Cowboys and Aliens

Months and months ago when I saw the trailer for this, my first thought was "Oh, hell, yes." And for months I have thought, "please don't let this suck." (I mean, I haven't been preoccupied every waking moment or anything; I have other things to worry about, really; but whenever I saw a trailer for it or a poster, my one-two punch response was YES followed by Don't suck!.

Through the miracle of the Spouse's employment, we saw it last night. It is utterly preposterous, and purely, ridiculously, fun: well made, decently acted, lavishly trollng the tropes of both westerns and SF with joy and abandon. Daniel Craig (I've finally figured out: he's like a fusion of Steve McQueen and Gary Cooper) is both wildly violent and oddly vulnerable, with the confidence, even when he doesn't know who he is, of of a man who is profoundly competent at dealing with the world. Harrison Ford is surly and unlikeable but, over the course of the film, becomes admirable. The supporting cast is really good. The effects are so good that I didn't even think about them. And the story?

Well, yes, it's ridiculous. But it's the kind of ridiculous where I grinned throughout and kept thinking, Whoop! Here we go! The last time I grinned through a movie in the same way (for reasons that are the same and utterly different) was Shakespeare in Love.

I guess I liked it.

Help Me, Groupmind, Redux

desperance suggested I repost this, given the ups, downs, and sideways of LJ in the last couple of days:

Not for Sarah Tolerance #4, but for a subsequent book, I'm trying to find information on slavery in England in 1811 or thereabouts. I know that the slave trade was abolished in 1807, putting a theoretical end to the triangle trade from England to Africa to America and/or British colonies. I know that human ownership of humans was prohibited in 1833/34. And I've found all sorts of material on slavery in British colonies. What I'm trying to find is evidence of slaveholding in England itself, and on the experience of people of color in England at the time--slave or free.

I'm not having a whole lot of luck finding it this afternoon, so I turn to All You Smart People to see if someone knows something. I'm obviously not looking in the right places.