Benedict Cumberbatch cast in...

... Steve McQueen's Twelve Years a Slave: link. He will play the plantation owner who buys Chiwetel Ejiofor's character and is won over by his engineering skills.

Not my cuppa, this film, but what makes me all tingly inside is: BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH and MICHAEL FASSBENDER in one movie together! How awesome is that? Not planning to see it, very, VERY much not my cuppa, but CUMBERBATCH and FASSBENDER! In ONE movie! TOGETHER! Eep!

30 Days Relationship Challenge #8

Hetty & Callen, NCIS:LA

When Mace was introduced as the team leader in Legend I+II, I was pretty much pissed, to be honest. I try to keep an open mind when backdoor pilots are introduced, but here was yet another woman too young for her position and connected to Gibbs and his past. Well, cry me a river, wasn't Gibbs' past dealt with enough already? And her introduction as a potential love interest for Callen was glaring. But then...

Then the show was picked up, Mace went poof and then died away quietly, and the "vicious pixie" Henrietta "Hetty" Lange was introduced. The creation of this character and the casting of Linda Hunt was a stroke of genius! Here was a woman old enough and experienced enough to hold a position for which she was cast, who brought wisdom and steel in without any pesky UST, what with her being old enough to be the team members' mother. It was the best thing that could have happened to the show.

You see, Hetty is strong and vicious and cold and she can kill without hesitation despite being half the size of everybody else around. She's no sweet granny, despite her bob and the huge glasses. She has her own agenda, always, and she can be relentless in pursuing it. She has only one weakness and that's the agents in her care and one G Callen in particular.

If there's one person Hetty sees as a son, it's Callen. Yes, she was close to Hunter and Renko and that other agent she lost and who knows how many orphans she took under her wing during her years working for the agency, but only Callen she keeps close enough to watch over him constantly. Only for Callen was she ready to die. Only for Callen does she actually care, as in she watches over him when he sleeps, covers him with blankets...

For Callen, Hetty is the closest thing he has to a mother. I love it that he can come to her any time and they can talk, that he's the only one who can actually call her on her bullshit and she talks to him. Callen knows that Hetty's keeping stuff from him and it pisses him off but it doesn't change the fact that he loves her. Yes, he has Sam but Sam has a family of his own and because of that he will never truly understand Callen despite how much he loves his partner. But Hetty is a lone wolf, the same breed as Callen. That's why they understand each other so well - and that's why Callen doesn't mind it when she mothers him, in her own way.

Theirs is one of the most fascinating relationships I've come across on TV so far. And it's a delight to watch Linda Hunt and Chris O'Donnell on-screen together!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I think I'm turning into a Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan... *_*

This film, Looper, looks really great - even though it'll take me some time to get used to JGL wearing prosthetics to look more like Bruce Willis. Other than that, though, seems like a really great concept!

And then there's...

... Premium Rush, another JGL movie and another OMGLOOKSGREAT trailer.

And let's not forget The Dark Knight Returns which is kinda not my cuppa - I don't like Christian Bale or Anne Hathaway or the whole Nolan concept - and the only reason I actually want to see it is JGL. And Tom Hardy - but with that stupid mask on his face, it could be anybody, to be honest.

So, JGL it is, I guess *hands*

Podfic rec: Inception

"Pants on fire" by helenish, read by anatsuno | Arthur/Eames | "Ah," Yusuf says, lifting a reproving hand, "are we calling less than 24 hours of memory loss amnesia now?" | 1hr. 38min.

"Are you—what’s going on?" Arthur says.

"Nothing," Eames says. He brushes past Arthur and slaps down a crumpled post-it note on Arthur’s entryway table. It says:

Break it off with Arthur.
He is very hung up on you, it’s cruel.

"Fine," Arthur says. "We’re broken up, can I—"

"Are you really hung up on me?" Eames demands.

My heart hurt for these two. Sometimes, you just want to shake people and order them to talk...