Still here.
Dec. 31st, 2010 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marshtide1. Wot I Watched On My Holidays:
Fucking Åmål is a really great film. I only just got around to seeing it; I'm extremely bad at films, but it's been on my list for ages.
It is:
a. lesbian! hoorah!
&
b. a remarkably convincing depiction of being a teenager in a way which is uncomfortable but which I could still actually watch. God, aren't you glad you're not 14 any more?
Huset silfverkronas gåta is an old Swedish children's TV series made of socialism and also socialism. I really liked it. It is about time travel and hidden treasure also the oppression of the working classes. Bless it. It's really strangely structured - all the really dramatic things tend to happen off-stage and it breaks for recap or commentary pretty often. But it manages to make this a feature rather than a bug. Not completely sure how, but it ended up feeling unusual in a good rather than an annoying way.
The treasure, naturally, can only be recovered when SOCIALISM. No socialism, no treasure.
The actors they had for the children in the series were really good, and their interaction with adults was the most natural I've seen on TV in ages.
Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton is a christmas story, naturally. Or, uh, kind of. We sat down and watched this one on christmas eve... I thought it was hilarious and I have absolutely no idea how to describe it. But it's basically the best christmas story evah. Based on a short story by Tage Danielsson (naturally renowned for being a very serious man and not one to parody anything).
2. Wot I read:
Hagio Moto's A drunken dream and other stories is the most noteworthy. I'm really impressed with it, both as an actual volume and as stories - even though I don't think she gets the thing she's after every time she often gets something really interesting, even if only as a glimpse. A few stories feel more conventional but most push buttons in one way or another. Iguana Girl was probably my favourite story, but there was one about cojoined twins that I thought worked really well too, and one about three art students... I can't remember their titles offhand. But it has a lot of very good stuff in, basically. And it's beautiful.
I also read a book on Moominvalley, Familjen i dalen (the family in the valley) by Boel Westin. I think that since I have the books really fresh in my mind there was a bit too much recapping of the stories for me, but when she had points to make they were good, and I'm sure if it'd been longer since I'd read the books I'd have appreciated the recapping more as well (as it was, I skimmed it, except for when it was about the very first moomin book which isn't really around any more/got written out of moomin canon by Tove Jansson).
3. I had a pretty good if occasionally surreal christmas. I'm re-training myself, basically, since it's a whole other set of traditions, which is an odd feeling (though not a bad one). Valborg injured herself, in a way which just serious enough to add drama to the day but just unserious enough to avoid a hospital visit. Presents were had; most of them were books; and it was good!
It will take some more work before I am completely comfortable with the texture of pickled herring, though.
Fucking Åmål is a really great film. I only just got around to seeing it; I'm extremely bad at films, but it's been on my list for ages.
It is:
a. lesbian! hoorah!
&
b. a remarkably convincing depiction of being a teenager in a way which is uncomfortable but which I could still actually watch. God, aren't you glad you're not 14 any more?
Huset silfverkronas gåta is an old Swedish children's TV series made of socialism and also socialism. I really liked it. It is about time travel and hidden treasure also the oppression of the working classes. Bless it. It's really strangely structured - all the really dramatic things tend to happen off-stage and it breaks for recap or commentary pretty often. But it manages to make this a feature rather than a bug. Not completely sure how, but it ended up feeling unusual in a good rather than an annoying way.
The treasure, naturally, can only be recovered when SOCIALISM. No socialism, no treasure.
The actors they had for the children in the series were really good, and their interaction with adults was the most natural I've seen on TV in ages.
Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton is a christmas story, naturally. Or, uh, kind of. We sat down and watched this one on christmas eve... I thought it was hilarious and I have absolutely no idea how to describe it. But it's basically the best christmas story evah. Based on a short story by Tage Danielsson (naturally renowned for being a very serious man and not one to parody anything).
2. Wot I read:
Hagio Moto's A drunken dream and other stories is the most noteworthy. I'm really impressed with it, both as an actual volume and as stories - even though I don't think she gets the thing she's after every time she often gets something really interesting, even if only as a glimpse. A few stories feel more conventional but most push buttons in one way or another. Iguana Girl was probably my favourite story, but there was one about cojoined twins that I thought worked really well too, and one about three art students... I can't remember their titles offhand. But it has a lot of very good stuff in, basically. And it's beautiful.
I also read a book on Moominvalley, Familjen i dalen (the family in the valley) by Boel Westin. I think that since I have the books really fresh in my mind there was a bit too much recapping of the stories for me, but when she had points to make they were good, and I'm sure if it'd been longer since I'd read the books I'd have appreciated the recapping more as well (as it was, I skimmed it, except for when it was about the very first moomin book which isn't really around any more/got written out of moomin canon by Tove Jansson).
3. I had a pretty good if occasionally surreal christmas. I'm re-training myself, basically, since it's a whole other set of traditions, which is an odd feeling (though not a bad one). Valborg injured herself, in a way which just serious enough to add drama to the day but just unserious enough to avoid a hospital visit. Presents were had; most of them were books; and it was good!
It will take some more work before I am completely comfortable with the texture of pickled herring, though.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 04:21 pm (UTC)Also, Karl-Bertil Jonssons jul is THE best Christmas story in the history of ever. I watch it ever Christmas Eve on the telly. It is so glorious in its utterly non-snide, unironic lack of sarcasm and and gentle jibes. Um. 8D It just isn't Jul without it, and I'm so chuffed that you enjoyed it. ♥ Also, in America it would be illegal to show before 2100 on account of nipples. :D/
no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 04:32 pm (UTC)and communism!
Yeah, I am... not completely convinced by the herring. One could say. Various other christmas foodstuffs were really good, though, so it worked out!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 04:41 pm (UTC)"Jag har närat en Kommunist vid min barm!" Dad and I await that line with much glee every time. XD
There is usually something for everyone on a fully stacked Christmas dinner table. Except maybe for vegetarians. >_>;
Happy new year to you all, and I hope Val didn't get too crippled! Injury is no fun and should go away. ♥
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 11:40 am (UTC)Quite. Val got vegetarian versions of the traditional things instead. XD;
It was a cheese-slicing accident. She is now able to tie her own shoe-laces again, anyway. Happy new year (belatedly) to you too!
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Date: 2010-12-31 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 11:38 am (UTC)The book I've been reading about muminvalley had a really good bit about sent i november, by the way - about Toft as a representation of Tove (which I had always had a very strong sense of) and the idea that part of what she was doing with that book was pulling apart the mythology of the family that had built up and reclaiming a version of them for herself that was allowed to be private again and free from everyone else's preconceptions; hence the audience being shut out of the family's return. I kind of wish Boel Westin's books on the Mumin books and on Tove Jansson were translated into English, though I guess there is probably not the market. They're excellent, though. I'm reading her biography of Tove now.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 09:57 pm (UTC)I don't blame you for not being comfortable with the texture of the herring.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 11:41 am (UTC)