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Jun. 8th, 2019 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Tried Little Drummer Girl again -- this is the BBC/AMC mini-series adaptation. I had actually read the book and seen the movie. So I know the story more or less. And each time I try the mini-series, which my brother loved, it puts me to sleep. My brother's taste is odd though...
* He preferred Angel to Buffy, and preferred Bangle and David Boreanze's Angel to Spike. (Mother and I just shook our heads in disgust.)
* Titantic and the first Ang Lee "Incredible Hulk" are two of his all time favorite films. He hated Rain Man.
* As a child he loved Leave it to Beaver and Three's Company, and adores Green Acres.
* Bohemian Rhapsody was a favorite.
* He despises Tom Hiddleston but adores David Boreanze...
* He thought Ed Norton and Brad Pitt should have switched roles in Fight Club
We don't often have the same taste in things. Also the poor dear despises musicals and live theater or plays, and adores rock concerts. Sigh.
It could be a mood thing. I may just not be in the mood for convoluted spy/terrorist thrillers?
Speaking of? Tried the first episode of The Americans as well -- all seasons are currently streaming on Amazon Prime. And I went to sleep during it as well.
2. Did watch first two episodes of Deadwood on HBO, and surprisingly enough it held my interest. Although it is hard to hear or understand what the characters are saying and they certainly talk a lot. Very talky show. Low on action, high on dialogue, also they like to feed corpses to the pigs (which is what turned my mother off). Didn't bother me that much...mainly because they look fake, and I don't know the corpses, so hard to care. But honestly -- feeding corpses to pigs -- means you do not want to eat those pigs, so they are sort of worthless. Not that I would eat them anyhow -- I tend to avoid pork -- mainly because pigs will eat anything.
I'm decided to watch it -- because co-worker convinced me that it basically had most of the same cast and creative team as Justified. And Timothy Oliphant was more or less playing the same role. He's right. Except I think Justified was better written, also far less violent, mainly because it was on F/X and this is on HBO.
The first episode, by the way, is better than the second. The second was a bit talky and slow. And I agree Ian McShane is the best thing in it.
3. Also made it through the first two episodes of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina S2 -- which is decidedly better than S1, to date. It's a bit darker. I do with they'd make the Dark Lord look pretty as opposed to a dessicated goat monster, who looks like he was made with cheap twigs from the costume department. He's hard to take seriously. Looks a wee bit too much like a humorous take Riverdale's The Gargoyle King (who was far creepier). Richard Coyle's head priest is creepier than the Dark Lord. Also, I have troubles believing that a fallen Angel would look like that.
It would be more interesting if Nick Scratch were what he really looks like and the other is a costume. But I don't see that happening.
The mythology of Sabrina much like the mythology of well all of the other Berlanti shows doesn't quite work. Every once and a while, I think, okay, what? That makes no sense. And yes, I can handwave with the best of them...but what? That's silly and makes no sense and I'm lost.
This is not a show you want to think about too hard. Just saying.
That said, from a socio-political perspective -- it has some rather intriguing themes regarding gender dynamics. And does work, if you ignore the mythology and some of the plot points. Lilith got tempted by Lucifer -- because he promised her equality, yet of course that was a deception. He never intended on making her his equal -- why, when he can have another servant? He got thrown out of heaven because he wanted to run things. Now, pissed, she is playing a game of chess with him and trying to out-maneuver him -- so she's the herald and at his right hand, not Sabrina. Although it sounds like she misunderstood him. (Not surprising, he mumbles and lisps, must be hard to speak through that puppet). From what I was able to make out -- with Sabrina, a half-human/half-witch or human soul -- he can open the gates of hell and use the human soul to bring all the demons to earth and rule it. He can't use Lilith, she's not human -- if he could, he'd have done it already. But Lilith just hears -- oh, she gets to be queen not me. Which isn't exactly what he said. And I'm thinking...okay, WHAT? But it does work on the gender politics level...
We have Lilith trying out-manuevre her boss, who is the metaphor for patriarchy, as well as the male feminist movement -- which states, oh, we'll let you have equality hahhahha, fingers crossed behind our backs. This is shown in the play "The Passion of Lucifer" which is nicely paired with Romeo and Juliet -- in both plays, the guy is seducing the naive women into leaving paradise to lay with him, screw the consequences. Both lead to her death or departure from earth forever. And in both cases, the star-crossed love is short-lived.
