Buffy: Willow, you okay?
Willow: Yeah, I’m fine. Th-the shaking is, is a side effect of the fear.
Giles: Thank you.
Buffy: Well, if it wasn’t for that clouding spell…
Willow: Yeah, it went good! Nothing melted like last time!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Season 3: Episode 13 — “The Zeppo”
I should have known. When a lady down in the front of my full theater pulled out her cell phone during the pre-show warning to turn off your cell phone in order to scroll through an email full of pictures with her husband, zooming in on each one and discussing it, and continued doing this into Eye in the Sky’s opening credits until I yelled for her to put her phone away, I should have known things were going to go badly. We’ve all had movies ruined by rude audience members, people who won’t put away their cell phones (or don’t know how to put them on silent), never stop talking, eat loud or foul-smelling food, kick your seat, etc. But far more rare is an experience where a movie is ruined because of the audience’s reaction to it, either because they simply did not get the movie’s intentions or because you had a very different emotional response than the people surrounding you in the dark. I endured just such an event while seeing Eye in the Sky, and it not only made it impossible to fully enjoy the film from that moment on but it also destroyed a good bit of my faith in humanity. I was disgusted.
‘I cannot imagine,’ said Jack, recovering the chaplain and guiding him along the gangway, ‘what that sloth has against me. I have always been civil to it, more than civil; but nothing answers. I cannot think why you speak of its discrimination.’
Jack was of a sanguine temperament; he liked most people and he was surprised when they did not like him. This readiness to be pleased had been damaged of recent years, but it remained intact as far as horses, dogs, and sloths were concerned; it wounded him to see tears come into thecreature’s eyes when he walked into the cabin, and he laid himself out to be agreeable. As they ran down to Rio he sat with it at odd moments, addressing it in Portuguese, more or less, and feeding it with offerings that it sometimes ate, sometimes allowed to drool slowly from its mouth; but it was not until they were approaching Capricorn, with Rio no great distance on the starboard bow, that he found it respond.
The weather had freshened almost to coldness, for the wind was coming more easterly, from the chilly currents between Tristan and the Cape; the sloth was amazed by the change; it shunned the deck and spent its time below. Jack was in his cabin, pricking the chart with less satisfaction than he could have wished: progress, slow, serious trouble with the mainmast – unaccountable headwinds by night – and sipping a glass of grog; Stephen was in the mizentop, teaching Bonden to write and scanning the sea for his first albatross. The sloth sneezed, and looking up, Jack caught its gaze fixed upon him; its inverted face had an expression of anxiety and concern. ‘Try a piece of this, old cock,’ he said, dipping his cake in the grog and proffering the sop. ‘It might put a little heart into you.’ The sloth sighed, closed its eyes, but gently absorbed the piece, and sighed again.
Some minutes later he felt a touch on his knee: the sloth had silently climbed down and it was standing there, its beady eyes looking up into his face, bright with expectation. More cake, more grog: growing confidence and esteem. After this, as soon as the drum had beat the retreat, the sloth would meet him, hurrying towards the door on its uneven legs: it was given its own bowl, and it would grip it with its claws, lowering its round face into it and pursing its lips to drink (its tongue was too short to lap). Sometimes it went to sleep in this position, bowed over the emptiness.
HMS Surprise – Patrick O’Brian
Simon: What are you doing?
Mal: I’m fixing to do some business. Can’t be herding these steers and your sister, too.
Simon: She didn’t mean any harm.
Mal: I never figured she did. But when a man engages in clandestine dealings, he has his preference for things being smooth. She makes things not be smooth.
Simon: Right. I’m very sorry if she tipped off anyone about your cunningly concealed herd of cows.
Firefly — Episode 5 — “Safe”
Last night Marvel unveiled the first trailer for Doctor Strange as a part of the publicity train for Captain America: Civil War. Due out in November, Doctor Strange will be the newest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and possibly its strangest yet. The trailer gives just a brief look at the “Sorcerer Supreme”, a former surgeon who lost the ability to do his job after his hands were injured in a car crash. We get some glimpses of the crash and its aftermath as the trailer juxtaposes the pre-crash Strange, a man at the height of his life, with the scruffy shell of a man he became afterwards. But Doctor Strange is really all about that man’s journey to find a new way to help people through the use of magic. Honestly, while I’m very excited for Doctor Strange, I feel like this film is going to be a hard sell as far as the general public is concerned. It’s just so different, far more than Guardians of the Galaxy, and the idea of magic mixing with the world of Iron Man is going to require some convincing. It already looks like it’ll be a trippy film, with visuals that recall the world-bending effects of Inception, a film which I thought was interesting to look at but emotionally hollow (like most of Christopher Nolan’s work). Hopefully Marvel can find a way to make Strange’s story as compelling as those of its other heroes. For now, I’m just happy to see Tilda Swinton get so much screen time and can’t wait to learn more about Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character. But what do you think? Take a look at the trailer below and then tell me your thoughts in the comments!
McCoy: It won’t die. By golly, Jim, I’m beginning to think I can cure a rainy day.
Kirk: Can you help it?
McCoy: Help it? I cured it.
Star Trek — Season 1: Episode 26 — “The Devil in the Dark”
Buffy: Before I was the Slayer, I was… Well, I, I don’t wanna say shallow, but… Let’s say a certain person, who will remain nameless, we’ll just call her Spordelia, looked like a classical philosopher next to me. Angel, if I’m not the Slayer, what do I do? What do I have to offer? Why would you like me?
Angel: I saw you before you became the Slayer.
Buffy: What?
Angel: I watched you, and I saw you called. It was a bright afternoon out in front of your school. You walked down the steps… and… and I loved you.
Buffy: Why?
Angel: ‘Cause I could see your heart. You held it before you for everyone to see. And I worried that it would be bruised or torn. And more than anything in my life I wanted to keep it safe… to warm it with my own.
Buffy: That’s beautiful. Or taken literally, incredibly gross.
Angel: I was just thinking that, too.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Season 3: Episode 12 — “Helpless”
The Love Pirate 