Television round up...
Apr. 11th, 2021 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatOpened a window and turned on the A/C - because the radiators came on - so the fresh smell of rain is flooding the apartment, and my allergies are finally abating.
1. Birds of Prey & The Emancipation of Harley Quinn - mixed feelings about this film. It stars Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, and Ewan McGregor as the villain. It's a tad "over-the-top" and the violence is gory, but pop art at the same time. There's a fun in your face kind of action style - with a lot of women kicking white male ass. (I was in the mood to see that - so it worked for me.)
I went in blind - no idea what it was about outside of the fact that it was kind of origin tale for the Birds of Prey, and for Harley Quinn. Birds of Prey - are Huntress, Renee Montoya, and Black Canary.
The film is fun. And satisfying. Kind of dark, but lighter and better than Suicide Squad. With lots of neon colors. Robbie plays Harley Quinn as a kind of freakish party-girl on speed. Think female version of the Joker, but high octane. Loud at times, but not as busy or loud as I thought it would be.
Of the female villains in the Batman franchise - Harley Quinn is the most fascinating. She's a psychiatrist who fell in love with the Joker - which may either be a symptom of an on-going nervous breakdown or the root cause of it? Here, she is post-breakup and making her own way in the world.
It's an all female affair - girl-power to the extreme, with both a female director and writer behind the helm.
[Available on HBO or HBO MAX]
2. Falcon & the Winter Solider - Episode 3 - The Power Broker - this got better, in part, because of the additional characters. Three people, Baron Zenmo (bad guy from Winter Solider), Sharon Carter (who is kickass), and one of the Warrior Women from Wakanda were added to the series in this episode - and all three made it a heck of a lot more interesting. I was kind of bored prior to their addition.
I can't quite decide if the series is making Johnny Walker out to be a villain or not. He was kind of ambiguous in the comics.
Marvel much like DC has questioned the Captain America/Superman hero over the years. In the 1940s - they were seen as wholesome American heroes fighting Nazis, but America has lost its sheen since then or rather we've (or most of us at any rate - there are a few deluded fools about) have begun to see beneath the marketing and glamour.
I prefer it when Marvel and DC question heroes like Captain America and Superman, because as one character states in this episode - this type of all powerful iconic patriotic hero is really disturbing if you think about it.
[I'm not a huge Superman or Captain America fan - I see both as potentially fascist. And rather like the fact that both franchises at various points questioned it. Alan Moore and Frank Miller questioned Superman in the 1980s, and he was questioned again by other writers later, along with the fanbase, which is largely white and male. Now, DC is wisely re-envisioning Superman as a Black Male version, written by Ta-Nehis Coats. A move that is somewhat brilliant, actually, since Superman was always supposed to be an alien or feel alienated. Although the original take on Superman - was by two Jewish guys during the 1940s and 50s. DC screwed them out of the royalties though. They conceived Superman as an alien - a metaphor for the Jewish immigrant experience in the US at the time of the Second World War. And as hiding in plain sight - looking like everyone else, but an alien on the inside. Marvel kind of did the same thing with the X-men, Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Warren, Bobby and Hank - all looked like everyone else (the white majority (or alleged majority)) but in reality were aliens inside, not human at all. But that metaphor gets lost at times - at least for Superman. Also not everyone can see metaphors - a lot of people don't. Nor do they read them the same way.]
Anyhow, Captain America is an entirely different situation. He took the serum to fight bullies. But it wasn't developed for that reason. And it had it's dark components. Also, he payed a hefty price. Add to that - what happens when Captain America ends up being the bully?
Falcon and the Winter Solider kind of play with this idea, but mostly they are playing with the ambiguity of what a hero is - much like WandaVision did, and their attempt to seek redemption. This episode added two interesting characters to the piece - who question US's agenda and the notion of heroes. One, Zenmo asks - if the Avengers ever visited Segovia, which they destroyed completely. Of even care? And at one point he examines Bucky's notebook - and asks about the names listed - the one's Bucky harmed. While Sharon Carter - states to Sam Wilson that the hero thing is fraught with hypocrisy, as was the shield, which he most likely gets on some deep level or he wouldn't have given it up. The Baron states that yes, he gets it, but it's not that deep.
Both act as a kind of counter-part to Johnny Walker and Hoskins gee-whiz look how great the US is - perspective. And I love their cynical and somewhat nihilistic perspective.
