Mary Arline
 
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Mary Arline's LiveJournal:

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    Sunday, May 20th, 2012
    11:07 pm
    Some books and movies
     So, I've read some books and seen some movies lately, and somehow I can never get around to talking about them individually, so maybe I will just talk about them all at once.

    Has anyone else read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline? If not, I humbly recommend that you do. I'm sure that you would all love it as much as I did, maybe even more.

    ****

    I think around the end of March or the beginning of April I finally got to see The Help on DVD from the library, and I'm sorry to say that it was not worth waiting for. In short, I recommend the book but I do not recommend the movie.

    ( About 'The Help' )

    ****

    ( More 'Sesame Street' stuff, because I have apparently turned into a giant kid over the past six months. Which I don't really mind, by the way )

    Current Mood: contemplative
    Thursday, May 10th, 2012
    6:25 pm
    Alas...
     That's the word that keeps coming to mind when thinking about the news that Maurice Sendak died on May 8.

    I love the books he wrote, I love the books he illustrated, and I love him for the respect he had for children. He refused to condescend, and in my world condescension is one of the cardinal sins.

    I don't know what else to say. Perhaps it would be better to let his work speak for itself.





    Current Mood: sad
    Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
    11:42 pm
    'Castle' Season 4 finale
     I had actually toyed with the idea of not watching last night's season finale until next fall right before the Season 5 premiere. Then I realized that was a silly idea because it would mean I wouldn't be able to go online or read Entertainment Weekly until then.

    To be honest, I don't know how long I could have held out, but I'm glad that I only waited until this evening after my transcription work for the day was done because...well, let's just say my prudence was rewarded.

    ( And now, once more with the Spoilery Spoilers of Spoilerdom... )

    By the way, I want to mention that there was a mercifully brief moment last week when I hated Alexis a little bit. I don't think it is too much of a spoiler to say that Alexis is graduating from high school this year. In last week's episode, she was trying to decide where to go for college and she was like, "Oh gee, I can't decide between Oxford and Stanford!" and I was like, "boo hoo hoo! Life must be so tough when you're smart enough to get into every college under the sun and your daddy is rich enough to pay for it!" It was a rather terrible feeling. Alexis is one of the major reasons why I started watching Castle in the first place because she's so awesome and I totally want her to invite me over for laser tag with her and her dad. Anyway, my moment of annoyance with her soon passed, and that all happened last week anyway.

    ( We now return you to your regularly scheduled Spoilers already in progress )

    Current Mood: bouncy
    Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
    9:40 pm
    Revisiting the female Muppets of 'Sesame Street'
     I recently wrote about my thoughts about female Muppet characters on Sesame Street in a post that continued to become more rambling and incoherent as I did more reading and kept adding footnotes after posting it originally. Then it occurred to me that people who haven't watched Sesame Street regularly for the last 20 years or more might not even know about the new Muppet characters, particularly the new female Muppet characters. So I decided to write some commentary about the three most prominent female Muppets who have been introduced over the course of the last 20 years or so.

    ( There are footnotes in this one too, though. Sorry about that. )

    Current Mood: thoughtful
    Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
    11:30 pm
    Possibly of interest to you Firefly fans out there...
     This week Adam Baldwin made an appearance on Castle, playing a cop character named Ethan Slaughter, which totally sounds like a name that Castle himself would make up for one of his characters. Ethan Slaughter made Jayne Cobb look like a Boy Scout, and made Castle look like Don Quixote in comparison. Before I get into the spoilery stuff, I want to point out that I only noticed one possible oblique Firefly reference (Castle gives Slaughter a brown coat) but then, I'm not really what you might call a student of Firefly.

    ( Now for the spoilery stuff )
    Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
    4:04 pm
    "Medical emergency diverts Titanic memorial cruise"

    I certainly hope everyone will be all right, but it seems to me that taking a Titanic memorial cruise in the first place is just asking for trouble.
    Monday, April 2nd, 2012
    12:43 pm
    Theoretically casting Meg
     So, about a year ago I began speculating about who would be best suited to adapting one of my favorite books, A Wrinkle in Time, as a feature film. Coincidentally, I found that, according to IMDb, there is indeed a film adaptation planned, scheduled for release in 2013. Unfortunately, a year later, no futher information is available. We know there's a screenwriter attached, but that's it.

    ( Read more... )

    Current Mood: impressed
    Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
    7:21 pm
    Sunday, March 25th, 2012
    11:10 pm
    "That's like me"
     This weekend I read a very interesting book called Street Gang about the history of Sesame Street, particularly the personal and professional histories of people involved in it, its genesis and its development through the years.

