I continue to fail at vacation. In fact, I've given up on calling this a vacation. It's more of a rest/regrouping. The only thing I've managed to cut out of my schedule is the fiction writing. Otherwise, the business end of things keeps coming up, with stuff to deal with. Some of that was because of just coming off finishing a book, so it had piled up, but otherwise it's just bad timing of things coming up while I'm trying to take time off.

So, basically, "vacation" has meant business as usual except for the fun part. I may gripe a bit about the agony of writing (or, really, the agony of rewriting), but still, making up stories is the reason I do this. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to eliminate the tedious business end of things for a week while I still take time to do the "play" part.

I was kind of stressing myself out about my failure to "vacate," but then I decided to re-label it. I do need to regroup and get my brain into the space to work on something different, and spending additional time just reading and catching up on errands has been nice. Once I get a few more business tasks done, I may even be able to relax better, and the rest of this week I shouldn't have any real business stuff to deal with (though I do have a book club meeting tonight I've been invited to, but that doesn't feel like "work" because some of the people I knew from my pre-author days).

I may go "light duty" during December. I'll never be able to entirely eliminate the business stuff, but I'd like to focus on writing because I'm in the rough draft mode on the project I'll be working on, and that's playtime. In fact, that book is already seeping back into my brain.

I've been mostly a slug, which has been nice. I've done a lot of reading, caught up on OnDemand TV, and Saturday night I had a real blast from the past, thanks to one of the HBO channels. They showed Xanadu. The movie itself is pretty awful, but boy does it bring back memories. I was living in Germany when it came out, and we had the soundtrack album even though the movie hadn't yet made it to the base theater. The album had a lot of stills from the movie, so my friends and I tried to figure out what the movie was about based on the music and the pictures. There was some big band stuff, the Electric Light Orchestra stuff, the Olivia Newton-John stuff, and then photos of Olivia in clothing from a variety of eras. We were guessing at time travel or something like that. That was the album we played on the boom box when we went to the school parking lot to roller skate on weekends. Finally, the summer after seventh grade, one of my friends got a bootleg copy of the videotape, and we got to watch the movie at her birthday slumber party, and our reaction was a resounding "HUH?"

I don't think I've seen it since then, and yeah, it's still pretty bad, but the music and the musical numbers are actually decent. The duet between Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John is really nice. The mash-up between big band and modern (circa 1980) rock is still kind of awesome. The context for the skating on the rooftop scene was silly, but the scene itself was nice. The animated sequence is really cute (and I wonder if any of those animators went on to work on The Little Mermaid nearly a decade later, because the character design was eerily similar), and there was Gene Kelly dancing to ELO. I don't know if it says something about how sadly uncool I am or maybe about my capacity for learning and memorizing music, but I still had most of the songs memorized, and I still like that music (hmm, I have that album on vinyl, and my parents have a turntable. Guess what I may be listening to at Thanksgiving).

It's just a pity about the plot, which has a huge fundamental flaw -- Our Hero is supposedly a very talented artist, too good to be wasting himself in a job where all he does is copy and enlarge album covers (didn't they have machines for that, even back in 1980?), but he's lacking the spark of inspiration about what to paint when someone's not giving him orders. So he gets a real, live, official Muse to inspire him -- and she inspires him to open a roller disco? We don't even see him painting cool murals at the disco. Her solution had nothing to do with his problem. It might have kind of made sense if maybe he'd aspired to be a painter but lacked the talent, and she turned his creativity in a different direction, but they went on and on about what a brilliant painter he was and how he just needed some inspiration, but then the inspiration of the Muse had nothing to do with painting. Meanwhile, we were supposed to see it as horribly tragic that she had to go back to Mount Olympus, and he was left feeling like life had no meaning with her gone, but we never really saw anything of their relationship other than them skating in a musical montage. Then again, actually developing their relationship would have required giving more dialogue to Olivia Newton-John, and that wouldn't have been good for anyone (especially the audience) and probably wouldn't have helped show that there was anything to their relationship.

Now I'm almost curious about what they did with the stage musical, if they fixed the plot at all. Apparently, they kept the roller skating, so I'm guessing they didn't change that much. It wouldn't take much to fix the plot -- just make Our Hero a struggling musician instead of a painter, and then it makes sense for him to make friends with the old musician and let them inspire each other -- though I'd have them create a really cool sound that mixes big band touches with modern music instead of opening a roller disco, especially since we know how quickly that trend flamed out, so we know they didn't exactly have any kind of long-term success in living that dream.

I'm not sure if it's a reflection on my current age or on the fact that quality is timeless, but even at the age he was in this movie, Gene Kelly was way hotter than the young leading man. Though that could also have something to do with the fact that the young leading man was kind of a drip, was a terrible actor and wasn't at all hot.

In other news, I just saw a report on the noon TV news about the Twilight phenomenon, and according to the "experts" they interviewed, the main reason people are so gaga over those books and movies is that there's no actual sex, just a bunch of longing. Huh. I write books with no actual sex, and as far as I know, people aren't having lines from my books tattooed on their bodies. I suspect there's something else involved. Or maybe my lack of sex is a different kind of lack of sex.

Happy Monday! I had a wonderfully boring weekend -- just finished up re-reading the book prior to sending it off, then relaxed and read and napped. I think I needed that. Now I just need to think of a title for the book. I've got one stuck in my head, and I don't think it's the best one, but it's currently blocking out everything else.

