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shadowkatFinished:
1. The Crown S4
Takeaways?
The casting and writing is quite good. The best episodes focused on Thatcher and the Queen, the Queen, Philip, Anne, or Princess Margaret.
I was reminded of why I never much liked either Diana Spencer or Prince Charles. I agree with the Queen - they are both entitled, privileged, spoiled whiners.
Diana - I also suspect was more than a little narcissistic. She craved applause, validation, attention and being at the center of everything.
Which of course couldn't happen in the British Monarchy. Why she thought it could - I'm uncertain. It's clear from the beginning that she didn't fall in love with Charles, she fell for the fairy tale, and the idea of being a Princess. She reminds me a little of Princess Margaret, both are insanely charismatic, party girls, who love doing good deeds - mainly for the attention and hate not being front and center.
They also have mental health issues. Margaret was an addict with serious depressive episodes. Diana was a bulimic with serious depressive episodes.
And both thought "romantic" love would save them or validation would - it doesn't - or at the very least make them happy - nope.
Charles isn't much better and he is, in this at least, outwardly cruel to Diana in places - although I could see why. She didn't understand him at all. For his birthday, she interrupts an opera that he loves to dance around in a slip on stage with a fellow dancer. Then on their anniversary - she video tapes herself singing a love song from the Phantom of the Opera - at the musical, with all the actors involved. He meanwhile gives her a book on her heritage and ancestry. Basically they gave each other what they'd have wanted.
Their marriage is painful to watch, and both are rendered unlikable in it.
It's also odd - because I remember that day long, actually week long wedding. Where the fairy tale romance was kind of marketed to the extreme..
Gillian Anderson for some reason or other feels the need to over-emphasize some of Thatcher's most annoying mannerisms and speech patterns. It's a very mannered performance bordering on impersonation. That said - it is quite good in places and she does an excellent job of quietly emoting pain in several key instances. She also reminded me of why I didn't like Thatcher or Thacherism - which is the British version of Reganomics. (Capitalism on steroids.) Both countries are reaping the awards of that mistake now.
Coleman and Tobias empress throughout. Also Anne and Helena Bonham Carter put in stellar peformances. Curious to see what S5/S6 brings to the table.
2.) Project Hail Mary
Finished it on audio book. The reader - Ray Porter - was fantastic. The story, eh, was good but got a bit too carried away with the science experiments. There's pages and pages of detailed science on how astrophages work and talomeda works, and how they interact, and how too much talomeda causes issues.
But, I like how the novel handles aliens, and in an odd way makes humanity its own worste enemy and definitely the human protagonist's worst enemy.
I admittedly cried at the end. And the alien/human friendship is the core of the novel and the best part of it.
It has a narrative style that I like and often write in myself - which is the flashback. We're in the middle of the characters story, with the background or how they got to this point - told in flashback. So the set up here - is Dr. Grace wakes up from a medically induced coma - to discover he's on a space ship - in outer space far from earth, his two colleagues died in transit, and he has no memory of how he got there, what his mission is, let alone who he is. Over the duration of the novel, he gets flashes of memory that tell him the what, how, why and wherefore of all of the above. In the process he's completing the ship's mission or figuring it out, and hooks up with a friendly alien - who is out there doing the same thing he is, yet not in the same way. They are both trying to save their species from a sun-eating alien spore that originates from the system they find themselves in.
It's a bit heavy on the science bit (even more so than The Martian) but it's enjoyable and I liked it better than Atremis.
***
Now onto two new books..
Audible: Mathew Perry's memoir/biography about his addiction. (Which is primarily about his addiction and his exploration of why it happened. So far, I'm enjoying it. He's reading it himself. Also, he makes a good point about how proscribing barbiturates such as fetanol to babies to get them to stop crying is a horrible idea. )
Books on the Kindle: Star Wars Novel: The Princess and the Scoundrel. (Published fanfiction that takes place shortly after Return of the Jedi and focuses on the romance between Leia and Solo and their wedding.)
Also S5 of the Crown. Although I may hold off to watch when I visit mother at Christmas, not certain yet.
1. The Crown S4
Takeaways?
The casting and writing is quite good. The best episodes focused on Thatcher and the Queen, the Queen, Philip, Anne, or Princess Margaret.
I was reminded of why I never much liked either Diana Spencer or Prince Charles. I agree with the Queen - they are both entitled, privileged, spoiled whiners.
Diana - I also suspect was more than a little narcissistic. She craved applause, validation, attention and being at the center of everything.
Which of course couldn't happen in the British Monarchy. Why she thought it could - I'm uncertain. It's clear from the beginning that she didn't fall in love with Charles, she fell for the fairy tale, and the idea of being a Princess. She reminds me a little of Princess Margaret, both are insanely charismatic, party girls, who love doing good deeds - mainly for the attention and hate not being front and center.
They also have mental health issues. Margaret was an addict with serious depressive episodes. Diana was a bulimic with serious depressive episodes.
