Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

It's December, apparently!

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
Our Man Flint (1966)
Holiday (1938)
Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
Scanners (1981)
Whip It (2009)

sol_se hadn't seen the original Little Shop of Horrors, so we watched it. It's a difficult film to judge, because it is so tossed off, but it's fun.

I gave in and bought an HBO Max subscription and Our Man Flint was the first thing I gravitated to. It's a spy spoof starring James Coburn as a secret agent who has all of the answers all of the time.

Holiday, another delightful Katharine Hepburn/Cary Grant team-up, was on Criterion Channel, so I had to show sol_se.

I'm pretty spoiled by the Branagh version, so I found Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing middling. Some of the actors just could not get their heads around their dialogue.

HEADSPLOSION

In honor of Elliot Page, we watched a film in his earlier oeuvre. It was fine. Both sol_se and I felt it could have been more tightly edited. Elliot was quite good, though.

So, in the letters column of the BtVS Riley one-shot, there was an announcement about upcoming Whedon-related Dark Horse projects, including "the return of  the Angel series to Dark Horse." IDW, the current publisher of Angel comics, is still prepping a statement. Not surprisingly, the Whedonesque thread on the Dark Horse/Angel blindside has exploded, largely from a very vocal segment of Angel fans who seem to view this as de facto character assassination (don't ask me how).

And I can't. stop. reading. 

I'm a horrible person.

I may have just made a new icon based on the entirely awesome Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog teaser.

Maybe.

I don't care if I own the DVDs. There's something entirely hot about watching "Firefly" being broadcast like normal television. And in order!

Good times...

Little known fact: I own fireflyserenity.net

Further little known fact: I'm doing nothing with it.

So... any suggestions?

So, desertwillow and I woke up early Thursday so we could make it to Los Angeles in time for the screening of Serenity (yup, that Serenity). It was a long, awesome trip where we listened to music and talked about our families and other things. She's just awesome.

We arrived at airawyn's around 12:30 -- way early. So we three hung out at some shops in Hollywood. Didn't buy anything, but some of it was damned tempting (like a script for "The Body"). Then we headed out so we could be early for the Serenity showing. In line, we met up with lizbetann, diannelamerc, veggiebelle, and redefining_self (who, it turns out, is way cool).

( Serenity thoughts - no Spoilers )

We headed back to airawyn's, where desertwillow and I were inadvertantly locked out for about five minutes. Whoops. Then we all crashed. Good times.

Angel and Dawn have always had a curious relationship, in that in one sense they have three years of solid history together, but in another they've only had one communication on-screen ever (and that was Angelus, with only his side of the conversation seen).
( This got sort of long )

This is something of an embarrassing confession, being male and a Buffy fanfic writer. I've had a few recent additions to my fanfic awareness bubble and I've taken to perusing their profiles. It's come to my attention that I automatically assume that a Buffy fanfic writer is female unless I'm otherwise informed.

How ridiculous is that? There's nothing about "Buffy" that makes it more orientated to the female writer than the male. Indeed, there's nothing about men that makes them less likely than women to key into the "Buffy" fanfic world. Hell, I write fanfic (I just don't finish it), and I'm male.

Maybe it comes from experience. I've been involved in a couple of LJ RPs in my time, and I'm usually one only a few males. Once I was the only one. In the one major fanfiction group writing project I've done, I was the only guy (and also, incidentally, the youngest by a few years).

So, I guess the real question is - where are the good male Buffy fanfic writers? I know they exist. I've read their work. But why is it such a minority that I actually find myself shocked when I discover one?

So, here's a little survey for the guys out there:

1) Do you write "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction?
2) Do you feel that you're in a gender minority in the Jossian fanfic circles?
3) How would you describe your fanfiction? What genres, 'ships, etc. do you write in?
4) What genres, 'ships, etc. would you absolutely avoid?

And for everybody:

5) Why do you think there's a gender imbalance in "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction writing?
6) Does this trend extend to all fanfiction?
7) Do you find it's more difficult for a writer to win your readership, based on their gender? Why?

Please pimp this out, start a dialogue. I'm interested in the answers and the discussion resulting from those answers.

I have successfully hooked my mother and her husband on Firefly. They're eagerly awaiting the release of Serenity in September.

Oh yeah.

In other news, I went on the local Art Walk tonight. 'twas fun.

I'm creating a vid for the last half of Angel S5, from Soul Purpose on. I have HDTV rips of 5x10, 5x14, and 5x16-5x22 (okay, my 5x19 is shoddy and not even in the right aspect ratio). I can do without Damage, Why We Fight, and A Hole in the World (the recap at the beginning of Shells conveniently covers all the parts in 5x15 that I need), but I can't do without You're Welcome.

I tried Suprnova and no joy. Anybody know where I can get this, preferably in a high-def TV rip?