New ways to celebrate mediocrity

[alexsarll]

Last-minute postponement of the Secret Meltroom meant that I got to bid farewell to how_i_lie after all, and drink all the cider in the world while I was about it. Appropriately, it is only my mutant healing factor which leaves me in a fit state to watch The Incredibles the next day. It is easy to come out of the cinema believing it to be the perfect superhero film, which it isn't *quite*, simply because the finale eclipses all memory of the slightly plodding start. But what a finale! I know it's stating the bleeding obvious to compare it to the Fantastic Four, but they're not its only source; it's a grab bag of all the best superhero ideas available, from Captain Britain to Powers, melded into a coherent whole. But one which is nonetheless accessible to non-geeks. Those of you who have yet to see it - do so.

At wilteddaffodil's birthday boozes, I am in one of those strange phases of unassailable sobriety. The same cannot be said for much of the company, but fortunately I no longer find drunk people annoying when not drunk, possibly because the people I know now are less annoying than the ones who inspired that animosity. Saturday is a social blank so drasticsturgeon, kitty_collar and I improvise Crouch End drinks, first in a bright old man pub and then in an underage chav pub. As on the previous night, we end up watching Vic and Bob, but this time kitty_collar's bed ends up full of nutshells, in presumably unconscious emulation of Martin Luther.

On Sunday I watch Bill Bailey's Part Troll at severe risk of dehydration - you are never far enough from a laugh to avoid the risk of splurting your beverage everywhere. I then attempt Run Lola Run but find its kinetics hollow, and fast-forward to Victim instead. Dirk Bogarde is unsurprisingly good at playing an angst-ridden homosexual, but I'd love to see how he explained that in the contemporary press material. It's a film which makes one extremely glad to live in a comparatively enlightened time and place, even if I do then pretend to be living in 1980s LA by making my way to the Kennel Club for the evening.

C0ckwearers who enjoy needlessly exclusionary activities - why not join thecompanyofmen?

Comments

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

you're missing the crucial selling point of: Elastigirl = fox!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You reckon? Her readiness to accede to the human agenda put me right off her. I hate Quislings - see also Professor X.

And surely stretching powers are more of a selling point on males?

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

i'm all about the faces, sarllo, she's cute - her belief system can swing!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You can be so shallow sometimes!

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

heh! 'sometimes'!

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

Nice arse i thought!

[innerbrat]

She wants to raise her kids to fit well into society. Leave her alone.

Dude, she can get her legs around your neck while you're taking her from behind...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

OK, Mr Incredible went too far the other way (I can't believe he didn't see a set-up from miles off when he first went to the island) but she didn't tell Violet "Don't let people see you use your powers" - she told her not to use her powers. Wanting to play along with unjust laws like that and 'fit in' is the sort of thinking which saw ghetto councils collaborate with the German authorities in some misguided belief that they could ameliorate the situation.

And if she has that attitude, who's to say she'd even use the powers in such interesting ways as you suggest anymore?

[innerbrat]

She's not a ghetto council, she's a mother. It's one thing to campaign for justice and all that, but it's quite another to want your kids to be safe in society.
She wasn't perfect: she was ashamed of her powers and felt alienated by them. But unlike any other ethnic group, she could pretend not to have them.

If she's screwing Mr Incredible, she'd need to.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

But unlike any other ethnic group, she could pretend not to have them.

Um...that doesn't work. Just because you can hide things doesn't mean you should, also I would imagine that they would have all been much happier if they had stopped the laws coming into place, it's stupid to pretend you are 'normal' when you just aren't.

[innerbrat]

Look, I'm not justifying her actions. I'm saying they were understandable. Mothers tend to have a very narrow world vies, and all Elastigirl wanted to so was protect her kids, not campaign for equal rights.
Most people spend their entire life trying to be 'normal' when they probably shouldn't. That was the point of the film.

My point was: you'd still do her, wouldn't you?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

OK, I can buy that. Her and Mr I were both a bit daft in their response to the situation, albeit in opposite ways; I just have far more sympathy with his failing than hers.

I really didn't particularly fancy her, though. Maybe if we'd seen more of her before the ban or after it was lifted.

[innerbrat]

That's interesting, because I have less sympathy for him. I guess I'm too conservative: that's a scary thought, but I'm more of a 'change the system from within' type...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I hadn't consciously noted it until now, but The Incredibles and Victim make quite a good double bill on the difficulty of living under discriminatory laws.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

As events demonstrated, the best way to make sure they were safe was to train them in the full use of their powers.

