kungfuwaynewho | Entries tagged with choosy moms choose gifs

Haven't watched Season One yet? No worries! If you start now, restrain yourself to a handful of bathroom breaks, and take a modest lunch, you should have plenty of time to get caught up before the premiere.

We are having a premiere party tonight. Fancy ravioli (stuffed with people!) and brie en croûte (the cheese is made from people!) and port (aged in a barrel with some people!) and ice cream cake (no people).

I honestly don't think I've been this excited about a TV show that is currently airing since Battlestar Galactica. Which is to say I am VERY EXCITED.

Day 4 - Favorite episode of your favorite show

It's hard for me to definitively state what my all-time favorite show is. It differs depending on what I'm watching at any particular moment; when was the last time I did a rewatch; how active I am in a particular fandom; etc. So I have instead simply chosen my all-time favorite episode of television ever, which happens to be from one of my favorite shows.

The X-Files - 5x05 - "The Post-Modern Prometheus"

Day 4 - An angry gif

Day 3 - Your favorite new show (aired this tv season)

Cool! Read the meme wrong! So yeah, this show aired last season, whatever. Maybe I'll do another picspam for Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which is my favorite new show from this season, at some other point.

But today we're talking about Hannibal! Not just my favorite new show, but as far as I'm concerned, the best show on TV right now. If you're at all familiar with the Hannibal Lecter mythos, you know that a story about him is going to be dark, depraved and gruesome. So it may come as a surprise to hear that Hannibal is arguably the most beautiful show at least currently airing, perhaps ever.

That's quite a claim, I know. I have never seen such detail in production design, from the regular sets to location shots; the costuming is absurdly gorgeous; don't even get me started on the cinematography! I have watched many a feature film with not even close to this amount of attention paid to shot selection, framing, color grading, lighting, etc. For instance, Hannibal is often backlit, which causes a sort of angelic glow around him (also known as Rembrandt lighting). It softens the edges of his silhouette, giving him a slightly-otherworldly appearance. But he's often backlit without any kind of key light or fill light. His facial features end up obscured, his expression ambiguous, his eyes dark and unable to be read. The effect is to dehumanize him, but in both positive and negative ways - he is beautiful, and he is terrible. Subconsciously, the viewer is both attracted and repelled. Is there any better way to depict a character like Hannibal Lecter?

I could go on and on about how absolutely perfect this show is. Actually, I will go on a little bit more. Many wonderful, complex female characters - who are all different from one another. I think a lot of shows have heard about having "strong female characters," so they write a couple iterations of the same 2D female character who is played by a physical waif but is shown beating people up. Not so on Hannibal. Bryan Fuller even took a male character from the books and made her a woman to make the gender balance more even. (Speaking of Bryan Fuller's awesomeness: he has vowed to never have a rape storyline. Ever.) It's also a very smart show. They will cut from A to D or sometimes even, like, F, and trust the audience to figure out the steps in between; after years and years of police procedurals, we know how these stories work. So Hannibal cuts out all that stuff and concentrates on everything else: what kind of toll does investigating these kinds of crimes take on people? In the very first episode, Will Graham must make a snap judgment in an incredibly difficult and tense situation. He deals with that decision and its after-effects for the entire rest of the season. It's not just glossed over, and it's certainly not glamorized. As over-the-top as some of the murders and staging can be, there's a huge amount of attention paid to the psychology of murder. Which makes sense, considering the title character...

As for Dr. Lector, what I found perhaps most astonishing is how well Hannibal was able to take a character who was so well-entrenched in the public consciousness, to the point that he wasn't even really scary anymore (who among us hasn't made the fava beans and chianti joke?), and make him so completely brand-new. And yet still the Hannibal Lecter we all have come to know so well. It's a testament not just to the writing, but most especially to Mads Mikkelsen, who is able to do so much just by the tiniest quirk of the corner of his mouth, just a slight tilt to his head, just a knowing look in the background of a shot as other characters speak. He is, quite simply, a revelation.

I am going to put my picspam behind a cut, however, because I know Hannibal isn't for everyone. It is an extremely dark and violent show. I've selected a few compositions that I find incredibly beautiful, but they are disturbing, and I don't want to upset anyone who doesn't care for that sort of thing.

( Hannibal picspam )

Day 3 - An unamused gif

~~School~~ Work was canceled today and tomorrow, so things are pretty A-plus around here. We got at least 10 inches of snow today, maybe a foot - we haven't officially measured yet. And it's STILL coming down like crazy. We've shoveled the driveway twice, the last time just an hour ago, and it looks like there's already a fresh inch out there. We only live half a mile from Grandpa's house, so we tromped up the unplowed road to have dinner with him tonight and to watch the KU basketball game, then tromped back down. Both times, someone was out with a dog who was so rapturously excited to come play with us in the snow. I fell down shoveling Grandpa's back porch, and then almost wiped out twice on our return journey. (At the beginning of this winter, I vowed it would be a No Fall Winter. I've fallen three times.)