Also Zemo and Sharon add texture to a story - which up to now was basically people bickering all the time. I was starting to get a headache. They kind of stop that in its tracks and force both Sam and Bucky to face what is happening and their own issues head on, instead of hiding behind the banter.
Best episode to date. [Available on Disney +]
3. Hemingway documentary on PBS - about halfway through. Watched part I and halfway through part II - which details the Myth of Hemingway and the Spanish Civil War.
It's worth looking at - particularly if you are at all interested in writing, literature, Hemingway and literary history and context. Hemingway influenced a lot of writers, such as Edna O'Brien, Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man), and others. He had a minimalist style - which I was taught to emulate in school and through various courses. Writers or rather English Lit majors often fall into two camps - the brooding and adjective heavy Victorian Camp, with their complicated and lengthy sentence structure, and embroidered and often poetic prose. And the minimalist modernist camp - or the journalistic style of writing - with no adjectives, and simple prose. There's stuff in between of course.
If you were to ask me what writers influenced my style? I'd say a hodgepodge, everyone from CJ Cherryth, Tolkien, Herbert, Joyce, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, O'Connor, Walker, and whomever I'm reading at the moment. Whedon did for a bit - but I think I've finally dropped it or evolved past it.
Hemingway is interesting - in this episode, we see multiple facets. On the one hand - he was a good father. Spent time with his kids, was accessible for the most part, on the other - not the best of husbands, and not the best of friends. He was arrogant, cocky, and often full of himself.
There's one bit on a bull-fight that reminded me of my father. When my parents came back from their tour around Spain, they stopped off in NY to see their kids. I took CW out to dinner with my parents, and my father regaled us with anecdotes. At one point, he told us that they were given a choice between seeing a Flamenco Dance or a Bullfight.
Me: Did you choose the Bullfight? (I assumed they would - since my father was a Hemingway fan.)
Father: No. We chose the dance. [Pause] Do you have any idea what happens to the bull prior to and after the bullfight?
Mother: They described it in detail to us before they gave us the choice which to go to. (My parents had done an Elder Hostel program - where they get taught the culture of the place they are visiting. A former tour guide, my father despised touring, he liked to immerse himself in the culture of a place, something my mother shared, and they passed on to my brother and I - it's why my family has no interest in big cruise ships, or tours. We want to experience the culture and meet the people. Otherwise what's the whole point?)
Father: What they do is - put a steel rod into the bull's head - to scramble its brain and put it into a rage. It sees red. Normally the bull has no interested in hurting anyone and if they didn't do that - it wouldn't fight no matter how much they poked it. Then they put it in a corral - and take turns poking it - basically torturing the bull, and then finally the matador comes out to fight it. It's brutal, barbaric, and they basically torture the poor bull to death. I had no interest in seeing that.
[I don't exactly remember what my father said - that's a facsimile. So if I got facts wrong - it's on my faulty memory not him. This was in 1999 or thereabouts.]
But, Hemingway saw the bullfight as a moral endeavor. I have a feeling he didn't know as much as he thought he did about bullfights? Or so I hope. And wrote Death in the Afternoon - about bull-fighting. He loved bullfights, which he also wrote about in Sun Also Rises, because they appeared to him, at least, to show death in all it's gory and majestic detail - and he felt that things he enjoyed or made him feel good were obviously moral, and things that made him feel uncomfortable or bad weren't. (I'm thinking Hemingway wasn't very self-aware? Or clueless to his own dark impulses?)
He also created a persona far greater than he truly was - writers and artists often do that, because they feel inferior, and need to make themselves out to be bigger than they are. It's kind of a sales package.
The Hemingway that the public saw - didn't quite exist in reality, and the effort of supporting that persona and glamour was at times difficult. Also, Hemingway was supported by his wife - the second wife was wealthy, and her uncle loved Hemingway's work and gave them a house in Key West, and enough money to keep an extremely high life style. (He didn't make that much off his writing.)
Most successful writers have someone supporting them, often a wife who has a different job or is independently wealthy. They aren't doing it by themselves.
4. Home Economics - comedy pilot on (I can't remember which channel).
I was disappointed. The cast isn't bad - but the writing is atrocious, as is the direction. It felt awkward. And with the exception of one joke which had a decent build-up and a good delivery - the jokes didn't land.
Granted it is the pilot - it could get better. But, I've no patience and too many television series as it is.
I want a good sitcom. I can't find one. None of them work for me at the moment. I've even lost interest in The Connors. I admittedly have a very dry sense of humor, and most people don't - so sitcoms tend to be a bit more in your face than I can handle. But, this wasn't funny. It was kind of eye-rolling bad?
