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Jul. 19th, 2015 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWalking outside today felt a bit like walking through a sauna. I took a walk around 5pm through Victorian Flatbush to Courtelyou Road, to pick up some sashimi, basically raw fish without the rice - because I can't eat rice. I was dripping wet by the time I returned. 90 degrees, 100% humidity, blue skies. Sauna. But considering we've only really had ten days of that all summer long - and in snatches, it's hard to complain. In Kansas City? 90 was the norm. Often it got up into 100s by mid-summer. You could not survive in Kansas City without air conditioning. I don't miss the climate in KC at all. 30 below 0 in the winter, with two feet of snow, and 100 degrees in the summer. You lived inside 60% of the time. NYC is so much more pleasant. Plus, in the summer? Half the population of NYC takes off - to other places, so the subways are less crowded, as are the streets.
Television round-up:
1) Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is rather frustrating, I don't think I'll bother watching the second season assuming there is one.
I can't stand Norrell - who is the worst kind of coward. And insanely narcissistic. But I like the servant, quite a bit. Who is not only brighter than Norrell but far more courageous. Why he is devoted to Norrell, I've no idea. Norrell is a mouse.
Strange, I'm actually sympathetic towards. And his wife and the lady pool, who was well within her rights for wanting to kill Norrell, were growing on me - until Arabella got whisked away by the Gentlmen to do nothing but dance around in a circle all night long.
Why must all the women in this series look exactly alike and why are there only three women? Weren't there any female magicians or interesting female characters in Clark's book? It feels very disjointed somehow. The only women are brunettes, about the same age, and size. They also appear to wear the same clothes. (The female characters on Orphan Black are more distinguishable and they're clones.) Outside of the mad woman who wanted to be cat - and appeared, to me at least, to be an older version of Lady Poole and a female version of the Mad King. Also the women are there merely to serve the male characters - they have no other purpose. It's all rather maddening.
I can't quite decide if this accidental or deliberate on the part of the writers? I'm guessing deliberate? Some sort of satire? If so, what's the point exactly? That men use women for their own ends, or want them merely to serve their ends and don't care much beyond that? Or are the writers deliberately poking at a trite gothic trope, where women are weak damsels that men must save? (This is true in most if not all Victorian Gothic and 19th along with late 18th century gothic novels, which is one of the many reasons I can't abide them, I keep wanting to strangle the heroines for being idiotic ninnies. Jane Austen actually made fun of the trope in Northanger Abbey (which was too broad for my taste and got on my nerves. I wasn't able to finish it).
I'm thinking it's meant to be satire, or the writer is extremely sexist. Which I doubt. There's quite a few things in it that are rather exaggerated. And it is preachy in places about various social issues - specifically slavery and how blacks were seen back then, as little more than servants or completely invisible. A nice corollary to how women are perceived. Also it is worth noting that the pov is almost solely through white male eyes. The Gentleman is dressed and made up as ...well I at first he resembled Napolean, and it does take place during the Napolean Wars, as a white prince, egotistical and narcissistic. Mirrors are also used as passageways, and Norrells study is covered in them, much as the fairy prince's dance hall is. Which Strange uses against both.
But, that aside, the pacing is slow, the villains seem to be winning far too easily, and the heroes are insanely stupid. So it's frustrating. I keep yelling at the tv set. Afterwards, I decided to watch The Wolverine - as a palate cleanser.
Overall rating to date? B- (it's more compelling than most of the other shows on at the moment, but frustrating.)
The Wolverine - the X-men movie featuring Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, or Logan, after the events of X-men Last Stand, where he had to kill Jean Grey, before she destroyed the world. In this movie, he's haunted by her...and goes to Japan to exorcise her ghost and previous ones. This flick surprised me - I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Also much like Days, it had strong female characters who not only drove the plot but ended up saving the hero. This in a nutshell is the difference between the Avengers comics and flicks and the X-men. It's also why I tended to ignore the Avengers or rarely read their comics and focused mainly on the X-men. The X-men have strong female characters that drive their plots, the Avengers really don't. The X-men have female super-heroes who are complex, and female super-villains who are complex, the Avenger's tend to have women characters as either damsels, girl-friends, or support.