In the main plot -- we have Sabrina being jealous of Dorcas with Nick, who Nick could care less about, and Roz with Harvey, who Harvey does care for and Roz cares for Harvey. The devil gives both Roz and Dorcas the chicken pox, so that Sabrina can take the other's part.
We also have Suze/Theo -- Suz is as predicted from S1, transgender male, and tries out for the boys basketball team and wants to use their locker room. (Okay here's the problem with transgender in our society -- it's problematic. You are a male with female anatomy. And human beings tend to react to what they see or perceive, and very few people can think past that. So if you disrobe and show breasts and a vagina, they will treat you as female. Even if you should have been born with a penis. There's no getting around this. And you aren't going to change over 1000 years of ingrained gender prejudices and reactions to gender overnight. So in a way I can understand why the guys had issues with a transgender male in their midst. )
I'm glad the show showed this -- it's important for television, film, theater, and books to show this -- to help us understand and realize that it's a lot harder for the trans male to go into the male locker room, than it is for those around him.
That takes serious guts. I wouldn't be able to do it. Not to mention get bullied each time you do it. If I were Theo, I'd have caved and just gone to the women's locker room. So, you can't help but admire him for fighting for his rights.)
The whole series is heavily about gender politics, with morality as a sort of side issue.
4. Saw the Netflix film Always be My Maybe -- yes, I opted for the trendy Asian rom-com over the trendy gross-out horror movie.
First of all, you know you are too old for the story or the wrong demographic when the main characters are ten years old in 1996, and that's well after you graduated, moved to NYC and got a job.
Then again, maybe not, considering the heroine is paired initially with two men who are in their fifties, one of which is two years older than I am. One is the actor from Lost, Hawaii 5-0 and Angel. (Who I didn't realize was that old). The other is Keanu Reeves (who is 54). I preferred the first guy -- I also think he's better looking. Keanu does nothing for me -- mainly because he reminds me a great deal of a guy that I used to date in college -- they even sound alike. And I want to smack both of them upside the head. (The college boyfriend is a lot shorter, not as pretty, and a psychotherapist in NY.)
None of the men in this romantic comedy would I want to be with. Which is the de riguer of romantic comedies in this day and age. The women, on the other hand, I would completely hang with -- the actress who plays Sasha is an Asian stand-up comedian and quite engaging. (No one is funny in this comedy.) The only fun and interesting couple is the lesbians, who we see little of. (Yes, we have the token gay couple and the token gay best friend, which frankly is easier in these movies, because no competition.)
My difficulty with contemporary romances is that the guy is either an unappealing, self-loathing, putz or he's an impossibly handsome, controlling, domineering, billionaire. Folks? Most men do not fall into these two categories. But in the rom-com world they do. We don't get a lot of the heroine or her issues, just a smattering, no the main focus is on the hero, who is a putz up until the last twenty minutes, when he finally hits rock bottom, gets firm kick in the pants, and pulls himself together.
Overall? The best thing in the movie is the woman who plays Sasha. And her best friend, the very pregnant Veronica, who we do not get enough of. I could have done without everyone else. Also, what is it with the older fifty-something guys - that this twenty-something woman dates? I think she's twenty-something, thirty-something would make more sense -- she's a celebrity chef.
5. Boom!Studios Buffy Comic #5 -- the artist changed, and he's not as good as the prior artist, and really the art was the only thing I liked about the comics. So I think I'm finally done with them.
This issue did not work for me. You know there's a problem when you prefer fanfic which you can read for free. And I have read some extremely good and extremely bad fanfic from the Buffy verse. This is mediocre fanfic - which means it's not even bad enough to be amusing. And yes, it is fanfic -- approved fanfic by the rights holders, but I think we've already established that the right's holders don't necessarily have the best taste.
6. May have to re-read the Un-Canny X-men comics under Rosenberg. Issue 19 sort of flips the entire series he wrote on its ear. Or is a huge plot-twisty reveal. Also we get the return of Emma Frost, who is the best villian turned hero outside of Magneto. She is sort of the female version of Magneto, except with the ability to manipulate minds.
