"Oh, I'll bring it. Don't worry."

THE MOVIES were as follows:

• Bring It On (00)
• Groundhog Day (93)
• Mad Max: Fury Road (15)
• Matilda (97)
• Star Trek: Beyond (16)

   I recently realized I had to fill a giant hole in my movie-watching life and finally watch Bring It On, and it Did Not Disappoint. It was fun! I was so glad about the cheque thing and how it wasn't the story of a white saviour. I also spent a great deal of the movie shouting things like, "they cannot actually allow 17 year olds to do this in real life". Like the car wash? Please tell me that is a movie-made myth. Also, Gabrielle Union was TWENTY-EIGHT when they made this movie.

   I watched Groundhog Day ALSO for the first time, and here are some thoughts I had, in no particular order:

• There is no explanation of why the day starts repeating, and no actual explanation for why it stops:
• Arguably, it stops because Rita agrees to stay at the hotel without Phil trying to ply her, but that's only circumstantial. 
• Phil indulges his id (the car chase, eating whatever he wants, picking up women, dressing up as Bronco), his ego (learning French, piano, etc), and his super ego (a wide selction of good deeds), all in turn;
• He also goes through the evil-neutral-good/lawful-neutral-chaotic spectrum, sort of?;
• This movie is MUCH DARKER than I thought it was;
• Phil doesn't know when the day will stop repeating, or even if it will. Based on his experience, he has to conclude that it is going to repeat forever, meaning:
• Phil has died and is in purgatory;
• Only when he has learned to disregard the self and only act with the good of others in mind does he complete the 2nd of Feb; and,
• And when he wakes up on the 3rd, he has worked his way through purgatory, and moved on.
• Based on clues, we have to conclude that Phil has been repeating the 2nd for at least several years. When he goes to the movie, he says he's seen it 100 times, and I was going to count how many times Rita slaps him when I realized, "I can just google this," and discovered that people have calculated either 8ish or 34 years.
• Based on his learning French (presumably, since he busted it out a few iterations into their date), piano, ice sculpting, and card throwing, I'm inclined to agree with 34 years. 10,000 hours to achieve mastery, you know? 

   If you thought I'd be tired of watching and re-watching Mad Max Fury Road yet, you thought WRONG. It's a cinematic triumph and I love it. 

   I had vague memories of both watching Matilda and not being allowed to watch Matilda, which I'm sure combined into baby-me watching it, getting scared, and then not being able to talk to my parents about it without blowing my cover (hi, mom). 

   DISTINCT LACK of needlessly naked ladies in Star Trek: Beyond, well done, JJ (and others). I found myself being jarred out of my suspension of disbelief by some VERY ridiculous physical feats, especially things like people sliding very fast down a long thing, landing squarely on their feet, and not immediately breaking every leg they had. It's like when people in movies use non-dynamic rope and don't get cut in half, or when there's some good ol' TV CPR. IT'S THE WORST. Other than that, this is a fun movie, Spock/Bones are great, the Sabotage scene was truly amazing, and there are ladies who exhibit agency and individuality. A good flick.  

What I Read Since the Last Time I Posted About What I've Read Which Was When, June?

   I'm never going to stop using that gif. 

   Life has been full, but that hasn't stopped me from doing some reading, thank goodness. I've also finally joined the masses and started playing Pokemon Go, and oh boy, have I walked a great deal. If I hadn't found The Adventure Zone and started binge-listening I would have been listening to audiobooks while going for pokeymans and this reading list would be more impressive, but I did find The Adventure Zone and I can't stop won't stop and now I want to play D&D and it is very possible that I have reached Peak Nerd. 

   On to the reading list. 