    One of the most interesting parts was the story about the push in the early 1990s to create more female Muppet characters for the show. Now, I want to be clear that I think this was--and is--a laudable endeavor. One of the most important goals of Sesame Street is to help all children feel accepted, included and empowered. If a lack of female Muppet characters ever had even one little girl feeling excluded or marginalized, that was unacceptable.1 Speaking for myself, however, I never felt at all excluded or marginalized watching "Sesame Street" and had no trouble at all relating to and identifying with the mostly male Muppet characters.

    ( This post is brought to you by the letters M and I )

    Current Mood: moody (with an M, get it?)
    Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
    10:27 am
    Digital Manipulation
     You know in The Muppets when Scooter said he was off to the TED conference? Turns out he was serious!
    ( Did anyone else get the double meaning? (Video behind cut) )

    "CG can do motion capture? So what?!?! We INVENTED motion capture! Hand moves...puppet moves!"

    Also, Scooter would make a great Vulcan, but I'm not seeing Gonzo as a Klingon. Unless he was a wimpy Klingon that the others pick on; that I could see.

    Current Mood: giggly
    Saturday, March 3rd, 2012
    12:28 pm
    This week in my other interests
     (Yes, I still have other interests.)

    The new cast of Dancing with the Stars was announced this week, and one of them is Jaleel White, aka TV's Steve Urkel. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I've actually been hoping for that very thing. I'm so excited!

    In other news, the guys at Rifftrax recently announced that they are doing a new riff of the MST3K classic Manos: the Hands of Fate. I have mixed feelings about this. My initial thought is, "But how will they avoid doing retreads of the original jokes?" Then I remember that they probably haven't watched it a gazillion times like we have. And when I went to that film festival screening of the MST3K episode back in October, I noticed quite a few jokes that did seem a little dated.

    As I continue to think about it, I realize that this will give Mike Nelson many, many opportunities to do his insanely brilliant Torgo impression. Also, it only seems fair to allow Bill Corbett to have a stab at Manos. Therefore, with some trepidation, I have decided to give this project my blessing.

    Say whatever you want about the RiffTrax guys, but you have to admit that they know their audience. They made this announcement in the form of a YouTube video, as follows:
    ( Video )

    VIDEO [as the "Haunting 'Torgo' theme" plays over the RiffTrax logo, the backgound turns red and tiny white text appears]: ...guess it yet?

    ME: You're redoing MANOS?

    VIDEO [black text on a white background]: Yes, we're doing MANOS.
    Monday, February 27th, 2012
    1:00 am
    Things I've learned from Jim Henson
     This is something I've been thinking about a lot since seeing The Muppets in November, something I have written and rewritten and revised several times but now, in the afterglow of the Muppets' first Oscar win, it seems particularly appropriate.

    I always think of Jim Henson whenever I see anything involving the Muppets, but for some reason the most recent movie, with its premise of "getting the old gang back together," with its poignant solo number by Kermit about friendship and loss, strongly evoked my memories of Jim Henson's life and, particularly, of his death. Like most people, I knew him primarily through the Muppets. I never even knew what he looked like until he made a cameo appearance in a TV special in 1987. Nevertheless, I--along with many others of my generation--can count him as one of my first teachers because of his involvement in Sesame Street, which was part of my daily routine for as far back as I can remember until I started school. This makes me a very small part of his legacy, a thought that makes me feel simultaneously honored and humbled.

    ( Read more... )

    Current Mood: grateful
    Sunday, February 26th, 2012
    11:29 pm
    "All of us under its spell; we know that it's probably magic..."
     FINALLY...a Muppet movie has won an Academy Award.

    Since the original Muppet Movie was released in 1979, Muppet movies have received five Oscar nominations, all in music categories. This is the first time they have won. With only two nominees, if they hadn't won it would have been disappointing to the point of embarrassment.

    There was an article in Entertainment Weekly this week about how the Oscars were more populist in the 1970s. I don't want to disagree because I don't know that much about it, but it seems to me that if they were really that populist, the original Muppet Movie would have gotten nominated for something other than music. Like Best Original Screenplay. Even the most cynical among us would have to admit that it certainly was original.

    And if there is a legitimate case to be made for Andy Serkis getting nominated for any of his mind-bogglingly brilliant motion capture performances, there is (at least) an equally legitimate case for the Muppet performers being nominated for acting awards. It's kind of an interesting paradox because they work so hard to develop the characters and create in them the illusion of sentience and self-sufficiency, with the result that the puppets end up getting all the credit for their hard work.

    Current Mood: incoherent
    Thursday, February 16th, 2012
    8:03 am
    Lest I be considered biased...
     I should point out that, while it is intensely stupid to accuse The Muppets of being liberal propaganda, leftist critics are just as willing to use the same kind of scare tactics (i.e., "they're out to brainwash your children!")

    When I was taking Contemporary Criticism in grad school, the professor spent, probably not a whole class period because they were like three hours long, but probably a good 45 minutes explaining how The Lion King was a right-wing diatribe against welfare.

