Blue and Gold and Bibliophiliac Fairytales

Short intro: I am watching Hellboy 2 right now which is way way way better than I ever thought it ever would be. I mean, the none of the Hellboy movies were really that big of a hit when it came out and nobody really made a point of watching it in theaters, so I was totally not prepared for the awesomeness level. BUT I watched Hellboy on netflix last week and was blown away by the orgasmic conglomeration of mythic saturation (including magic-obsessed Nazis), steampunkism, and chilling Lovecraftian monsters. Lovecraftian monsters! If you ever wanted to make scary, evil monsters, giant divine tentacular beings in space are the way to go. Basically, I was in love. So, I decided to watch Hellboy 2 which actually turns out to be EVEN MORE AWESOME because they added elves and trolls and fairytale creatures into the mix. Those tooth fairies? Man, even creepier than the scarab beetles in The Mummy.

"Welcome gentlemen, to the Troll Market."

And it was totally like WHOA.

Nevermind MORE steampunk and amazingly beautiful cinematography.

Also Nuala, who is the reason why I've paused the movie in order to post this.

Now, at the beginning of the story, they'd already show one gloriously illustrated leatherbound fairytale book with gilt pages (which Professor Broom reads to a young Hell Boy as a bedtime story - please let me take a moment to extol the gorgeous fairytale story animation with wooden puppets that follow), but this image kind of killed me right there and then:

That is Nuala and Abe in Professor Broom'S glorious library. Where she recites Tennyson. from a gorgeous gold and blue copy of Tennyson's poems. in the most beautiful blue and gold dress I've ever seen and jealously covet.

Let's see that book up close now:

Now I really want a copy of Tennyson like that. It kind of reminds me of an old edition of "The Blue Flower" that I bought last month.

But here's the dress in its full glory:

Seriously, this movie is gold. Watch it. I love the Lovecraftian monsters and all the gears and fairytale things mixed in. It's like a dessert filled with all my favourite things.