And both thought "romantic" love would save them or validation would - it doesn't - or at the very least make them happy - nope.
Charles isn't much better and he is, in this at least, outwardly cruel to Diana in places - although I could see why. She didn't understand him at all. For his birthday, she interrupts an opera that he loves to dance around in a slip on stage with a fellow dancer. Then on their anniversary - she video tapes herself singing a love song from the Phantom of the Opera - at the musical, with all the actors involved. He meanwhile gives her a book on her heritage and ancestry. Basically they gave each other what they'd have wanted.
Their marriage is painful to watch, and both are rendered unlikable in it.
It's also odd - because I remember that day long, actually week long wedding. Where the fairy tale romance was kind of marketed to the extreme..
Gillian Anderson for some reason or other feels the need to over-emphasize some of Thatcher's most annoying mannerisms and speech patterns. It's a very mannered performance bordering on impersonation. That said - it is quite good in places and she does an excellent job of quietly emoting pain in several key instances. She also reminded me of why I didn't like Thatcher or Thacherism - which is the British version of Reganomics. (Capitalism on steroids.) Both countries are reaping the awards of that mistake now.
Coleman and Tobias empress throughout. Also Anne and Helena Bonham Carter put in stellar peformances. Curious to see what S5/S6 brings to the table.
2.) Project Hail Mary
Finished it on audio book. The reader - Ray Porter - was fantastic. The story, eh, was good but got a bit too carried away with the science experiments. There's pages and pages of detailed science on how astrophages work and talomeda works, and how they interact, and how too much talomeda causes issues.
But, I like how the novel handles aliens, and in an odd way makes humanity its own worste enemy and definitely the human protagonist's worst enemy.
I admittedly cried at the end. And the alien/human friendship is the core of the novel and the best part of it.
It has a narrative style that I like and often write in myself - which is the flashback. We're in the middle of the characters story, with the background or how they got to this point - told in flashback. So the set up here - is Dr. Grace wakes up from a medically induced coma - to discover he's on a space ship - in outer space far from earth, his two colleagues died in transit, and he has no memory of how he got there, what his mission is, let alone who he is. Over the duration of the novel, he gets flashes of memory that tell him the what, how, why and wherefore of all of the above. In the process he's completing the ship's mission or figuring it out, and hooks up with a friendly alien - who is out there doing the same thing he is, yet not in the same way. They are both trying to save their species from a sun-eating alien spore that originates from the system they find themselves in.
It's a bit heavy on the science bit (even more so than The Martian) but it's enjoyable and I liked it better than Atremis.
***
Now onto two new books..
Audible: Mathew Perry's memoir/biography about his addiction. (Which is primarily about his addiction and his exploration of why it happened. So far, I'm enjoying it. He's reading it himself. Also, he makes a good point about how proscribing barbiturates such as fetanol to babies to get them to stop crying is a horrible idea. )
Books on the Kindle: Star Wars Novel: The Princess and the Scoundrel. (Published fanfiction that takes place shortly after Return of the Jedi and focuses on the romance between Leia and Solo and their wedding.)
Also S5 of the Crown. Although I may hold off to watch when I visit mother at Christmas, not certain yet.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 11:34 pm (UTC)OMG I had no idea that was a thing O.O
no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 11:53 pm (UTC)And Perry had the genetic disposition for alcoholism from his grandfather.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 11:59 pm (UTC)I agree, I think the two were a hopeless couple. he wanted a girl just like Mom (which he was never going to find). She got swept up in the fairy tale ideal. She wasn't like Mom. As you say, she was a party girl. She found the whole royal life style a giant bore when she wasn't the center of attention. Charles got married because he knew everyone wanted him to, not because Diana was the "one." In the 16th century it might have been good enough. But not in the late 20th.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 02:04 am (UTC)But other than that? You're right. Charles' family pushed him to marry Diana. He'd never have married her otherwise. She was 19, he was in his thirties. It was nuts. They had absolutely nothing in common.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 12:32 am (UTC)We're reading The Princess and the Scoundrel over at
no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 02:11 am (UTC)I haven't quite started The Princess and the Scondrel yet - but am about too. I like Star Wars published fanfic - far more than other fandoms. Actually it's the only published fanfic novels that I've bought. (Buffy was just comics). The reason is that George Lucas sucked at writing, and you almost needed to read the novels to get the backstories, character subplots, etc. I read Splinter in the Mind's Eye as a kid, the novel versions of Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (all of which were better than the film versions). It's very odd, how the novel adaptations of Star Wars were almost more satisfying than the film version. Usually it's the opposite.
Project Hail Mary
Date: 2022-11-14 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 06:05 pm (UTC)You might be interested in NPR's interview with Anderson in 2020, about her role as Thatcher, among other things. In The Crown, Gillian Anderson explores Thatcher's powerplay with the queen. I haven't listened to it, but I skimmed the summary. She talks a fair bit about her choices in playing Thatcher.