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Jun. 23rd, 2019 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatQuiet weekend. One of the nice things about my apartment is how quiet it is. High ceilings, wood floors, nice view of sky, trees, and the tops of houses, little row houses with triangular roofs. And outside of the occasional siren or jet plane overhead, there's little noise. I do hear crickets, birds and the feral cats roaming the neighborhood. They have singing contests on occasion. (And no, cats really can't sing...)
There's also a neighborhood opera singer who occasionally lets loose. Often in a language I do not know. And a couple of Bengali chanters. But other than that, relatively quiet. And the above two haven't heard in a long while.
I did take a short walk, but my knee was bugging me so I made it short not as far as Greenwood Cemetary.
After a noisy week of ceaseless and meaningless chattering, it's nice to have the quiet.
I've fallen down the comic book rabbit hole again. Just finished volume I of The Champions, which was really good. Better than expected. This is the superhero team made up of: a teen Hulk (who is, I think, Japanese-American), Miles Morales (Spiderman), Kamala Harris (Ms. Marvil), Vision's daughter Viv, and Nova (who is also POC)) -- basically it is an all POC teen superhero team, with the exception of time-displaced teen Cyclops (who is a mutant).
It's rather good. Instead of fighting supervillains, they fight normal human monsters, such as men who are suppressing women, forbidding them education or anything else, or a prejudiced sheriff. The view is to try to fix things without violence. The teens left their respective groups because they were tired of people dying or killing people.
The comics are rather progressive for a bunch of books written mainly by white guys in a heavy white male fandom. I've been lurking on the fringes of the fandom for over thirty years...there are women in it. But they are angry and younger than I am. I'm flirting with it, but somewhat scared of it. LOL!. The soap opera fandom is slightly easier. Both are somewhat crazy. But hey, 40 year fandoms...of course they are crazy. But I realized the reason the GH fandom is easier is ...no gamers. The gaming has sort of ruined comics in some respects. (I'm not a video games, actually I'm not a gamer at all -- the appeal is completely lost on me. I just don't understand the cosplay, RPG, and video gaming that goes hand in hand with comic and sci-fi fandoms, it's not evident in soap opera and other fandoms. And if you aren't into it -- you are sort of excluded from the fandom.)
I like Ms Marvel better than Captain Marvel, she's more relatable somehow, and more interesting. I wish the MCU could pick her up. Also, prefer Miles Morales to Peter Parker, and Teen Hulk to the Hulk. I like the book better than the Avengers. (Which isn't hard, the comic book version of the Avengers is...sigh, not good.)
Also watching television sporadically. Saw two more episodes of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina -- the fourth episode is much better than the third episode -- which was too dark and impossible to see. All of them are too dark lighting wise. I can barely see what's happening, and I've got a 55 inch TV with HD and great picture. Had to watch it at night, with the lights off. Annoying, to say the least. That said -- the episode in which Veronica Cartwight guest stars as a fortune teller (in reality she's Lilith with a glamour), was rather good. Felt like one of those anthology horror flicks. Very creepy and horrifying, without permanently disrupting things. Also furthered all the characters and the plot.
Alexis Denisof (of Angel fame) is playing Lilith's fiance Adam, who Lilith is beginning to wonder is the actual Adam. Haven't seen enough to form an opinion. But I prefer Deniof's British accent, his American one is a bit too nasal.
That's the problem with accents. When you do one, you tend to over-compensate on certain sounds. Because you are concerned about the accent.
Reef Break with Poppy Montgomery playing an aging surfer and hustler, who returns to her home to reconnect with an FBI agent/estranged hubby, and ends up becoming a police liason, isn't bad. It's sort of fun in places. But feels rather flimsy. Reminds me a little of The InBetween. The writing is weak, while the casting is sort of fun.
The Good Fight -- CBS is showing the first season of the Good Fight in order to tempt people to subscribe to CBS All Access -- I'm still holding out, even though I want to see both it and Star Trek Discovery. But, you know, it's another streaming channel subscription for $11-$20 a month. It adds up. I miss the days when you just had premium cable channels to add. This is all Netflix's fault. Streaming didn't exist before Netflix.
Is it good - well the first two episodes are good, so far. I like the cast and characters. Also the writing is good -- legal satire. Also, it's like the Good Wife in that it is the ONLY legal procedural that I've seen that satirizes our court system while simultaneously providing an accurate representation of how it works. No other television series does. Plus it doesn't put me to sleep and has a sense of humor, both of which are sorely lacking in the Law and Order franchise. And it's female centric -- the main characters are women and people of color. Diane (Christine Baranski) has joined a black law firm in Chicago.
