• 15:09 Turns out trying to go the mall for a movie the day after Chrismas is Madness. MADNESS, I tell you! #

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Director: Jason Bushman

Writer: Jason Bushman (written by)

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Plot: “Delightfully funny, hugely entertaining and unlike anything you’ve ever seen!” --Frameline, San Francisco Film Fest

After a breakup, gay Parisian Jerome impulsively books a solo Christmas vacation to Los Angeles. Like many before him, he plans to pursue his secret dream to become a movie star – and, of course, to find love along with fame and fortune!

Completely naïve about what he is getting into, Jerome hooks up with some colorful locals, and stumbles headlong into an acting role. Nothing about Hollywood quite matches Jerome’s fantasies, however, and his misadventures are both hilarious and touching.

Bright, funny, honest and utterly charming, Hollywood, je t'aime is a stunning debut for director Jason Bushman. Eric Debets shines as Jerome; his classic look and an amusing ease with his own awkwardness are evocative of Buster Keaton and Marcel Marceau. Cast includes Eric Debets, Jonathan Blanc, Diarra Kilpatrick, Michael Airington and the fabulous Chad Allen (Save Me, Third Man Out, Shock to the System).

Polished crowd-pleaser likely to rank among the year's more popular gay pics. --Variety

Enough pleasing vignettes to win us over. . .the same tasty spirit as Woody Allen's many homages to Manhattan. . .Lead actor Debets has an appealing deadpan presence. --The Hollywood Reporter

Will make you fall in love with LA all over again. OUTFEST, LA Film Festival --Wolfe

@IMDb
@Amazon: Hollywood Je T'aime
@Netflix
@Wolfe Video

 

( more pics )

Cast (in credits order)
Eric Debets ... Jérôme Beaunez
Chad Allen ... Ross
Jonathan Blanc ... Gilles
Scott Romstadt ... Kenny the Waiter
Diarra Kilpatrick ... Kaleesha
Michael Airington ... Norma Desire
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Oscar Alvarez ... Himself
Whitney Anderson ... Trish
Cesar Arambula ... Trick from Spotlight Bar
Randall Bacon ... Steve Jaspers
( rest of the cast )

 
Jerome & Ross

 
Gilles & Kenny

( Hollywood, je t'aime - Trailer )

( Hollywood, je t'aime - Official Trailer )

( Hollywood, je t'aime's 12 Gays of Christmas )

Note to self: keep track of the stuff you randomly shove into your mouth when you're starving, because having a piece of mint-flavored chocolate and then a tofu hot dog tastes... interesting. (Although that's not the weirdest combination of food I've eaten.)

Anyway, excerpt time! This is from "Sour Puss", my lighthearted tiger shifter holiday story. (Say that ten times fast!) To set the scene, Dominic (the tiger shifter) just crashed into his friend Ryan's apartment. He was sporting a bad wound, and Ryan had just finished stitching him up.

( Excerpt under here )

Does anyone have a favorite holiday drink? I frankly think eggnog is evil (especially non-alcoholic eggnog), but if anyone's had a good version, or some other drink recipe you're fond of, I'd love to hear it!

I've had my current glasses for over 10 years, so I'm in the mood for a change. Or at least, a second pair to trade off with.
After not finding anything at all that I liked at various opticians, I finally found a place this afternoon with various styles that I didn't hate.
(It looks weird to me to see myself in any other glasses, so I don't know if any of them suit me or not.)
These are the ones I liked best.
I'll likely buy one of them next week...
Opinions?

So, my SO and I usually have mead or mulled wine for Xmas. This time, we decided to have glogg, which is a Scandinavian high octane mulled wine. I prefer the version with akavit, which has more of a kick.

Here's the recipe we tried this year:
( Cut because it's long )

Fandom: PRIMEVAL
Pairing: Hints of Connor/Abby, Connor/Cutter, Cutter/Stephen, Connor/Lester
Length: Four parts
Author on LJ: black_minorca
Author Website: None
Why this must be read:

In which our heroes are transported to Victorian Scotland where young Connor Temple, accompanied by pet lizard Rex, begins studying at the University of Edinburgh under the eminent Professor Cutter and his handsome assistant Stephen Hart . . . What, though, is the suspicious Sir James Lester up to?

The story is in the form of letters sent to Connor's beloved Abigail and also diary entries to his journal, named Nabby! This is AU fanfic that makes you purr with pleasure at just how clever and inventive and witty it is. And black_minorca pitches the 'voice' immaculately.

