the essential kit

Joss Whedon JDIFF Q&A

February 24, 2013

The Q&A after Much Ado was much shorter than I hoped it would be! And the moderator, in introducing Joss again, asked the question I wanted to ask, which was: “You made Much Ado on a twelve day shoot between finishing filming Avengers and starting to edit it. (“No,” Joss said, parenthetically, “we’d already started editing Avengers…”) So the burning question here is, what’s wrong with you?” “Workaholism,” Joss said sadly. “There’s no known cure.” Which had been more or less what I wanted to ask, although I might have…

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Joss Whedon’s “Much Ado About Nothing”

February 24, 2013

The verdict: just because Kenneth Branagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing” was perfect does not mean that Joss Whedon’s is not *also* perfect. Thanks to Ted’s quick purchasing, last night we got to go to the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival’s hottest, server-crashing ticket of the festival, the premiere of Joss Whedon’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” at which the man himself was in attendance. Because we are great big geeks, we were literally first in line: I arrived to hold a place at around 4pm (before, in fact, they had even…

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Recent Reads: The Hero & the Crown

February 23, 2013

The first several times I read THE HERO AND THE CROWN, I really had barely any idea what happened in the whole post-Luthe tower fight (I said deliberately vaguely, on the off chance somebody hasn’t read the book and doesn’t want to be spoiled). The truth is, I find that a dozen re-reads later, and with full adulthood under my belt, I *still* think that whole section is like a bad acid trip. And I think it’s supposed to be, but honestly I’m *still* not *absolutely* sure what (or perhaps…

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Recent Reads: Enchanters’ End Game

February 23, 2013

Turns out ENCHANTERS’ END GAME has all kinds of POVs in it, mostly, in fact, of women. Well, no, not mostly: mostly it’s Garion. But every other POV is a female, because Eddings dips in around the West and visits the queens who are holding the thrones while their husbands are off fighting the big war. Re-reading as an adult, I found that interesting for two reasons: one, it means every POV in the Belgariad that is not Garion’s is female, which–from the adult perspective–is fairly awesome. One wonders if…

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ugh.

February 22, 2013

I can’t be the only person who thinks the trailers for “This is 40” makes me think poking myself in the eye with a sharp needle would be more fun than watching it, can I? Because to me it looks like “This is the most exhausting frustrating tiring annoying parts of your life, played by people a lot thinner, prettier*, and richer than you are, just to make you feel like *extra* shit.” Or maybe I’m just not the target demographic. Maybe I’m twenty years too young or twenty years…

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