(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

viridian informs me that some of the crazy-ass shit being written up in journals yesterday was for some zombie-apocalypse blogging. Well, I missed it and good, being crazy busy at work and planning to go to Best Buy with moonlightalice and wellgull. But y'all should be ashamed of yourselves--you're crying wolf and now nobody will believe me when I say the zombie apocalypse is coming. Fine. More not-getting-my-brains-eaten for me.

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Speaking of Best Buy, all I need is the second season of The Simpsons and then I have the eight sets that I really want (otherwise known as "as much of the show that existed until I stopped caring, which is exactly when the X-Files episode aired, which is the best thing that ever happened and nothing could top it so I don't need anything else"). I also have all of Family Guy that's available now (which was more of a "Well, I got one set of the DVDs cheap before, why not just collect all of them?"), but I successfully resisted buying Prison Break. I just kept telling myself I didn't need it, I didn't need it, I didn't need it.

moonlightalice, more accurately, kicked my ass out of the pit of temptation by saying, "You don't even like the show." She's not wrong. I just like it for the eye candy and the crack-tacularity of its ridiculous, ridiculous plots. Besides, if I'm not going to buy all of a show (or at least a substantial subset, like with The Simpsons and Farscape), there's no point in just buying the one season (something tells me that Prison Break is never going to be one of those OMG MUST HAVE IT shows). Yes. So, even if I go to another Best Buy for that last, elusive boxset of season two of The Simpsons, I swear I am not buying Prison Break.

I better make sure moonlightalicecomes with, though. Just to be sure.

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Yay for folk coming over to watch Night Watch. Wow, does that movie make a lot more sense when you see it twice. Of course, I'm probably just an idiot since everyone seemed to have guessed the plot developments about an hour before they happened. Oh well. I'm still convinced that it's stunning--visually--and I can't wait for more of the same in Day Watch, an outing to which should be planned some time in the next week, I hope.

I forgot, though, how really very much I loved Anton in this movie. He's like the biggest fuck-up of all time, and everyone seems to know that and sort of plan around it, but his utter inability to do anything right trumps everyone else. It's hilarious and so, so sad that I want to hug him and pet his greasy hair and be like, "Dude, karma. You're bound to do something good...eventually."

According to the commentary by, I think, the writer of the novel, Geser, the commander of the Light Others, probably knew from when Anton almost got the witch to abort his wife's baby that the Light Others were doomed. I dunno how he knew that Anton's kid would be The One (whoa), or how he knew that Yegor would choose the Dark Others, but that makes the movie that much more sad because Geser's attempts to protect Anton from Zavulon and from his own mistakes seem all the more generous and poignant (otherwise, Geser seemed stand-offish, judgmental--not that Anton didn't deserve that--and weak). It also gives a bit of hope to the dreary, dreary ending whereby if Geser could know at once what it took Zavulon several hundred tries on his PS3 simulator of the apocalyptic battle (and if that were really a title, I might reconsider buying a PS3) to learn, then maybe the Light forces aren't doomed-doomed-doomed.

Of course, this being a Russian film, a happy ending is by no means assured. I dunno how much more the films can keep kicking Anton in the nuts, but probably a lot. And he's not the sort of hero that we'd get real satisfaction out of him winning the thing. He's not smart enough, not composed enough, not right enough with his own choices in his head, not stable enough with his ability that he'll ever be able to turn anything around on it. Then again, having your own kid specifically turn against you and, by proxy, turn to evil is probably a shot in the testicles that might get him out of his slump.

I actually didn't mind the kid so much in this. He and the actor playing Anton had some fierce chemistry going, with the kid hero-worshipping this deadbeat loser (without knowing exactly how deadbeat he was) and Anton grieving for the very presence of the thing that he thinks ruined his life and might have led him to make the wrong choice of sides (he, too, having no idea how true that is). It's really heartbreaking. And Yegor seems like a right brat to turn on Anton--probably because the film does such a good job of making Anton so pitiable you feel bad when anyone picks on him--but at the same time? To a kid? That's logic. Anton protected him from the vampire, so Anton was good. Suddenly, Anton turns out to be a killer, too, and Zavulon and Alice protect him. They're good, and Anton's worse than the vampire. Yegor's too young to see the crazy Emperor Palpatine mojo that the Dark Other general's working on his ass, and he's just been betrayed by one savior. He's not ready for it to happen twice, so he's not going to process that Zavulon might have another agenda other than "protecting" him.

And, as moonlightalice said, any kid would pick the dark guys at twelve. Those are angsty years, I tell you what. Also? The Dark Others are pop stars and drive expensive cars; the light others wear surplus army jackets and work for the electric company. Not hard to do the math on that.

Comments

Re: Trying to keep this book spoiler free

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Mmm... but Yegor chose in a moment of heavy emotional duress too.

It's kind of disheartening how immutable choices are in the view of this movie.

Re: Trying to keep this book spoiler free

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's kind of disheartening how immutable choices are in the view of this movie.

I think that the stark, irrefutable, unchangeable decision is all that keeps both sides from fighting wars internally to stop loss their warriors. Because the two sides would be constantly bleeding members to one another--you'd probably have Anton become a Dark Other and the vampire chick would (if she had to stay as she was) become a Light Other (if it were possible for a vampire to be Light).

I need to listen to the commentary on this movie again to see if, like I seem to remember, Bear really did switch sides. 'Cause the western society-raised person I am wants to believe the movie trilogy will end with Yegor being able to do the same, or, at least, with him choosing neither and the truce being formed anew, more amicably, but I don't trust that this will happen.

Re: Trying to keep this book spoiler free

[negativeq.livejournal.com]

Well, as for as anyone knows in the book, you can't change your faction - it has to do with how you are changed (physically changed) by the gloom. In fact Others don't consider themselves human after a certain point. There is a rumor that Bear switched, but he won't confirm or deny it.

DON'T READ NEXT LINE UNLESS YOU WANT BOOK SPOILER












































Yegor, at the end of the book, is STILL neutral, although he distinctively leans towards Dark. Everyone is surprised at how he is able
to avoid committing for so long.

The third novel is called Dusk watch. I have not read it yet, but I have theories as to what the title signifies.