The plot is about three siblings, who are at various ends of the economic ladder. The middle child is very wealthy, but his marriage fell apart, the eldest son is a best-selling author - who is down on his luck and needs a loan, since his corporate lawyer wife isn't currently working (I'm not clear as to why - two babies and a daughter - I'm guessing), and the last one is a therapist for disadvantaged kids that was recently laid off from her job - while her wife is a public school teacher.
They kind of tell us this - as if they are reading it off of placards. There's no chemistry between the actors. Everyone looked stiff and kind of awkward. And I found it hard to buy that these three grew up together, or spent holidays together.
The three siblings come to their wealthy brother, Connor's, house - which he bought from Matt Damon. Each resents the others for having more than they do. By the end of the episode - they discover they are screwed up in different ways, and have annoying parents - who would rather spend Thanksgiving in Turks and Caicos, free of charge than with their family. Also the siblings would rather spend it together at their sister's tiny apartment or brother's house than on the island. (I didn't understand this - if my brother said he'd give me an all expense paid trip to Turks & Caicos for Thanksgiving with the family, I'd ask what time I had to be at the airport. But that's just me. And possibly half the audience. I'm thinking these writers are a little out of touch with their audience?)
5. Great Pottery Throw Down - it has a fourth season! And Kieth came back with a better judge, and a better host, and it's back to what it was in S1 and 2. Yay! I hated S3. They got rid of the annoying new judge and host, who I did not like.
Saw the first episode and was thoroughly charmed. Also better challenges - now that they've gotten rid of the other judge.
***
I'm waiting to watch The Nevers until more episodes drop. HBO doesn't make its' episodes bingeable, they drop one at a time, weekly like Disney +. So I wait until several have dropped.
As an aside, any New Amsterdam viewers/fans? I missed the season finale of last year - and it did not record on my DVR properly - so I can't watch it. Nor is it available on - On Demand or Hulu. (Probably because the Peacock streaming service owns the rights and Hulu can only show episodes for limited time span.)
If you remember what happened - let me know. Also let me know if it's important to know what happened to watch this season.
1. Birds of Prey & The Emancipation of Harley Quinn - mixed feelings about this film. It stars Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, and Ewan McGregor as the villain. It's a tad "over-the-top" and the violence is gory, but pop art at the same time. There's a fun in your face kind of action style - with a lot of women kicking white male ass. (I was in the mood to see that - so it worked for me.)
I went in blind - no idea what it was about outside of the fact that it was kind of origin tale for the Birds of Prey, and for Harley Quinn. Birds of Prey - are Huntress, Renee Montoya, and Black Canary.
The film is fun. And satisfying. Kind of dark, but lighter and better than Suicide Squad. With lots of neon colors. Robbie plays Harley Quinn as a kind of freakish party-girl on speed. Think female version of the Joker, but high octane. Loud at times, but not as busy or loud as I thought it would be.
Of the female villains in the Batman franchise - Harley Quinn is the most fascinating. She's a psychiatrist who fell in love with the Joker - which may either be a symptom of an on-going nervous breakdown or the root cause of it? Here, she is post-breakup and making her own way in the world.
It's an all female affair - girl-power to the extreme, with both a female director and writer behind the helm.
[Available on HBO or HBO MAX]
2. Falcon & the Winter Solider - Episode 3 - The Power Broker - this got better, in part, because of the additional characters. Three people, Baron Zenmo (bad guy from Winter Solider), Sharon Carter (who is kickass), and one of the Warrior Women from Wakanda were added to the series in this episode - and all three made it a heck of a lot more interesting. I was kind of bored prior to their addition.
I can't quite decide if the series is making Johnny Walker out to be a villain or not. He was kind of ambiguous in the comics.
Marvel much like DC has questioned the Captain America/Superman hero over the years. In the 1940s - they were seen as wholesome American heroes fighting Nazis, but America has lost its sheen since then or rather we've (or most of us at any rate - there are a few deluded fools about) have begun to see beneath the marketing and glamour.
I prefer it when Marvel and DC question heroes like Captain America and Superman, because as one character states in this episode - this type of all powerful iconic patriotic hero is really disturbing if you think about it.