Dearest Abigail part 1

part 2, part 3, part 4

My year end political post starts with a question I just asked my father. I note here, for those who don't know, that my father is a retired educator, whose field is American History, and frankly he knows as much as anyone I've ever met about American history and has a very clear sighted view of the past, present, and future.

So I asked him (while he was cooking eggs for breakfast for me, my spouse, and three grandchildren--two mine and one my strangely tall nephew):

"What grade you would give Obama for his first year in office?"

He replied,

[the rest of this post are my dad's words, taken from a more expanded conversation at the breakfast table; my interpolated comments to you, my faithful readers, are in brackets]

"I wouldn't give a grade. [My note: by which he meant, I think, that giving 'a grade' is kind of a pointless, artificial exercise.] I think he's done as well in the situation as anyone could have done. Can you imagine if George Bush was just starting his presidency now, as Barack Obama just did? You just can't help but say that men* do influence history. What they don't do, also influences history.

What people sometimes forget is that Barack Obama -- what he believes in is not the ideal world, where there is right and wrong -- but rather a little better world than the one there is now. What he believes, along with more orthodox and institutional churches, is that the world is an imperfect place and that human beings are, to put it mildly, imperfect, and that sometimes people are very very bad.

What he believes in is a society governed by a constitution, like the United States. With checks and balances and limitations on power. He clearly believes that power can corrupt, and knowing that's a possibility, has a pretty healthy attitude toward himself and power.

A good example is the health care plan. The true believers believe there is one right option, a single payer option. What Barack Obama believes, as far as I am concerned, is that there should be some reform in national health care insurance. He would probably like to have single payer option. But being pragmatic, anything that moves in the right direction is something he can approve, and will.

And the other thing that Americans don't understand is that the Constitution is almost as much a limit on democracy as an encouragement of democracy. The indirect election of Senators, now changed, for example. The president's power is limited by requiring that the Senate approve things like treaties. That's why we have two houses, for one (except Nebraska).

And also, that's one reason -- because he knows the Constitution and recognizes that it is a marvelous document to govern by -- he didn't make the mistake the Clintons made, saying that this is the health care plan we want you to pass.

The existing fact on the ground is that corporations have enormous power, and the only way to do it [health care reform] is to take them on within the existing situation. Obama very wisely said, this is up to the Congress, knowing full well it was a gamble.

Given the situation, and especially the terrible handicap of having to govern in a democratic society that is at war -- George Marshall once said that no democracy would sustain a war for more than 7 years, give or take one --

You know he is a pragmatic man when he is open enough to face the human condition and say that there are such things as just wars and such things as unjust wars**. The profound thinkers are existentialists [I note here that my dad has recently been reading, or re-reading, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Reinhold Niebuhr]. They deal with the existing situation, not what they would like it to be."




* [The use of the word "men" here was in response to a comment my spouse made during this conversation, about how he (the spouse) is 'not a believer in the Great Man Theory of history' but does see in times such as these how much influence individual men as rulers/governors can have; thus the use of the gender specific word 'men' in this context.]

** [My dad's opinion is that we should not have gone into Iraq in 2003. He never supported the Iraq War, although he did support HW's war to liberate Kuwait and now in retrospect he believes HW did it the right way, although he was critical of HW at the time for not taking out Saddam.

He also says that he thinks the reason Obama was awarded the Peace Prize was for the statement he made some months ago when he said that he would go anywhere and talk to anyone with no preconditions -- I'm not sure of the exact quote.]

Fandom: ENTOURAGE
Pairing: Vince/Freddy Lyme, (Vince/E background)
Length: one shot, under 11k
Author on LJ:dancinbutterfly
Author Website:None
Why this must be read: Because Freddy calls Vince 'beautiful boy' and it's incredibly sexy. Because the show totally shafted us on that scene. Because Vince gets broken a little and put back together with pieces that don't quite fit the same anymore. Because this is scorchingly hot.


“I thought we were talking about a blowjob.”

“We were. Now we’re talking about fucking. The conversation’s progressed.”