I've noticed this trend in the movies as well. For example? The Wolverine - had not one but three strong female characters - Viper (the smart villain), Mariko - who he is trying to save but eventually saves him, and Yukio who also saves Logan and calls herself, his bodyguard.
Compare to Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers - who really only have the love interest, and she's either captured or in some sort of jeopardy.
Anyhow, skip the Avengers movies and watch the X-men movies instead. That is if you have choose over one or the other.
Zoo - why do all television horror thrillers remind me of Stephen King's The Stand? This one does, it has similar set-up, breaks, and cliff-hanger formula structure. Oh the subject matter is different, and the plot is - but the narrative structure is exactly the same - down to the camera work.
It's fun, but nothing to write home about. I'm enjoying it for what it is. What's it about? Oh for some reason, animals around the globe are banding together to attack humans. They have a mutated left eye of defiance - and that defiant left eye inspires them to attack humans, not for food, but to get rid of them. One hilarious scene, which was clearly taken from Hitchcock's the Birds, has a bunch of house cats gathered in trees around an elementary school. When two of our heroes discover them and call an animal rescue shelter to retrieve them. They get upset and disperse, as if they understood.
I burst out laughing. In another scene - while our heroes are flying to a radiated island in the South Pacific to locate some critical research, their plane is attacked by a swarm of bats.
Oh and the little terrier from Fraiser lures a nasty adoptive father, who hates dogs, to a deserted alley so that he can get "murdered" by dogs. Meanwhile, there's a guy in prison for killing a bunch animal hunters, and just before he's scheduled to get the death penalty - a bunch of wolves break him out of prison.
LOL! I know this is supposed to be scary, but it is rather funny in places. Also, I'm rooting for the animals, because the humans are either deeply stupid or a bit cruel to animals. But it is fun to watch.
UnREAL - I think I'm giving up on. I don't like anyone.
Flirting with plugging in my Amazon Fire Stick - took me forever last night just to get the cover off the remote and put in the batteries.
Television round-up:
1) Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is rather frustrating, I don't think I'll bother watching the second season assuming there is one.
I can't stand Norrell - who is the worst kind of coward. And insanely narcissistic. But I like the servant, quite a bit. Who is not only brighter than Norrell but far more courageous. Why he is devoted to Norrell, I've no idea. Norrell is a mouse.
Strange, I'm actually sympathetic towards. And his wife and the lady pool, who was well within her rights for wanting to kill Norrell, were growing on me - until Arabella got whisked away by the Gentlmen to do nothing but dance around in a circle all night long.
Why must all the women in this series look exactly alike and why are there only three women? Weren't there any female magicians or interesting female characters in Clark's book? It feels very disjointed somehow. The only women are brunettes, about the same age, and size. They also appear to wear the same clothes. (The female characters on Orphan Black are more distinguishable and they're clones.) Outside of the mad woman who wanted to be cat - and appeared, to me at least, to be an older version of Lady Poole and a female version of the Mad King. Also the women are there merely to serve the male characters - they have no other purpose. It's all rather maddening.
I can't quite decide if this accidental or deliberate on the part of the writers? I'm guessing deliberate? Some sort of satire? If so, what's the point exactly? That men use women for their own ends, or want them merely to serve their ends and don't care much beyond that? Or are the writers deliberately poking at a trite gothic trope, where women are weak damsels that men must save? (This is true in most if not all Victorian Gothic and 19th along with late 18th century gothic novels, which is one of the many reasons I can't abide them, I keep wanting to strangle the heroines for being idiotic ninnies. Jane Austen actually made fun of the trope in Northanger Abbey (which was too broad for my taste and got on my nerves. I wasn't able to finish it).