    What really frightens me about it now is that, at the time, it almost made sense.
    Monday, January 30th, 2012
    11:09 pm
    Muppets: 1, Fox News: 0
     It would appear that the Muppets are indeed overseas doing press for their movie. At a press conference, they fielded a question regarding the Fox News slam against their movie. Their response is unsurprisingly yet unpredictably awesome.

    Sarcastic!Kermit is wonderful, but Sense-Talking!Miss Piggy is just...awe-inspiring.

    Current Mood: amused
    Thursday, January 26th, 2012
    10:58 pm
    Afternoon epiphany
     One thing you should know about me if you haven't figured it out already: I'm not good at pigeonholing my emotions. If something upsets me in some way, it can consume all my waking thoughts for hours and sometimes days on end. Sometimes I am even kept awake at night by the most trivial, silly, unimportant things. Sometimes writing about it helps, but sometimes it doesn't because then I start obsessively checking to see if anyone has responded--which is why, sometimes when I feel that I've written something potentially volatile, I disable the comments.

    So anyway, I've been thinking all day about that desiccated horse carcass that I was beating up on this morning (although, considering the subject matter, that may not be the best idiom) and I finally figured out the way to make the hurting stop, and it was so obvious that I felt a little silly that it had taken me so long.

    The reason this is still bothering me after all these years is that I haven't forgiven any of those folks. I haven't forgiven Paul Haggis et. al. for making Crash and I haven't forgiven AMPAS for favoring it over my beloved Brokeback Mountain. If I can forgive them, then it won't hurt anymore. So I'm working on that now.
    11:08 am
    Trust me, I know how this is going to sound.
     [info]cleolinda on overwrought reactions to Oscar nominations:
    I don't know--I'm to a point where I find snubs and shocks more entertaining than anything. Remember when Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture to Crash? And the world didn't end, and all the copies of Brokeback Mountain weren't chucked into a landfill so you could never enjoy it ever again, and it's still a major modern cultural touchstone? And no one really cares or talks about Crash anymore? Awards and nominations are nice in the way they ripple into the future and give people new opportunities, but that's about it. The greatness of something speaks for itself, whether it wins or loses, and a lack of actual greatness overwrites undeserved places in history, really. Let nature take its course in terms of how legacies are decided, and enjoy the circus for the silliness it is, I guess.
    Excellent points all around, very sensible, and for the most part I agree with her. However, I cannot laugh or smile at her hyperbole because I DO remember quite vividly when Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash and, even after all these years, it still hurts. Believe me, I wish I didn't feel this way, but I don't know how to make it stop.

    ( Read more... )

    Current Mood: foolish, petty, childish, etc.
    Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
    9:44 am
    OSCARS! OSCARS! OSCARS! OSCARS!
     *ahem* Sorry. I forgot for a second whether I was a (hu)man or a Muppet.

    So, Oscar nominations are out this morning and for the most part I am satisfied. I am overjoyed (albeit not overly surprised) to see War Horse and Hugo nominated for Best Picture. I'm a little disappointed that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--Part 2 was not nominated for Best Picture, although I knew it was always a long shot. But hey, how often does it happen that two of the Best Picture nominees are based on children's novels? Has that ever happened in a single year before? Off the top of my head, I can only think of two other Best Picture nominees from any year that were based on children's literature: Babe and Beauty and the Beast.

    If War Horse wins, I'll be happy. If Hugo wins, I'll be happy. If The Artist wins, I'll be happy because that makes it more likely that I'll get to see it at some point. If The Help wins, I'll probably be happy because I loved the book, although there's sure to be some controversy about it. Also, based on what I've read and heard about it, it sounds like the film is a rather more flattened out version of the story, but I will wait until I get to see it before I make a final judgment. That's four out of nine nominees, so the chances of me being happy with the result are almost 50/50. Hooray!

    ( More comments and a video )

    Current Mood: pleased
    Sunday, January 22nd, 2012
    8:25 pm
    Four years ago
     My, that whole year was a tumultuous time. In some ways, it feels like it was a whole other life.

    Nevertheless, I haven't forgotten. And I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day.
    Saturday, January 21st, 2012
    4:50 pm
    Beginners
     New DVDs can only be checked out of the library for three days, so this one moved through the queue to me very quickly, and I'm very pleased that it did.

    I thought this movie was very good, but it wasn't what I expected. I thought it was going to be about accepting a gay family member, whereas it's more about coping with the loss of a family member. Personally, I would have preferred if it had spent more time developing the relationship between the protagonist and his father rather than between the protagonist and the girl. However, the movie is primarily about the grieving/healing process, and the girl is integral to that process.

    In any case, it was still a very enjoyable movie: quirky but very sweet, very sad but also joyful. Also, it features two of my biggest actor-crushes of all time, Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer, so what's not to love?
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