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Jul. 1st, 2019 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Work continues to push me towards misanthropy...this can't be good for my mental health. (Spent the day herding engineers, who are a lot fussier than cats (personally I'd rather herd cats), and fighting with them on how to do my job -- a couple of them had worked as procurement professionals in the private sector and for some reason thought their experience trumped mine and was valid. I informed them that our agency doesn't follow their procedures and to let me do my job in peace. Sigh.)
Certainly horrific for my social life or the little of it that remains. I have been using meditation which helps tremendously. And trying to stay away from anything that pisses me off or frustrates me entertainment wise or in my personal life, which...isn't as easy as one might think.
I've gained weight due to work and the Republican Party. Apparently chocolate and other assorted treats, including gin and tonics, does not make the problems go away. I'm thinking I need to retire to an island somewhere -- thinking New Guinea, with lots of animals and plants and not so many people.
2. Interesting news.. Having lost the Marvel Series...NETFLIX goes to the competition and picks up...Neil Gaiman and Vertigo's Sandman Series
The drama, from Warner Bros. TV, landed at the streamer with what sources describe as a massive financial commitment and DC Entertainment's most-expensive TV foray ever.
Neil Gaiman's beloved Vertigo comic Sandman is finally coming to the screen.
More than three years after New Line's failed attempt to turn the graphic novel into a feature film, Netflix has signed what sources describe as a massive financial deal with Warner Bros. Television to adapt the best-seller into a live-action TV series. Sources familiar with the pact note it is the most expensive TV series that DC Entertainment has ever done. The drama has officially been picked up with an 11-episode order.
Allan Heinberg (Wonder Woman, ABC's The Catch, Grey's Anatomy) is set to write and serve as showrunner on the straight-to-series drama. Gaiman, who created the ongoing monthly comic, will executive produce alongside David Goyer. Gaiman and Goyer were both attached to New Line's most recent attempts to adapt Sandman for the big screen. Gaiman, Goyer and Heinberg will co-write the premiere.
"We're thrilled to partner with the brilliant team that is Neil Gaiman, David S. Goyer and Allan Heinberg to finally bring Neil's iconic comic book series, The Sandman, to life onscreen," said Channing Dungey, vp originals at Netflix. "From its rich characters and storylines to its intricately built-out worlds, we're excited to create an epic original series that dives deep into this multi-layered universe beloved by fans around the world."
The Netflix take represents the first Sandman TV series after numerous efforts to adapt Gaiman's horror, fantasy and mythology tale about Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, and the Endless, the powerful group of siblings that includes Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium (as well as Dream).
Whoa. And they already have Lucifer. Wondering if they got the idea from the Christian Right -- when they asked Netflix to stop making Good Omens. And Netflix, eh, we should do the rest of Neil Gaiman's series...considering we lost the Marvel ones. Also this is more interesting, and look how successfully controversial Good Omens was for Amazon?
This could be really good. OR not. Hard to say. Neil Gaiman is an odd writer -- he's more into world building and whimiscal explorations of Western philosophy, folklore and religious mythos, than actual character or plot. I mean you either find Neil Gaiman rather charming...or really don't. Sort of similar to Prachett actually.
I found him rather charming and whimsical, but we've already established that I have an odd and somewhat offbeat sense of humor.
The other issue? How many television series can NETFLIX realistically do? Seriously they have the most scripted television series of ANY network or streaming channel to date. In every genre imaginable. I can't find stuff on Netflix -- that's how bad it is. I have to hit the search button. It has over 900 programs, including movies, and previously broadcast series. It also has the largest collection of anime out there.
(Although also an irritating habit of switching anime programs in and out without notice. Making it hard to find things. Black Butler was there one summer, then gone, then back again.)
3. Chidi informed me that he was going to see the film Midsommer on Wed. So apparently it is out? It also got an A- from the EW critics. It's the director's follow up to "Hereditary" (which scared Chidi and blew him away, and I thusly afraid to watch but sorely tempted). I have a love hate relationship with the horror genre in case you haven't noticed.
He promised to give me a full review. Because movie buddy wants this to be our next movie...and I want to know if I can watch it without being kept up at night. Get Out and the Quiet Place and that horror flick with Sandra Bullock that I cannot remember the name of...did not bother me. Haunting of Hill House did -- although it was definitely worth it.
