Going to the movies with my family.

[nenena]

I never really understood how a potentially great movie could be killed by terrible, terrible cinematography and visual effects until I saw the new Sherlock Holmes.

And sorry RDJ, but Jarred Harris and Stephen Fry are totally the best actors in the movie.

Had to sit through seven godawful previews (Battleship? Really?! And the Jack and the Beanstalk movie which looks so ridiculous it almost seemed like a parody of a real movie preview straight out of a Simpsons episode) to finally see the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. It looks good, but it also looks like a straight-up rehash of The Dark Knight. Which, you know, was really good, but do we need to see the exact same movie again with the Joker just replaced by Bane? I mean, I know that it's waaaaay to early to say whether Rises is going to be a repeat of the same film again or not, but the trailer makes it LOOK like a straight repeat, which is not encouraging.

On the way out of the theater, Mom regaled us with the True Story of the time that she actually shoved one of Micheal Bay's body guards out of her way when said bodyguard tried to prevent her from walking on the sidewalk near Bay's limo. Ladies and gentlemen, my mother.

Get home to find out that LJ release 88 the LJocalypse has been pushed through despite massively negative feedback for the beta. I doubt that the 6500+ comments on the relevant lj_releases post is going to change anything, b/c Ilya Dronov and Mark have made it pretty clear that they assume that LJ works just like Facebook - namely, that they can change whatever they want, and even if tens of thousands of users complain, eventually the complaints will stop and people will just get used to it. Frankly I can live with the fugliness, BUT the lack of comment subject lines in default style, the loss of the comment preview function, the asinine bandwidth-eating method of LOADING EVERY USER PIC IN PREVIEWS, and the refusal to fix the DB error that makes using third-party archiving software impossible has officially rendered this site pretty fucking useless to me right now.

Dammit LJ, I stuck with you through all the censorship shit and the DDOS attacks. I WANT to keep using and supporting this website. But if you take away basic functionality for comments and then make it impossible for me to backup my own journal, what am I supposed to do?

(I know, I know. I have a Dreamdwidth account already. But I am loathe to export my complete journal to DW because I have yet to find a DW journal layout that doesn't, you know, completely suck floppy donkey balls.)

Comments

[the-sun-is-up.livejournal.com]

I'm still wondering why they even bothered to do this. Why expend so much time and energy putting together a new page design that's just going to piss off the users and make the site less functional? The loss of subject lines in particular is going to drive away a lot of communities, like the kink memes, anon memes, news comms, etc.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Because from a coding/backend standpoint, eliminating subject lines must make some sort of sense. Or make things slightly easier for them, I don't know. I wish they would say WHY they decided to eliminate subject lines, but I doubt they ever will.

I think that LJ could care less about losing kink memes and anon memes. Only if this change negatively impacts OTND and related communities will it actually *hurt* LJ. And even then, maybe not really. Because TPTB at livejournal are probably banking on the fact that in the end their core user base is just like Facebook's user base: everybody will always hate every new change, especially when the changes legitimately suck, yet they'll keep using the website. Which is probably true for the majority of LJ users.

What happens if I try to use a subject title?

[bardicfool.livejournal.com]

I concur with your assessment of the newest RDJ!Holmes movie. When I found myself getting bored/wondering what Frycroft was up to as opposed to what was actually happening on screen, I knew it was pretty much over. And me with my pre-movie, prepare-self-for-non-canonical-ridiculousness exercises!

I also have PLENTY to say (rant) about the absolutely awful treatment of female characters, which is actually getting to the point where I can't enjoy a movie anymore if it's so damned obvious that women were just added in as an afterthought/minor plot point.

Not sure what the heck is going on with LJ, but if you'd care to discuss the relative merits/downsides of DW, I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

Also, like, hi! How are you? Long time no see! Your remaining QC fanclub (read: me and my parents) say hello. ^_^

Re: What happens if I try to use a subject title?

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Right now subject titles should work on my layout since I switched to custom subject pages, but honestly I like the old default subject page layout better than this current one, although switching back would eliminate subject lines again... argh.

When I found myself getting bored/wondering what Frycroft was up to as opposed to what was actually happening on screen, I knew it was pretty much over.

My *favorite* part was during the "LOOK AT THEM RUNNING FROM BULLETS IN RANDOM BITS OF SLOW-MO" sequence which dragged on forever. My grandma actually yawned pretty loudly right in the middle of it. I wanted to give her a high-five.

