fragments

[incandescens]

For no particular reason, I'm drawing up a list of films I like to the point of grabbing people and trying to force them to watch them. Not in alphabetical order, hm . . .

Brotherhood of the Wolf
Onmyouji
Scaramouche
The Three Musketeers & The Four Musketeers (come on, they're linked -- this is the version with Charlton Heston, Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Faye Dunaway, Michael York, etc, and it is still the version to my mind)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Matrix
The Princess Bride
Labyrinth
the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy
Belleville Rendezvous

This is by no means a complete list, it's just the first few that come into my head.

I'm also daydreaming about getting one or more cats, and naming them from the name-subset of (Tazendra, Aerich, Pel, Khaavren) as appropriate. It'll go away. Maybe some day when I'm living solo or with someone else who thinks it's a neat idea.

Wrote the first couple of characters for the work-awayday Murder Game today, and showed them to my two collaborators. They laughed, and they said that yes, if they were playing it, they would be quite happy and quite sure of what to do with characters drawn up like that. Good. That's reassuring. Six to go, plus a reasonable amount of extraneous material. I'd be half-tempted to try to publish this afterwards, except that it depends on a reasonable knowledge of (a) the NHS, (b) clinical coding, so probably not. Ah well. It'll have been fun just to have got them all playing it.

---

The Garden of the Golden Valley

Stories of passion make sweet dust,
Calm water, grasses unconcerned.
At sunset, when birds cry in the wind,
Like a girl's robe fall the petals.

-- Tu Mu, translated by Witter Bynner

Comments

[prodigal.livejournal.com]

The Three Musketeers & The Four Musketeers (come on, they're linked -- this is the version with Charlton Heston, Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Faye Dunaway, Michael York, etc, and it is still the version to my mind)

It's the only real film version of the Three Musketeers to date. Oliver Reed's performance leaves me in despair of ever being that good in any part I ever get cast in.

[incandescens]

He does marvellously in the role. (Mind you, it is a brilliant role for him.) But they all do. And they've got a gorgeous script to work with. "Be advised, Gascon. Turn and run!"

Admittedly there is one point that I always twitch at. It's when Milady's being hauled off by the executioner of Lille, and d'Artagnan moves to save her. Athos says, "One more step, d'Artagnan, and we cross swords." (That's from the book, direct.) Then he adds, "And this time I won't hold back." (That's not from the book, and it's . . . unnecessary.)

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

It'll go away.
For your sake, I hope so . . .

I'd be half-tempted to try to publish this afterwards

You could print it privately (as in hie thee to a copy shop). D'you have anything equivalent to a corporate newsletter or trade journal that could do a small article on your thingie? (Trade journals, which are inherently dull, are perpetually looking for anything halfway interesting to do articles on.) If mentioned there, and others knew it was available, they might be interested in ordering a copy for their own training sessions.

(Is the movie list going to be longer than this? Curious.)

[copperbird.livejournal.com]

I bet you could print it up, you know. If it goes well, then you know that at least other coding departments might be interested in running it ...

(btw, films I always end up pushing on people are: "Le Bossu" and the first season of Black Books)

[incandescens]

That could be amusing. Will have to see how it goes -- beta-testing and all that.

("Le Bossu" is another excellent one, together with a French film that I remember as "d'Artagnan's Daughter" but which can't actually have been titled that, which has a glorious red herring involving a shopping list that gets misplaced at the beginning of the story being assumed to be a Secret Coded Message and treated as such throughout the plot.)

[copperbird.livejournal.com]

It was called D'Artagnan's Daughter! I remember seeing it at some cinema (the lumiere?) up in London.

[incandescens]

Yes! And the heroine was the actress who later played the villainess in the Bond movie >The World Is Not Enough, iirc, and did a much better job as the heroine here.

But really, how can one not have fun with a part like the one they gave her?

It was a good movie. Maybe not shatteringly brilliant, maybe a little over-long, but a good movie.

(Do you remember the bit where de Mazarin's codebreakers are trying to analyse the love poem that the hero wrote to the heroine in order to discover the secret message that is (not) concealed in it?)

[incandescens]

I could see if the team wants me to put it up on the NHSIA website. :) Points against this are that it is just a _touch_ uncomplimentary to professions in the NHS other than "clinical coder" . . .

"You are an Orthopaedic Consultant at St Doomed, and are extremely proud of your work. Anyone who criticizes your waiting times, your success rates, or your handling of patients, is either an utter idiot or merely consumed by jealousy. Poor fools. Naturally you don't pay much attention to all the Project Manager's chattering about doing less private work or cutting short your expensive long vacations skiing in the Alps. What would she know? You're the consultant, which makes you God."

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

Well, of course the clinical coders would be sterling and heroic.

Mm. This reminds me of a medical book I'd worked on a few years back on "clinical communication." It was a how-to handbook for physicians on dealing with their patients, and it included such helpful suggestions as showering regularly, using deodorant, and wearing clean clothing as well as listening to patients when they talk, resisting the urge to interrupt them, and looking at them once in a while.

Oh lord.

[incandescens]

(twitches) I don't think any of the ones at the hospital where I used to work were quite that bad, but it says something that I can easily imagine such a book being useful . . .

[incandescens]

Have no immediate plans to make the movie list longer, though will mutter about more if they come to mind; was just writing down the first few that I thought of yesterday.

As for cats, all I really have to do is imagine them sitting on the computer keyboard while I try to type, and suddenly the idea becomes less enthusing.

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in the expanded edition, where you elaborate on why you'd be dragging new viewers to their doooom. (I like a number of them as well.)

Most people have Crazy Cat Lady status thrust upon them. I'm just amused by anyone who seeks it out. ;)

[incandescens]

Let me think about it. :)

Heh. Perhaps it's just the urge to have a warm cuddly Tazendra in my lap.

[rvdammit.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen Onmyouji, Scaramouche or Belleville Rendezvous.

[incandescens]

They're worth seeing, believe me. :)