I appreciate good films...and some horror films are truly amazing and worth it. Here's a brief list off the top of my head:
Get Out - Jordan Peel
The Haunting -- Robert Wise film, circa 1960s, Claire Bloom, Julie Harris, Russ Tamblyn
The Andromeda Strain - also Robert Wise
Jaws - Spielberg
The Shining - Kubrick
The Others - Nicole Kidman
Halloween - John Carpenter
Terminator - James Cameron (although I like the second one better)
Aliens - James Cameron
Jurassic Park - Steven Spielberg
Caroline - Tim Burton
Pan's Labrynth by Guillermo Del Toro(which I'm not completely certain is horror or just dark fantasy)
The Lost Boys
Let Me In (Swedish version)
The Vanishing -- (the Swedish version not the American)
American Werewolf in London
The Skeleton Key -- which has some interesting things to say about slavery and the reprecussions of it. It also continues to haunt me.
In horror, less is more. And as you can see, I've seen a lot of horror flicks for someone who professes not to like the genre. I also love to read the synopsis and reviews of the ones I won't see. I'm intrigued by the genre.
Chidi and I discussed recent horror releases - we both agreed that "Ma" wasn't worth it -- a typical revenge torture porn with not much depth, and "US" - Chidi wasn't impressed enough by to push me towards, nor was movie buddy or anyone else. So -- if I check it out, it will be for free on a streaming channel.
4. Hmmmm, I guess it was bound to happen, but someone has published a novel about the villainess in The Three Musketeers entitled Milady. This by the way qualifies as "published" fanfiction. Where another writer reads a novel, and a character who is not fully explored becomes interesting enough to the new writer to result in a story or a retelling of the original work from a new perspective.
I like fanfiction for this reason. The ability to look at a story, character, or relationship from another perspective and to find something new within it. I've seen it done a bit too much with Jane Austen and Shakespeare (who appear to be fodder for published fanfiction)...so it's sort of nice to see it done with the Three Musketeers for a change.
From the glittering ballrooms of 17th Century England to the dangerous intrigues of the French court, Laura L. Sullivan brings an unlikely heroine to the page, turning on its head everything we’ve been told about The Three Musketeers and their ultimate rival.
I’ve gone by many names, though you most likely know me as Milady de Winter: Villainess. Seductress. A secondary player in someone else’s tale.
It’s finally time I tell my own story. The truth isn’t tidy or convenient, but it’s certainly more interesting.
Before you cast judgment, let me start at the beginning, and you shall learn how an innocent girl from the countryside became the most feared woman in all of Europe.
Because we all know history was written by men, and they so often get things wrong.
Smartbitches...Hide Your Wallet July Releases" is aptly named, there's a few non-romance genre releases on that list that are intrigue. I almost grabbed four of them. Ugh. I have enough books on my Kindle. I do not need more.
What looked intriguing?
*Salvation Day -- about an orbiting space ship that had been abandoned due to a lethal virus. But what Zahra and her crew could not know was what waited for them on the ship—a terrifying secret buried by the government. A threat to all of humanity that lay sleeping alongside the orbiting dead. And then they woke it up.
(Yeah, I've read this before too -- but here's an interesting angle: "But now it could belong to her people if they were bold enough to take it. All they needed to do was kidnap Jaswinder Bhattacharya—the sole survivor of the tragedy, and the last person whose genetic signature would allow entry to the spaceship." Also this type of story is apparently one of my favorite story kinks. It's why I read Leviathan (first book of The Expanse). The idea of someone hunting down a ghost ship, only to find a deadly virus inside...oops.)
*The Toll - Chelsea Priest -- a horror novel that takes place in Florida, about a creepy bridge.
*Wilder Girls -- a weird sci-fi novel that is sort of female take on Lord of the Flies.
* Spin the Dawn - Project Runway meets Mulan in this sweeping YA fantasy about a young girl who poses as a boy to compete for the role of imperial tailor and embarks on an impossible journey to sew three magic dresses, from the sun, the moon, and the stars.
* The Bookish Life of Nina Hill -- a comfortable book store employee (actually these books romanticize working in book stores -- I've worked in one, it's NOTHING like that -- also you can't live off the wage, unless you own it), who has everything she wants -- father dies (who she never knew) leaving her with a huge family of siblings, plus her trivia nemesis likes her, oh the horror.
My difficulty with this synopsis is I don't buy it. So maybe not this one. Chick-Lit and Contemporary Romance novels don't appear to work for me -- mainly because I don't buy the plot lines. LOL! So maybe not on this one.
5. Ack politics! Ack!
In the Ack Politics! Ack column... THIS has been posted by two progressive friends on FB. One, who being an attorney said it wasn't major but should be discussed, while the other being an academic/English Literature Professor and long-term activist...saw it as troubling and a game-changer.
"Kamala Harris Was Not a ‘Progressive Prosecutor’
The senator was often on the wrong side of history when she served as California’s attorney general."
