![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
This weekend's doings
Went to Houston and did a number of things this weekend. I made ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
myrialux walk around Ikea and Eurway with me and sit on many sofas to see which ones were the most comfortable. I really like the Roswell loveseat from Eurway, as it's comfy and feels and looks nice. However my second favorite, the Tylosand loveseat from Ikea, has covers you can throw in the washingmachine, which is a Very Good Thing when you have a cat with a penchant for throwing up on the furniture.
On Friday we went to the Forbidden Gardens in Katy, TX, which has a scale model replica of the pit with 6000 terracotta soldiers that was found in the First Emperor of China's tomb, and a scale model of the Forbidden City. It was all I expected and more, and I took many many photos. More on that later, after I get the photos downloaded from the camera, processed, and uploaded. I also mademyrialux watch Tampopo, which he liked albeit being a little freaked out at the egg scene. :D
On Saturday, after tramping around furniture stores, we went withamara_corrine and her husband to the Alamo Drafthouse - one of those movie theatres that serves dinner with the movie - to watch The Forbidden Kingdom. (I'm sensing a rather Asian theme to this weekend.) Verdict: a lot of fun. I was afraid, as someone said on another journal, that it was going to be yet another white guy saves China movie, but it was more of an ensemble piece than the trailers lead you to believe. The focus of the story, despite starting and ending with the character of Jason Tripitakas*, is the Monkey King. (Spoilers for the plot) Who, it turns out, is an active player and really the main character, despite being trapped in the form of a rock statue for 500 years. Jason starts out seeming to be The Chosen One, but ends up more of a sidekick than the hero. Anyway, JACKIE CHAN and JET LI. That's all that need be said.
There may be more racial politics in it than I noticed, but I was paying more attention to the gender politics. (Spoilers again) The two women with speaking roles here are the Witch with White Hair and Sparrow. And while Sparrow travels with the main characters and is shown to be an excellent fighter, she temporarily abandons her own quest to kill the Jade Emperor, the bad guy, to instead try to grab the Elixir of Immortality to save a friend. Which would be good *except* she does it without a corresponding character arc to show her growing and changing her mind from revenge to saving a friend's life. It allows her to end up fighting the Witch because GOD FORBID the chicks fight men in the climactic fight scene (well, the Witch does fight Jackie Chan - plz to be noting that Sparrow does not defeat her and suffers death at her hands) instead of each other. This allows Jason to be the person to complete her revenge by killing the Jade Emperor with her special immortal-killing hairpin. So, she completely fails: she doesn't get the elixir, she doesn't complete her quest, and she dies. Other people do all that for her. The sole reasons for the character's existence are to add a romantic interest for Jason, and to provide a means by which Jason kills the Jade Emperor. The entire character could have been written out easily.
Later that evening, all four of us watched Hitman, which is based on a violent and bloody series of video games.myrialux tells me that while there are some shoutouts to the video game in it, it really doesn't follow the game. They also did something with the main character that I find rather odd. It's almost like the writer had delusions that this was going to be a better movie than it was. Number 47, the guy raised to be an assassin from a young age by a mysterious society of monks, is portrayed as cold-hearted and competent when it comes to assassination, but humorously naive and inhibited when it comes to women, OK, yeah, it makes sense for a character with that background, but OH COME ON REMEMBER WHAT SORT OF MOVIE ARE YOU MAKING HERE. It doesn't seem like a movie designed to appeal to the movie's target demographic, and is a departure from the game's version of the character. And this isn't the sort of movie that's even trying to be good enough to transcend its video-game origins. So I think that, although it's an interesting character portrayal, it's a serious misstep for this particular movie.
Anyway. On Sunday, drove home via COllege Station to visit my mother for a few hour and go look at progress on the renovations to her new house. It's got tile now, and painted walls, and the handles in the kitchen reminiscent of olives are gone, and there's solar tubes bringing light into various rooms that were cavern-like before, and most of the ubiquitous florescent fixtures are gone and replaced with real lights. Lots of work to go, but lots of work done.
And then home, to a cat with a desperate need to groom me.
* For you Saiyuki aficionados, one of the names Sanzo is known by is Tripitaka. Although the story has about as much connection to Journey to the West as Gensomaden Saiyuki does. But I suspect that you kind of figured that already.
