I am out of catchy titles.
Apr. 23rd, 2006 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadelleBook of the Week
Last week's book, you may remember, was Kitty and the Midnight Hour, and that made me pick up a copy of Moon Called by Patricia Briggs. I quite enjoyed it. The oddest thing about it is that for all that it has a racier cover than Kitty and the Midnight Hour, it's a much less racy book. It delves into werewolf pack life from a semi-outsider perspective. Mercy, our heroine, is a shapeshifting auto mechanic who was raised by the pack of werewolves that's headed by the head werewolf of the US. She has a vampire friend. The guy who sold her the garage is a gremlin. The local alpha lives next door. Unlike Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Moon Called holds together with one coherent storyline. The end is set up for romance, but doesn't get there yet. I'm hoping for a sequel.
Now I can't decide if I should next read Terri Windling's The Wood Wife, which is a coyote or wolf book, and which I haven't read in years, or Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study, which is a Luna book I finally got from the library and has at least some chance for romance.
Movie of the Week
Following up on last week's Christian Kane movie, this week I watched The Broken Hearts Club. After a while, all gay male movies set in LA start to blend together. I knew the moment Dennis (Timothy Olyphant) came downstairs to find Kevin (Andrew Keegan) in his kitchen that the movie was going in that kind of direction. The best sequence of the movie is when Kevin just rolls around the doorjamb and out into the hallway to go after Dennis, and then when Dennis sinks down to sit on the floor, Kevin sits down next to him and buries his head in Dennis's arm.
I'm irritated by the treatment of lesbians in gay male movies. It always reminds me of Helen Eisenbach's Lesbianism Made Easy:
I also now want some Christian Kane/Dean Cain for no real reason except that, like Dave, Dean is big and handsome and dark-haired.
Also Seen
I saw American Dreamz yesterday. It was awesome and hilarious. Best line: "I'm not physically attracted to other people, but if you want me, I'm yours."
Today, we went to see The Sentinel. It's even worse than it looks. The bad guy is Martin Donovan's William Montrose. He's doing it to fulfill some sort of unexplained deal he made with the no longer existent KGB. Yeah, I don't know either. I thought for a moment that maybe Kim Basinger's First Lady was setting the whole thing up, and it would have been much better if she had been.
The best trailer I saw all weekend was for The Lake House. This movie looks awesome. It's like The Love Letter (which I thought was Thomas Gibson but is actually Campbell Scott) only with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, and two years instead of a hundred.
Now, I'm watching In From the Night, which is a Hallmark Hall of Fame production. (This one actually does have Thomas Gibson in it, and with a randomly appearing and disappearing Irish accent.) The bad thing about the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies is that most of the commercials are mini-movie Hallmark commercials, and I can't look away!
The Guiltiest Pleasure
When I first saw the ads for The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search on CMT, I was completely disgusted. Yesterday, while flipping channels, I came across an episode, and I could. Not. Look. Away. It's completely compelling. I don't know why that is. It's not as if the women are even fantastically attractive. Sure, they're beautiful, but not so much so that they're why I couldn't stop watching. (I caught parts of two other episodes today.)
Part of what I know I like is Lil. I don't think I would want to actually know her, but she's a fascinating character. She reminds me of the mom on Three Sisters who told her daughters with pride about how she had a career and made her own money as a Playboy bunny. One of the things I really like about her is that she's very up front about what being a Coyote Ugly girl is about. Yes, bartending and dancing and singing are important, but what really matters is that Coyote Ugly girls have to be able to sell drinks.
Last week's book, you may remember, was Kitty and the Midnight Hour, and that made me pick up a copy of Moon Called by Patricia Briggs. I quite enjoyed it. The oddest thing about it is that for all that it has a racier cover than Kitty and the Midnight Hour, it's a much less racy book. It delves into werewolf pack life from a semi-outsider perspective. Mercy, our heroine, is a shapeshifting auto mechanic who was raised by the pack of werewolves that's headed by the head werewolf of the US. She has a vampire friend. The guy who sold her the garage is a gremlin. The local alpha lives next door. Unlike Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Moon Called holds together with one coherent storyline. The end is set up for romance, but doesn't get there yet. I'm hoping for a sequel.
Now I can't decide if I should next read Terri Windling's The Wood Wife, which is a coyote or wolf book, and which I haven't read in years, or Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study, which is a Luna book I finally got from the library and has at least some chance for romance.
Movie of the Week
Following up on last week's Christian Kane movie, this week I watched The Broken Hearts Club. After a while, all gay male movies set in LA start to blend together. I knew the moment Dennis (Timothy Olyphant) came downstairs to find Kevin (Andrew Keegan) in his kitchen that the movie was going in that kind of direction. The best sequence of the movie is when Kevin just rolls around the doorjamb and out into the hallway to go after Dennis, and then when Dennis sinks down to sit on the floor, Kevin sits down next to him and buries his head in Dennis's arm.
I'm irritated by the treatment of lesbians in gay male movies. It always reminds me of Helen Eisenbach's Lesbianism Made Easy:
What often gets lost in the shuffle regarding the ostensible natural bond between lesbians and gay men is a simple, if cliched, fact: it is still a man's world, though no one seems nearly as cheerful about it as they used to be, and male homosexuals, if you consider them carefully, are in fact men. Actually, they are first and foremost men, and homosexuals a weak second. Otherwise, they would be known not for instituting a remarkably wide-ranging and efficient system of facilitated, quick, plentiful, gratifying, detachable sex nationwide, but instead for effecting total world harmony through mandatory interpersonal networking, makeovers, and disco.For fannish content, Zach Braff as Benji and Christian Kane as Idaho Guy hook up and do drugs with some other guys in a very large bathroom stall.
I also now want some Christian Kane/Dean Cain for no real reason except that, like Dave, Dean is big and handsome and dark-haired.
Also Seen
I saw American Dreamz yesterday. It was awesome and hilarious. Best line: "I'm not physically attracted to other people, but if you want me, I'm yours."
Today, we went to see The Sentinel. It's even worse than it looks. The bad guy is Martin Donovan's William Montrose. He's doing it to fulfill some sort of unexplained deal he made with the no longer existent KGB. Yeah, I don't know either. I thought for a moment that maybe Kim Basinger's First Lady was setting the whole thing up, and it would have been much better if she had been.
The best trailer I saw all weekend was for The Lake House. This movie looks awesome. It's like The Love Letter (which I thought was Thomas Gibson but is actually Campbell Scott) only with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, and two years instead of a hundred.
Now, I'm watching In From the Night, which is a Hallmark Hall of Fame production. (This one actually does have Thomas Gibson in it, and with a randomly appearing and disappearing Irish accent.) The bad thing about the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies is that most of the commercials are mini-movie Hallmark commercials, and I can't look away!
The Guiltiest Pleasure
When I first saw the ads for The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search on CMT, I was completely disgusted. Yesterday, while flipping channels, I came across an episode, and I could. Not. Look. Away. It's completely compelling. I don't know why that is. It's not as if the women are even fantastically attractive. Sure, they're beautiful, but not so much so that they're why I couldn't stop watching. (I caught parts of two other episodes today.)
Part of what I know I like is Lil. I don't think I would want to actually know her, but she's a fascinating character. She reminds me of the mom on Three Sisters who told her daughters with pride about how she had a career and made her own money as a Playboy bunny. One of the things I really like about her is that she's very up front about what being a Coyote Ugly girl is about. Yes, bartending and dancing and singing are important, but what really matters is that Coyote Ugly girls have to be able to sell drinks.