Sneaky hobbitses and how I feel about them...

I went to a midnight showing of The Hobbit last Thursday (Friday?) and I'm not sure I liked it.  What's worse, I'm not sure how to feel about not liking it.  I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan.  I learned to speak Elvish in high school because I thought it would be cool (it wasn't).  I wore the one ring on a chain around my neck.  I drew countless posters with characters, runes, elvish script and songs.  I made a diorama of Helm's Deep.  For fun.  In 9th grade we had to pick a country and do a big end-of-the-year presentation in front of the school and I did it on the various regions of Middle Earth.

I only say this to emphasize just how much I love Tolkein.  And how much I loved Peter Jackson's re-imaginings of the series.

So you can imagine how much I wanted to love The Desolation of Smaug.  I paid $60 for a pair of tickets to a theater party with swag and a double feature.  I was bouncing in my seat.  Midnight came and one of the theater employees came out to play trivia and give out prizes.  I cringed when he started out with, "I've never seen any of the films, so you'll have to bear with me with the questions."

There was a bit of an argument over whether 'Erebor' is the name of the Lonely Mountain itself, or merely the city inside.  (It is, despite how hard my date fought that one)  There were many people talking and giggling throughout the first movie.  There were two girls behind me wearing cloaks and whispering about how they hopes Legolas was shirtless.  Nevertheless, I was excited.

Let me start with the previews.  Divergent is an interesting, sci-fi flick and I can see fans of LOTR liking it.  You get a pass.  Godzilla?  Yes yes yes yes yes.  God yes.  Then it got a little weird.  Lone Survivor?  Grudge Match?  A couple other touching dramas?  I feel like that wouldn't have attracted as much interest as Spiderman, that Frankenstein movie or maybe even Winter Soldier would have.  I'll never understand who chooses what trailers to play before which films... but it was very off-topic.

Whatever, not important.

We start the film by staring straight into one of Peter Jackson's eyes.  The audience hoots and simmers down almost immediately as the camera moves into The Prancing Pony.  Thorin is enjoying a meal and avoiding the gaze of several shifty characters.  Unlike the original trilogy, Gandalf shows up to shoo the vagabonds away and start the quest.

I've heard complaints about this scene, but I sort of liked it.  Bringing it back to Bree and The Prancing Pony makes sense.  The town itself seemed rather multicultural and it's not unheard of for a traveler to stop at one of the biggest inns around.  They talk, blah blah and life goes on.

I'm going to skip to Mirkwood elves because, really, everything was well-done up until then.  I've also got one major complain in that forest.  It's a common complaint, it's one I've heard often, but it's something I feel very strongly about.

I hate Tauriel.

I hate her.  I feel like her character is uninteresting, trite, and I think she is more insulting to my gender than the movie would have been if they included no females at all.  I hate that the only woman in the series (besides Galadriel) is someone's love interest.  I hate that we have a strong, capable, independent woman with grand dreams and the only reason the characters find a connection to her is that she has a crotch that isn't shaped like theirs.  I hate that the love between her and Kili seems to trivialize the love between Gimli and Legolas later on (as well as Galadriel).  I hate that we take Legolas and turn him into a smoldering hunk when he *wasn't like that at ALL* in the original series.

I feel like she adds nothing to the story and only solidifies the idea that women are only around to be the romantic interest of a male character.  Fuck, Kili doesn't matter at all!  Legolas doesn't matter!  Neither of them need to be in the story to make it work.  So why would you create this very interesting Tauriel, who gives us insight into the Sindarin elves and their treatment, and make her the pretty sidekick to two people whose roles aren't that big themselves?

I understand that she's pretty much the Eowyn of *The Hobbit*, but I thought that Eowyn/Aragorn was handled much more tactfully.  They had time to interact and fall for each other.  Aragorn was at the point where he thought the love of his life was gone and was likely romance-starved enough to flirt.  Eowyn finally saw an awesome member of royalty who wasn't related to her and didn't (often) patronize her.  And yet they still had issues.  She defied him to go and fight, completely disregarding the fact that she had feelings for him when those feelings got in the way of her goals.  Tauriel, on the other hand, defied the man that she (apparently) loved *as well* as the position she worked hard for in order to save another man she fell in love with after half an hour of talking about some rock.  It's ridiculous, it's insulting and I absolutely couldn't believe that Peter Jackson would be so stupid as to add this character.  He doesn't normally go for the Hollywoodization shtick, why did he suddenly do it now?