Barely Breathing

Fandom: EUREKA
Pairing: Gen
Length: 1,400 words
Author on LJ: xochiquetzl
Author Website: Account at AO3
Why this must be read: I have a soft spot for fics about fictional character writing fan fiction about other characters. Since we know that Fargo is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan *in canon* and since we know he's a computer nerd, having him be a fanfic author makes perfect sense, as Jack and Jo discover when they have to investigate Fargo's G.D. computer being hacked. (Even if Fargo would be more embarrassed about that than if Jack and Jo had found actual naked pictures on his computer.) He was the person who made the "They Are the Magic" Willow/Tara banners on TWOP, wasn't he?

I also did not see the identity of the hacker coming, but it does make perfect sense. If the hacker's entire knowledge of human relationships comes from fanfic, it would explain a lot.

Secrets

Vidder: LithiumDoll
Musical artist: Eartha Kitt vs Giant Jr
Pairing: None
Vidder on LJ: halcyon_shift
Vidder's website: Alter Idem
Why this vid kicks ass: To finish off the 'awesome women' theme of the last couple of days, I offer, "I want to be evil," which is one of the cleverest matches of song and source it's ever been my pleasure to watch.

I Want To Be Evil

oil painting by Derek

It's not that I don't like holiday music. I love it -- especially anything sung by Josh Grobin. This year my favorite radio station -- the only FM station we can get on the mountain other than Nashville rock without an antenna 200 feet high -- they started playing the holiday classics on the Friday BEFORE Thanksgiving.

By December 1 I'd heard Jingle Bells 1000 times too many. Most days, whenever any one of 3 songs in particular came on, I switched to CDs. The afore mentioned Josh Grobin, the Muppets with John Denver, and Manheim Steamroller figured high on my list of favorites, followed by George Winston "December", Yanni's "Snowfall" and "Winter Light" work wonderfully to keep my writing instead of listening -- no lyrics.

So what were those three songs that make me tear my hair in disgust?

1) I know it's not politically correct to criticize Whitney Houston this year. She did after all make a comeback after getting out of an abusive marriage and beating a drug habit. But I didn't like her "Gospel" style before she fell into the depths of a drug haze. Her version of "Do You Hear What I Hear," makes a tone deaf beginning bagpipe player blowing up his instrument for the first time sound sweet.

2) I don't know the vocalist, I never left the radio on long enough to hear. But there is a version of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" by a female vocalist (?) that sounds like a cow moaning in labor.

3) "The Christmas Shoes" A nice sentiment once. Then the deliberate emotional manipulation with a fundamentalist agenda irritated me beyond measure. Sorry if you like this piece. I don't.

Seems like these 3 pieces go more air time than all my favorites lumped together. "Christmas Wrapping" and "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas" I only heard once each. Today, I'm totally saturated. I'm going back to Sarah Brightman, Patrick O'Hearn, and John Serrie with pleasure. Like welcoming back old friends after a too long absence.

Wow.

Damn, that was a good episode.

John Simm continues to impress me more each day.

One brief spoiler/speculation:

( Read more... )

Member News

• Welcome to SFWA’s 1200th Active member Charlene Teglia author of “Wicked Hot!”
• SFWA member David D. Levine has been selected for Crew 88 of the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah.

Industry News

• World Fantasy Awards 2010 Judges Named!

Mirrored from SFWA | Comment at SFWA

The Polish publisher, Solaris, will soon (Jan. 20th, 2010) release the final volume, The Beyond, of the Well-Built City Trilogy (The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond). The first two were translated by Iwona Michalowska and the last by Martyna Plisenko.

   

L.A. Boneyard, #2 in the L.A Series, by P.A. Brown
Release Date: 12/2009
Publisher: MLR Press
ISBN: 978-1-60820-018-4 (ebook)
978-1-60820-017-7 (print)
Buy Link: http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=PBLA0002

Amazon: LA Boneyard

Blurb: From a shallow grave in Griffith Park, to the bucolic streets of West Hollywood into the dark heart of the gang-infested streets of East L.A, evil is pursued in this dark story of passion and redemption. Detective David Eric Laine is no stranger to violence and brutality, but even he is taken aback at the sheer viciousness of the murder of two pregnant Ukrainian women. This is just the beginning of a baffling case which leads from their shallow grave to a bungalow community in West Hollywood, tree-lined and tranquil, on to the heart of the gang-infested streets of East Los Angeles, and points in between. And what of Jairo Hernandez, David's new, young partner? The attraction between them was immediate and intense and growing by the day. Would this be a threat to David's settled life?

( Excerpt )