My take aways? First this is an opinion piece, which means..it should be taken as such. The writer is Ms. Bazelon, who is a law professor and the former director of the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent in Los Angeles. And as such, this woman's main cause du jour is prison reform and laws governing prisons being reformed. It's also annoyingly the cause du jour of my church (which is why I backed away from it) and the individual on FB who posted this. It's not mine. Been there done that, have the battle wounds. In fact discussed it ad naseum with co-worker who is a former defense attorney, and prosecutor, who worked with the innocence project in NY way back in the 1970s, when NY still had the death penalty, it doesn't now. Most states have gotten rid of it -- why? It's expensive. Cheaper to just house them.
Of course, the full picture is more complicated. During her tenure as district attorney, Ms. Harris refused to seek the death penalty in a case involving the murder of a police officer. And she started a successful program that offered first-time nonviolent offenders a chance to have their charges dismissed if they completed a rigorous vocational training. As attorney general, she mandated implicit bias training and was awarded for her work in correcting a backlog in the testing of rape kits.
But if Kamala Harris wants people who care about dismantling mass incarceration and correcting miscarriages of justice to vote for her, she needs to radically break with her past.
A good first step would be to apologize to the wrongfully convicted people she has fought to keep in prison and to do what she can to make sure they get justice. She should start with George Gage.
My take away was who is writing it -- the writer was head of the Loyola Law School Innocence Project (ie. the opposition to Ms. Harris for most of these cases) so has a clear bias and agenda. I'm not saying she's wrong, but it should be looked at as an opinion piece by a defense attorney who is an advocate for prisoner's rights. (Hardly impartial). And, having discussed similar issues with a co-worker who was a defense attorney and a prosecutor, and worked for the innocence project in NY, a lot of this is par for the course in criminal prosecution/defense. He's told me all of his tricks, and I saw some of the same things when I interned. And, Harris has tried to change things as well -- it's not as clear cut as the writer indicates. Also, while I'm all for prison reform, I remain unconvinced this is a Presidential issue. In NY more is being done on the state level actually. Also Obama hardly pushed for it. In addition there are other issues that I think should take precedence here -- such as climate change. So, I don't see this as a game changer regarding Harris. (Also I have to admit I don't care that much about prison reform. One has to draw the line somewhere...that's mine.)
The problem with political discussions is well the same one with religion, everyone has their pet cause or their deeply held perspective and they are convinced they are right and everyone else is wrong. And it's obvious why they are right.
It's exhausting. And anxiety inducing. I hate politics.
Certainly horrific for my social life or the little of it that remains. I have been using meditation which helps tremendously. And trying to stay away from anything that pisses me off or frustrates me entertainment wise or in my personal life, which...isn't as easy as one might think.
I've gained weight due to work and the Republican Party. Apparently chocolate and other assorted treats, including gin and tonics, does not make the problems go away. I'm thinking I need to retire to an island somewhere -- thinking New Guinea, with lots of animals and plants and not so many people.
2. Interesting news.. Having lost the Marvel Series...NETFLIX goes to the competition and picks up...Neil Gaiman and Vertigo's Sandman Series
The drama, from Warner Bros. TV, landed at the streamer with what sources describe as a massive financial commitment and DC Entertainment's most-expensive TV foray ever.
Neil Gaiman's beloved Vertigo comic Sandman is finally coming to the screen.
More than three years after New Line's failed attempt to turn the graphic novel into a feature film, Netflix has signed what sources describe as a massive financial deal with Warner Bros. Television to adapt the best-seller into a live-action TV series. Sources familiar with the pact note it is the most expensive TV series that DC Entertainment has ever done. The drama has officially been picked up with an 11-episode order.
Allan Heinberg (Wonder Woman, ABC's The Catch, Grey's Anatomy) is set to write and serve as showrunner on the straight-to-series drama. Gaiman, who created the ongoing monthly comic, will executive produce alongside David Goyer. Gaiman and Goyer were both attached to New Line's most recent attempts to adapt Sandman for the big screen. Gaiman, Goyer and Heinberg will co-write the premiere.
"We're thrilled to partner with the brilliant team that is Neil Gaiman, David S. Goyer and Allan Heinberg to finally bring Neil's iconic comic book series, The Sandman, to life onscreen," said Channing Dungey, vp originals at Netflix. "From its rich characters and storylines to its intricately built-out worlds, we're excited to create an epic original series that dives deep into this multi-layered universe beloved by fans around the world."
The Netflix take represents the first Sandman TV series after numerous efforts to adapt Gaiman's horror, fantasy and mythology tale about Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, and the Endless, the powerful group of siblings that includes Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium (as well as Dream).