Today we watched a documentary about the Oscars, which was pretty enjoyable, some Nigella, and then the first episode of Beauty and the Beast with Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. I vaguely remember watching it as a very wee child, and basically only remember how much I wanted Catherine and Vincent to kiss, so it was pretty fun to revisit that. Tomorrow I plan to get more writing done - I did a smidgen today - and maybe try to catch up a little on my backlog of TV.

Day 2 - A show that needs more viewers

The Americans! It's only got one season under its belt, but unlike a lot of first seasons, this was a show that knew what it was right out of the gate. Two undercover Russian agents in Washington D.C. in the early 80s. The Cold War, espionage, cons, costumes. Fake mustaches. And then there's like all this deep stuff about how it's like a ~cold war in their marriage. Perms. A really kicking soundtrack. These people are really attractive, like for real. And it just kept getting better and better, until the season finale, which was legit great television. I am super-excited to see it come back, so now's the perfect time to do a quick 13-episode binge and get caught up - and help keep this awesome show on the air!

Day 2 - A sad gif

So in an attempt to jump-start my posting in the new year, I am going to do this TV/gif meme I yanked from

ghanimasun. Because I haven't done graphics at all in so long, and miss it and am afraid I'll forget how to use Photoshop, I am also going to endeavor to do some type of graphic each day. Bear with!

Day 1 - A show that should never have been canceled

This is a tough one, because there are so many shows I have loved and lost due to fickle cancellation, but I am going to go with my dear, departed Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. If you never watched it, you're missing out on one of the most philosophical, meditative, yet action-packed and amazing SF shows to air in the last decade. It picks up from the Terminator mythos following Judgment Day, but then goes on its own unique way, really exploring the nature of what it means to be human, what it means to evolve, and what it means to be loyal. Wonderful acting from a fantastic cast, beautifully shot, and featuring the music of Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary.

Day 1 - A happy gif

Okay, so things haven't been that bad, but September wasn't the greatest month for me in a lot of ways. But they're all kinda boring ways, and to enumerate them would be to throw myself a pity party which eh, so onwards!

The one good thing that did come about last month was that we finally replaced our basement stairs.

Our inspector had told us that they weren't the best, but we kept putting it off because it's quite an endeavor, especially for a bunch of people who have never built stairs before. In taking the old ones down, we realized that the bottom of the stairs wasn't even attached to the concrete floor; the whole staircase was just resting on the ground. Three nails were holding the stairs up at the top. That was it. So now at the very least we're not facing our deaths every time we go down to do laundry! As you can see, we also put up some paneling between the stairs and the basement wall, where we wouldn't have room to put up a real framed-in wall and drywall and all that jazz. The eventual goal is to finish two rooms in the basement, but we need to put a wall on the other side of the stairs so we can put in a railing and finish that up, first. Then comes replacing the wiring and tearing down the last of the half-ass rotted out walls that are down there! Yeah!

The other item of note this past month was our trip to St. Louis last week to see Sigur Rós in concert. The concert itself was fabulous, but I ended up with a migraine that very night, which is just profoundly and cosmically unfair. I ended up going to the concert anyway, after my sisters and our friend had already left. I had the front desk at the hotel call me a cab. And then I got to cross something off my bucket list! "Throw up out the open door of a moving cab." Such fun. But I got there and I didn't die and I did get to see the show, which was perfect and flawless, as one would expect.

Continuing to work on my novel, printed out last year's script for a revision, and starting work on a new script. That about sums it up.

I JUST BOUGHT MY TICKETS FOR THE MIDNIGHT SHOW OF THE HOBBIT AT THE DRAFTHOUSE!

You know what's awesome? Hitting page 72 of a screenplay and realizing you don't really have an antagonist.

(BTW, I pretty much have not checked my flist at all in about six days, so if anything of import (like, good fic, you feel me?) has been posted, pls let me know. Because I clicked it this morning and was promptly overwhelmed.)

NGL, I cried a little bit at the end. I still can't quite believe it. We had to take a nighttime walk, we were all so worked up over it. Will likely never sleep.

My reaction to Missouri and Duke both losing in the first round:

My reaction to hearing that my queen Fiona is releasing a new album this summer:

My reaction to my alarm going off this morning:

My headache had retreated to more manageable levels.

I am now eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich with Starbucks mocha powder sprinkled in, and cinnamon Chex all crunched up inside.

I submitted three scripts to the Nicholl Fellowship, and my next deadline isn't until May 16th, so I'm taking tonight off.

I didn't fall asleep until 3am last night, and woke up at 5:30.

I am now on Day Three of the same headache.

I still haven't had a chance to watch the new Game of Thrones.

Said "fuck it" this morning and made a big cheesy egg sandwich, and coffee with real half-and-half. Slapped some cinnamon Chex in the middle of my peanut butter sandwich for today's lunch.