In spite of not going anywhere or doing much of anything, I didn't do a lot of movie viewing this weekend. Saturday night, the Disney Channel showed Ratatouille, which I hadn't seen in the theater. I'm not sure why, since I've seen just about all the Pixar films (though I haven't seen Cars). I guess I wasn't too excited about the Disney rodent fetish. Or else I wasn't in a movie-going phase. At any rate, it was absolutely delightful, and in spite of the computer animation, it reminded me of the old-school Disney animation from the classic era. One thing that impressed me was that they didn't ignore the "Ew! Rats in the kitchen!" issue and sweep it under the rug with the "rodents are cute!" idea. The rats did dig around in garbage, but the main character learned to walk on his hind legs so his "hands" didn't get dirty, they showed him washing his "hands" before cooking, and before the other rats did anything in the kitchen, they were run through the dishwasher. I liked that instead of pretending this was happy animation world where things like that weren't an issue, they faced it head-on.

The movie also made me want to dig out my cookbooks and get creative in the kitchen, but that will have to wait until it's not so hot. At this time of year it's too hot to cook.

Sunday night, I went with an HBO OnDemand offering, Deception. I was bored and going through the listings, then I saw a film with Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman listed as the stars, and I thought, "Okay, I'm in. How bad could it be if I get to look at those two?" The answer? Pretty darn bad. For one thing, even with Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman in it, it wasn't a musical. The closest it came to having a musical number was a moment when Hugh Jackman sort of sang under his breath. It was supposedly a psychological "thriller," but that term has to be used really loosely, as the first hints that something is seriously wrong don't show up until an hour into the movie, there were no real thrills, no real sense of danger, and the entire plot hinged on the characters all being Too Stupid to Live and doing things no real person ever would. On the up side, there were Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman wearing suits. On the down side, both were using American accents. The "plot" basically involves Ewan McGregor as a shy, nerdy CPA who is auditing a law firm's books when one of the lawyers (Hugh Jackman) befriends him and introduces him to his sexy, glamorous life. When they get their cell phones switched, the accountant gets in over his head in a high-end no-strings sex club (seriously) and learns that nothing is what it appears to be. I will say that Ewan McGregor makes a really appealing nerd. It somehow works for him, possibly because he had the charm and charisma cranked up to 11, but then filtered through a character with almost no social skills, so he came across as totally disarming -- the kind of guy who could have women eating out of his hand without having any idea that it was happening or any idea what he was doing. However, Hugh Jackman becomes less appealing in nerd mode. He is not a man who looks better in glasses. He looks less adorkable and more like the kind of nerd who still lives at home with his mother -- and that's because mother is a rotting corpse still sitting in her favorite chair where he killed her years ago. However, he looks really, really nice in slick lawyer mode. I think maybe it's because there's something kind of predatory about him, even when he's not playing Wolverine, while McGregor has a more boyish air to him.

And, yes, that tells you how boring this "thriller" was, when I was analyzing different kinds of attractiveness and trying to figure out how one good-looking man somehow looked better when they made him look nerdy and how the other good-looking man looked worse. There were some interesting potential concepts there, but the script didn't really work with them. It seemed like a movie that was sold based on a one-line pitch, but then the writer couldn't develop a story from that pitch. I think it's also difficult to develop a thriller out of a romantic comedy set-up -- the nerd and the lawyer get their cell phones mixed up, and then the nerd starts dating the women who call the lawyer, which gives him the confidence to go for the woman he's fallen in love with.

I suppose that's another measure of a boring movie, when I find myself mentally rewriting it as I watch it. At any rate, there are far, far better options for admiring the pretty involved in this film, but it might be worth it to find some stills of Ewan McGregor in nerd mode, because he really is cute.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I had a pretty good birthday, as such things go. There was brunch, a movie and frozen custard with friends, and I bought myself a new book (more on that tomorrow) and a new pair of ballet tights. I'll have to get the new leotard later, as the new dance store is huge and has a massive selection (the old store had maybe three adult leotards in the whole store), and the way leotards are, it's impossible to judge the sizes because you don't know how much they're supposed to stretch. I could have asked the store personnel for advice, but that day it seemed to be all teenage ballerina girls working there, and when you're my age (and especially on your birthday), the last thing you want is to ask teenage ballerinas to evaluate your size (that's if I could have pried them away from their conversations with each other to ask them). I may be relatively small, but I'm not ballerina small. I'll have to go back during a weekday when school starts and maybe there will be adult staff, or at least I'll have time to hit the fitting rooms and find something that works.

It was a pretty busy weekend, in general, and now I feel strangely exhausted. I'm currently trying to talk myself out of doing the errands I need to do. I could always deal with them tomorrow, right? I just kind of need a day when I don't have to go anywhere or do anything major. This is shaping up to be a "cave" day.

Because it was such a busy weekend, I didn't do a lot of movie viewing on TV. I caught part of Secondhand Lions on TBS, and that's one of those movies where if I stumble across it, I can't help but watch it. I think I may need it on DVD because it never fails to make me happy.

But I did see a movie at the theater, Terminator Salvation, and I would have to say that it was much better than I expected it to be, but not as good as it could have been. I know nothing about the behind-the-scenes creative process for the film, but I got a sense of some kind of tension between the story that wanted to be told and the story they felt like they ought to be telling. It may have been an internal struggle in one person, a struggle between two people with different creative visions, or a struggle between the moviemakers and the money people. At any rate, the real story seemed to me to focus on Marcus. He was the real hero of the film who went on the hero's journey, and that was the way the film seemed to keep trying to pull. But then it was also like some external force was telling them that this was a Terminator movie, so it was supposed to be about John Connor, and it would jerk back in that direction. There also seemed to be a sense that "Wait! We need a love interest!" so that was shoehorned in but not really developed.

