Dirty Pretty People and other stuff

Thanks to glenn5, I got to attend a screening of the new Stephen Frears film, Dirty Pretty People, last night. The crackheads at Miramax are billing it as an erotic thriller. It's not. What it is is a beautiful little love story, with some mild thriller elements. It's a tale of immigrant life in London. Hell, it's a Stephen Frears movie, which means it doesn't pigeonhole too well. The point is, it's an amazingly good little movie, and one you should see.

Audrey "Amelie" Tautou is just wonderful (especially considering the fact that English is not her native language), but the movie really belongs to Chiwetel Ejiofor, who brings subtlety and soulfullness to his roll as the Nigerian immigrant working two jobs and trying to stay out of a moral quagmire.

Ejiofor also spoke to the audience after the screening, which was a nice bonus.

In other news, my back and my leg both hurt. My back is understandable -- I moved five shelves worth of books (including art books that I had to lift from the bottom shelf), as well as a bookcase yesterday. Not as sure about the leg. It feels like a shin splint, but a few inches higher on the shin than I normally get them, and only on leg. I suspect it's the result of sleeping on it poorly.

And it's frigging 63 degrees outside this morning! Since when does GA get that chilly in the summer mornings?

Teen Titans theme

For those wondering about the Teen Titans theme, it's by J-pop band Puffy AmiYumi, and their next album, Nice, has the theme song on it. The band page also has a flash pop-up with the lyrics. For those who want the lyrics, you can find them behind the cut.

( lyrics ho! )

I watched the first episode of the show for the third time yesterday, and I've enjoyed it more with each viewing. As with the Justice League show or X-Men: Evolution, it's not a faithful adaptation of the original work, but it's got some wonderful nods to the original, and it's a nice anime twist on the theme (and make no mistake: this is an anime in the stylistic sense, regardless of country of origin). The voice acting on the show is simply superb: Tara Strong is a wonderful Raven, Ron Perlman has Deathstroke down, and the rest of the cast does a great job as well (and über-Voice Director Andrea Romano even acts in a minor part. The second episode will have Darkfire, which means that two of the four big Titans villains will have appeared (and with Trigon due later this season, that only leaves Brother Blood, who is probably a little too adult to appear on this show).

New Blake's 7!

Thanks to gallowglass for the link.

Burn, Monkey, Burn!

Burning Monkey Solitaire 3, the update to the greatest commercial solitaire game ever, is now out! I adore Freeverse!

Mostly offline

Emory's connection to the outside world is mostly hosed right now (there's a periodic gap here and there, sort of like that gratuitous laser forcefield in the tunnels on V: The Final Battle that would blink off just long enough for the underground movement to enter, plant bombs, have the guy with glasses get shot, and leave, before blinking back on). So although I'm attempting to read your entries and reply to comments, it's taking a painfully long time to load anything. So I'm not ignoring you, really. :-)