So You Want to Be a Pirate!

This is a short stop-motion animated movie based on Pirates! A Band of Misfits. I haven't seen that movie yet and I wasn't sure if it was for me, which is why I bought this cheap shortie to see what the whole thing was about. And now I really want to see it, the feature film, I mean!

Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, David Tennant, Brian Blessed, Salma Hayek etc. and so on voicing pirates, folks! Hilarious! The Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) is such a tool! And his relationship with the only normal person on board, the Pirate with the Scarf (Martin Freeman), is simply a hoot! Nobody can do deadpan like Martin Freeman. The BTS featurette on this DVD is so funny, the voice actors seem to have had so much fun doing the characters. I just love it, the BTS vids showing the voice actors reading their lines. Wonderful!

I guess I will have to get my hands on the movie, then. I'm really loving all the animated films from Aardman, like this or Arthur Christmas!

The Song of the Lonely Mountain

"Song of the Lonely Mountain - The Hobbit 2012 - Official Soundtrack - End Credit Song" (Watch on YouTube)

A strange thing happened. When I first listened to The Hobbit OST, I liked it but except for the Misty Mountains song, I didn't find it all that memorable. But the more I listened to it, the more I loved the OST in general and The Song of the Lonely Mountain in particular. Especially once I really started listening, following the lyrics. I especially love this part:

Some folk we never forget
Some kind we never forgive
Haven’t seen the back of us yet
We’ll fight as long as we live
All eyes on the hidden door
To the Lonely Mountain borne
We’ll ride in the gathering storm
Until we get our long-forgotten gold

And this, this very sentiment is why I like The Hobbit much more than The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In LotR, the halflings and the dwarves just didn't speak to me. Frodo and Sam were sweet but Merry and Pippin? Gimli? Mostly comic relief. Or painfully idiotic. With some great development, true, but it didn't change my first impression of them. But in The Hobbit...

For the first time, I saw the halflings and dwarves as, well, people with ambitions, daily struggles, with friends and enemies, people who felt betrayal as deeply as anyone else. The movie made the dwarves three-dimensional, fighting for their right, heroic people but also vain and short-tempered.

And Bilbo... I guess I didn't like the halflings in LotR much because the actors didn't do much for me. Good actors, don't get me wrong, but I didn't know them before - only Sean Astin did I see in something else - nor did I feel like following their career after. But Martin Freeman... He's one of my favorite actors and his Bilbo is... never too earnest, never too much of a comic relief, never too much of a chicken. He's a normal person and he plays the part beautifully.

So yeah, in LotR, there were places that felt... empty to me - Faramir and his daddy issues, come to my mind - but The Hobbit I adored as a whole, the story and all the characters, whether we followed Bilbo, Thorin and his gang or Gandalf, everyone's arc was fascinating and captivating.

And basically this song, The Song of the Lonely Mountain, with its melody and lyrics, embodies my love for the movie!

NCIS:LA 117-121

Even years later, I still can't believe they killed off Dom. I mean, I got that he wouldn't be a regular anymore, but I thought that they would keep him as a recurring character... And then THAT happened. And just when it looked like they were all safe, too. Reminded me of Kate's death in NCIS. A very powerful ending, though. Similar to the S3 finale when Callen shot the Chameleon.

I loved the introduction of Deeks. I've always been a great fan of Deeks'. And the first two episodes with him... You know, the way the cops aggressively hated him and the team looked down on him for being "just" a cop... It told us a great deal about the character, that he could take all this and still smile. You could see that it was hurting him - like when he heard Kensi ask, why it had to be Deeks, if they couldn't have gotten anyone better. And he took it in and didn't get angry with them. I think that's telling us a great deal about who he is. Also, loved the scene with him and Hetty in the bar. The beginning of a great friendship. Love the relationshiip they will build over the upcoming years.

And now some funny quotes:

Callen: You gave [Erik] a whistle?
Hetty: Oh, do I look like I've gone daft? I'd sooner give a chainsaw to a spider monkey. At least I took his Segway away.

Callen: Do I look like an Ernie?

Hetty: I tread lightly. I don't sneak.

Callen: I have a guardian angel. She's tiny, but very tough.

Hetty: All right, listen up, you flaccid, bureaucratic eunuchs!

Hetty: I doubt that any of them are gentle. And they're certainly not men!