• The Woods, Vol. 1 : The Arrow / James Tynion IV (yes, that IS his real name); Michael Dialynas - I had almost forgotten that I read this, which is a real shame, since it was quite good. A school full o' teens and teachers gets transferred onto another planet. The planet is hostile! The school quickly devolves into some Orwellian situations! The art is very colourful! I'm gonna get the second volume of this from the library as soon as I finish this post!
• Year of Yes / Shonda Rhimes - I listened to this, and Shonda Rhimes herself reads it, and I loved it. I finished it and was like "I need to say yes to more things". I have so much respect for Shonda Rhimes, and was truly inspired by this book. And when she's like "I'll say yes to scary things, but I'll do it on my own terms"? Uh, I concur. Please everyone read this book if you have not already. 
• Something New / Lucy Knisley - this was charming and good! Luck Knisley talks about planning her wedding, and how crazy the wedding business is, and how she and her now-husband worked to subvert some things and embrace other things and make their wedding reflect their values. She also talks about things like where wedding traditions come from and guess what! A lot of them are pretty gross! This book is about wedding planning and meaning-making and fostering community and includes a recipe. Recommend. 
• Maisie Dobbs / Jacqueline Winspear - This was a fun mystery which not only included unexpected twists and turns, but also had several female characters who displayed competence and individuality. I think I shall return to Maise Dobbs next time I require some mysterious reading. 
• The Selection / Kiera Cass - this book is the first in a trilogy and oh boy can you ever tell. It was satisfactory and fulfilled my reading needs at the time; I don't see myself going back for part two in the near future, but I don't mean that as a disparagement. What a thoroughly lukewarm review. 
• Wolf Winter / Cecilia Ekback - picture here the astonished emoji, the one with the partially-blue face, who is making a face like the one in that painting, which I think is called The Scream but don't feel like googling to make sure. That emoji is how I feel about this book, in the best possible way. I was describing it to a friend and called it a murder mystery/small town dark secrets/ghost story/survival story/historical fiction. It's also set far enough north that it is always dark in the winter and AGH JUST READ IT, OKAY? I am definitely going to read more of Cecilia Ekback's work. (I include here a content warning for sexual violence that is talked about but not described). 
• The Illumination / Kevin Brockmeier - a pal told me about a book by ol' Kev that is sort of about purgatory, where dead people go and stay until no one alive remembers them and I was like "MUST READ", but it was unavailable at the library. Fortunately this book was and I read it and now his other books have been bumped up my TBR list. In this one pain becomes visible in the form of light, and then each chapter follows a different person as they navigate through the world where pain is now visible, and that sometimes changes and sometimes doesn't change things. There's a journal which serves as a unifying element, and I don't think I'm describing it well but it's an all-around A+ read. (Another content warning for self-harm). 
• Room / Emma Donoghue - hey guess what! Everything you've heard about this book is true, it really is a beautiful gem! And the movie is an exemplary adaptation that does everything you'd want an adaptation to do. Lauren Wilford wrote a really good essay about the film which I can't find, but I am still linking to this article that she wrote about Noah (and Mad Max: Fury Road) which is excellent, please read it. And please read Room if you, like me, put it off for far too long. (Obviously: more content warnings. But this book protects you, because Ma protects Jack, and it's told from Jack's perspective. It's quite beautiful, really.)
• Everland / Rebecca Hunt - I was given this book for Christmas and BOY HOWDY, was it ever a good gift. I love Antarctica. I don't see myself ever getting sick of learning/reading about it. This novel is set in Antarctica and is about two expeditions separated by a hundred years to the same place that go badly in eerily similar ways and I am So Here For That. Here are two stories about me reading this book: 1) I was at a music festival with a friend and we were taking a reading break in the shade. She was like "let's go" and I was like "hold on a sec, gonna finish this chapter" because I couldn't tear myself away from it because they were describing GLACIERS and I LOVE TO READ ABOUT ICE. 2) I read a heap of it on a plane on the way back to Canada from Colorado and lo and behold, I actually forgot it was summer because I was so immersed in the freezing cold land of the story. 

   Other things I have done lately include, but are not limited to: deciding that Colorado is pretty choice, moving to a new city, playing so much Pokemon Go, and incessantly referring to Pokemon as pokeymans. It's been a wild ride. 

"I live. I die. I live again."

   As you have by now guessed, I've been watching a lot of Star Wars and a lot of action! adventure! and I have no regrets. The movies from the previous post are as follows:

• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (80)
• Mad Max: Fury Road (15)
• Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (83)
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens (15)
• Tombstone (93)

   We've all been blessed with Rey and we all love her, and I'm sure we're all pumped for whatever revenge-fueled shenanigans Captain Phasma is going to get up to in the next installments of Star Wars and I am So Stoked whenever I see more and more women filling roles that previously would have defaulted to men. Even seeing a bunch of female pilots running around in the background of The Force Awakens makes me excited. Did you know that crowd scenes in movies and TV are typically ~80% men? That is ridiculous and stupid and Star Wars is moving towards 50/50 representation and that is a beautiful thing (I've also been thinking about how Joss Whedon keeps killing dudes and adding ladies in the Avengers movies, but that is another conversation for another time).

   Speaking of more women in movies: Mad Max: Fury Road is a triumph, I will never be convinced otherwise. Of all the new movies I've seen over the past year, Fury Road takes the "most thought about and discussed" cake.  This movie is simultaneously subtle and in-your-face. On one hand you've got women shouting "WE ARE NOT THINGS" and cutting evil-looking chastity belts off with bolt cutters, on the other hand you've got women who act on their ideas, fight tooth and nail, and push through pain and difficulty while acknowledging that they sometimes need help. I've read more about Mad Max: Fury Road than I have about any other movie (unless I count the LotR movies, which I don't because wow that's an unquantifiable amount of time spent on one story) and here are two favorites.

   Hahahaaaaaa, and now: Tombstone. This movie is ridiculous and I love it in a similar way to how I love Sahara. Without Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday the whole thing would fall flat. Every time he says anything I want to repeat it out loud immediately. "I'm your huckleberry," "I've got two guns, one for each of you," "If I thought you weren't my friend, I don't think I could bear it," "I have not yet begun to defile myself." Whenever I talk about Tombstone I just start quoting Doc Holliday. Forgive me if I don't shake hands. You're a daisy if you do.