Whoa. And they already have Lucifer. Wondering if they got the idea from the Christian Right -- when they asked Netflix to stop making Good Omens. And Netflix, eh, we should do the rest of Neil Gaiman's series...considering we lost the Marvel ones. Also this is more interesting, and look how successfully controversial Good Omens was for Amazon?
This could be really good. OR not. Hard to say. Neil Gaiman is an odd writer -- he's more into world building and whimiscal explorations of Western philosophy, folklore and religious mythos, than actual character or plot. I mean you either find Neil Gaiman rather charming...or really don't. Sort of similar to Prachett actually.
I found him rather charming and whimsical, but we've already established that I have an odd and somewhat offbeat sense of humor.
The other issue? How many television series can NETFLIX realistically do? Seriously they have the most scripted television series of ANY network or streaming channel to date. In every genre imaginable. I can't find stuff on Netflix -- that's how bad it is. I have to hit the search button. It has over 900 programs, including movies, and previously broadcast series. It also has the largest collection of anime out there.
(Although also an irritating habit of switching anime programs in and out without notice. Making it hard to find things. Black Butler was there one summer, then gone, then back again.)
3. Chidi informed me that he was going to see the film Midsommer on Wed. So apparently it is out? It also got an A- from the EW critics. It's the director's follow up to "Hereditary" (which scared Chidi and blew him away, and I thusly afraid to watch but sorely tempted). I have a love hate relationship with the horror genre in case you haven't noticed.
He promised to give me a full review. Because movie buddy wants this to be our next movie...and I want to know if I can watch it without being kept up at night. Get Out and the Quiet Place and that horror flick with Sandra Bullock that I cannot remember the name of...did not bother me. Haunting of Hill House did -- although it was definitely worth it.
I appreciate good films...and some horror films are truly amazing and worth it. Here's a brief list off the top of my head:
Get Out - Jordan Peel
The Haunting -- Robert Wise film, circa 1960s, Claire Bloom, Julie Harris, Russ Tamblyn
The Andromeda Strain - also Robert Wise
Jaws - Spielberg
The Shining - Kubrick
The Others - Nicole Kidman
Halloween - John Carpenter
Terminator - James Cameron (although I like the second one better)
Aliens - James Cameron
Jurassic Park - Steven Spielberg
Caroline - Tim Burton
Pan's Labrynth by Guillermo Del Toro(which I'm not completely certain is horror or just dark fantasy)
The Lost Boys
Let Me In (Swedish version)
The Vanishing -- (the Swedish version not the American)
American Werewolf in London
The Skeleton Key -- which has some interesting things to say about slavery and the reprecussions of it. It also continues to haunt me.
In horror, less is more. And as you can see, I've seen a lot of horror flicks for someone who professes not to like the genre. I also love to read the synopsis and reviews of the ones I won't see. I'm intrigued by the genre.
Chidi and I discussed recent horror releases - we both agreed that "Ma" wasn't worth it -- a typical revenge torture porn with not much depth, and "US" - Chidi wasn't impressed enough by to push me towards, nor was movie buddy or anyone else. So -- if I check it out, it will be for free on a streaming channel.
4. Hmmmm, I guess it was bound to happen, but someone has published a novel about the villainess in The Three Musketeers entitled Milady. This by the way qualifies as "published" fanfiction. Where another writer reads a novel, and a character who is not fully explored becomes interesting enough to the new writer to result in a story or a retelling of the original work from a new perspective.
I like fanfiction for this reason. The ability to look at a story, character, or relationship from another perspective and to find something new within it. I've seen it done a bit too much with Jane Austen and Shakespeare (who appear to be fodder for published fanfiction)...so it's sort of nice to see it done with the Three Musketeers for a change.
From the glittering ballrooms of 17th Century England to the dangerous intrigues of the French court, Laura L. Sullivan brings an unlikely heroine to the page, turning on its head everything we’ve been told about The Three Musketeers and their ultimate rival.
I’ve gone by many names, though you most likely know me as Milady de Winter: Villainess. Seductress. A secondary player in someone else’s tale.
It’s finally time I tell my own story. The truth isn’t tidy or convenient, but it’s certainly more interesting.
Before you cast judgment, let me start at the beginning, and you shall learn how an innocent girl from the countryside became the most feared woman in all of Europe.
Because we all know history was written by men, and they so often get things wrong.
Smartbitches...Hide Your Wallet July Releases" is aptly named, there's a few non-romance genre releases on that list that are intrigue. I almost grabbed four of them. Ugh. I have enough books on my Kindle. I do not need more.
What looked intriguing?
