The hipbones.



The smile.



The really big hands...  



...and feet. 

What was I saying? Oh yeah. Matthew Clairmont? Maybe not. But definitely not sleazy. Just an intense actor and very, very man-pretty.

*Used affectionately. We're all book bitches here. No offense intended.

Highly Susceptible to Fiction - SOC Sunday

Today’s (Optional) Writing Prompt: Have you ever gotten so engrossed in a book that is seemed to spill over into your real life? Tell me about it.

Hooking up with AllThingsFadra for Stream of Consciousness (SOC) Sunday. (Fadra baked bread after listening to the Hunger Games audiobook.)

I am highly susceptible to fiction, whether I'm reading it, watching it or writing it. I did just read The Hunger Games, and I really enjoyed it, but I can't think of anything that it influenced me to do. I can tell you that when I'm writing fiction, I'll go miles out of my way to experience something firsthand.

Once I stopped into a gas station for a cup of coffee and I thought the clerk would make a really interesting character. After mulling him over for a few days, I kinda started to stalk that gas station - not a  usual stop for me - to see if he would be there again. I wanted my inspiration fix. After the story was written, I just went back to my usual coffee spot.

True Blood makes me want to drink red wine.

And yes, it's true that for weeks after I saw the Daniel Radcliffe film The Woman in Black, I was a little worried that the closet adjacent to my master bath was haunted. I got into the habit of flicking on the hallway lights to drive away the ghosts before I got to the bathroom.



There you go...exactly five minutes.

I've Been Tagged - 11 Questions About Author/Book Blogger/Reviewer Erin O'Riordan

I was tagged with 11 questions by Shah Wharton on her Author Blog. I'm supposed to tag other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions - but I'm still busy with the Blogelina 100 Comments on My Blog event.

So, you just get my answers.

1) What is your favourite colour?

Green, but I spell it color because I'm from the U.S.A.



2)What is your favourite drink?

The green tea latte at Seattle's Best. I can't get it around here anymore because my local Seattle's Best was inside Border's.

3) Tell us a little about your latest project. Give us the link.

My latest project is "Rhapsody in Blood," and you can read an excerpt on last week's WIP Wednesday.

4)What is the last book you read? What are you reading now?

The last book I read was Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure by Jim Murphy and Alison Blank. It was a children's book. I got it free from Amazon Vine and reviewed it on Amazon. Now I'm reading another Vine selection, Kiss, Crush, Collide by Christina Meredith. It's a teen love story.

5) What other interests do you have, other than blogging?

Reading, writing, editing. Walking in the park. Kayaking, whenever I get the chance. I love movies, too.

6) What was the last movie you went to see?

The Woman in Black, starring Daniel Radcliffe. Don't jump out at me in the dark; I'm still scared of the Woman in Black, even though I didn't go anywhere near Eel Marsh House.



7) Do you have a favourite genre for books/TV/Movies?

Fantasy and paranormal.

8) What would I find in your refrigerator right now?

Not much. Some red wine, hummus, kiwis, apples, garlic, Greek yogurt, a little milk. That's pretty much it.

9) If you could trade places with someone for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom would it be?

Shah asked me this before, and I said, "Christian Bale's wife, Sibi Blazic." I guess I need a new answer this time...so I'll say Esme Cullen, because Carlisle is really my perfect fictional husband. Sigh. He's so handsome and noble and responsible.

Sibi Blazic's man does photograph incredibly well, though.



10) What is your favourite (song) and why?

At the moment, my favorite song is "Kandi" by One Eskimo. Why? Clever use of the sample from "He Called Me Baby" by Candi Staton and general mellow, soulful sound.




11) If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you?

Shah asked me this before, too, and I said Sarah Silverman, 'cause Sarah Silverman would make a good me. She would make me funnier than I actually am. So I don't want to change that answer.

So, what would your answers to some of these questions be? Pick 1-2 favorites to answer.

When Bigger Isn't Always Better

I saw Daniel Radcliffe on The Talk yesterday. This was the first I'd heard of his upcoming role in a film called Kill Your Darlings, in which he'll play Allen Ginsberg. The plot revolves around a murder committed by Lucien Carr in 1944.

[Sidebar: Presumably, this refers to the killing of David Kammerer. In the film Beat, David Kammerer is played by another actor I greatly admire - Kyle Secor, who played the sexually conflicted homicide detective Timothy James Bayliss on Homicide: Life on the Streets (on the right; his TV partner is the brilliant actor Andre Braugher).

In Beat, Ginsberg is portrayed by Ron Livingston. Norman Reedus, perhaps best remembered from Boondock Saints, played Lucien Carr, and Courtney Love made an appearance as Joan, the wife of William S. Burroughs.]

I'm so excited that Daniel Radcliffe is attempting to play Ginsberg. I think I will like this as much as, or even more than, James Franco's portrayal in Howl.

Some of the discussion on yesterday's talk show was about the fact that Dan hasn't really grown much (in height) since he first donned the robes of the Boy Who Lived.

This does not bother me at all. I still say Radcliffe's grown into a very attractive young man. Here he is at age 18 in a photo by David Dj Johnson.

You don't have to be tall to be beautiful - right, Tom Cruise as Lestat?

Tom Cruise as Lestat agrees.

This height-challenged hottie gets tons of great movie roles based on books, from The Outsiders to The Firm to War of the Worlds. You know, I used to think he wasn't very attractive, but the older I get, the more I like Tom Cruise. (No Scientology jokes - I respect everyone's religious freedom. But I will say this again - his wife is not as good a Rachel Dawes as Maggie Gyllenhaal is.)

You know who does a hella good impression of Tom Cruise? Miles Fisher.