But the Terminator saga isn't really about John Connor. It's about the idea of John Connor. His very existence was so energizing to the future humans that the machines wanted to eradicate his existence. He was such a compelling figure that young Kyle Reese was willing to go on what amounted to a suicide mission to protect his mother. The idea of this future heroic John Connor was a burden to young John Connor -- first in accepting that it was true at all (the second film) and then living up to that ideal even when circumstances changed and his roadmap for the future no longer worked (the third movie). We've already seen John go on his own heroic journeys as he faces up to who he is and decides what it is to be human and to be a man. We don't really need to see him go through that again.

But seeing Marcus go through it was fascinating, especially since he was going through part of it with Kyle Reese. That was the relationship that should have been at the heart of the movie -- the former death row inmate baffled by what the world has become being guided and shown what it is to really be a human being by this teenage kid who's tough enough to survive but still idealistic enough to believe it's worthwhile. I'll admit that I was leery of seeing a new version of Kyle Reese in what was essentially a prequel to the original film, especially after the TV series version made me cringe, but I think this portrayal worked because it captured the essence of what that character was. He was tough as nails and capable of being ruthless, but still young, idealistic and naive enough to fall in love with a woman in a photograph. I liked the interaction between Marcus and the kids, and I think the movie would have worked better if they'd carried that on a little longer and focused on it a little more instead of jumping back and forth with the John Connor story. The radio broadcasts could have been the presence of this mythical John Connor who was such an inspiration and encouragement. The John Connor parts of the story became paint-by-the-numbers action hero stuff. And if you're trying to get emotional engagement with people who've been fans of the whole saga, you don't need John Connor if you've got Kyle Reese.

Otherwise, there was lots of continuity callback porn for those of us who have more or less memorized at least the first movie, a great cast (there was a simultaneous blurt of "What?" from all three of us when Helena Bonham-Carter's name came up in the opening credits because that's awfully highbrow for a Terminator flick), and lots of nifty new Terminator creations. My favorite: terminator snakes that re-enact scenes from the Jaws films, great for keeping people from crossing rivers (hmm, a couple of those could solve all my swimming pool problems).

I think this one may be my second favorite of the series, behind the original film. I'm the weirdo who didn't really like the supposedly awesome second film (I own it on VHS because I got it as a gift, but I've never watched the tape. I don't think I've ever watched this movie since I saw it at the theater because it left me cold). I felt like it was more about the effects and Ahnold's star power, and I thought John Connor was an annoying little twit (which could influence my view of the John-centric storytelling). I suppose my rankings could have something to do with the fact that I'm a Kyle Reese loyalist, through and through, and I'm more prone to like a movie that features him, as long as the character feels right, and though Anton Yelchin doesn't really resemble Michael Biehn physically, the feel of the character was right.

Aha! I just read the trivia about the movie on IMDB, and apparently the early version of the script focused on just Marcus and Kyle, but they then had to beef up the role of John Connor when Christian Bale took the part. That explains a lot. And Alan Dean Foster wrote the novelization, so I may have to look for that and give it a read. I'd be curious to see Alan's take on the story. And the ending was totally changed after spoilers about it leaked (and that ending validates my theory about the theme of the series). Now I'm going to have to get the DVD when it comes out because it sounds like a lot of stuff they didn't use will be on it.

And now it seems I've managed to waste the morning, so I can justify waiting until tomorrow to run errands.

Ugh, our fake pre-fall has ended and summer's back with a vengeance. I would like to hereby alert the universe that I really want to go swimming this afternoon, as my shoulder is sore from bad computer posture and the death grip on the steering wheel while playing Dodge the Thunderstorm as I was driving home this weekend. Some time in the pool and hot tub should really help, and it's supposed to be warm and dry enough for that today. Why, yes, I LOVE summer and hot weather so I can do stuff like go swimming and eat ice cream. Really!

Now if you hear about a freak cold spell that no one had in the forecast, you'll know why.

I didn't do much movie watching this weekend, but I have one from earlier last week, so there's enough for a Movie Monday round-up.

Last week, I watched Bells are Ringing on TCM. It's a late 50s/very early 60s musical about an answering service operator who gets a little too involved with her clients' lives. She takes on different personas to fit each client, and if she gets a tidbit of info in a message for one client that she thinks might benefit another client, she passes it on. Along the way, she falls in love with the voice of one of her clients, a depressed playwright, and sets out to help give him a boost. Meanwhile, a misguided vice cop is convinced that the answering service is a cover for illegal activity and vows to arrest them if they dare do anything other than answer the phones and pass on messages. It was a cute enough film that was definitely a relic of its time, as cell phones, answering machines, voice mail, text messaging, etc., have pretty much put an end to the need for answering services except for people like doctors, but it wasn't all that memorable as a musical. There was one song that's become a standard and the others I can't even recall.