Is it good enough to get me to subscribe to CBS All ACCESS? Eh...probably not. But I'm on the fence. I may do what I do with Hulu, which is subscribe, watch, then cancel.
And I've seen Grand Hotel mainly for Bryan Craig who plays the disabled son and to date is the best thing in it. Although it definitely has potential. It's sort of a soapy murder mystery/revenge fantasy with a mostly POC cast. Done by Eva Longeria, the actress who was in Desperate Housewives.
It's a pretty day. Relaxing. Got some housecleaning done. Sent the robot vacuum around the apartment. I probably should upgrade at some point. But holding off.
And cleaned the bathroom a bit.
There's also a neighborhood opera singer who occasionally lets loose. Often in a language I do not know. And a couple of Bengali chanters. But other than that, relatively quiet. And the above two haven't heard in a long while.
I did take a short walk, but my knee was bugging me so I made it short not as far as Greenwood Cemetary.
After a noisy week of ceaseless and meaningless chattering, it's nice to have the quiet.
I've fallen down the comic book rabbit hole again. Just finished volume I of The Champions, which was really good. Better than expected. This is the superhero team made up of: a teen Hulk (who is, I think, Japanese-American), Miles Morales (Spiderman), Kamala Harris (Ms. Marvil), Vision's daughter Viv, and Nova (who is also POC)) -- basically it is an all POC teen superhero team, with the exception of time-displaced teen Cyclops (who is a mutant).
It's rather good. Instead of fighting supervillains, they fight normal human monsters, such as men who are suppressing women, forbidding them education or anything else, or a prejudiced sheriff. The view is to try to fix things without violence. The teens left their respective groups because they were tired of people dying or killing people.
The comics are rather progressive for a bunch of books written mainly by white guys in a heavy white male fandom. I've been lurking on the fringes of the fandom for over thirty years...there are women in it. But they are angry and younger than I am. I'm flirting with it, but somewhat scared of it. LOL!. The soap opera fandom is slightly easier. Both are somewhat crazy. But hey, 40 year fandoms...of course they are crazy. But I realized the reason the GH fandom is easier is ...no gamers. The gaming has sort of ruined comics in some respects. (I'm not a video games, actually I'm not a gamer at all -- the appeal is completely lost on me. I just don't understand the cosplay, RPG, and video gaming that goes hand in hand with comic and sci-fi fandoms, it's not evident in soap opera and other fandoms. And if you aren't into it -- you are sort of excluded from the fandom.)
I like Ms Marvel better than Captain Marvel, she's more relatable somehow, and more interesting. I wish the MCU could pick her up. Also, prefer Miles Morales to Peter Parker, and Teen Hulk to the Hulk. I like the book better than the Avengers. (Which isn't hard, the comic book version of the Avengers is...sigh, not good.)
Also watching television sporadically. Saw two more episodes of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina -- the fourth episode is much better than the third episode -- which was too dark and impossible to see. All of them are too dark lighting wise. I can barely see what's happening, and I've got a 55 inch TV with HD and great picture. Had to watch it at night, with the lights off. Annoying, to say the least. That said -- the episode in which Veronica Cartwight guest stars as a fortune teller (in reality she's Lilith with a glamour), was rather good. Felt like one of those anthology horror flicks. Very creepy and horrifying, without permanently disrupting things. Also furthered all the characters and the plot.
Alexis Denisof (of Angel fame) is playing Lilith's fiance Adam, who Lilith is beginning to wonder is the actual Adam. Haven't seen enough to form an opinion. But I prefer Deniof's British accent, his American one is a bit too nasal.
That's the problem with accents. When you do one, you tend to over-compensate on certain sounds. Because you are concerned about the accent.
Reef Break with Poppy Montgomery playing an aging surfer and hustler, who returns to her home to reconnect with an FBI agent/estranged hubby, and ends up becoming a police liason, isn't bad. It's sort of fun in places. But feels rather flimsy. Reminds me a little of The InBetween. The writing is weak, while the casting is sort of fun.
The Good Fight -- CBS is showing the first season of the Good Fight in order to tempt people to subscribe to CBS All Access -- I'm still holding out, even though I want to see both it and Star Trek Discovery. But, you know, it's another streaming channel subscription for $11-$20 a month. It adds up. I miss the days when you just had premium cable channels to add. This is all Netflix's fault. Streaming didn't exist before Netflix.
