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Yesterday was a great outing, with a slightly odd “universe” theme: my very first visit to Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe (okay, technically it’s a possessive, not “cosmos,” but it’s close enough for government work; give me a break), and going to see “Stardust.” Well, also my first visit to our local Trader Joe’s, but I found their layout to be confusing and I couldn’t find the tofu, so aside from the cheap plonk, I wasn’t hugely excited by it. Maybe it suffered in comparison, though, because I was giddy over the other two events.

Firstly, I spent way too much at Cosmo’s without even buying any food to speak of — just some delish peanut-butter-and-chocolate popcorn to sneak into the movie. That isn’t a critique of their prices, which were entirely reasonable and basically about what I expected; it’s more that, as I’d suspected would happen, I got carried away and bought an armload of cookbooks and indie cookzines, as well as a delightful soy wax candle that smells like brownies, a set of Perk lip balm (jippie! [which apparently is Swedish for, well, "yippee"]), and vitamin powder for Nigel. If I had been going back home afterward instead of going to the movie, I would’ve definitely loaded up on refrigerated items, many of which (e.g., a bunch of Sheese flavors, vegan gyro filling, more Temptations flavors than I’ve ever seen in my life) I have completely failed to find anywhere else in town. There was also a reclaimed rubber bag I coveted; if I can’t talk myself out of spending the money, I’ll probably try to get the large one next time I’m there.

It was an amazing feeling to walk through a store and know that I could grab absolutely anything off the shelf and not have to read the ingredients list several times. Additionally, the person behind the counter (one of the owners, I think?) was great: friendly, approachable, and possessed of that rare talent — being available for questions without being intrusive when customers are wandering around the store and talking to each other. (Seriously, it drives me nuts when I’m standing there scanning a shelf for the item I want, or to see whether there are any new products, and someone comes up and asks me if I need help. If I need help, I’ll ask, okay? In the meantime, leave me alone.)

Basically, I loved it. Everyone should go there and spend lots of money on the good vegan treats; maybe, if they do really well, they’ll expand their offerings even more: I’m seeing a local produce section, a lunch counter, maybe even a shelf of vegan-friendly wines. . . .

On to the movie: “Stardust” may be getting mixed reviews (currently 73% on Rotten Tomatoes, for what that’s worth), but I loved it, even though I completely failed to recognize David Walliams (!!!) in his small supporting role. Funny, sweet without being cloying, with just enough of a ribbon of darkness running throughout to keep you on your toes: I’m definitely buying the DVD when it’s released.

I don’t think there are any spoilers here — I’ve tried to keep my summary general, albeit wordy, and you’d probably be more spoiled by reading any actual, proper review — but if you prefer to go into movies as pure as the driven, then you may wish to stop reading here.

Really. Stop reading now. I’m not going to go into the plot, but I will refer in a general fashion to bits that I particularly liked or that made an impression on me.

They did skip over bits from the book (the one I missed most was right after Yvaine had fallen from the sky, as you see the crater and the devastation, and then there’s this quiet voice that says, in very small font, “Fuck”), added some new bits (the quarterstaff play, for instance), modified a character here and there (notably, Captain Alberic is now Captain Shakespeare, and rather more colorful), and rearranged a few things (e.g., the May Day fair was turned into a market town that just happened to be near Wall). However, I didn’t really feel that the changes altered the texture, or made it harder to understand if you hadn’t read the book. Even the slight changes to the ending didn’t bother me; the original ending was more realistic and thus more satisfying, I thought, but it’s a fairy tale — I can deal with a minor alteration that still follows the story’s internal rules.

I usually hate it when people muck around with stories by my favorite authors, but these alterations felt fairly natural, as if it were the same story, just being retold by someone with a slightly different emphasis, glossing over some bits, noticing a few details that the original narrator ignored. (It always helps when the original authors are involved in the screen adaptations, I think, especially when their voices are allowed to shine through.) I still sat there thinking things like, “But Yvaine’s leg was supposed to be broken; she’s not supposed to have just a slight limp,” or, “They left out this bit, and that bit was supposed to have happened before the story even started,” but that was only in one particularly persnickety corner of my brain. The rest of my brain was caught up in what was happening on the screen.

Largely, the casting was great; the only one who didn’t at least vaguely match my mental casting was Una, but that’s okay. That’s actually a pretty good record. Sets, scenery, and costuming were also gorgeous, and reasonably close to what I’d expected, though I couldn’t help thinking that Yvaine’s post-pirates dress was not exactly comfortable attire for walking cross-country.

The humor of the book came through nicely, and the bits that actors or director or someone added felt entirely like they could’ve happened in the original story, but just hadn’t been mentioned; the “What, me? No, I’m just admiring the stars, mate, not going to push you out the window at all” bit, for instance, was a particular favorite, though they did have to temporally rearrange the book’s events a little to fit it in. Still, except for the aforementioned few neurons that get all bent out of shape whenever an adaptation so much as changes a line of dialog (it’s sacrilege!), I generally felt that the new or reshaped things humor didn’t really feel tacked-on to me, but meshed rather well.

Finally, I will admit to tearing up a fair bit during Yvaine’s monologue to the dormouse; this was probably helped along by the fact that the dormouse was extremely cute, and the expression on his buck-toothed little face was amazingly appropriate. (Anyone who thought I was a heartless anti-romantic after my post-Deathly Hallows mini-rant should note that it’s just unrealistic, unhealthy, Hollywood-style manipulative pseudo-romance that gets on my nerves. The mixture of vulnerability, happiness, awe, and a little tremulous fear in this scene rang true emotionally for me, and was entirely believable. Well, except maybe for the transfiguration bit, I suppose. That’s probably an exceedingly rare occurrence in the real world, so not all that realistic, but whatever.)