Not sure what the heck is going on with LJ, but if you'd care to discuss the relative merits/downsides of DW, I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

DW has a far superior system for managing your flist, basically dividing it into people that you follow and people that you let read your locked entries, with as much or as little overlap as you want. It's very easy to manage, too.

They have superior customer service.

Downsides: Hideous layouts, fewer customization options. The import system from LJ is significantly borked due to an LJ database error that hasn't been fixed since August. This is LJ's fault and not DW's fault, but it makes importing your journal a crapshoot.

Also, most of my flist is still posting on LJ instead of on DW. All of the communities that I follow are on LJ. There is virtually no activity in any of my fandoms on DW, even though they still have thriving LJ comms. So. This isn't much of an issue if you intend to keep both an LJ and DW account and just cross-post everything, but it's something to consider: that as far as my fannish/journaling interests are concerned, DW is pretty much a wasteland.

Unknowns: I have no idea if DW has a tool like LJarchive for backing up your journal. If they don't, then I probably won't jump ship until they do, because losing the ability to backup my LJ is a significant reason why I'm pissed with LJ right now and I see no reason to go running to DW if that particular problem won't be fixed with a DW account.

Also, hi! I hope that you guys are having an awesome holiday and that it's not too cold up there!

[its-onthefritz.livejournal.com]

Battleship? Really?!

Oh good Lord, I could not believe what I was seeing the first time I watched that preview. There were uncomfortable laughs throughout the theater when the title showed up.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why if they felt like they even needed to tie the movie to the freakin' board game in the first place. Why not just make a movie about naval ships fighting aliens, call it something else, and then - if you're Hasbro and you REALLY want to sell more copies of Battleship based on the popularity of the movie - just release a new edition of Battleship that ties into the movie?

I mean it's great if you made an action flick that was inspired by a board game and all, but why would you want to tell your audience that.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

Aahahaha, that was my reaction to Sherlock Holmes 2. The movie was pretty good (and wow, they stepped up the slashy subtext), but the overuse of ridiculous special effects, rapid montages, and camera tricks got old within the first five minutes of the film.

Your reaction to the LJ comment redesign bullshit is also my reaction. Stop stealing my reactions to things! XD

[nenena.livejournal.com]

but the overuse of ridiculous special effects, rapid montages, and camera tricks got old within the first five minutes of the film.

THIS.

The overuse of flashing lights and rapid cuts actually gave my mom a migraine, and she doesn't get migraines that easily.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

I can believe it. It wasn't as bad as say, Transformers, which gave me both migraine and nauseau for days, but it was bad. The rapid montages also irritated me, because they were COMPLETELY pointless. Why do we need a fancy flash montage for a bunch of nobodies loading a giant cannon? It doesn't matter! The ghost of Sergei Eisenstein wants to choke these people. The confusion and power of the race through the woods with half of the German artillery stockpile firing at them was severely negated by pointless techniques like that, not too mention the overuse of these techniques throughout the entire film, from the damn beginning. We don't need to see the fight before it happens every single fucking time, and it started to get to the point of ridiculousness that I half-expected Sherlock and Moriarty to be revealed as Bene Gesserit or Kwisatz Haderach or Jedi or something. Then that film technique would have made more sense.

The overuse of special effects in Hollywood films has rendered them meaningless and empty. These days, a Hollywood film shot straightforward, without some ridiculous time-manipulating technique is starting to feel exotic. And fuck, when I think of one of the most powerful war scenes brough to life on film, it did not need these techniques. The opening scene of Saving Private Ryan was powerful with more classical editing techniques, and it knew how to build tension with slow moments. The shaky camera offered authenticity without the ridiculous flash montages, and the clever use of POV sound heightened the human trauma. FFs, that's how you do a battle scene.

Er, sorry. >.> It's my Film Studies grad student rant. Um. It just came out?

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Don't apologize. This rant is good and you should feel good.

What really got me about the bullets-in-the-woods scene was... after that big flashy montage of the Germans loading "little Hansel" I'm not sure... what happened? I mean, they fired the damn thing, but then it looked like just the same regular bullets kept hitting the people. And then all of a sudden everybody fell down in slow motion. There was a big boom but it wasn't any bigger than any boom that had come before. I don't get it. What was the point of that giant cannon. I don't freakin' get it.

If it makes you feel any better, I've been reading a lot of reviews of War Horse that praise it for having so many action sequences that are shot using classic Speilberg technique and that are actually easy for movie audiences to follow. As they should be.