However, the main reason I liked watching it is that I love the alt-universe mid-century New York that appears in so many movies, like this and the Doris Day movies and even to some extent Breakfast at Tiffany's and that was spoofed so well in Down With Love. It's that sparkling place where everyone dresses to the nines for everything, with an extensive designer wardrobe. Even if you're just a secretary, you can still have a full Givenchy wardrobe. Going out to dinner involves evening wear, and the restaurants are vast and spacious, with intimate banquette seating (perfect for overhearing and misinterpreting conversations at the next table). The apartments are all palatial and full of sleek mid-century modern furniture, and they all seem to have that raised level in the back, like a stage set, along with an expansive terrace and a geographically impossible view with all the landmarks, in case we forget we're in New York. (Breakfast at Tiffany's at least had almost realistic apartments.) I think this is one reason I loved Pushing Daisies. It may not have been set in even alt-universe New York, but it had a lot of that particular technicolor world look to it. I'm fairly certain that New York wasn't really like that back then, and although I like the movies of that era, I know I wouldn't have enjoyed living in that era because of the ubiquitous cigarette smoke (gag, choke, cough, wheeze), but it makes for a fun alternate reality that's almost as magical as Narnia.

I guess I was on a musical kick because this weekend's movie was Mamma Mia. I've been an ABBA fan since I was in elementary school and thought "Dancing Queen" was the best song ever, and I've seen the stage version of the musical twice (but not because I'm an obsessive fan. I just had season tickets to a musical series, and they kept bringing that one back because it's a big money maker). But I was leery of the movie. I will say that it wasn't as bad as I feared, but I'm glad I didn't see it in the theater because I did have to use the mute button. The casting of the women was just about perfect. Julie Walters and Christine Baranski pretty much stole the movie, Amanda Seyfried has a lovely voice, and although Meryl Streep doesn't have perfect vocal technique, she really acted the songs, so they worked in context (I could enjoy her in the movie, but I'd probably cringe while listening to a soundtrack). She also seemed to be having a blast with the part, and it's fun to watch Meryl Streep be fun instead of tragic. But they must have had a different person casting the men because yikes, and they were generally actors I love. I will say that Colin Firth was wonderful when he wasn't singing and made that character a lot of fun, when that one is usually pretty forgettable in the stage show, and his voice wasn't all that bad when singing. It's just a jolt that someone who has a fairly deep and gravelly voice is such a high tenor when singing, and his range didn't really fit when he had to sing with anyone else. However, he threw himself in head-first and seemed to be having fun with it. And while I love Pierce Brosnan in just about everything, he was horribly miscast and seemed to be utterly embarrassed to be there. His singing falls into the "bless his heart" category, and what's odd is that they gave him the big songs at the climactic point of the film -- which were songs I don't recall that character singing in the show. So they cast an actor who couldn't sing and then gave him a couple of big numbers that his character wasn't even supposed to have. That was when I had to use the mute button because I just couldn't take it. The third guy was barely a blip on the radar, and yet he was the most colorful one in the stage show. Considering that almost all the ABBA songs have female lead vocals (and the show takes one of the few male lead songs and flips it around for a woman), they could have taken the approach of only having the women burst into song, since the story is a big female fantasy, sisterhood, finding yourself kind of thing, and then they could have cast anyone for the male roles. But if they're going to give the men additional songs, then there are a lot of actors who can actually sing. I think Scott Bakula would have been perfect for the role Pierce Brosnan played, and while I liked Colin Firth's acting, Anthony Head could have played the same role and actually sung.

One thing I did like in the transition to film was that they mixed up some of the musical arrangements. My main gripe with the stage show was that the songs as they fit into the show were almost indistinguishable from the original recordings, right down to the instrumentation. I liked the way the songs were woven into the story, but it would have worked better if they weren't so obviously just ABBA songs in their original form. The movie did seem to be more creative with the musical arrangements at times, so it was less like "let's stop everything and play an ABBA record!" However, when they wove the music into the background score, they made some really bad choices -- like having the bride walk down the aisle at the wedding to the tune of "Knowing Me, Knowing You," which is about a divorce. In the show, they use "I Do, I Do, I Do" for that moment, but the movie used that in a different place.

Overall, I guess I'd say it's a fun, happy, feel-good film, but if you're kind of a voice snob, make sure you've got the mute button handy. I may even watch it again while it's still available OnDemand, now that I'm not dreading it, and I can enjoy the good parts.

It's been a lovely stormy morning, so of course I am utterly blissful. I'm also tempted to nap because this is perfect sleeping weather. Fortunately, it's also good reading weather, and I'm still doing tons of research, so that means I can lie on the sofa and read all day and it counts as work. I suspect this is going to be one of those books where I read a ton in preparation, and only a tiny sliver of it will actually make it into the book directly. Otherwise, it will all be mindset and idea generation.

There wasn't much movie watching this weekend, so I don't have too many Monday movies. The "essential" on TCM was A Night at the Opera, and I had never seen a Marx Brothers movie, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'd only seen parodies and spoofs -- mostly the Bugs Bunny versions -- so I had an entirely wrong impression of what it would be like. I was picturing a lot of slapstick, stuff like people falling down and pies in the face. I was rather pleasantly surprised because it was actually very clever humor, building on timing and interaction. I laughed myself silly. Those were some amazingly talented men, especially when you throw in the musical talent that went with the comedy. I did initially have a little trouble figuring out what the plot was supposed to be, since the young Italian couple they were helping sounded so very all-American, and I didn't realize for a while that they were Italian and trying to get their big break in an American opera company. But nitpicking plot details of a Marx Brothers movie is probably a lost cause, and I've read that the movie initially had an opening that made it clearer that it started in Italy, but that was cut and the Italian stuff was downplayed during WWII, and that cut footage has been lost. I was also a little surprised at how appealing I found Groucho. Take away the exaggerated "character" features, and it seems like he was actually a rather attractive man, and add the wit and sense of humor, and he was even kind of sexy.