"She wasn't perfect: she was ashamed of her powers and felt alienated by them. But unlike any other ethnic group, she could pretend not to have them."

I suppose Singer's X-Men films had already done a pretty definitive version of the gay subtext to that, and this was supposed to be a children's film...

[innerbrat]

As events demonstrated, the best way to make sure they were safe was to train them in the full use of their powers.
But it would have been a boring film if she'd known that from the beginning.

I suppose Singer's X-Men films had already done a pretty definitive version of the gay subtext to that, and this was supposed to be a children's film...
I would still have gone to see if she was gay.
In fact, I wouldn't have done anything else all week...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

True, many plots rely on a modicum of stupidity on the part of a key character. Even Shakespeare was often guilty of it.

[innerbrat]

If we're talking Shakespeare, "modicum" isn't the word.

In a good plot, it only becomes stupidity in hind sight, or at least is understandable.
As outsiders, we're continually saying things are stupid when in the situation in could be a normal thing to do.

As an example, if I'm sitting at home watching TV alone and I hear a noise upstairs, I investigate it. I should have been horribly murdered by now...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well...I can see why people would find it difficult to ask if they suspect they're being cheated on. Letting that get to the stage where they row pointlessly, fair enough. To the stage where you murder the other person without even checking on the allegations? Pretty damn dumb.

And going up with some form of improvised weapon is better than waiting for them to come downstairs and get the jump on you!

[innerbrat]

well, quite. I was thinking along the lines of "Wow, you changed clothes quickly, and you're acting differently and you seem a lot less like a girl in drag now, but I guess you must be the same person..."

"Improvised weapon" means "glass of wine" right?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I generally go for a whole bottle - full or empty, depending what's to hand. If you're in between then that can be a problem.

[innerbrat]

I meant I just wander up with the glass in my hand, because as yet it's never once been an axe murderer, or indeed anything I need a weapon bigger than a "yaygerroffoutyouflamingmoggy!"

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I am actually paranoid enough that if a noise bears investigation, it bears armed investigation.
I now want to investigate armed bears. I think I need sleep.

[innerbrat]

Well, see. the thing is, you're a paranoid freak, I'm a normal person.
But if people were watching us on a movie screen, I'd be the idiot blonde and you'd be the sensible one.

See how warped Movieland is?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Are you sure? I would have thought you'd be more intellectual than me simply because you wear glasses.

[innerbrat]

Doens't mean anything. They're still yelling at the screen "he's going to murder you you carzy four eyed freak! Get the Hell out of the house!"

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

She probably would since the end of the filum. And also being a nice monogamous married lady she would probably be all bendy for her husband.

I <3 Violet actually. I love that kind of shy girl becomes tough type roles...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You just liked her because she looked like publicansdecoy! ;p

I still wished she'd used some offensive force fields.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

well I imagine she would do eventually, I mean by the end of the filum she was even Asking Out Boys! She's well on her way to becoming a Bad Grrl. Or maybe that is just in my head...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I don't think we should get into what she's like in your head - this is a family Livejournal!

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

since when?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Since it started getting comments from my fictitious family?

[martylog.livejournal.com]

With you there, dude. Grrr.

[electrodeserter.livejournal.com]

The first time I saw Run Lola Run, I almost turned it off at the stage when they're repeating the words "the bag, the bag, the bag, the bag, the bag" over and over again, because I was grinding my teeth so hard that it was starting to hurt*. Now, it's probably one of my favourite films, because it's unashamedly silly and full of adrenaline. How far did you get?

* As happens with anything that starts self-importantly proclaiming itself to be Arty and Clever - I had the same reaction to the first twelve seconds or so of I Heart Huckabees and ended up enjoying that too.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

She was running to her dad's, and he was talking to some deeply annoying woman. I had just about managed to put up with the appalling animation but when I realised that much of the film would just be footage of a woman I didn't actually find that attractive running, I decided to cut my losses.

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

I havn't seen Run Lola Run since I left university, I thought it was pretty good from what i remember.

[exliontamer.livejournal.com]

The animation is the worst thing about the film IMHO. I really liked it, but it is definitely one of those things you have to be in the mood for. Not quite sure what that mood is, though.

xxx

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Drunk, perhaps. Or just with company, even. I suspect it might have worked as social viewing.

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

"I improvise Crouch End drinks, first in a bright old man pub and then in an underage chav pub"

You missed out 'Scary Irish Sports Pub', but yes, that pretty much encapsulates the Crouch End drinking experience.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think that may have been the one which was originally intended, but evacuated before I arrived on grounds of rampant footballism.