Firstly, I hope everyone had or is having a happy nondenominational winter section of time full of some kind of delicious baked goods! (I tend to the Amateur Astronomer Nighttime Appreciation Celebration with iced sugar cookies, myself.)

Secondly, something extremely fun happened!

Recently, Esther at Fantasy Magazine asked if I wanted to write about dragons.

DID I EVER.

“Three Dragons” is the result of some serious nerding out and a refusal to cull quotes (they’re all awesome, I put them all in there, I regret nothing). The research was fun, and kind of dangerous, since now I have a whole separate research folder for a project that may or may not include “The Imprint of Her Foot Serpentous” in the title, because as soon as I saw that phrase I figured I either had to write something for it or start a band, and I’m all out of band.

Please also note that in the middle of an article that pretends to know what it’s talking about I still managed to fangirl Smrgol, because that dragon deserves it.

P.S. A close runner-up for the photo was this dude, who looks completely flummoxed by the stupid human who shoved itself into his mouth and insists on being eaten.

My latest Intertitles column is up at Strange Horizons! Frame Story is the one where I completely nerd out about two really impressive films, Drive and Shame, and some of the formal elements that they employ to great effect as narrative devices.

I liked both of these movies to a somewhat-surprising degree; I tend to come down harshly on movies about Dudes Falling Apart with damsel-in-distress leading ladies AND movies with a lot of violence and overly-objectifying nudity, but both movies rose above those problems. The violence in Drive is nasty, but avoids glamorization, and the nudity in Shame serves its purpose and is, at least, less titillating and more gender-equal than, apparently, the nudity in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In fact, the violence in Drive and the nudity in Shame serve largely opposite purposes – every instance of violence in Drive is meant to shock and horrify and track how far down Driver has fallen, and the repeated nudity in Shame dulls the impact of it, so that the longer we follow his sex addiction, the sadder and emptier sex looks. (Not that either movie is flawless, but both of them were interesting and thoughtful, which is more than a lot of movies can say.)

The column is basically a mash note to color story and lovely frames, and that’s because those movies are gorgeous. However, the scripts are also stellar – some really standout exchanges in both – and I can’t even explain how beautifully these movies are acted from the leads* on down. Even actors with only one or two scenes (Oscar Isaac can make one line mean ten things, Nicole Beharie gives us a whole character arc in two scenes in Shame, and Lucy Walters walks away with her scenes in Shame despite having ZERO lines). I will be playing catch-up on some of 2011′s movies for a while, but I’d actually put these out as two of the year’s best, and not just because they are gorgeously put together.

The movie that is getting early buzz for Best Picture is, apparently, The Artist, which I would get except I saw that movie, and despite the fact that it’s cleverly put together and there are nice hat-tips aplenty to silent films and Singing in the Rain, I found that movie a much more facile treatment of Dude Falling Apart, and the leading lady’s only emotional arc was Keep Loving Dude (and Overact Beyond What Pastiche Requires), and so as nicely put-together as it was, I’d recommend either of these movies over it in a heartbeat.

* Fassbender is getting some early nominations for his work, but I am honestly surprised that Ryan Gosling got shut out of the SAGs and the Golden Globes, because he hit that movie out of the park, and should get more notice for that than he’s gotten.

For this month’s Intertitles, I caved in to a long-standing wish to talk about a film that is the cinema equivalent of having your heart pecked out by the world’s most beautiful birds, The Fall.

It has some truly spectacular acting, even more amazing design and cinematography, and some problematic moments that I am never sure what the hell to do about, but one of The Fall’s most interesting facets for me has always been its unforgiving take on the power of story – especially the limits of story.

“There’s No Happy Ending With Me” is up now at Strange Horizons, and is full of nerding about this movie. It contains some spoilers, but this isn’t the sort of movie that loses anything by being spoiled, both because of its structure and because nothing can really spoil you for its execution.

(I touch on this briefly in the article, but to no one’s surprise, what I love almost as much as the film is what went on behind-the-scenes, because some of those shenanigans are intense. And that’s just the lead actors, and not the dozen-plus years of scouting locations or the four-year piecemeal shooting schedule or anything.)

A quick nonfiction update, featuring a series of bad ideas!

First, The Downsides of Dating a God is up at Fantasy!

Despite the supernatural nature of the deistic pantheon (and their intramural dating scene), there’s a remarkable amount of god/human canoodling in the mythological tradition. Dating a deity has a certain ineffable appeal—the carefree demeanor, the kinky shapeshifting, the supernatural transportation options, the lure of immortality. However, it’s also one of the most dangerous extracurricular activities in which any legend-dwelling young person can engage, mythologically speaking.

Things to consider include how to handle unrequited love (goner), how to handle the family tree (goner), and how to handle breakups (goner).

Second, From the Desk Of… details the in-office horror of some of the movies’ most awkwardly employed, including the Premiere Hairdresser of Rohan and the incredibly unfortunate box-office intern from Phantom of the Opera:

“Yes, good afternoon, madam, happy to serve you and your husband, whose patronage we value greatly. We’re staging Hannibal this fall, would you like tickets?”

“I’m so sorry, we’re no longer doing Hannibal due to a change of management, but the Paris Opera would be happy to offer you tickets to Il Muto! It’s starring Carlotta, and is sure to be a smash hit.”

“My apologies, this is the Paris Opera – we’ve just had notice of a casting change for the Countess…”

The third awkward pursuit is the Avengers trailer, but either you’re into the Avengers movie or you’re not; I’m in the latter camp for several reasons, so the trailer was really just a reminder that I didn’t have to worry about double-booking my cinema trips that weekend.

This week at Strange Horizons, I have a new Intertitles!

“Adaptation (and Other Conversations)” nerds out about movie adaptations that are in dialogue with their source material; for this article, I singled out The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and that Mansfield Park that everybody hates.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman is a really smart, interesting film on several levels, even down to the tack it takes with its heroine Sarah (who in the novel is meant to be so enigmatic we never know if she’s passionate or just scheming), showing her as both passionate AND scheming! Sort of. With different people. In a way. Bonus: my goodness, is it ever 1980 in this movie.

Mansfield Park is trickier; it’s far from perfect, but at the same time, it’s an Austen adaptation that’s as much about Austen as the adaptation. It’s a divisive movie amongst Austen fans, but I come down on the side of rewarding ambition. And it’s not as though it falls down on the job as an Austen adaptation, either. In fact, it contains what I think is the single-best dance scene in all of Austen, in terms of getting across the desperate importance of dancing for those who wished to knock boots.

Adorably, Jonny Lee Miller also features in what I think is the OTHER best Austen dance scene, from the very shaky 2009 Emma that nailed things at intervals, and one of them was the dance between Emma and Mr. Knightley in which a lot goes on that only one of them even notices at the time, and has the same effects. Crash Override, you bust that move!

However, since it wouldn’t be fun to keep talking about good movies, I’m probably just going to write up The Scarlet Letter later this week, because if you want ambitious movies, The Scarlet Letter is one…in its own way. Its own hilarious, shitmazing way.