[I'm not a huge Superman or Captain America fan - I see both as potentially fascist. And rather like the fact that both franchises at various points questioned it. Alan Moore and Frank Miller questioned Superman in the 1980s, and he was questioned again by other writers later, along with the fanbase, which is largely white and male. Now, DC is wisely re-envisioning Superman as a Black Male version, written by Ta-Nehis Coats. A move that is somewhat brilliant, actually, since Superman was always supposed to be an alien or feel alienated. Although the original take on Superman - was by two Jewish guys during the 1940s and 50s. DC screwed them out of the royalties though. They conceived Superman as an alien - a metaphor for the Jewish immigrant experience in the US at the time of the Second World War. And as hiding in plain sight - looking like everyone else, but an alien on the inside. Marvel kind of did the same thing with the X-men, Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Warren, Bobby and Hank - all looked like everyone else (the white majority (or alleged majority)) but in reality were aliens inside, not human at all. But that metaphor gets lost at times - at least for Superman. Also not everyone can see metaphors - a lot of people don't. Nor do they read them the same way.]
Anyhow, Captain America is an entirely different situation. He took the serum to fight bullies. But it wasn't developed for that reason. And it had it's dark components. Also, he payed a hefty price. Add to that - what happens when Captain America ends up being the bully?
Falcon and the Winter Solider kind of play with this idea, but mostly they are playing with the ambiguity of what a hero is - much like WandaVision did, and their attempt to seek redemption. This episode added two interesting characters to the piece - who question US's agenda and the notion of heroes. One, Zenmo asks - if the Avengers ever visited Segovia, which they destroyed completely. Of even care? And at one point he examines Bucky's notebook - and asks about the names listed - the one's Bucky harmed. While Sharon Carter - states to Sam Wilson that the hero thing is fraught with hypocrisy, as was the shield, which he most likely gets on some deep level or he wouldn't have given it up. The Baron states that yes, he gets it, but it's not that deep.
Both act as a kind of counter-part to Johnny Walker and Hoskins gee-whiz look how great the US is - perspective. And I love their cynical and somewhat nihilistic perspective.
Also Zemo and Sharon add texture to a story - which up to now was basically people bickering all the time. I was starting to get a headache. They kind of stop that in its tracks and force both Sam and Bucky to face what is happening and their own issues head on, instead of hiding behind the banter.
Best episode to date. [Available on Disney +]
3. Hemingway documentary on PBS - about halfway through. Watched part I and halfway through part II - which details the Myth of Hemingway and the Spanish Civil War.
It's worth looking at - particularly if you are at all interested in writing, literature, Hemingway and literary history and context. Hemingway influenced a lot of writers, such as Edna O'Brien, Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man), and others. He had a minimalist style - which I was taught to emulate in school and through various courses. Writers or rather English Lit majors often fall into two camps - the brooding and adjective heavy Victorian Camp, with their complicated and lengthy sentence structure, and embroidered and often poetic prose. And the minimalist modernist camp - or the journalistic style of writing - with no adjectives, and simple prose. There's stuff in between of course.
If you were to ask me what writers influenced my style? I'd say a hodgepodge, everyone from CJ Cherryth, Tolkien, Herbert, Joyce, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, O'Connor, Walker, and whomever I'm reading at the moment. Whedon did for a bit - but I think I've finally dropped it or evolved past it.
Hemingway is interesting - in this episode, we see multiple facets. On the one hand - he was a good father. Spent time with his kids, was accessible for the most part, on the other - not the best of husbands, and not the best of friends. He was arrogant, cocky, and often full of himself.
There's one bit on a bull-fight that reminded me of my father. When my parents came back from their tour around Spain, they stopped off in NY to see their kids. I took CW out to dinner with my parents, and my father regaled us with anecdotes. At one point, he told us that they were given a choice between seeing a Flamenco Dance or a Bullfight.
Me: Did you choose the Bullfight? (I assumed they would - since my father was a Hemingway fan.)
Father: No. We chose the dance. [Pause] Do you have any idea what happens to the bull prior to and after the bullfight?
Mother: They described it in detail to us before they gave us the choice which to go to. (My parents had done an Elder Hostel program - where they get taught the culture of the place they are visiting. A former tour guide, my father despised touring, he liked to immerse himself in the culture of a place, something my mother shared, and they passed on to my brother and I - it's why my family has no interest in big cruise ships, or tours. We want to experience the culture and meet the people. Otherwise what's the whole point?)
Father: What they do is - put a steel rod into the bull's head - to scramble its brain and put it into a rage. It sees red. Normally the bull has no interested in hurting anyone and if they didn't do that - it wouldn't fight no matter how much they poked it. Then they put it in a corral - and take turns poking it - basically torturing the bull, and then finally the matador comes out to fight it. It's brutal, barbaric, and they basically torture the poor bull to death. I had no interest in seeing that.
