Books: Captain Hornblower

This is a set of three Hornblower novels in order: Beat to Quarters, Ship of the Line, and Flying Colors. Enjoyed them all immensely. I think I read about half of this volume while I was waiting for my plane to take off from Baltimore to Newark on the way to Eastern Media Con! I finished the last one a while ago but kept forgetting to put it in, so here it is! I don't have the next book, so I'll have a Hornblower hiatus until I find a copy.

Movies: Return to Oz

Well, as with most things in Tin Man fandom, this is all Erin's fault - IIRC, it was her post about Return to Oz when that movie meme was going around that made me curious. TODS and I watched the movie in segments as a break from grading.

DISNEY made this movie for KIDS????!!!!! I can just imagine them sitting around and saying, "Hey, where are those guys who scared the poop out of toddlers with the Heffalumps and Woozles sequence in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day? Let's give them some more LSD and see if they can scare the poop out of eight-year-olds!" I mean, dude, this movie would have TOTALLY spooked me if I'd seen it as a kid.

But as an adult, I really enjoyed it a lot. It was very creative and clever; I recognized a lot of plot elements from the various books, and I thought they brought things like Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump to movie-life quite well. I liked Fairuza Balk as Dorothy a lot, and she managed to sound a lot like Judy Garland without sounding as if she was imitating her. Jean Marsh had WAY too much fun as the beautiful evil Witch-Princess in the tower with the over-the-top costumes (Azkadellia inspiration, anyone?).

( mild spoilers )

Movies: City of Lost Children

One of the weirdest movies I've ever seen, yet also very beautiful. Another movie I found through Tin Man fandom, and there were some resonances - the steampunk look-and-feel, the brain floating in a tank in green miasma, the villain who looked a lot like the head alchemist. It reminded me even more, though, of Dark City, something about the claustrophobic city setting that seemed to be constantly turning in on itself, a place where it was never light and always gloomy. We've been watching it over the last couple of days and finished most of the last hour tonight. We watched it in French with the English subtitles on.