Sunday afternoon as background noise while I was reading (and while my neighbor's dog was yapping its little head off, so I needed noise to drown it out), I watched The Promotion on HBO. It's the story of an assistant manager of a grocery store who sees the opening of a new store in the chain as his chance to become a full manager, which will change his life, giving him more status and the money to buy a house with his wife. He seems to be a shoo-in, until a new guy transfers in, and they start competing for the promotion. It was billed as a comedy, but I didn't find it very funny. The humor was based on cringe-inducing, humiliating situations and a lot of meanness, which I don't think is very funny. I don't think I laughed once. I'm more a fan of the "laughing with" kind of humor, and this was very much "laughing at" humor. However, the fact that I found it so painful was a sign that the characters were vivid and relatable. I really found myself caring about the outcome, and it's possible I might enjoy it more if I watched it again, knowing how it would work out, so I could relax and not worry so much about the main character. I think I'd classify it more as "quirky drama" than as a comedy, and it's probably a better film when you approach it with that expectation. The cast was fairly high-level for such a low-level film, and although I love Jenna Fischer, I'd really like to see her bust out of that "supportive, low-key girlfriend/wife" typecasting. I'd love to see her playing someone really outgoing and vivacious or maybe even a raging bitch and getting to be the leading lady instead of the wife/girlfriend.

Now, to answer a question raised by a post last week, when I said you'd do more good asking the publishers about more books instead of me, since I can't do anything about it (believe me, I'd love them to do more books, so if I had any control over the situation, they'd be out there). Snail mail is usually more effective than e-mail because it takes time and thought instead of just dashing off an e-mail that's likely to end up in an in-box that's never checked. For US and Canadian readers, you could contact Ballantine Books, 1745 Broadway, Floor 18, New York, NY 10019. If you really must use electronic media, they have a contact form on their web site (and they really must not want people to use it because it's buried several layers into their web site). If you want to wonder why these books aren't published as fantasy, I did find an e-mail address for Del Rey (that publisher's fantasy imprint, where my books really should belong instead of being stuck among all the literary fiction and book club books): delrey@randomhouse.com. For the non US editions, I suppose you could Google the publisher name to look for contact info. I don't have direct contact with those publishers and my language skills aren't up to finding contact info on their web sites. Be polite, and don't mention that I'm the one who asked you to write. It looks better if it's spontaneous.

The weekend was eventful enough that the weekend HBO report got shoved to Tuesday. I guess I was in a comedy/romantic comedy mood this weekend (or else that's what was on).

I started with Definitely Maybe on Thursday night, which I liked better than I expected, but still not enough that I would have been willing to pay for it in a theater. The plot structure is similar to I'm With Lucy, being mostly told in flashback and with the person the main character ends up with in the present part of the story a mystery until the end. This one involves a divorcing father whose young daughter asks to hear the story of how he got together with her mother. Her hope is he'll remember why he loved her mother and then won't want to be divorced. He tells her about the various women he's known, changing their names and details so she can't tell which one ends up being her mother, going back to right after college. It was an okay movie that could have been a good one with a different leading man. Ryan Reynolds is pretty to look at, and in interviews I've seen, he seems to be a nice, funny guy, but he bothers me as an actor because he doesn't really seem to play characters. He expresses emotion, but he's pretty much the same in everything I've seen him in, even though the characters as written have been really different. I never believed him for a moment in this movie, and he was really outclassed to an embarrassing degree by his co-stars -- including the kid (okay, so that was Abigail Breslin and she's a prodigy). It's already borderline inappropriate for a father to be telling some of that stuff to his young daughter, but since I never really believed him as a father, it came across as some random 30-something guy talking about his love life to a little girl, which got kind of skeevy. This was also one of those films that puts a bizarre emphasis on smoking, to the point it came across as stealth product placement, with no specific brands shown, but with the characters talking about enjoying smoking and bonding over smoking (that, or Hollywood screenwriters are among the last "smoking makes you look cool!" holdouts). On the up side, this was a romantic comedy in which the leading man was theoretically a man, not an overgrown manchild being forced to grow up by a demanding harpy. I say "theoretically" because the character was written as the kind of guy who was probably an adult in third grade when he already had his life planned, but the actor never really conveyed that.

Then I caught Juno, and I have to agree with the critics who say that some of the dialogue was a wee bit too self-consciously hip, but Ellen Page definitely deserved her Oscar nomination because she totally embodied that character, enough so that the self-consciously hip dialogue almost even worked, coming from her. I guess it's a factor of my age, but I identified far more with the childless adoptive couple than with the teenager.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was on after that, and even though I have it on DVD, I couldn't resist at least leaving it on while I did other stuff.

Tom Jones was the "Essential" movie on TCM Saturday, and I'd never seen that version. I think I still like the A&E miniseries better, in part because the longer length allowed them to dig a little deeper and in part because I preferred that version of Tom. I love Albert Finney in so many other things, but as Tom Jones he sounded kind of like a newscaster, and the miniseries guy really captured that impishness that's essential for making us like him, in spite of his bad behavior (I think it helps that the miniseries actor is apparently more of a rock musician than actor, since Tom does behave a lot like a rock star). However, this movie is beautifully visceral and earthy and has a lot of splendid moments.

