As you’ve probably already figured out, I have a bit of a potty mouth. And by “a bit” I mean a rat infested sewer of a mouth. As a wee little girl from Niddrie (a council estate near Edinburgh) told my friend, in a lovely Scottish accent, no less: “I love swearing. It’s fucking great.”

I come from a family of swearers, I am a swearer, and many of my friends are swearers . . . so when I find something that shocks me–that reminds me of the power of a truly inspired bit of obscenity–it’s gotta be pretty extreme.

Therefore, if you don’t like swearing, never, ever go near the following film, although this theatrical trailer is (relatively) clean:

The film is In the Loop and it’s up for an Oscar. All I know is it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in years. On a superficial level, it is utterly, absolutely entertaining. I laughed through the entire film, as did all of my friends. I want to see it again because not only were the lines so rapidly delivered, but everyone in the theater was laughing so hard, at times, that it was hard to hear. It felt like I sat down, started laughing, and then suddenly it was all over, leaving me wanting more.

That said, the film is also brilliant, with one of the bleakest, most frightening portrayals of modern politics I’ve ever seen. It’s easy to miss, simply because you’re too busy watching the characters tear around insulting everyone. But underneath all that humor, In the Loops suggests that modern politics are still as much about ego, competitiveness, and personal aggrandizement as Shakespeare depicted them in King Lear. Only the weapons have changed, making the stakes so very much higher and deadlier.

With fantastic performances all around, and a storyline that works on a number of levels, I can’t recommend In The Loop enough.

And speaking of King Lear, my second recommendation is Christopher Moore’s The Fool:

Bawdy and irresistible, this is another story that works on two levels. I was pinging from one image to another (little man in a canoe!) and reveling in the language of this work, but meanwhile the literary academic in me was squealing over the layers of allusions to various Shakespeare productions. I adored this book, as did all of the ladies in my book club. And it wasn’t just the Chatham Artillery Punch, talking, either!

So if you’re bored this weekend, try to get your hands on either of these fantastic works. Due to the Oscar nod, In the Loop is back in theaters (especially independents) the Fool is coming out in paperback any second. Both will floor you with their use of language, but also with their wit and intelligence. Filthy AND smart . . . it’s a combination I find absolutely irresistible.

And just because I’m in the mood for a little heinous fuckery,* here’s a picture of my trifle:

The song was, indeed, originally, “my trifle brings all the boys to the yard,” till that bitch changed it.

Fuckstockings!*

*For true heinous fuckery in action, you have to read The Fool

*Ditto

For the ever lovely and fabulous Dakota Cassidy’s new book, Accidentally Demonic, is out tomorrow!

I haven’t read this one, yet, but I’ve read all the other books in this series and they’re SO FUN. Dakota’s marvelous sense of humor shines, her characters are adorable, and these books are always fab reads.

So go forth and purchase if you already know and love Dakota. Or, if you’re looking for a new para rom series to embark upon, try the first in the series, The Accidental Werewolf:

As for me, I have been having a fabulous start of the semester. I much prefer teaching my ENG 115 class to the other freshman comp course, my night class is my favorite ENG 215 (so very little pressure for a lot of enjoyment), and Modern Poetry is turning out to be very manageable and enriching, for me, as a writer. In other words, my primary career is going very well, and the writing is fab, as well! I’m figuring out my plan of attack for editing Jane True book 3, Tempest’s Legacy, and I’ll start writing my edits soon.

In the meantime, however, I’ve been watching a lot of movies and series on my Netflix, and one of the movies that I was randomly inspired to order was the 80′s classic, Jumping Jack Flash:

I was OBSESSED with this film when I was a kid. I adored it. I can’t really describe how much I adored it, because it would be like me trying to explain how much I love my family . . . it became a part of me and I would give it my kidney if it asked politely.

This film came out in 1986, eight years after my birth. And watching it as an adult I can absolutely see where it had a HUGE influence on me and my writing.

First of all: the swearing. I swear like a pirate, this is true. My family is a family of swearers, in general, but I seem to have taken up the swearing mantle and run right the fuck off with it. Then I watched this film, again, and Whoopi has a mouth so potty it’s like a psych ward.

Second of all: my love of a non-traditional heroine. Where do I start with my admiration for this film, in terms of its heroine? First of all, Whoopi is BLACK. How many films can you name that star (entirely) an African-American, let alone an African-American woman? And that are mainstream? Even nowadays? Second of all, while I think Whoopi is an extremely attractive individual in this film, she is by no means your traditional blonde bombshell. She’s Whoopi, and she’s gonna wear some MC Hammer OVERALLS (cause the only think that makes Hammer pants better is some straps!), and dreads, and YELLOW REEBOKS and she’s not gonna give a fuck! For dress up, she caps off that outfit with a turban!