* He preferred Angel to Buffy, and preferred Bangle and David Boreanze's Angel to Spike. (Mother and I just shook our heads in disgust.)
* Titantic and the first Ang Lee "Incredible Hulk" are two of his all time favorite films. He hated Rain Man.
* As a child he loved Leave it to Beaver and Three's Company, and adores Green Acres.
* Bohemian Rhapsody was a favorite.
* He despises Tom Hiddleston but adores David Boreanze...
* He thought Ed Norton and Brad Pitt should have switched roles in Fight Club
We don't often have the same taste in things. Also the poor dear despises musicals and live theater or plays, and adores rock concerts. Sigh.
It could be a mood thing. I may just not be in the mood for convoluted spy/terrorist thrillers?
Speaking of? Tried the first episode of The Americans as well -- all seasons are currently streaming on Amazon Prime. And I went to sleep during it as well.
2. Did watch first two episodes of Deadwood on HBO, and surprisingly enough it held my interest. Although it is hard to hear or understand what the characters are saying and they certainly talk a lot. Very talky show. Low on action, high on dialogue, also they like to feed corpses to the pigs (which is what turned my mother off). Didn't bother me that much...mainly because they look fake, and I don't know the corpses, so hard to care. But honestly -- feeding corpses to pigs -- means you do not want to eat those pigs, so they are sort of worthless. Not that I would eat them anyhow -- I tend to avoid pork -- mainly because pigs will eat anything.
I'm decided to watch it -- because co-worker convinced me that it basically had most of the same cast and creative team as Justified. And Timothy Oliphant was more or less playing the same role. He's right. Except I think Justified was better written, also far less violent, mainly because it was on F/X and this is on HBO.
The first episode, by the way, is better than the second. The second was a bit talky and slow. And I agree Ian McShane is the best thing in it.
3. Also made it through the first two episodes of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina S2 -- which is decidedly better than S1, to date. It's a bit darker. I do with they'd make the Dark Lord look pretty as opposed to a dessicated goat monster, who looks like he was made with cheap twigs from the costume department. He's hard to take seriously. Looks a wee bit too much like a humorous take Riverdale's The Gargoyle King (who was far creepier). Richard Coyle's head priest is creepier than the Dark Lord. Also, I have troubles believing that a fallen Angel would look like that.
It would be more interesting if Nick Scratch were what he really looks like and the other is a costume. But I don't see that happening.
The mythology of Sabrina much like the mythology of well all of the other Berlanti shows doesn't quite work. Every once and a while, I think, okay, what? That makes no sense. And yes, I can handwave with the best of them...but what? That's silly and makes no sense and I'm lost.
This is not a show you want to think about too hard. Just saying.
That said, from a socio-political perspective -- it has some rather intriguing themes regarding gender dynamics. And does work, if you ignore the mythology and some of the plot points. Lilith got tempted by Lucifer -- because he promised her equality, yet of course that was a deception. He never intended on making her his equal -- why, when he can have another servant? He got thrown out of heaven because he wanted to run things. Now, pissed, she is playing a game of chess with him and trying to out-maneuver him -- so she's the herald and at his right hand, not Sabrina. Although it sounds like she misunderstood him. (Not surprising, he mumbles and lisps, must be hard to speak through that puppet). From what I was able to make out -- with Sabrina, a half-human/half-witch or human soul -- he can open the gates of hell and use the human soul to bring all the demons to earth and rule it. He can't use Lilith, she's not human -- if he could, he'd have done it already. But Lilith just hears -- oh, she gets to be queen not me. Which isn't exactly what he said. And I'm thinking...okay, WHAT? But it does work on the gender politics level...
We have Lilith trying out-manuevre her boss, who is the metaphor for patriarchy, as well as the male feminist movement -- which states, oh, we'll let you have equality hahhahha, fingers crossed behind our backs. This is shown in the play "The Passion of Lucifer" which is nicely paired with Romeo and Juliet -- in both plays, the guy is seducing the naive women into leaving paradise to lay with him, screw the consequences. Both lead to her death or departure from earth forever. And in both cases, the star-crossed love is short-lived.