I'm thinking it's meant to be satire, or the writer is extremely sexist. Which I doubt. There's quite a few things in it that are rather exaggerated. And it is preachy in places about various social issues - specifically slavery and how blacks were seen back then, as little more than servants or completely invisible. A nice corollary to how women are perceived. Also it is worth noting that the pov is almost solely through white male eyes. The Gentleman is dressed and made up as ...well I at first he resembled Napolean, and it does take place during the Napolean Wars, as a white prince, egotistical and narcissistic. Mirrors are also used as passageways, and Norrells study is covered in them, much as the fairy prince's dance hall is. Which Strange uses against both.
But, that aside, the pacing is slow, the villains seem to be winning far too easily, and the heroes are insanely stupid. So it's frustrating. I keep yelling at the tv set. Afterwards, I decided to watch The Wolverine - as a palate cleanser.
Overall rating to date? B- (it's more compelling than most of the other shows on at the moment, but frustrating.)
The Wolverine - the X-men movie featuring Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, or Logan, after the events of X-men Last Stand, where he had to kill Jean Grey, before she destroyed the world. In this movie, he's haunted by her...and goes to Japan to exorcise her ghost and previous ones. This flick surprised me - I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Also much like Days, it had strong female characters who not only drove the plot but ended up saving the hero. This in a nutshell is the difference between the Avengers comics and flicks and the X-men. It's also why I tended to ignore the Avengers or rarely read their comics and focused mainly on the X-men. The X-men have strong female characters that drive their plots, the Avengers really don't. The X-men have female super-heroes who are complex, and female super-villains who are complex, the Avenger's tend to have women characters as either damsels, girl-friends, or support.
I've noticed this trend in the movies as well. For example? The Wolverine - had not one but three strong female characters - Viper (the smart villain), Mariko - who he is trying to save but eventually saves him, and Yukio who also saves Logan and calls herself, his bodyguard.
Compare to Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers - who really only have the love interest, and she's either captured or in some sort of jeopardy.
Anyhow, skip the Avengers movies and watch the X-men movies instead. That is if you have choose over one or the other.
Zoo - why do all television horror thrillers remind me of Stephen King's The Stand? This one does, it has similar set-up, breaks, and cliff-hanger formula structure. Oh the subject matter is different, and the plot is - but the narrative structure is exactly the same - down to the camera work.
It's fun, but nothing to write home about. I'm enjoying it for what it is. What's it about? Oh for some reason, animals around the globe are banding together to attack humans. They have a mutated left eye of defiance - and that defiant left eye inspires them to attack humans, not for food, but to get rid of them. One hilarious scene, which was clearly taken from Hitchcock's the Birds, has a bunch of house cats gathered in trees around an elementary school. When two of our heroes discover them and call an animal rescue shelter to retrieve them. They get upset and disperse, as if they understood.
I burst out laughing. In another scene - while our heroes are flying to a radiated island in the South Pacific to locate some critical research, their plane is attacked by a swarm of bats.
Oh and the little terrier from Fraiser lures a nasty adoptive father, who hates dogs, to a deserted alley so that he can get "murdered" by dogs. Meanwhile, there's a guy in prison for killing a bunch animal hunters, and just before he's scheduled to get the death penalty - a bunch of wolves break him out of prison.
LOL! I know this is supposed to be scary, but it is rather funny in places. Also, I'm rooting for the animals, because the humans are either deeply stupid or a bit cruel to animals. But it is fun to watch.
UnREAL - I think I'm giving up on. I don't like anyone.
Flirting with plugging in my Amazon Fire Stick - took me forever last night just to get the cover off the remote and put in the batteries.
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Date: 2015-07-20 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-20 10:21 pm (UTC)I did try to read it a few years back - but couldn't get past the first fifty pages, felt too much like work. Interesting concept, but the author's style really didn't work for me. (I'm not a fan of the 19th and 18th Century literary style.)