Is it good - well the first two episodes are good, so far. I like the cast and characters. Also the writing is good -- legal satire. Also, it's like the Good Wife in that it is the ONLY legal procedural that I've seen that satirizes our court system while simultaneously providing an accurate representation of how it works. No other television series does. Plus it doesn't put me to sleep and has a sense of humor, both of which are sorely lacking in the Law and Order franchise. And it's female centric -- the main characters are women and people of color. Diane (Christine Baranski) has joined a black law firm in Chicago.
Is it good enough to get me to subscribe to CBS All ACCESS? Eh...probably not. But I'm on the fence. I may do what I do with Hulu, which is subscribe, watch, then cancel.
And I've seen Grand Hotel mainly for Bryan Craig who plays the disabled son and to date is the best thing in it. Although it definitely has potential. It's sort of a soapy murder mystery/revenge fantasy with a mostly POC cast. Done by Eva Longeria, the actress who was in Desperate Housewives.
It's a pretty day. Relaxing. Got some housecleaning done. Sent the robot vacuum around the apartment. I probably should upgrade at some point. But holding off.
And cleaned the bathroom a bit.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 01:26 am (UTC)Amadeus Cho (teen Hulk), Kamala Khan and Miles Morales are three of the best new Marvel characters in decades, and they'd be a huge draw for a teen audience. (Heard Riri Williams--Ironheart--is a part-time member, and she'd be another big draw.)
And Viv Vision too! I'd love for Disney to do an adaption of the Vision miniseries where he creates an artificial family and settles in the suburbs. (Don't be fooled by the description. It's REALLY dark.) Unfortunately, they seem set on WandaVision.
With the Eternals, the X-Men and the FF on the horizon, and maybe the Champions and A-Force(?), the MCU could go for a decade or two longer.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 12:30 pm (UTC)At the moment, Miles and Amadeus took off from the Champions, and it's a whole new team. But yes, it could be a big draw. I just read it for Cyclops character arc, but I'm guessing other people read it for the other three, who are among the best new Marvel characters in a long while. I actually prefer Kamala's Ms. Marvel, Amadeus' Hulk, and Miles' Spidey to the original versions.
So that's how Viv Vision exists? For a while there, I thought she was Wanda/Vision's daughter and Wanda had committed suicide, but that doesn't quite work. In the Champions -- the mother committed suicide and the son is dead, and Viv turned off her emotions to cope.
Marvel has so many characters and untapped content...it could do a television channel devoted solely to itself.
Kevin Feige is apparently working on getting various writers in line to reboot various comic book properties that fell by the wayside -- due to rights conflicts. Jonathan Hickman recently rebooted the Fantastic Four and the Avengers in the comics (the whole Infinity story arc in the movies apparently was inspired by and heavily based on Hickman's reboot of the Avengers). Ta-Neshi Coates rebooted Black Panther and Captain America. And now Hickman's back to reboot the X-men (which does actually need it -- it sort of went off the rails during the whole period in which Marvel attempted to replace the X-men with the Inhumans...because Fox owned the movie rights. Also the over-exposure of Wolverine or over-use, sort of ruined the X-men.). Rumor has it that Ta-Neshi Coates next project is doing a Storm title.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 12:09 pm (UTC)Yeah, I figured. Probably New Jersey or Pennsylvania -- very nasal in those areas of the country.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 12:32 pm (UTC)ETA: I've seen him in a number of series and movies, and to my ears he speaks with the same US dialect in most of them (except when he plays an alien in Avengers). Granted, I'm not an expert in various US dialects.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 12:35 pm (UTC)ETA: in Angel it's more British. And distinctive. I like that accent. The other's you are correct, are more or less the same accent.
I've been to Seattle, and...okay, it is nasal. I just got my cousin's voice in my head. It's very nasal. She's lived there most of her life.
Most US screen actors, news broadcasters, television personalities -- speak with a Midwestern collegiate accent. So you wouldn't really notice much difference. They all do sound the same. Some are slightly more nasal -- like Denisof. Sort of like Parisian French or Standard British (the British accent Denisof and Giles had).
Regional dialects...PA, Jersey, Maryland, Long Island are notoriously nasal. (Ever seen All in the Family? That's a Long Island/Queens accent.)
Also there's words that are distinctive of accents. For example? Folks instead of Parents, is Midwestern. The East Coast will say "Rents", while in the Midwest, it's usually Folks. Or we'll say ruf as opposed to roof.
Or "you guys" as opposed to "you all".
But with all the moving about, people tend to pick up various accents from various regions and they merge. Or if they are educated with a lot of public speaking -- all the dialect bits get ironed out. Most you might get is subtle differences in pronunciation.