Nothing against Evangeline Lilly.  I think the character is portrayed as best as it can be and the scene between Tauriel and Thranduil was thrillingly beautiful.  She's a good actress and I give her props for having to work with so little.

Thranduil.  Hoo!  What a great character!  Mad, but with purpose.  Regal and so attuned to nature.  Whoever designed him needs to get an award because he *looks* so perfect.  Except for the fact that he looks younger than Legolas... but hardly a criticism because it doesn't distract from anything.  That scene where he bends and gets into Thorin's face... wow!  I love seeing how the greed of Erebor has corrupted someone like an elf--who were these absolutely perfect beings up until now.  I love seeing where power twists the mind.  I want to hug him and take his wonderful hat.

Speaking of wonderful hats, Laketown!  Stephen Fry is another one of those characters that I'm unsure how to feel about.  He does a fantastic job, but it's at a strange point where the juxtaposition of 'kid's movie' and 'adult's movie' don't mesh.  He plays a character that's strangely reminiscent of Denethor/Cursed Theoden with a Grima to go with him.  But he's so very over the top that he feels like he would be more at place in a cartoon!  Not a bad choice (*The Hobbit* was a children's book, after all) but it's weird not long after you see an eviscerated cow, see a charismatic character get badly wounded and deal with mildly racist undertones with the elves.  It's just a strange mix, and maybe I'm the only one who saw it.

Smaug was gorgeous.  Bilbo and Smaug's scenes were so much fun and well-written.  "My wings are hurricanes" Yay!  I've nothing bad to say about the entire Erebor sequence.  There were parts that were oddly childish or defied physics... but it's a fantasy film and I'm not expecting it to follow the laws of how molten gold flows.

Some parts were cut, like most of Beorn and the White Council.  Some parts were added, like the Necromancer/Gandalf fight and Bard's backstory.  I think they were good decisions as the book itself is very difficult to film without any sort of embellishment or connection to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  But it somehow didn't quite live up to my expectations of how I thought it was going to go and I'm not entirely sure how to feel about it.  I'm going to see it again.  I'm going to buy it on DVD.  But... I don't know.  I think I've got all my fingers and toes crossed that the next one is better.

Woo!

I know now why you dance...

I had about 20 different subjects for today's blog, but life seemed to get in the way of everything I wanted to write.  I saw a pre-showing of Ender's Game last week, though a review would be rather pretentious.  Besides, having never read the book, I was too amazed by how beautiful and interesting the movie was to take notes or form a proper critique.  "But how did you feel about the change in importance of the siblings back on Earth?"  "The who?"  I replied.  "Man, who cares about them, did you see all those space explosions?!?!?"

I'm the worst movie watcher ever, I swear.

Halloween itself was a mixture of fun and fiasco.  My friend contracted a nasty case of both Strep and Tonsilitis, so she was out of commission.  Unfortunately, that means my T-1000 costume would be weird and out of place without an Ahnold chasing me.  So I did whatever any good friend would do and stole the fuck out of her costume idea.  I had an office contest to win and I'll be damned if I'm going to lose to a bunch of 40-somethings who wore the same costume for the past three years in a row.  Thursday morning I woke at 4 to ensure I had enough time to prepare this masterpiece:

God damn, I'm beautiful.

Of course, I ended up losing to a 40-something dressed as Flo from the insurance commercials.  She was excited and told us all how she got the costume for five dollars on a sale rack somewhere if we wanted to do the same thing next year.  Interestingly, it's the same woman who won the pumpkin carving contest with a stencil she bought at Target.  Someone else carved our city's skyline complete with a little sign for our business on our building, a friend and I carved our supervisor's face.... I'm not saying I'm calling shenanigans, but I'm a little disappointed any time store-bought and mass-produced stuff wins contests.

Whine whine, bitch bitch, moan moan.