Finally, there was Run, Fat Boy, Run, which on the surface comes close to that overgrown manchild forced to grow up cliche, but I think it avoided the cliche, for the most part, and I would have liked it a lot better if I could have enjoyed it as an underdog kind of story without all the surrounding cultural trends that make half the movies be about men who desperately need to grow up so that I'm sick of immature men. The movie is the story of a man stuck in arrested development, whose life has pretty much gone nowhere since he got cold feet on his wedding day and ran away, leaving his pregnant fiancee at the altar. Five years later, he still hasn't done much with his life, is still in debt and irresponsible, but then he discovers that his former fiancee is dating a pretty much perfect man -- one who's responsible and disciplined and who runs marathons for charity. Our hero gets the idea that he'll run a marathon and that will be what he needs to outclass this guy and prove to his former fiancee that he's worthy. Never mind that he's overweight, out of shape and totally undisciplined. But he has an odd support system in his young son, his landlord and his best friend (who's hoping to use the race to pay off some gambling debts). The movie starts veering toward cliche toward the end, because of course the other guy has to be revealed as a jerk, and All Must Seem to be Lost, but it doesn't wrap everything up in a pretty bow. Fortunately, the woman is never portrayed as a demanding harpy, and she never demands anything from him other than that he honor his obligations to his son. He decides for himself to try to be a better man. It's a nice little feel-good movie.

I think I have the NaNo book re-plotted, and I've even seen the movie of the first couple of scenes in my head, so I'm back on the writing horse today. There was a ballroom dancing class I was thinking of going to tonight since I don't have ballet, but my ankle is still twinging, so it might not be a great idea. It's foxtrot and swing, and while the foxtrot is pretty gentle, swing would be bad on an iffy ankle, and I want to avoid really injuring myself. I think it would help if I could learn to sit like a normal person. All the odd positions I tangle myself into seem to put strain on that ankle.

I'm plunging back into a more serious work schedule this week (aside from the mandatory time off to see the new Harry Potter movie, of course) after a somewhat light schedule last week. I'm happy to report that my house has remained mostly clean for two weeks now. There are a couple of spots of situational clutter that would have to be tidied for company, but I've also done some maintenance cleaning, like dusting, vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom, since the last major cleaning. I still need to tackle the office, but that will have to wait until it's not so hot. The office is upstairs, and there's a skylight, so it gets pretty stifling at this time of year. I can tolerate it in the morning and at night with the ceiling fan on, but I have to stay out in the afternoons. Since that's where the Internet is, it really helps with my productivity (yes, having to stay out of my office helps with my productivity). When/if it gets cooler, then I can do things that require moving around in my office.

Since I wasn't on a frantic writing schedule, I got a lot of movie/TV watching done over the weekend (really, starting on Thursday).

First, there was Sydney White, a reasonably cute teen movie that I watched because I like fairy tale-based stories, and this was a modern, non-fantasy version of Snow White. Sydney is a tomboy who grew up around construction sites with her widowed father (John Schneider, who somehow manages to be a lot hotter now than when he was young and in The Dukes of Hazzard). When she goes off to college, she pledges her late mother's sorority because she hopes that will make her feel closer to her mother. But when the witchy sorority president gets jealous of her and casts her out in public humiliation, she ends up living in a rundown old house with seven dorks. There were some clever touches to bring the fairy tale into the modern era, like a "hot or not" site that serves as the magic mirror that declares who is the fairest of all, and they do something really fun with the poisoned Apple. However, I would like to remind writers that Disney did not originate this story, although Disney did create those specific dwarf personalities (Happy, Grumpy, etc.), and you are not limited to the Disney version of the dwarves, as they are not actually canon. I think what I liked most was the romantic subplot because, for a change, it wasn't based on "opposites attract" and conflict. They actually liked each other and had reasons to like each other, then the conflict showed up at the crisis point of the movie when it seemed like all would be lost. I'm so tired of the "bicker, bicker, oh, we're in love!" relationships. The thing holding this back from being a better movie was the fact that the villain was so one-dimensional. Her status made no sense (you're not going to be elected sorority president if every member of the sorority loathes you, and you're not going to be elected student body president if everyone in the school loathes you), and there was no motivation at all for her rather extreme actions. She was just a straw woman for our heroine to knock down.

Which brings me to a mini rant that may lead to a full-fledged rant someday. Hollywood writers (TV and film), please find a dictionary and look up the word "popular." In the words of Inigo Montoya, you keep using that word, and I do not think it means what you think it means. "Popular" is not a synonym for "universally loathed." According to my dictionary, it means "favored or approved by people in general," so if everyone hates someone, she is, by definition, not popular. Even if you go with the second definition, "favored or approved by acquaintances," and say that means she's liked by the people who matter, at the climax of just about every story about popularity the popular girl's friends confess to loathing her, so she's not even popular there. In order for someone to be popular, someone has to actually like her. What you write as "popular" is a bully, and most TV or movie "popular" characters would not actually be popular in the real world.

Anyway ... the next HBO OnDemand special was Fierce Creatures, the follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda. I loved Wanda, but somehow never saw the later movie (which is not actually a sequel. It's just a lot of the same people involved). The story follows what happens at a small British zoo when new ownership demands more profit, and the first scheme to raise profits is to pander to the public's love of violence by displaying only "fierce creatures." The result is a minor war between the zookeepers and the new manager "(John Cleese) as they try to persuade the new manager that all their cute, fluffy charges are actually terribly vicious beasts, and he tries to convince them that he really is cold and ruthless, even though he's got a soft spot for the animals. This may be the rare case where I thought Kevin Kline's presence brought the movie down because I was far more interested in seeing how the "fierce creatures" scheme played out than in the digressions they went into once his character took over. I wanted to see the result of the "fierce creatures" zoo, which we never really did because it got buried by all the corporate sponsorship and costumed zookeepers nonsense (though there was a bit of funny stuff there).

