Yes, I've seen it a couple of times (willingly, but on DVD) and I don't remember it coming out in cinemas here. Maybe it slipped through when something major came out? I quite like it, and it has a kind of affectionately mocking take on the silliness of superhero realities (your mileage may vary depending on your previous superhero exposure). A bit predictable, but with enough fun to water down the Message-y elements to acceptable levels.

(Oh, but I should warn you that the soundtrack is composed almost entirely of soulless covers of good songs, which I always feel is rather cruel.)

I just watched Sky High on the iplayer. Has anyone seen or even heard of it? It's 2005 but strap me to a submarine if I remember any publicity for it at all. Anyway, it's a Disney-produced film about kids at superhero school, and a more transparent attempt to cash in on the Harry Potter craze you couldn't wish to find, but it's actually quite sweet and nicely made. Very conventional and Disneyish, of course, but if you want to watch something mindless it isn't a bad bet, and the Improving Social Messages are largely non-infuriating. Available on the iplayer 'til the middle of Monday. There are spoilers in the synopsis, if you care.

I think is I've read too many Regency Romances - book series tend to have this device in which a group of male friends are all part of some kind of cutely named club, and may or may not be SPIES as well, and then gradually get paired up over the course of seven books.

If only the Bullingdon Club had done that in stead of going into politics.

Does... does Cassie Clare think nightclubs are an outgrowth of Victorian-era
gentlemen's clubs (in the sitting around in sedate silence drinking sense,
rather than the strippers sense)?

Apparently this one is. At least that's my guess since they have the same name!

I think is I've read too many Regency Romances - book series tend to have this
device in which a group of male friends are all part of some kind of cutely
named club, and may or may not be SPIES as well, and then gradually get paired
up over the course of seven books. There's only so many clubs a girl can take.

Yup, that's what it sounds like to me. And as one of those, this name isn't bad. I've no idea how this one would compare to any of them though.

I think is I've read too many Regency Romances - book series tend to have this device in which a group of male friends are all part of some kind of cutely named club, and may or may not be SPIES as well, and then gradually get paired up over the course of seven books. There's only so many clubs a girl can take.

Wait, the Pandemonium Club was an all-ages nightclub in City of Whatever?

Does... does Cassie Clare think nightclubs are an outgrowth of Victorian-era gentlemen's clubs (in the sitting around in sedate silence drinking sense, rather than the strippers sense)?

I actually like the Pandemonium Club, though. I could picture Victorian guys trying to be witty naming their club that. It's kind of hilarious. I actually like it better as that sort of Club than as the name of the all-ages dance place in the first book.

Ah yes, good old Sir Emeril. Often he would be heard to say, 'Look! There's one over there! Pass me that lantern! Now, look — Oh, dash it all, it's gone. Why does that always happen?'

To be fair, "London" could have been someone's surname. Maybe the institute was named in honour of its founder, Sir Emeril "Shadowhunter" London?

I bet she couldn't believe her luck when she googled and discovered there wasn't already something called the London Institute. But, ah, Ms Clare, there could never have been something called the London Institute in Victorian London. You see, part of being an imperial metropolis is that your things are THE things. That's why it's the Times rather than the London Times. (And nowadays that's why it's Amazon.com rather than Amazon.co.usa.)

I would love to read more novels which featured the same kinds of overblown corporate titles you get in real life. Deputy Vice President of Thaumaturgic and Infernal Sanitation Engineering, anyone?

The Pandemonium Club is particularly hilarious.

I wonder what their membership cards look like....

...the mysterious Dark Sisters, members of a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club...
...the Shadowhunters of the London Institute...

On a tangent, does anyone know any organisations that actually title themselves like this? I mean, you don't get the Evil Bears of the Boy Scouts, or the Sorcelators of the Royal Institute. Also, why do organisations in these books always give themselves ridiculously overblown and obviously sinister names? Or any names at all?

No, she's right, there is something special about creating a really good villain. I hope she'll experience it someday ;)

Amazon just recommended that I buy City of Glass. I don't know what I did to it to make it say that to me, but - hey, coincidence!

(Also is it mean of me to be amused by Clare saying "there's something special about creating a really good villain"?)

I'm always saddened by the idea that memorial photography was creepy. Okay, yeah, it looks creepy to our eyes but I still love it!

OMG!

AUTHORS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO OPEN THEIR MOUTHS ABOUT THEIR WORK EVER

I particularly liked "I had an image of a boy and a girl in Victorian London, and they're wearing the period costume."

As opposed to WHAT? Astronaut suits?

Wow, it's like she put everything we hate in the same book. Amazing.

So, anyway, I was walkin' thru the bookstore, when I spied this weighty tome upon the shelf.

I looked at it for a minute.

Then I thought about you guys.

Then I started laughing.

Me and my family have worked out an agreement with the spiders. They stay in the walls and eat stuff, and we don't actively hunt for them. 'Course, some refuse to abide by the conditions of the treaty, leaving us to resort to limited punitive measures to maintain the cease-fire.

Earwigs, on the other hand, can fuck off and die.

@ Niall: I rather liked the script. It's perhaps rather economical and not especially subtle, but this means that the film feels perspicuous despite the complexity of the plot and the frequent shifts in our sympathies. If one were feeling kind, one might even call the script elegant.

Agora: I do agree that it's better than the trailer makes it seem. I thought the direction was more interesting than the script; I loved all those zoomed-out shots to put the petty affairs of humans in perspective, I thought some of the affairs themselves were quite petty (or at least overly melodramatic). Weisz is good, though. Gwyneth Jones liked it, with some comments on its historical-ness.