Joyce: Uh, look! It’s, uh, Nigerian. We got a very exciting shipment in at the Gallery. I, um, thought I’d hang a few pieces in here. It cheers up the room.
Buffy: It’s angry at the room, Mom. It wants the room to suffer.
Joyce: You have no appreciation of primitive art. You going out?
Buffy: Oh. Um . . . well, i-if it’s okay. I, um . . . I’d like to find Willow and Xander.
Joyce: Will you be slaying?
Buffy: Only if they give me lip.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Season 3: Episode 2 – “Dead Man’s Party”
Somewhere in the distance they could hear Peeves zooming through the corridors singing a victory song of his own composition:
We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter’s the one,
And Voldy’s gone moldy, so now let’s have fun!
“Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn’t it?” said Ron, pushing open a door to let Harry and Hermione through.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling
Mockingjay, the final book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, always felt unfilmable to me. It broke drastically from the formula of the previous books, with no true Hunger Games as a part of the plot, covering instead a vast, complex revolution through the eyes of a damaged, broken, hopeless teenager. It was epic in scale yet filled with intimate, intense, but often internal emotions. It required basically reintroducing the audience to the universe, now filled with entirely different situations and concerns than of which we were aware in the first two books. And to cap it all off, it was one of the most dark, tragic, violent, and depressing finales to a beloved sci-fi series in recent memory. So the fact that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 not only works as a cohesive narrative, but is about as good a film version of an unfilmable book as possible, is praiseworthy, even if it struggles at times under the weight of its own story as well as immense expectations.
Mal: What the hell?
(Inara punches him.)
Inara: Don’t you dare speak to me. Sheriff, I want this man bound by law at once. That’s assuming he hasn’t been already?
Sheriff: No one’s been bound, not yet.
Inara: Thank God you stopped them. (to Mal) Did you honestly think you could access my accounts and I wouldn’t find you? And Zoe, what would your husband say if he knew you were here?
Zoe: I… I was weak.
Sheriff: So I take it they ain’t newlyweds?
Inara: Hardly. Malcolm’s my indentured man, with three years left on his debt. I imagine we’ll have to add another six months after this little adventure.
Sheriff: (re: onlookers) You’ll have to pardon them. Don’t think a one of ’em’s ever seen a registered Companion before.
Inara: I apologize for my manner.
Sheriff: Oh, not a bit.
Inara: Should I contact my ship? Do you need to hold them very much longer?
Sheriff: Looks to me like we’re about done here. I, uh. We had some unrelated trouble. His story had kind of an odor to it.
Inara: Yes, it’s not the only thing about him that does. Thank you, very much Sheriff. (to Mal and Zoe) Come along.
Firefly – Episode 2 – “The Train Job”
Things are moving pretty quickly on Agents of SHIELD these days. Last week seemingly dealt with the Lash problem for the time being, only for it to pop back up again this week. We got the truth about Rosalind and the ATCU, more of Ward’s plan for HYDRA, and some new clues to Powers Boothe’s Gideon, all tied together with a new threat to SHIELD and humanity. Oh, and perhaps the most important FitzSimmons moment yet! Things are building rapidly towards the midseason finale (just two more episodes!), so let’s get right into “Many Heads, One Tale” written by Jed Whedon and DJ Doyle and directed by Garry A. Brown.
‘Listen, Jack,’ he said, smiling. ‘Put your ear firmly to the top and listen while I tap.’ The parcel gave a sudden momentary hum. ‘Did you hear? That shows they are queen-right – that no harm has come to their queen. But we must open it at once; they must have air. There! A glass hive. Is it not ingenious, charming? I have always wanted to keep bees.’
‘But how in God’s name do you expect to keep bees in a man-of-war?’ cried Jack. ‘Where in God’s name do you expect them to find flowers, at sea? How will they eat?’
‘You can see their every motion,’ said Stephen, close against the glass, entranced. ‘Oh, as for their feeding, never fret your anxious mind; they will feed with us upon a saucer of sugar, at stated intervals. If the ingenious Monsieur Huber can keep bees, and he blind, the poor man, surely we can manage in a great spacious xebec?’
‘This is a frigate.’
‘Let us never split hairs, for all love. There is the queen! Come, look at the queen!’
‘How many of these reptiles might there be?’ asked Jack, holding pretty much aloof.
‘Oh, sixty thousand or so, I dare say,’ said Stephen carelessly. ‘And when it comes on to blow, we will ship gimbals for the hive. This will preserve them from undue lateral motion.’
‘You think of almost everything,’ said Jack. ‘Well, I will wear the bees, like Damon and Pythagoras – ho, a mere sixty thousand bees in the cabin don’t signify, much. But I tell you what it is, Stephen: you don’t always think of quite everything.’
‘You refer to the queen’s being a virgin?’ said Stephen.
‘Not really. No. What I really meant was, that this is a crack frigate.’
‘I am delighted to hear it. There she goes – she lays an egg! You need not fear for her virginity, Jack.’
Post Captain – Patrick O’Brian
The Love Pirate 