In the main plot -- we have Sabrina being jealous of Dorcas with Nick, who Nick could care less about, and Roz with Harvey, who Harvey does care for and Roz cares for Harvey. The devil gives both Roz and Dorcas the chicken pox, so that Sabrina can take the other's part.
We also have Suze/Theo -- Suz is as predicted from S1, transgender male, and tries out for the boys basketball team and wants to use their locker room. (Okay here's the problem with transgender in our society -- it's problematic. You are a male with female anatomy. And human beings tend to react to what they see or perceive, and very few people can think past that. So if you disrobe and show breasts and a vagina, they will treat you as female. Even if you should have been born with a penis. There's no getting around this. And you aren't going to change over 1000 years of ingrained gender prejudices and reactions to gender overnight. So in a way I can understand why the guys had issues with a transgender male in their midst. )
I'm glad the show showed this -- it's important for television, film, theater, and books to show this -- to help us understand and realize that it's a lot harder for the trans male to go into the male locker room, than it is for those around him.
That takes serious guts. I wouldn't be able to do it. Not to mention get bullied each time you do it. If I were Theo, I'd have caved and just gone to the women's locker room. So, you can't help but admire him for fighting for his rights.)
The whole series is heavily about gender politics, with morality as a sort of side issue.
4. Saw the Netflix film Always be My Maybe -- yes, I opted for the trendy Asian rom-com over the trendy gross-out horror movie.
First of all, you know you are too old for the story or the wrong demographic when the main characters are ten years old in 1996, and that's well after you graduated, moved to NYC and got a job.
Then again, maybe not, considering the heroine is paired initially with two men who are in their fifties, one of which is two years older than I am. One is the actor from Lost, Hawaii 5-0 and Angel. (Who I didn't realize was that old). The other is Keanu Reeves (who is 54). I preferred the first guy -- I also think he's better looking. Keanu does nothing for me -- mainly because he reminds me a great deal of a guy that I used to date in college -- they even sound alike. And I want to smack both of them upside the head. (The college boyfriend is a lot shorter, not as pretty, and a psychotherapist in NY.)
None of the men in this romantic comedy would I want to be with. Which is the de riguer of romantic comedies in this day and age. The women, on the other hand, I would completely hang with -- the actress who plays Sasha is an Asian stand-up comedian and quite engaging. (No one is funny in this comedy.) The only fun and interesting couple is the lesbians, who we see little of. (Yes, we have the token gay couple and the token gay best friend, which frankly is easier in these movies, because no competition.)
My difficulty with contemporary romances is that the guy is either an unappealing, self-loathing, putz or he's an impossibly handsome, controlling, domineering, billionaire. Folks? Most men do not fall into these two categories. But in the rom-com world they do. We don't get a lot of the heroine or her issues, just a smattering, no the main focus is on the hero, who is a putz up until the last twenty minutes, when he finally hits rock bottom, gets firm kick in the pants, and pulls himself together.
Overall? The best thing in the movie is the woman who plays Sasha. And her best friend, the very pregnant Veronica, who we do not get enough of. I could have done without everyone else. Also, what is it with the older fifty-something guys - that this twenty-something woman dates? I think she's twenty-something, thirty-something would make more sense -- she's a celebrity chef.
5. Boom!Studios Buffy Comic #5 -- the artist changed, and he's not as good as the prior artist, and really the art was the only thing I liked about the comics. So I think I'm finally done with them.
This issue did not work for me. You know there's a problem when you prefer fanfic which you can read for free. And I have read some extremely good and extremely bad fanfic from the Buffy verse. This is mediocre fanfic - which means it's not even bad enough to be amusing. And yes, it is fanfic -- approved fanfic by the rights holders, but I think we've already established that the right's holders don't necessarily have the best taste.
6. May have to re-read the Un-Canny X-men comics under Rosenberg. Issue 19 sort of flips the entire series he wrote on its ear. Or is a huge plot-twisty reveal. Also we get the return of Emma Frost, who is the best villian turned hero outside of Magneto. She is sort of the female version of Magneto, except with the ability to manipulate minds.