mellicious (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mellicious) wrote2007-11-22 07:25 pm
mellicious) wrote2007-11-22 07:25 pm
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The giving of thanks, and all that
I have what appears to be Spanish comment spam on the quilt weblog. I can't recall having ever had that before. Actually I haven't had any comment spam at all in a good while, which is nice. Maybe Blogger's been doing something that catches more of it. (Well, come to think of it, they're owned by Google now, and Gmail already had the best spam filter I've seen yet, so maybe that is not a coincidence.)
We had a very nice and stress-free Thanksgiving dinner. The one entree I can cook well without looking at a recipe is my mother's pot roast, and that's what I made. (It's very simple. You take a roast - we found a nice little Angus one - and you set it on a big sheet of foil inside a pan. Then you dump a whole package of onion soup mix on top of it, and add some salt and pepper, and then put a can of cream of mushroom soup on top of that. Then you fold the foil up around it to close it up. Bake for a couple of hours, open up the package a few minutes early so the top will brown, and voila! Roast in its own mushroom-and-onion-flavored gravy!) We had roast and salad and rolls, and Rob decided he wanted stuffing and mashed potatoes - talk about starch overload - so he fixed those himself. The stuffing came in a plastic container; I think it was Country Crock brand, and he said it was good. And we put it all on Grandma's china and sat down at the table with a tablecloth and everything and had a lovely meal. We were very happy with it, and when Rob loaded his plate up with all those multiple starchy things it looked like Thanksgiving dinner, too!
And we went to see Beowulf. Now, I'm ashamed to admit this, but I've never actually read the thing - and don't ask me how I managed to major in English without reading it, because I don't know. So I have no real idea how close they stayed with the story. (Hmm, going by the story summary in Wikipedia, parts are close and parts, not so much.) But it was certainly watchable and interesting, and oh my god, the animation was gorgeous. Honestly, from time to time I forgot it wasn't live-action. (Which is sorta odd, when you think about it. If live-action and animation become indistinguishable, what's the point, exactly? Well, except for cool underwater fights with dragons and things, which would be a bit difficult to do live-action.) And I have to admit that a tear might have been shed at the end. Just a tiny one.
We had a very nice and stress-free Thanksgiving dinner. The one entree I can cook well without looking at a recipe is my mother's pot roast, and that's what I made. (It's very simple. You take a roast - we found a nice little Angus one - and you set it on a big sheet of foil inside a pan. Then you dump a whole package of onion soup mix on top of it, and add some salt and pepper, and then put a can of cream of mushroom soup on top of that. Then you fold the foil up around it to close it up. Bake for a couple of hours, open up the package a few minutes early so the top will brown, and voila! Roast in its own mushroom-and-onion-flavored gravy!) We had roast and salad and rolls, and Rob decided he wanted stuffing and mashed potatoes - talk about starch overload - so he fixed those himself. The stuffing came in a plastic container; I think it was Country Crock brand, and he said it was good. And we put it all on Grandma's china and sat down at the table with a tablecloth and everything and had a lovely meal. We were very happy with it, and when Rob loaded his plate up with all those multiple starchy things it looked like Thanksgiving dinner, too!
And we went to see Beowulf. Now, I'm ashamed to admit this, but I've never actually read the thing - and don't ask me how I managed to major in English without reading it, because I don't know. So I have no real idea how close they stayed with the story. (Hmm, going by the story summary in Wikipedia, parts are close and parts, not so much.) But it was certainly watchable and interesting, and oh my god, the animation was gorgeous. Honestly, from time to time I forgot it wasn't live-action. (Which is sorta odd, when you think about it. If live-action and animation become indistinguishable, what's the point, exactly? Well, except for cool underwater fights with dragons and things, which would be a bit difficult to do live-action.) And I have to admit that a tear might have been shed at the end. Just a tiny one.
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The way I see it, it allows this guy to look like this one. I like the idea of casting actors for what they bring to the table other than their looks.
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I think they picked the right voice for the character.
For me, the animation was absolutely gorgeous when it was in closeup in important scenes. There were definitely parts where the animation was less-than-impressive, but those are the group scenes or fast action that really wasn't critical to the story. Like, when the characters were spilling mead all over their faces in the beginning. It made me squirm a bit and worry that I wouldn't get past the animation issues. But then the story kicked into gear and I threw my caring about the animation to the wind. But man, some of the closeup scenes, especially with just Beowulf and Wiglaf or Grendel's Mom? Awesome, since you can see every bit of emotion on the character's faces.
They've come a LONG way since Polar Express.
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