Film Review: "The Golden Compass"

In my childhood and preteen years I read Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass multiple times and for a long time considered it my favorite book. I was not quite old enough for the anti-religious themes not to go right over my head; a friend of mine was forbidden to read this antithesis to The Chronicles of Narnia when her aunt discovered she had borrowed the evil thing from me and I couldn't understand this. But I could appreciate it merely for its characters and ingeniusly imaginative fantasy world.

I have dreamed of this film being made for half my life, once picturing actresses as the main character who are now much too old for the part, but now that it has been so long since my last reading of the His Dark Materials trilogy, my memory of the story is not the sharpest. For how big a fan I am I went to see this expecting I would not be the pickiest and hardest one to please in the audience. My sister, who has just re-read and fallen in love with the books again, had complaints about differences from them. But for me, seeing this made me truly relive the magical experience of reading this story a long time ago, and the way it captured the qualities of it that I had actually completely forgotten were what made me love it so much I think indicates more than anything that it is a very good adaptation.

In addition to that, it is simply a good movie on its own, taking place in an alternate world that is so comfortably established that the film can be surprisingly accessible even to those who aren't familiar with the book (as far as I can guess). The many strange and original concepts in this world like daemons take a lot of words to try to explain in writing, but the film sometimes has brief shots that can let everything suddenly make perfect sense without any of the characters even behaving like this is something that needs to be explained rather than second nature. ( Read more... )

Fanfic Rec: "You Can't Go Home Again"/"Five Senses of a Vampire" (Twilight)

This ficlet is made up of five vignettes, each related to a different sense, that illustrate in a wonderfully understated way many of the dark aspects of the life with Edward that Bella wants - or thinks she wants, to put it in a way that's more appropriate regarding this fic. It is written in a sort of removed, matter-of-fact way so that it does not come off as viciously anti-Edward/Bella or preachy about its point, but somehow contains huge and complex ideas you could write entire argumentative essays about in short exchanges of dialogue or even single sentences. When so much Twific can be like unsuccessfully convincing propaganda for which "team" the writer supports, this is a fic that's not even really about the ships, just Bella and what she is going to become because she thinks it's all about love, how becoming a vampire might mean she can be with Edward but can't be somebody.

Title: "You Can't Go Home Again" or "Five Senses of a Vampire"
Author: sailtonorway
Characters & Pairings: Edward/Bella, Jacob
Rating: PG
Summary: The side effects of being a vampire.
Link: They decide to climb Mount Everest...