Lurker Central

This week's fannish5: Every bad movie or series seems to have one character that's too good for it, or even makes an otherwise dreadful thing worth sitting through. Who are your five favorite characters from things you otherwise hated, or would have hated without them?

( mild spoilers for The Postman, Wing Commander, Forgotten Realms, Boondock Saints and Jumper )

I'm watching an episode of Monk on demand right now, and this guy is the most jovial murderer I've ever seen.

***

I confirmed the other day that my car CD player can play mp3 CDs, and let me tell you, it is glorious. My Zen is ancient and won't sync up with Vista (and I've lost the disc for it, anyway) so for the past few months I've been doing without. This is almost like having my Zen all over again. Nothing improves a dark commute like belting out "Holy Diver" at the top of your lungs. (Has anyone actually listened to the lyrics of that song? They're gloriously nonsensical. "Ride the tiger/You can see his stripes so you know he's clean/Oh don't you see what I meeeaaaaaaannnnnnn?" That is just wonderful nonsense.)

***

From last week's fannish5:Five canon moments that turned a casual fandom into a hardcore fandom for you.

Heroes: Peter goes to rescue Claire in "Homecoming." I love comics, so obviously I was a fan of Heroes from the beginning but Peter going in to rescue Claire even though he had no powers, no plan and was very sure that is was going to get him killed won my love. I can never resist heroes who do the right thing because dammit, someone has to do it, especially when doing the right thing can cause the hero nothing but trouble. Claude going back to rescue Peter from Mohinder's apartment a few episodes later provoked the same reaction (Is it really any surprise I shipped them?)

Doctor Who: "Dalek." "I saw it happen. I made it happen." And then Rose saving him at the end, just by standing there and not letting him fall. Oh, Doctor. That episode ripped out my heart and danced a tango on it.

Sherlock Holmes: "The Norwich Builder" (Granada TV series) There's a scene in "The Norwich Builder" where Jeremy Brett's Holmes is examining a crime for clues and steps up on a narrow railing with such grace that I remarked that if D&D elves were real, that was how they would move. I don't know why it struck me so much, but it did; it helped that TNB is one of those few cases where Holmes is at a loss which makes his solving the crime all the more satisfying. And then the next episode was "The Blue Carbuncle," where Holmes looks at a hat for a few hours and deduces that a man's wife no longer loves him. I never had a chance.

Kushiel's Legacy: There's a scene in the first book where Phedre gets kidnapped and her sworn bodyguard is forced to creep underneath a bridge to be able to rescue her undetected. And he didn't even like her, but dammit, he'd sworn vows. I have a big weakness for Knight Templar types and Joscelin hits a lot of those buttons; that scene was when I finally forgave him for being Phedre's love interest and not the childhood friend I'd been shipping her with.:) And I was already enthralled with the book, but that was when it tipped over from, "Oh, this is cool!" to "Well, no going to class for me today."

Watchmen: The Handshake. Have I mentioned that I am helpless before unlikely yet passionate friendships? Or that Rorschach and Nite Owl remind me of a deeply crazy version of Wyatt and Doc from Tombstone?

Open letter to Dunkin' Donuts:

Look, you know I love you, right? That my work day doesn't start without a big cup of your caffeine goodness? Good. Now, I appreciate that you're trying to be slightly more healthy, but I have to tell you that angel food cake is nothing like a muffin. Not even if you make it muffin shaped. Really. That was not a happy breakfast.

And I hate your new slogan. The last thing I want to be reminded of when I'm in a caffeine-deprived haze is Rob Schneider. Change it, please.

***

This week's fannish5: Pick a reality tv show and list 5 characters you would like to see compete on that show. Bonus question: who would win?

I can't decide who I'd want to see on Project Runway more, the cast of Torchwood or the cast of Bones. I think they would need to compete for maximum awesomeness. Brennen would make something comfortable and practical and be completely flummoxed when she got low scores. Angela would take Tosh under her wing and the two of them would turn out the best team challenges in the history of the show; meanwhile, Owen would hit on all of the models while Jack would set his sights higher and flirt like crazy with Tim Gunn. And Booth would be really, really good at this, for reasons he would refuse to get into.

And one of the judges would turn out to be an alien, because that's how Torchwood rolls.

ETA: OMG guys, Amazon marketplace has the B5 series 5-pack for $131.49. Someone talk me out of this.

I realized something hilarious about the new Doctor. Follow with me:

( Cut for those who want to know absolutely nothing about 11 )

This week's fannish5: What 5 fannish things are you looking forward to in 2009?

1) G.I. Joe. I'm a big fan of the comics and there's no reason this can't be an kick-ass movie. Add in Chistorpher Eccleston playing Destro (my favorite character) and this is a movie I could potentially lose my fannish mind about if it's even close to competent. Even if the just get the Destro/Baroness dynamic right and screw everything else up I'll probably see it three times, just to bask in one of my all time OTPs.

2) Dragonball. This is going to be awesomely bad, people.

3) Wolverine: Origins. Yes, yes, epic Wolverine vs. Sabretooth smackdown, Deadpool, Weapon X, that's all great but I've been waiting half my life to see Gambit in a movie. Everything else is just a bonus.:)

4) Watchmen. I don't think this really needs explanation.

5) Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. And not just the movie, but the epic wankplosion between new fans and classic-flavor fans if the movie's a hit, especially as slash-happy fangirls blunder into areas of fandom where slash is Not On. Holmes fandom has had over one hundred years to perfect ship wars and wanking about minutie. It's going to be kind of glorious.

fannish5: Five favorite (or most memorable) lines of dialogue.

