insaneneko

I watched the 1996 TV adaptation of Emma starring Kate Beckinsale as Emma and Mark Strong as Mr. Knightly this weekend. I now feel a lot more positive about the book. I found Emma (the character) hard to stomach in the beginning, but Kate Bekinsale does a great job (her expressions are priceless) and I quickly softened towards Emma. By the end I really enjoyed the story...Though seeing Frank Churchill in action made me really wish something bad happened to him in the future. Ugh, what a slimy, icky ass. I'm a bit curious as to what was cut out and what was changed, so I might someday pick up the book and try to read it again. ^^;

Could Mansfield Park be made palatable when turned into a film? I'm a bit tempted to find out....

Seeing Mark Strong makes me want to rewatch Stardust, in which he is an awesome villian. Now that was a really good adaptation of a book.

I am terribly disappointed that Jane Eyre is currently limited release. I have a perverse desire to see the movie, perhaps because I don't care for the book.

I was eating lunch at a local udon restaurant today when the Korean actor who was in Lost and is now in Hawaii 5-0 came in to eat. I had to snort at my attempts to NOT stare at the guy even though I'm not that into celebrities in general and didn't watch either show. The girls at the next table were adorable, though, whispering about trying to get autographs and/or pictures. I wish I could've seen them do it, but I left before they did. :P

I've been rereading old BL novels and manga the last month or so. I had initially been looking for a particular book, but I couldn't find it*. Instead I started reading stuff I hadn't read in a while. Talk about a mixed bag. I own some truly crappy books as well as some really good books I don't reread enough.

I reread a book about best friends in high school in which one has loved the other since forever and finally confesses, turning his friend's world upside down. Sadly, the best part of the book was the art. I was trying to remember books about best friends with sekrit unrequited love on one side because I'm sure I've read tons of them. I could only think of two involving working adults and one with students off the top of my head, which isn't that many...Any recs? I like the premise a lot if done well. I can rec the two working adults books: Slow Rhythm by Sugihara Rio and illustrated by Kinoshita Keiko (♥ her!) and Tadashii koi no nayami kata by Watarumi Naho and illustrated by Sasaki Kumiko. I can't find the student one, but that one wasn't that great anyway. :P

Two books I truly enjoyed rereading: Sono otoko, toriatsukai chuui! and Sono otoko, shinyuu kinshi! by Narumiya Yuri and illustrated by Sakuragi Yaya. They are about a young road construction worker Saeki Keisuke and the guy who becomes his boyfriend in the first book. The blurb for the first book says that Keisuke is a loose guy who will sleep with any guy or gal. He becomes friendly with a government worker who moves in next door, Ogata Mizuki. When Ogata confides that he's in love with some other guy, Keisuke offers to teach him how to sleep with a guy. He's always been the one doing the fucking with guys, but he ends up being fucked by Ogata. The book also has some yazuka (and random criminal) action, but the main point of it is the disgustingly sweet yet adorable relationship between Keisuke and Ogata. Keisuke is tall and decently built, looks a bit intimidating, and is good in fights, but is like butter in Ogata's hands. He's a bit embarrassed, but isn't too full of pride/tsundereness/whatever to hide it constantly. The second book has the insecurities and misunderstandings that seem to show up a lot in second books with established relationships (go cliches!), but in the end the sweetness makes it all okay to me. It helps that I love the art. XD;

*Has anyone read a BL novel about a salaryman with an actor boyfriend whom he supports financially? The boyfriend is on the verge of getting his big break and their relationship becomes destabilized. I hope I find it one day... ;_;

Random news:

Ugh, I hope the rumor that Robert Pattison may play Tetsuo from Akira is wrong. Putting aside the "why is a white guy playing a character who is sooo NOT WHITE" thing (which is neither here nor there as it doesn't apply in this case as per the article the location will be "New Manhattan" instead of "New Tokyo"), I have an aversion to the actor (thanks to how awful he looked in the Twilight promo material).

For people in the US: Costco has a printer cartridge refill service!

Odd, possibly bad: Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata rearranges the entire score of The Sound of Music on their newest album.

I kinda want to see the Priscilla Queen of the Desert musical just for the cupcake scene.

Amazon is shutting down ebook lending sites.