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, thanks. I feel like I'm being too harsh on the film, since I actually enjoyed it apart from the cheap tricks, but I think the film is symptomatic of problems in Hollywood films (which I can barely stomach, these days). And I agree about the "little Hansel" issue. It did create an explosion, but by that point, your brain has been so overloaded with information about explosives and disoriented by all the flash cuts that it makes little impact, and does not seem to produce a boom worthy of the fancy rapid montage of them loading the damn thing. It's the failure to build tension that prevents Sherlock Holmes 2 from living up to its narrative potential.

I have not seen War Horse, but I am SO happy to see that they are using the more classic Spielberg approach. It's damn effective. Memo to Hollywood: You do not have to trot out fancypants camera tricks to do good work.

(ETA: Corrected typos. ETA2: Found one more. Now I give up. XD)

[chiikaboom.livejournal.com]

Why the fuckshit would they get rid of the "preview comment" of all things.

Thats the stupidest thing ever I dont even.

[the-terrible.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

I am getting so much mileage out of this icon the last day, for srs

[corinn.livejournal.com]

Dammit LJ, I stuck with you through all the censorship shit and the DDOS attacks. I WANT to keep using and supporting this website. But if you take away basic functionality for comments... what am I supposed to do?
Hit the nail on the head.

I'd be a bit more patient with 88 if it didn't start triggering my fucking migraines. I actually made a DW account yesterday. Was too cross-eyed to actually do anything but get my name registered, but I have it in reserve now. I've held off doing that for aaaages. I'm hanging around at least until the renewed paid account you got me runs out, but I have an "LJ DON'T MAKE ME DO IT" in my pocket.

NGL, I find the sudden jump to nearly 22k new DW accounts being made there over the course of 24 hours to be hilarious.

I hope they fix it. I really love LJ's setup and don't want to move. But my health is a pretty uncompromising issue.

Re: I am getting so much mileage out of this icon the last day, for srs

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Oh, ugh. I can't believe it's actually giving you migraines. (*hugs*)

I heard that they're coming out with an S2 layout that will basically replicate the old comment pages - and if LJ official doesn't provide in the next few days, there are some unofficial skins being floated around right now.

I'm going to wait it out a few days and see if that skin thing happens. Hopefully it will and then we won't have to move?

babbling because I'm exhausted and I caaaan

[corinn.livejournal.com]

I'm not the only one, and those are just the people who started answering a roll call of sorts. I think one comment somewhere in the avalanche of fury mentioned someone contemplating taking their boyfriend to the hospital for the migraine he got, someone mentioned having had to get their meds upped to Imitrex, just all kinds of fun. I've seen tunnel vision and nausea mentioned. Of course, those are sometimes symptoms of migraines.

Honestly, I think that in addition to the brightness, the goddamn gradient in the blue bars is messing with me. With the text down the horizontal center, it almost lends a sense of depth. Not in a good way. In a very slightly disorienting way. It really reminds me of why I can't look at very white surfaces in a room very brightly lit with fluorescent lights.

When there's talk of skins and layouts and stuff with LJ, I just kind of smile and nod vapidly because pffffft I don't get it. I always fail hard with the codes and lose track of what I'm doing if it's like "paste this here and paste that there and customize this part however." Back in like 2005 I could half-ass my way through some CSS, but I dunno what's what anymore, it's been too long. And my own journal is set to "first default type thing that didn't kill my eyes because yeah IGAF." I've been meaning to actually choose something better. But anyway I hope they fix the comments. Even if they start by only taking out the design elements that cause the migraines and delay a bit on the subject lines and such. The pain is the dealbreaker for me.

I keep reading the comments because in addition to there being some good discussion, there are some great instances of rage turning into lulz. They're usually initiated by RP accounts. The post by "Stephen Colbert" and the capslock exchange I got in with a Homestuck RPer whose character RPed as LJ (crossing the streams there?) are the ones I can link to offhand.

Re: babbling because I'm exhausted and I caaaan

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, those are great! Thanks for linking them.

BTW you can still add ?style=mine or ?format=light at the end of a livejournal URL to get rid of the new default comment page. Most of the time.

Re: babbling because I'm exhausted and I caaaan

[corinn.livejournal.com]

I was going to say "but the Expand thing breaks after 25 comments," but it looks like they fixed that since I tried it last night. Huh.

[broccoman.livejournal.com]

I'm done. Seriously, there's Google+, which is acting like LJ for me in many ways.

I can just bring back my Dreamwidth if need be.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

But ugh Google+. I would never, ever use that for fandom purposes. And my LJ is primarily for fandom purposes.

Right now DW is still my backup plan, but it's definitely still a last resort. I'm still gonna wait this out a few days and see if somebody won't come up with a decent skin that fixes the comment page problem.