For the evening's festivities, I decided that a popular goth/BDSM club would be the perfect place to dance my leather jacket off.  I myself have never been to this place before, but the stories of live bondage shows and industrial music are rather titillating.  We roll up to the club using the public bus system.  Lemme just take a moment to say how very disappointed I am in everybody in the city for not dressing up on Halloween.  For shame, all of you.  OH, except for the nice lady sitting at the front in a skintight PVC suit.  Over the course of the ride, she put on spiked wristbands, a spiked collar and a gimp mask.  Considering I had no idea where the club was, I followed her when she got off the bus making a (correct) assumption that she was headed to the same place.

We entered down a long, dark hallway and paid our cover (apparently the whole establishment is cash-only.  Who does that still?)  There were tombstones and skeletons lining the dark red walls and a large dance floor made of concrete.  "Great Halloween decorations!"  I remarked to my friend.  "Actually, this is just what it normally looks like." He replied.

I was in love.

My booty shook to Manson, Reznor and Zombie.  The Devil's Rejects played silently on a large screen behind the DJ.  I traded my traditional terminator look for 'Sexy Terminator' meaning I traded the leather pants for fishnets and booty shorts as well as removing the shirt under the jacket.  I grinded up against Slenderman, slapped a Mario's butt (with permission, of course), got drink recommendations from Adventure Time's Finn and chatted about the Black Label nomads who let me crash at their Vienna pad with a bouncer who had my same haircut plus more dreadlocks.  One my way out, I had a flyer thrust into my hands advertising their Game of Thrones-themed winter party.

I was in love.

I didn't get laid, I didn't consume large amounts of candy, I wasn't particularly drunk.  But this was possibly the best Halloween I've ever had.  There's something rather charming about just hanging out with friends and bonding over the lyrics of Personal Jesus.  Now I'm nursing a lack-of-sleep hangover and basking in an afterglow from a good time that's lasted a couple of days.  This is definitely a place I'll be returning to.

But still, I wish I won that damn costume contest!

Who am I? (hint: not Jean Valjean)

What to write, what to write.

I had some trouble figuring out the theme of this blog.  Should I talk about being a geeky lady?  How about social life in my city?  Maybe I should make this page a placeholder for all my feminist rants?  A personal diary where I talk about boys and how I can perfect the bend and snap?  Or maybe I'll do a little of everything and sprinkle some of my bullshit humour in for funsies.

I tell you, writing a blog isn't easy.  Hell, I assume you're a child of the internet era like me, so you should know this.  I'm in the generation that learned to navigate a keyboard with Mario Teaches Typing, got their first email address at 10 and started a blog once they became a teenager and their angst was too much to keep in a private journal.  I've Xanga'd, Myspace'd, Livejournal'd and, though with some shame, Gaia Online'd.  The people who fondly remember teaching themselves basic HTML to add sparkles to their profile pages are my people.  And this is where we end up.  Blogspot or some similar site where we hope our voice will be heard by the great, neckbearded masses and we'll make enough money from advertisement to never have to return to our mediocre jobs again.

I've been working for a temp agency for over a year now.  Some people say it's because I'm unemployable, but I like to say it's because I've got a fear of commitment and too much hope that I'll be able to quit it for the riches and fame that our parents told us were coming our way.

Alright, so back to the nature of this blog.  I'm a dork.  A geek.  A nerd.  Social outcast (or was until I realized how many others there were).  I attend conventions, work at renaissance faires, make costumes, watch anime and know how to make silicone prosthetics for Halloween makeup.  I mostly want to touch on what it's like to be a professional geek, since you don't see much of what it's like behind the scenes.  I mean, sure.  I could write a loving review of Pokemon X and Y and tell you how amazingly nostalgic it was without talking down to their adult audience.  But I'd rather tell you what it's like to spend 6 hours applying zombie makeup to myself and my friends before a night on the town.  I don't just do things, I help create them.  So you'll get to see the journey of a convention party room from conception to performance.  You'll hear about what ren fest workers (festies) do behind their shoppes or when the crowd goes home.  I'm documenting the creation of my Halloween costume, which changes about every other day (swear to god, I need to lock that shit down..)  Seriously, that's the interesting shit.

Alright, intro written.  I'm not sure what else should be going here so I'm going to back off for now.  Check back in a week or so for the first real post!