I guess I was still in a British farce mood because Saturday night, Turner Classic Movies showed The Mouse That Roared. I'd read the book ages ago, but had never seen the movie. It's been so long since I read that book that I don't know how faithful the movie was, but since it was mostly a vehicle for Peter Sellers to play multiple characters, I somehow doubt it was too faithful to the book. It's a rather droll story about a tiny European country that decides the way to get an influx of cash is to declare war on the United States, lose, and then get "rebuilt." (It's set in the 50s, while the US was pouring money into Germany to rebuild it). Except, they somehow manage to win when their 20 longbowmen manage to "invade" New York and capture a physicist and the terrible new bomb he's created without anyone noticing. It's not as funny as I wanted it to be, but it did have a few laugh-out-loud moments.

A friend recommended "Man vs. Cartoon" on TruTV, and I caught a bit of a marathon on Sunday afternoon. Basically, engineers and engineering students try to recreate all of Wile E. Coyote's roadrunner-catching schemes and make them actually work. It's both educational and highly amusing, but I'm not sure a marathon is the best way to watch because it starts becoming obvious that most of the schemes are just variations on each other. Which may be why Wile E. Coyote never caught the Roadrunner (and I have to admit, I always cheered for the Roadrunner because he was cute and blue).

Meanwhile, all the characters on Merlin remain Too Stupid to Live, and I've come to the conclusion that True Blood is just too unpleasant for me to watch. That would fall into the category of "not really my thing." It was quite a relief to admit that to myself.

Oh, and I finally caught the pilot of Warehouse 13, and I think I might like it. I have to admit that it's mostly because I really like the main guy, who is cute and funny, and who strikes the right balance between being an adult and having some childlike wonder. I was worried that they were going to go the bickering, opposite partners route, but it seemed like they'd become a real team at the end of the first episode, so maybe they'll do something wild and crazy and have a team that actually likes each other, with the conflict being between them and the rest of the world rather than being with each other. I am getting a wee bit tired of the "easygoing man/uptight, driven woman" cliche (another rant in the making), but I'll let it slide for now until I see how the series plays out because she has curly hair, and it actually got frizzy the way real curly hair does when she'd been been through all the action/danger stuff. I can forgive a lot with if there's a curly-haired character whose hair behaves like real curly hair and if they don't do something like straighten it when she's supposed to be particularly pretty or making some positive character change.

I feel like I've been working on the ending of this book for weeks. I wrote about 3,000 words yesterday, most of which are total replacement for what I had, and I think I have at least that much more to go. Maybe I'll get it done today, but it seems like it keeps expanding as I get closer to the end. I know I'll have to do some tinkering with what I've done because right now I'm mostly focusing on the choreography, just the who did what, when and where. I'll need to add things like description and emotional reaction. But I do think all this tinkering is worth it because this may be the best I've written, and I'd like it to see the light of day. It won't if the ending doesn't hold up to the rest of the book. So, after I post this I'll be hauling the computer downstairs and forcing myself to work the rest of the day.

I do think I've discovered the right trick for the early-morning walk: eat breakfast first. When I walk before breakfast, I end up tired and starving all day, but today I ate first, and I seem to have more energy while not being nearly as hungry.

Meanwhile, I had yet another one of those coincidences happen where I encountered something I've been thinking about elsewhere. Last week, I was talking about happy endings and how I define them, with one of my examples being the movie Casablanca, which I think would have actually had more of a downer ending if the couple had ended up together, and them making the right choice was what made it a happy ending for me. Well, more than a week ago, I found out that the city library system had a Connie Willis book I hadn't yet read, one I'd never seen in stores, and I put it on hold to pick up in my neighborhood branch. I read it late last week, and it totally fit the discussion of happy endings.

The book is Remake, and it has a semi-cyberpunk sensibility to it. It takes place in a near-future Hollywood where they don't make movies anymore. They just remake the same movies over and over again, making digital changes, recasting with digital versions of other actors -- like Sylvester Stallone starring in Ben Hur. They also digitally change movies to remove things that have become offensive, like smoking. And they can give old movies a happy ending. Casablanca is cited as one that gives them problems in that area because everything they do to make the couple end up together ends up ruining the movie (one version has Nazis storming the airstrip and killing the husband, so Ilsa can go off with Rick -- which doesn't really work as a "happy" ending). The story kicks off when a girl arrives in Hollywood with stars in her eyes and a big dream. She wants to dance in the movies. Never mind that they don't make movies with live actors anymore, and no one wants musicals. There aren't even any dance teachers anymore, because of this. That doesn't dim her hopes at all, and she finds a way to do it.

The really interesting thing is that this book was published in 1995 -- before the Star Wars special editions that had Greedo shooting first and before the federal agents in ET were suddenly holding walkie-talkies instead of guns. It may have been written around the time that Forrest Gump managed to interact on film with a lot of historical figures (but given Connie's writing pace, it's possible she was already at work on this book before that movie came out).

We may not yet be at the point of digital mashups instead of new films, but there aren't a lot of movies these days that aren't remakes of some kind or another -- sequels, comic book adaptations, remakes, remakes of comic book adaptations, amusement park ride adaptations, sequels to amusement park ride adaptations, toy adaptations, book adaptations, etc. (Though, as someone who stands to potentially make a lot of money if a certain book is adapted for film, I'm all for book adaptations.) Interestingly enough, the movie with the most original story this summer was digitally created, so it's not the technology that's to blame. It's the lack of imagination.

