Weekend in summary

-Bowled with Kristen

-Probably have a cold, working to not get particularly sick

-Made a lot of progress with animation project, still have to finish betweening for part 4, then can finalize lineart / details, color it, figure out backgrounds and slap it all together. I'm guessing I'll be working on this till Friday at least, possibly all the way to the deadline. Kind of hoping for Friday though, it's exhausting after a while.

-Also we got a vacuum cleaner I can actually use.

-Also, my aunt and I coordinated on the comic project, and she has the first 15 pages sketched out. It's pretty rad!

-Saw latest episode of Legend of Korra. Was briefly :D and then was >:( when Korra lost yet another battle. Heaven forbid Korra be able to handle herself against anyone without the help of her big strong male advisors and friends.

Also, I don't know about everyone else, but "lol jealousy" as a plot device makes me annoyed even when it isn't reinforcing a ship that denies me sweet, sweet Asami/Korra. I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with the concept of romantic jealousy because it's fundamentally fucked up. "Grr, how dare you have a life that doesn't include me 100% of the time?" that's not okay to do to your FRIENDS, so why would it ever be okay to do with your ROMANTIC PARTNER? So I hate seeing this theme because it basically reinforces unhealthy romance since usually the resolution is "gosh, I'm sorry to make you jealous! Let me reassure you I love you by voluntarily limiting my personal freedoms to make it up to you."

In this case it's being used to predictably possibly drive a wedge into Korra's friendship with Asami, which is still lame. It's lame that they didn't get to talk about it. It's lame that the episode ended the way it did. Still-- Korra made some great decisions this episode so I have hope for next week. We'll see.

When a princess is just a princess

Gonna make another post to talk about religion and Brave in a moment. But first!

I've seen a variety of reviews for Snow White and the Huntsman. A common joke is to make fun of Kristen Stewart for having 'just one expression', etc. etc. A common complaint is [insert any sarcastic complaint about symbolism here].

For the first point: the fact that Kristen Stewart is not just wearing one expression in the scenes people are willing to credit her for proves that she is perfectly capable of acting just fine. Why are we blaming the actress here? Is the director not also responsible for telling her how he wanted her to act? (A first-time director, too.) Are the writers not also responsible for giving her ZERO SPEAKING LINES for about half of the movie? I guess we should sit back and let the men talk.

( The second point is my main beef here. Also, it's annoyed me so much that I wrote a whole lot about it. Cut for spoilers because it's pretty hard to defend a movie without explaining why the complaints are bogus. )

Religion and Anticipation for Brave (Spoilers for people who are avoiding promotional material!)

1. The religion bit! ( And some rambling about how space is beautiful, and life is precious, so why do people buy into a god that only likes some people instead of all people when it makes no sense to create a universe and only care about a tiny fraction of things in it. )

It just doesn't make a lick of sense. Why is it people who identify as religious are often the most hateful people I meet? It's the exact opposite of what all the religious texts tell you to be.

2. The Brave bit. I'm sort of looking forward to this movie, but I'm worried it might not deliver.

I guessed, after the second preview was released, 'Oh, she's going to wish for her life to be more interesting and as punishment her family is going to turn into bears. I guess Brother Bear wasn't a total failure.'

Danny has recently confirmed that I'm correct, having encountered a book with a summary of the movie wherein one of the bears is obviously wearing a crown, and thus the girl's mother. He's concerned that the movie's just a rip-off of Spirited Away.

I don't really think so; Spirited Away is hardly a pioneer in the genre of 'my adult supervisors have disappeared, and I'm trapped in a fantasy world!' (Other examples include Coraline, Labyrinth, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and Chronicles of Narnia). Notably, in Spirited Away there's no conscious decision on the girl's part that causes her parents to become trapped in the fantasy world-- whereas in Brave, the preview makes it clear that our heroine will be wishing her problems into existence by not realizing what she has.

I'm interested in the movie, but I'm hoping for a better ending than 'I should have appreciated how awesome my family was all along, and I'm sorry for acting out like a bad little girl. YOU know best.'

It wouldn't hurt for mommy dearest to also come to some realization that she was being too controlling, or for goofy, supposedly blameless dad to realize that if he wants to support his daughter, he needs to support her decisions instead of being a fair-weather friend. Sometimes kids movies nail this and have the parents as much a part of the "oh, shit. I'm sorry, and I'm going to do my best to be good by you from now on" process, but sometimes they fall back on 'you shouldn't have run away from home, Dorothy.'

I'm hoping for a Little Mermaid style ending, in this sense, where Controlling Parent realizes that it's okay to let Freespirited Child actually have a life of her own. We shall see. Definitely anticipating this one.