As a kid, I was blonde and blue eyed, but I was also way too smart, way too mature (in some ways), and already short and chubby. So I knew I was never going to be the leggy, doe eyed thing expecting some hero to come along and rescue her because even though she’s a bit of a bint, DAMN SHE IS PHOINE.

In other words, I was looking for films that expressed my solidarity with the outsider, the underdog, the eccentric, for those who “sang his didn’ts” and “danced his dids.” For the most part, however, I was getting Melanie Griffith. And, while I love me some Working Girl, I knew that while my brain was going to be all about sin, my bod would, at best, most likely suggest white-collar misdemeanors or parking violations.

So Jumping Jack Flash was a revelation. I wanted to be Whoopi: a woman who was strong because she was smart, passionate, and brave, not because she’s beautiful and manipulative or, like Red Sonja, beautiful and ‘roided right the fuck out.

On watching the film as an adult, as well, I clap at how it handles “the issues.” Whoopi is constantly being told she’s not welcome because of her gender, her skin color, and her class. But she enters anyway, on her own terms, and uses her enemy’s cultural expectations against them. If they expect an African-American woman to be a singer, by golly she’ll dress up like a Supreme. She’ll give them what they expect, in an unexpected way, to get what she wants from them. If they expect a woman to be weak, delicate, and easily victimized, she will BITE HER WOULD-BE EXECUTIONER IN THE NADS. Cuz that’s what she does! Bites him! In the nads! I think this is partly why the film, despite being over twenty years old, hasn’t aged. Okay, the computers look a bit silly, but the real story is based on Whoopi’s character. And she is both ageless and paradoxically original, for Hollywood, it seems to me, has actually gone backwards in terms of its depiction of real women of any race.

My final plea: If you haven’t seen this film, please do. I think you’ll see some of Jane True in it, and you’ll definitely have a good time. Watch out for the giant toothbrush!

I adored everything about this movie. The special effects were, at the time, out of this world. The story was amazing. And I already loved Sherlock Holmes.

This will be a shocker to (none of) you, but I was raised on PBS. So I was already well familiar with Holmes, as played by Basil Rathbone, and I was becoming increasingly familiar with the Sherlock who will forever remain my quintessential Sherlock, Jeremy Brett. He first played Holmes in 1984, and, for me, he will always be the closest Holme’s to Conan Doyle’s ever created.

Watching Young Sherlock Holmes, then, offered a lot of insight into the depictions of Holmes I already knew: how he came by his method, why he wasn’t married, etc. But there was thing that bothered me. Granted, the young Sherlock Holmes was, indeed, young, but he also has so much energy in that film. He’s so alive, and physical, that I couldn’t see him growing up into the Holmes I “knew” from television.

And that’s where the newest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes comes into play. I went and saw it recently, and I adored it. It’s great fun, with amazing visuals, and RDJ and Jude Law have fantabulous chemistry together.

But what I really loved about that film is that this new Sherlock Holmes is the clear sequel to that movie I loved as a child, the Young Sherlock Holmes; Robert Downey Junior’s Holme’s is that little boy (whom I admit I had a bit of a crush on) all grown up.

That certainly wasn’t Guy Ritchie’s intention when he made the film, and he probably never even saw Young Sherlock Holmes. But that’s what the film felt like, to me. And that’s why, even without the bustles and the carriages and the like I would have loved it. That same energy and joy that infused the character of young Sherlock Holmes is in this Sherlock Holmes, and it made the film a pleasure to watch.

And in Other News . . .

Locus has weighed in on Tempest Rising, saying, “From small-town hijinks to otherworldly intrigue, this is a fun start to a new series, and a promising first novel.”

And finally, for those of you in the San Francisco Bay area, I will be attending this public event, at Borderlands Books,  hosted by io9.

So today I went to the first showing of Avatar–IMAX and 3D, cause I’m fancy like that. And the movie? My most powerful impression is this: Avatar is totally manipulative, full of those sorts of emotional tableaux that fill Titanic, and there’s never a second when you don’t know exactly what will happen next.

That said, it’s gorgeous, nearly perfectly paced, and has some wonderful performances. It also has that element of katharsis that so many other James Cameron movies have, especially Titanic. I loathed that film. Or, I tried to. In reality, I refused to watch it for as long as I could, and then I cried my entire way through it. There are old people! Holding each other in bed as the ship goes down! They know they’re going to die, yet there they are holding one another!