*Salvation Day -- about an orbiting space ship that had been abandoned due to a lethal virus. But what Zahra and her crew could not know was what waited for them on the ship—a terrifying secret buried by the government. A threat to all of humanity that lay sleeping alongside the orbiting dead. And then they woke it up.
(Yeah, I've read this before too -- but here's an interesting angle: "But now it could belong to her people if they were bold enough to take it. All they needed to do was kidnap Jaswinder Bhattacharya—the sole survivor of the tragedy, and the last person whose genetic signature would allow entry to the spaceship." Also this type of story is apparently one of my favorite story kinks. It's why I read Leviathan (first book of The Expanse). The idea of someone hunting down a ghost ship, only to find a deadly virus inside...oops.)
*The Toll - Chelsea Priest -- a horror novel that takes place in Florida, about a creepy bridge.
*Wilder Girls -- a weird sci-fi novel that is sort of female take on Lord of the Flies.
* Spin the Dawn - Project Runway meets Mulan in this sweeping YA fantasy about a young girl who poses as a boy to compete for the role of imperial tailor and embarks on an impossible journey to sew three magic dresses, from the sun, the moon, and the stars.
* The Bookish Life of Nina Hill -- a comfortable book store employee (actually these books romanticize working in book stores -- I've worked in one, it's NOTHING like that -- also you can't live off the wage, unless you own it), who has everything she wants -- father dies (who she never knew) leaving her with a huge family of siblings, plus her trivia nemesis likes her, oh the horror.
My difficulty with this synopsis is I don't buy it. So maybe not this one. Chick-Lit and Contemporary Romance novels don't appear to work for me -- mainly because I don't buy the plot lines. LOL! So maybe not on this one.
5. Ack politics! Ack!
In the Ack Politics! Ack column... THIS has been posted by two progressive friends on FB. One, who being an attorney said it wasn't major but should be discussed, while the other being an academic/English Literature Professor and long-term activist...saw it as troubling and a game-changer.
"Kamala Harris Was Not a ‘Progressive Prosecutor’
The senator was often on the wrong side of history when she served as California’s attorney general."
My take aways? First this is an opinion piece, which means..it should be taken as such. The writer is Ms. Bazelon, who is a law professor and the former director of the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent in Los Angeles. And as such, this woman's main cause du jour is prison reform and laws governing prisons being reformed. It's also annoyingly the cause du jour of my church (which is why I backed away from it) and the individual on FB who posted this. It's not mine. Been there done that, have the battle wounds. In fact discussed it ad naseum with co-worker who is a former defense attorney, and prosecutor, who worked with the innocence project in NY way back in the 1970s, when NY still had the death penalty, it doesn't now. Most states have gotten rid of it -- why? It's expensive. Cheaper to just house them.
Of course, the full picture is more complicated. During her tenure as district attorney, Ms. Harris refused to seek the death penalty in a case involving the murder of a police officer. And she started a successful program that offered first-time nonviolent offenders a chance to have their charges dismissed if they completed a rigorous vocational training. As attorney general, she mandated implicit bias training and was awarded for her work in correcting a backlog in the testing of rape kits.
But if Kamala Harris wants people who care about dismantling mass incarceration and correcting miscarriages of justice to vote for her, she needs to radically break with her past.
A good first step would be to apologize to the wrongfully convicted people she has fought to keep in prison and to do what she can to make sure they get justice. She should start with George Gage.
My take away was who is writing it -- the writer was head of the Loyola Law School Innocence Project (ie. the opposition to Ms. Harris for most of these cases) so has a clear bias and agenda. I'm not saying she's wrong, but it should be looked at as an opinion piece by a defense attorney who is an advocate for prisoner's rights. (Hardly impartial). And, having discussed similar issues with a co-worker who was a defense attorney and a prosecutor, and worked for the innocence project in NY, a lot of this is par for the course in criminal prosecution/defense. He's told me all of his tricks, and I saw some of the same things when I interned. And, Harris has tried to change things as well -- it's not as clear cut as the writer indicates. Also, while I'm all for prison reform, I remain unconvinced this is a Presidential issue. In NY more is being done on the state level actually. Also Obama hardly pushed for it. In addition there are other issues that I think should take precedence here -- such as climate change. So, I don't see this as a game changer regarding Harris. (Also I have to admit I don't care that much about prison reform. One has to draw the line somewhere...that's mine.)
The problem with political discussions is well the same one with religion, everyone has their pet cause or their deeply held perspective and they are convinced they are right and everyone else is wrong. And it's obvious why they are right.
It's exhausting. And anxiety inducing. I hate politics.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-03 12:59 am (UTC)