[I don't exactly remember what my father said - that's a facsimile. So if I got facts wrong - it's on my faulty memory not him. This was in 1999 or thereabouts.]
But, Hemingway saw the bullfight as a moral endeavor. I have a feeling he didn't know as much as he thought he did about bullfights? Or so I hope. And wrote Death in the Afternoon - about bull-fighting. He loved bullfights, which he also wrote about in Sun Also Rises, because they appeared to him, at least, to show death in all it's gory and majestic detail - and he felt that things he enjoyed or made him feel good were obviously moral, and things that made him feel uncomfortable or bad weren't. (I'm thinking Hemingway wasn't very self-aware? Or clueless to his own dark impulses?)
He also created a persona far greater than he truly was - writers and artists often do that, because they feel inferior, and need to make themselves out to be bigger than they are. It's kind of a sales package.
The Hemingway that the public saw - didn't quite exist in reality, and the effort of supporting that persona and glamour was at times difficult. Also, Hemingway was supported by his wife - the second wife was wealthy, and her uncle loved Hemingway's work and gave them a house in Key West, and enough money to keep an extremely high life style. (He didn't make that much off his writing.)
Most successful writers have someone supporting them, often a wife who has a different job or is independently wealthy. They aren't doing it by themselves.
4. Home Economics - comedy pilot on (I can't remember which channel).
I was disappointed. The cast isn't bad - but the writing is atrocious, as is the direction. It felt awkward. And with the exception of one joke which had a decent build-up and a good delivery - the jokes didn't land.
Granted it is the pilot - it could get better. But, I've no patience and too many television series as it is.
I want a good sitcom. I can't find one. None of them work for me at the moment. I've even lost interest in The Connors. I admittedly have a very dry sense of humor, and most people don't - so sitcoms tend to be a bit more in your face than I can handle. But, this wasn't funny. It was kind of eye-rolling bad?
The plot is about three siblings, who are at various ends of the economic ladder. The middle child is very wealthy, but his marriage fell apart, the eldest son is a best-selling author - who is down on his luck and needs a loan, since his corporate lawyer wife isn't currently working (I'm not clear as to why - two babies and a daughter - I'm guessing), and the last one is a therapist for disadvantaged kids that was recently laid off from her job - while her wife is a public school teacher.
They kind of tell us this - as if they are reading it off of placards. There's no chemistry between the actors. Everyone looked stiff and kind of awkward. And I found it hard to buy that these three grew up together, or spent holidays together.
The three siblings come to their wealthy brother, Connor's, house - which he bought from Matt Damon. Each resents the others for having more than they do. By the end of the episode - they discover they are screwed up in different ways, and have annoying parents - who would rather spend Thanksgiving in Turks and Caicos, free of charge than with their family. Also the siblings would rather spend it together at their sister's tiny apartment or brother's house than on the island. (I didn't understand this - if my brother said he'd give me an all expense paid trip to Turks & Caicos for Thanksgiving with the family, I'd ask what time I had to be at the airport. But that's just me. And possibly half the audience. I'm thinking these writers are a little out of touch with their audience?)
5. Great Pottery Throw Down - it has a fourth season! And Kieth came back with a better judge, and a better host, and it's back to what it was in S1 and 2. Yay! I hated S3. They got rid of the annoying new judge and host, who I did not like.
Saw the first episode and was thoroughly charmed. Also better challenges - now that they've gotten rid of the other judge.
***
I'm waiting to watch The Nevers until more episodes drop. HBO doesn't make its' episodes bingeable, they drop one at a time, weekly like Disney +. So I wait until several have dropped.
As an aside, any New Amsterdam viewers/fans? I missed the season finale of last year - and it did not record on my DVR properly - so I can't watch it. Nor is it available on - On Demand or Hulu. (Probably because the Peacock streaming service owns the rights and Hulu can only show episodes for limited time span.)
If you remember what happened - let me know. Also let me know if it's important to know what happened to watch this season.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-12 12:17 pm (UTC)A lot of what people knew about him - is a story or glamour he created about himself, and mostly lies. None of it was true. He didn't try to become a boxer, he didn't have multiple big game trophies, he didn't have multiple wounds, he didn't fight in the Italian Army, etc.
I think he created this image of machismo, then got stuck keeping it up?