I really enjoyed reading Zankoku na ouse by Ioka Itsuki (one of my favorite authors) and illustrated by Sasaki Kumiko. This takes the tired old premise of the traumatized victim uke with a frozen heart who is "thawed" by an aggressive man and makes it work. I kept waiting for the author to betray her premise and make the uke start acting differently to make things more...passionate. But she didn't! I was so happy that she stayed the course and ran with it, even if it meant there wasn't the angst-fest we typically get when the types of things that happen in this book occur. XD

Ooba Makoto already has been promoted to a high position in the company he works at. He's married to the company president, he's good looking and works very hard. Seems like he has everything going for him, but of course it's all an illusion. Makoto has lived his life without feelings for years. He lives for his work. His marriage is a sham--he had initially married his wife because she'd become pregnant with some random man and needed legitimacy, but she'd miscarried and they never developed any kind of relationship at all. She had tons of affairs and ran around playing while he worked. One night he wakes up to find himself handcuffed to his bed and a man on top of him. The man introduces himself as Hadori Chiaki, a host in a Shinjuku club. He's having an affair with Makoto's wife.He'd been asked by her to find out if Makoto is gay. When they have sex it becomes obvious that Makoto had been used to being fucked.

Chiaki tries to blackmail Makoto with the threat that he'll report the truth to Makoto's wife to get Makoto to continue to sleep with him, but Makoto doesn't much care. It's only when Makoto thinks that things might become public and thus a problem for his wife and company (he doesn't much care about what happens to him) that he goes along with it. He tells Chiaki very dispassionately how he'd been raped by his cousin for years (or was it only a year or so?) until the cousin died in a car accident. After that he'd lost the ability to feel much beyond a vague sort of empathy, as well as less intimate feelings such as a sense of duty (to his company, for example).

Chiaki is confident and carefree, the very opposite of Makoto. He is aggressive, but very gentle with Makoto in bed after that first time. They continue to have sex, even after Makoto's wife finds out about them. She's desperate and angry because Chiaki, whom she had patronized heavily and spent serious money on, is avoiding her and fucking her husband instead. In revenge, she plasters pictures of the two of them at their respective workplaces. Makoto, who works at a very respectable company, had been preparing for his eventual departure after the first rape by Chiaki. He quickly and efficiently tenders his resignation as well as divorce papers to his father-in-law, the president, and then spends his last day at work handing his work off to his subordinates. He is surprised to find Chiaki waiting for him outside of the office. Turns out Chiaki had been fired as well--a gay (or bi) host is useless at a club catering to females. Chiaki gives Makoto a ride to Makoto's apartment (a very nice place provided by his soon-to-be-ex-father-in-law), where Makoto picks up the bag he'd prepared for when he might have to leave. He feels guilty about his wife, especially as he'd found out that day that she'd actually liked him and had pointed him out as the person she'd like to marry. He'd made no effort to get to know her, and she was too proud to try herself. But in the end what Makoto feels as he leaves the apartment is a feeling of relief. He was free of all obligations.

Chiaki tells Makoto that he'll go wherever Makoto goes. He's been bored with life for a long time, good at everything he did and able to sleep with anyone he wanted. But he's drawn to Makoto for some reason. Makoto decides that it might be enjoyable to travel with Chiaki and laughs.

They travel by car, with Chiaki spending the tons of money he'd made but hadn't bothered spending as a host. He buys Makoto clothing after getting tired of seeing Makoto in work-type slacks and shirts all the time (Makoto didn't own casual clothes as all he did was work). Chiaki had realized that Makoto wasn't used to kindness and gentleness by others, in and out of bed. After the first couple of times, he learned that the more gentle he was the more Makoto responded. Thus, he became more and more gentle in bed. He continues to be gentle with Makoto, figuring that some day Makoto will realize why he bothers to do things for Makoto.

Hm...I don't think the quick summary really did the story justice. ^^; It's hard to convey the dry yet deep relationship between Makoto and Chiaki. They're both rather dispassionate (okay, Makoto is *really* dispassionate for most of the novel besides during sex, and only becomes less so at the end) yet aren't boring or shallow. I love how neither much cared about having their sordid gay affair exposed to the world. There's a sweetness mixed in with the dry dispassion that was I found very appealing. I was so happy that Makoto really was more or less detached throughout, not having the utterly-cliched "breakdown" that these supposedly detached/supressed characters almost always have. The novel ends with him only becoming slightly more human...

I rather like the art, it totally fit the feel of the story and the characters.

( cut for my favorite pic )