1) "A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it."
--Doc Holliday to Wyatt Earp, Tombstone

Wyatt is trying to figure out Johnny Ringo right before the climactic duel and asks Doc for some enlightenment. What's clear by the way Val Kilmer delivers this line is that Doc has this insight into Ringo because he believes he has his own empty hole and that deep down he and and Ringo are the same. The wordless dismay on Wyatt's face as he realizes where Doc's going with this is just fantastic, subtle acting. It's my favorite scene in the movie, even topping the death bed scene that makes me teary every time I watch it.

2) "You can tame a dog with food and you can buy a man with money, but no one can tame a wolf of Mibu."
--Saitou Hajime, Rurouni Kenshin

Saitou's my favorite anime character and is easily on my top ten list of favorite characters, period. He says this line after the corrupt official he's investigating tries to bribe him, believing that because the new government as largely abandoned the samurai code, Saitou has too. Three guess how that works out.:)

3) "We can't stop here! This is bat country!"
--The Duke, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

This line has me falling off the couch laughing no matter how many times I see the movie (or read the book, but Johnny Depp's delivery is perfect). I once downloaded a song solely because it was titled "Bat Country."

4) "Evidently I think you're a better man than they do."
--Claude to Noah, Heroes

Oh, Claude.

5) "YOU WOULD MAKE A GOOD DA-LEK."
--Dalek to the Doctor, Doctor Who

Before this scene Doctor Who was a pretty nifty show that I liked. Then this episode aired and I lost my mind, and before I knew it I had two shelves of DVDs and was writing fanfic again for the first time in years. This line was the tipping point, mostly due to the way you see the Doctor visibly break immediately after.

I have no idea how to make vids. For all I know, vidders actually control vast faerie legions that live in their hard drives and assemble all of the clips in proper order.

But were I to control my own vidding faerie army, this very first vid I would make would be a Jackie POV vid to "Daughter" by Danzig. (The second would be a Ninth Doctor/Rose vid to "The Dolphin's Cry" by Live. Listen to it and tell me it's not their song.) That's exactly how she sees the Docter for most of S1: as an out-size boogeyman who's come to steal away her daughter.

Mother
Tell your children not to walk my way
Tell your children not to hear my words
What they mean
What they say
Mother

Mother
Can you keep them in the dark for life
Can you hide them from the waiting world
Oh mother

The second verse even has the line, "Tell your children not to hold my hand.":)

Switching gears, this weeks fannish5: What are five favorite comic book adaptations?

I'm limiting answers to Western comics, not manga, and to comics I've actually read a decent amount of (otherwise Sin City would be on the list.)

1) Iron Man: Best comic movie ever. Full stop. I don't even like Tony Stark in the comics, but man do I love this movie.

2) Batman Begins: This (to me) is the first of the Batman movies to have both a credible Bruce Wayne and Batman. And I loved the Ra's al Ghul twist at the end.

3) Batman: the Animated Series: I don't think Batman Begins would have been made without the influence of the animated series. Mark Hamill voices the definitive Joker, and it's easy to forget that Harley Quinn wouldn't exist without this show.

4) Smallville: It's been kind of shaky the past few seasons, but man, do I love my Big Gay Show. "Zero" and "Jitters" still rip my heart out, and this is another DC series that's so good it's started to bleed into main continuity: noticed how the Kents have dropped about twnty years since Smallville aired? And did anyone else see how Lex's dad is being drawn now?:)

5) X-Men: the Animated Series: This is a cheat, because I watched this before reading X-Men, but this show is the reason I started reading X-Men. I'll always consider the core team from this show to be my team, changes to actual continuity be damned.:)

There is absolutely infuriating real life drama going on right now, and I need something happy and fannish to distract me.

fannish5: What five events or storylines do you want to see happen (or wish had happened) in canon?

1) Heroes: For some reason (massive trauma, overload of powers, what have you) Peter's powers short circuit and completely stop working, forcing him to start over again from the ground up. This would eventually force him to track down Claude, since he would figure, Hey, he's the guy who helped me figure this out in the first place. I really, really want Claude to come back, even though I'm certain that showing up again will get him killed. I also want to know he was hiding, but I think everyone wants that.

2) Heroes: (again) Last season, my favorite fantasy storyline was that something would happen to Niki and/or DL and Micah would have to go on the run. While hiding out in Vegas, he would run into Claude, who would be similarly on the run, and they would form the most awesome team ever. At the time I was extremely frustrated with Niki and wanted to rescue Micah from her storyline, and no possibility entertained me more than Claude mentoring him in the fine art of felonies. Those two would rule Vegas.

3) Torchwood: The team is investigating some kind of alien plot when they run into trouble with a reporter who knows just a little bit more than she should --- a reporter named Sara Jane Smith. Mostly I want to see how long it takes Sara and Jack to figure out just how much they have in common, and the look on Jack's face as he puts two and two together when someone asks how seems to know so much, and she responds, "I learned it from dear friend of mine. We traveled together for a while, when I was younger." Jack needs someone to grab him by the shoulders and give him a good shaking, and I think Sara's the woman to do it. Also, he would mack on her, which would be a thing of beauty.

4) Doctor Who: I want Jamie to show up (obviously, he would have recovered his memories somewhere along the way.) Nothing would make me happier than for the Doctor to get into trouble in Scotland and have this grizzled old Scotsman come from nowhere and save his life. It would be like when the Doctor saw Sara again several times over, because Jamie isn't even supposed to remember him.

5) Deadwood: The very second Wyatt showed up I was waiting for Doc Holliday to join him. The interplay between Wyatt (the natural lawman trying so hard not to be one), Bullock (another natural lawman coming out of a very dark place in a very dark town) and Doc (chaos on two legs) would have been gold. GOLD, people.