Cameron knows what Hallmark learned from Aristotle: show us certain images (such as a little girl dancing with her father, then cut to that girl dancing with her dad at her wedding) and we will cry. Cameron understands the power of communal drama, of those visual cues that are nearly archetypal in their resonance, and he has no compunction about wrenching about our heartstrings. In fact, I would say that his genius is in how he pulls and pulls and pulls. It’s almost a form of chutzpah: he’s like Dylan, repeating “lay, lady, lay,” ad infinitum. Just when we think, “Holy shit, he can’t tell her to lay across his big brass bed one more time,” Dylan does. Eventually, we discover to our surprise that we want to lay across his damned bed.

Cameron does something similar. He finds very good actors and actresses, and he has them do and say the things we know deep in our bones they are going to say. We know because they’re the expected actions of villains, heroes, and heroines everywhere. We know because they’re what we would like to say, or do, or think, but usually we’re too cowardly, or petty, or busy.

Cameron gives us what we want, and–like a skilled lover–he knows that good things can only get better if they’re done with enthusiasm, confidence, and at least three times.

So I was hooked from the first few moments of the film. It doesn’t hurt that I’d sop Sam Worthington up with a biscuit, but Avatar is, quite simply, a really entertaining and worthy film. And I mean worthy in both senses of the word: it’s worthy because it’s obviously had buttloads of talent poured into it, from all sides, but also because its message is eminently worthy.

As most of you know, the point of Avatar, in a nutshell, is that humans are greedy, destructive, corrupt little monsters. You are told that from watching the previews, this is not a spoiler. After all, the point of watching a film by Cameron is not to try to figure out the surprise ending; it’s to plug yourself into the emotional ride he takes you on as he gives you the message you know is coming.

Aristotle thought this sort of emotional manipulation was important. He believed that drama could help purge humanity of emotions (both positive and negative), making them more productive, malleable members of the community. Even today, catharsis is still a concept discussed in dramatic theory, and any member of any audience will attest to the special power of viewing a production as a member of a large crowd. It’s the only reason movie theaters exist in the age of On Demand and Netflix; there’s something special about seeing a film in the company of lots of random strangers.

For me, that’s why I love seeing a film on my own. I love being a member of an audience (part of a crowd) and yet I am alone. I’m not holding anyone’s popcorn while they go to the bathroom, or checking to make sure my husband turned off his cell phone. I come in, I sit down, and before the film starts, I people watch.

Today, at the theater, I got an eyeful. It is only a few days after Christmas, after all, meaning that families who are used to the buffers of school or work have been with each other for a while. And they’re getting stabby. Parents were whining at children not to whine; children were moaning they’d rather be at home playing with their new toys.

One especially delightful gentleman–sensing the real meaning of an American Christmas–shouted from the aisle to a woman sitting in the center of the theater, “Are those seats taken?” When she responded, “Yes, they are,” he peered across the dozen or so children sitting between them and yelled:

“Bitch!”

It was wicked classy. So much so I gave him my best sarcastic clap, which was picked up by a smattering of people around me. He responded with the finger, so I gave him the British reversed peace sign. The kids next to me loved it, mostly because they appeared to think I just didn’t know how to give the finger. The oldest boy was about to correct me when his mother intervened.

Anyway, yeah, it was a rowdy crowd that went in. But going out? We were all quiet. We’d watched beautiful blue people (if bizarrely nippleless in the case of the women) fight and die for their planet, defending themselves against humans who had already destroyed their own home.

Filing past the overflowing bins full of popcorn and candy boxes, I knew that few of us were going to go home and reduce our carbon footprint. But ya know what? We all waited, patiently, to hand back our 3D glasses, despite the fact the kid kept dropping the bag. Nobody swore, or tried to push through. Then we waited in line for the bathroom, all of the ladies washing their hands reflected pleasant expressions in the mirror. And driving out of our rather stupidly-planned local theater, not a single person honked his or her horn. People even waved through those waiting to cut in, and those who were let in waved their hands in front of their rear-views, in thanks.

For a few moments, it felt almost like Christmas, the way it used to be when I was very young.

Until, on the main road, I was nearly sideswiped by someone who wasn’t looking and tried to pull in my lane. I’m no lip reader, but I could see that her response to the audacity of my existing in her path was to call me a bitch.

She should really go see a good movie.