Anyway, it's nice to see that I'm not alone in thinking that Casablanca has a happy enough ending without any help, and I now have a strange urge to watch a lot of old movie musicals with great dance numbers.

Yes, it's another Friday morning of pain and whimpering -- well, not really outright pain, but my thighs got a good workout last night in ballet class, so they now have this odd trembly feeling. I may take a walk today to see if I can loosen them up, or that might just make matters worse.

Meanwhile, I seem to keep making progress by cutting words, but have now reached a scene that will require additions to make it have something to do with the plot, so the word count should go up again. It's going to be a working weekend for me -- holiday? What holiday?

I likely won't be catching an opening-weekend showing of the new Terminator movie. This one seems to be the opposite of my reaction to the Star Trek movie. I was dreading the idea of the new Star Trek reboot, but reviews were so positive, both from my friends and the professional critics, that I ended up seeing it and enjoying it. I've been eagerly anticipating the new Terminator movie because I've always wanted to see more about that time period in the story, before/after the original film. But now the reviews are pretty negative, which makes me almost afraid to see it.

I didn't see the original during its theatrical run because I was in high school and not allowed to see R-rated movies. One of my friends had seen it and told me all about it, but most of it didn't sink in. I probably did the smile-and-nod, "uh huh, yeah" response. But then it came on network TV when I was in college, and I happened to walk past the dorm TV lounge as it was coming on. I realized it was that movie my friend had told me about, and I stopped to check it out, then ended up watching the whole thing. I did eventually see the uncut version, as it was a popular selection for our study lounge or cram-people-in-a-dorm-room movie nights (though not watched as often as Highlander, but that's an entirely different story).

I saw T2 on opening day -- and, believe it or not, haven't seen it since, even though I have it on VHS (it was a gift). I know that's the one that has all the buzz and excitement about it and that was supposedly so awesome with all the killer effects, but it left me cold. It seemed to me to be more about the action than about the characters, and there wasn't much of a growth arc. It seemed to be more about people discovering things about the world than about themselves, if that makes sense. Which is why I'm the lone oddball who liked T3 better than T2. Yeah, there were issues with it, but I loved the idea of dealing with the fallout from T2 -- what happens if you've been told your whole life that you're destined to be the savior of mankind and some great hero, but then the event that would make you a hero is prevented? There's some danger inherent in knowing your own destiny because it means you don't have a back-up plan. That made for an interesting character arc. Then there's the fact that they actually Went There with the ending -- seriously, the good guys LOSE. I'm not always of the belief that dark=good, but I thought that was such a startling way to end an action movie that it worked for me.

I also did like the TV series, although the Connors were the least interesting characters. However, the original film will remain my favorite. It works because of its simplicity. It's so very primal because it's about survival and love, period. There's no waffling about the metaphysics of time travel, altering the timeline, or any of that stuff. It has a huge character transformation arc, with Sarah going from wimpy waif waitress to warrior woman who can survive on her own. Not to mention Michael Biehn, managing to look both tough and innocent and with that soft voice still inflected with hints of southern drawl (it's nice that he ended up doing a lot of westerns where he didn't have to fight the accent). Just thinking of "I came across time for you, Sarah" still makes me a little woozy. It often cracks people up when I say that The Terminator is one of my favorite romantic movies, but obviously those are people who haven't seen it.

I don't know if we'll get any similar human stories in the new one, where they can rely so much on action and effects. I like the idea of seeing Kyle Reese before his fateful mission, but it's still hard to imagine anyone else in the role (the one in the TV series so didn't work for me). This time around, it's the same actor who played Chekov in the Star Trek reboot, and I liked him there, but I'm still not sure if it will work.

Still, killer robots from the future! How bad could that be?

Today, though, I have grocery shopping to do (a new branch of my favorite grocery store is opening nearby today, and I really must go) and some errands, and then lots of writing. And probably some un-writing.

So, I went with my best buds to see Star Trek today, and I have to admit I really liked it. I still have a few reservations, but if I detach myself from what I know about Star Trek and just look at it as a space-adventure movie, I did enjoy it, and when I allowed myself to retain a bit of my inner geekiness without the nitpicky part, I thoroughly enjoyed all the in-jokes. The wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff wiped out most of the "Muppet Babies" issues, aside from Chekov, and messing with the timeline doesn't change the fact that, given the ages stated specifically in the original series, if Kirk is in his 20s, Chekov isn't on the Enterprise, not even as a 17-year-old whiz kid, but I loved the new take on Chekov enough that I'm willing to let that slide. I think my favorite character re-creation was Bones, who was pitch-perfect and who seemed to fit, time-wise. I'm glad I saw it with geeky friends, so we could enjoy the shout-outs together, and there was one extended mildly inappropriate giggle fit when a particular sequence struck us as something right out of Galaxy Quest. I liked that they kept a lot of the 60s series look without trying to make the ships too streamlined and modern. When the sequel comes out, I'll be there.

I guess I am capable of admitting when I'm wrong.

Since we went out to a late lunch after seeing the early show of the movie, and then I went grocery shopping on the way home, I guess I'm going to be inverting my workday today and working on Saturday, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and maybe by distracting my conscious brain for a while I've allowed my subconscious brain to come up with a brilliant solution to the problem that's eating me (I have two ways to go with a scene, and I can't figure out which way is funnier).