myrialux walk around Ikea and Eurway with me and sit on many sofas to see which ones were the most comfortable. I really like the Roswell loveseat from Eurway, as it's comfy and feels and looks nice. However my second favorite, the Tylosand loveseat from Ikea, has covers you can throw in the washingmachine, which is a Very Good Thing when you have a cat with a penchant for throwing up on the furniture.On Friday we went to the Forbidden Gardens in Katy, TX, which has a scale model replica of the pit with 6000 terracotta soldiers that was found in the First Emperor of China's tomb, and a scale model of the Forbidden City. It was all I expected and more, and I took many many photos. More on that later, after I get the photos downloaded from the camera, processed, and uploaded. I also made
myrialux watch Tampopo, which he liked albeit being a little freaked out at the egg scene. :DOn Saturday, after tramping around furniture stores, we went with
amara_corrine and her husband to the Alamo Drafthouse - one of those movie theatres that serves dinner with the movie - to watch The Forbidden Kingdom. (I'm sensing a rather Asian theme to this weekend.) Verdict: a lot of fun. I was afraid, as someone said on another journal, that it was going to be yet another white guy saves China movie, but it was more of an ensemble piece than the trailers lead you to believe. The focus of the story, despite starting and ending with the character of Jason Tripitakas*, is the Monkey King. (Spoilers for the plot) Who, it turns out, is an active player and really the main character, despite being trapped in the form of a rock statue for 500 years. Jason starts out seeming to be The Chosen One, but ends up more of a sidekick than the hero. Anyway, JACKIE CHAN and JET LI. That's all that need be said. There may be more racial politics in it than I noticed, but I was paying more attention to the gender politics. (Spoilers again) The two women with speaking roles here are the Witch with White Hair and Sparrow. And while Sparrow travels with the main characters and is shown to be an excellent fighter, she temporarily abandons her own quest to kill the Jade Emperor, the bad guy, to instead try to grab the Elixir of Immortality to save a friend. Which would be good *except* she does it without a corresponding character arc to show her growing and changing her mind from revenge to saving a friend's life. It allows her to end up fighting the Witch because GOD FORBID the chicks fight men in the climactic fight scene (well, the Witch does fight Jackie Chan - plz to be noting that Sparrow does not defeat her and suffers death at her hands) instead of each other. This allows Jason to be the person to complete her revenge by killing the Jade Emperor with her special immortal-killing hairpin. So, she completely fails: she doesn't get the elixir, she doesn't complete her quest, and she dies. Other people do all that for her. The sole reasons for the character's existence are to add a romantic interest for Jason, and to provide a means by which Jason kills the Jade Emperor. The entire character could have been written out easily.
Later that evening, all four of us watched Hitman, which is based on a violent and bloody series of video games.
myrialux tells me that while there are some shoutouts to the video game in it, it really doesn't follow the game. They also did something with the main character that I find rather odd. It's almost like the writer had delusions that this was going to be a better movie than it was. Number 47, the guy raised to be an assassin from a young age by a mysterious society of monks, is portrayed as cold-hearted and competent when it comes to assassination, but humorously naive and inhibited when it comes to women, OK, yeah, it makes sense for a character with that background, but OH COME ON REMEMBER WHAT SORT OF MOVIE ARE YOU MAKING HERE. It doesn't seem like a movie designed to appeal to the movie's target demographic, and is a departure from the game's version of the character. And this isn't the sort of movie that's even trying to be good enough to transcend its video-game origins. So I think that, although it's an interesting character portrayal, it's a serious misstep for this particular movie.Anyway. On Sunday, drove home via COllege Station to visit my mother for a few hour and go look at progress on the renovations to her new house. It's got tile now, and painted walls, and the handles in the kitchen reminiscent of olives are gone, and there's solar tubes bringing light into various rooms that were cavern-like before, and most of the ubiquitous florescent fixtures are gone and replaced with real lights. Lots of work to go, but lots of work done.
And then home, to a cat with a desperate need to groom me.
* For you Saiyuki aficionados, one of the names Sanzo is known by is Tripitaka. Although the story has about as much connection to Journey to the West as Gensomaden Saiyuki does. But I suspect that you kind of figured that already.
no subject
Maybe they think it's the only thing that can happen to beautiful chinese girls in these movies...
no subject
no subject
At least experience tells me that she does these things very prettily.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Yay Tampopo! One of the best ever ... .
Yeah, I was thinking we might like Forbidden Kingdom.
FWIW, our Ikea armchairs (the green ones in the LR) are holding up pretty well.
<3 kittycat ... .
no subject
no subject
Errr, notice I said "we" - are you OK with becoming part of my family flock again for such an expedition? I have no problem with going with a friend to see a movie without them, if it's a movie they don't want to see, but I think they'll want to see this one.
(Much as I love my family, I don't automatically assume that everyone wants to join in the sort of group expeditions that we have with Kat and her family, or our gaming buddies. And yes, regardless, we need to have a "just us" video experience of some sort sometime soon, too.)
no subject
no subject
Well, then we're on the same page! Were you thinking about this weekend sometime?
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I knew this flick couldn't be taken seriously, when I'd read interviews with both Li and Chan saying they were disappointed in it. Still, I'm gonna see it just because it'll be pure outrageous fun.
no subject
no subject