Rain Shadow Review

Posting from work again, bad habit, I know. But technically, lunch break.
Next week is going to be hellish work-wise, so enjoying the quiet while it lasts.

I never know whether it is kosher or not to comment on my correspondence list.
Is it? I'm guessing I'll get a barrage of answers that contradict each other.
It seems odd not to on lj, because lj unlike Blogger and some of the other platforms is all about the correspondence. It's an interactive journal, where you correspondence with others journals, and people correspond with you. We link to each other all the time. Blogger, while linkable, is less interactive in that way - you don't really have a friends list on it. And most of the people on it appear to be oblivious of such things and rarely respond to comments, or so I've noticed. That's just my impression of it - I'm sure someone out there will prove me wrong. Anyhow, I guess it depends on "how" you comment on your flist, and whether the posts you are commenting on - are locked or filtered. You can do it vaguely of course, but even that is dicey, I think?

Anywho...

*HINT: For anyone who is renting tv series from Net-flix? Try to hit close-captioning option on your tv not your DVD remote and see if that works. That's how I got close-captioning for both The Wire and Farscape. It may just be my system, I don't know.

* Finished watching the Australian Mini-Series Rain Shadow last night.
And it was a delightful and at times poignant portrait of two female vets from two generations working together in the Australian Outback under harsh conditions. As the featurette states in the special features section of the DVD - it is rare for a tv series to feature two female characters in the lead roles, in vocational roles, and two different generations, unrelated. Without
either a romantic entanglement or romance being featured in any way. It is.
This tale, while not perfect, the dialogue and acting feel a bit forced at times, is well done over-all. Reminiscient of televisions series such as Cranford or James Herriots All Creatures Great & Small, or Middlemarch.It has that quality to it. Not melodramatic in the least. More realism based.
There's no violence, little to no foul language, no nudity or sex involved.
The most violence we get, is the aftermath. One of the clients/friends of Kate McDonald (the Englishwoman ex-pat vet) gets shot off-screen and comes to her for help. Focus is on the relationship, work and personal, between the two female vets and on the district.

The set-up? Kate McDonald, widowed and struggling to run her vet hospital on her own in a District in the Outback, can't keep an assistant for longer than 6 months. They all take off. Jill Blake, a pampered young vet, wishes to get country experience away from her parents, and the life her parents want for her. The District is currently suffering from 10 year drought, due to being in the rain shadow of the mountains. As a result a sheep blight has surfaced.

Rating? A-/B+ Entertaining, if flawed in places. Definitely worth a rental.

[Why is it that no matter how I write these entries, lj screws up the paragraph format? Anyone know/remember how to fix it?]

Kitchen Sink Culture Post - Star Wars, Angel comics, X-Files, Fringe, and George RR Martin

1. Half-watching Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking, the HBO filming of her Broadway Show, which I'd read the book version a year or so ago. Rather amusing. And rather like the book, except with film reels and sound.

Best line? George Lucas to Carrie Fisher on playing Princess Leia in the first film, Star Wars, in her white dress:"You can't wear a bra under that dress?"
Carrie: Why?
George: Because there is no underwear in space.


2. Is it rude to comment on something I haven't read or seen? I think so. But hard not to comment on the various reviews, I am restraining myself. But this bit of dialogue from the Angel & Faith comic requires something.( where I give in and get snarky about comics I have not read for half a second )

3. Am gearing up to try Fringe again based on flist's ravings about it. We shall see. It appears to be based on X-Files. Was not an X-Files fan, I know, I know, in the minority online, all sci-fi fans love the X-Files. I just don't get the appeal. So...this might not work.

( wherein I attempt to explain for the millionth time why I'm not an X-Files fan and fail miserably )

4. Been thinking about narrative tropes...and realized something, I appear to be fickle. By that, I mean, I will fall compulsively in love with a trope, binge on it even, then all of a sudden, nope can't stand it. That's it. I'm suddenly allergic to it. I do this with candy bars and food too, by the way. So at least I'm consistent.

5. Reading George RR Martin's Feast of Crows...which is getting to be surprisingly good. Maybe it's just my mood? You have to be in the right mood to read Martin, since his books require patience. Page turners they aren't - at least not to me. Also, while tempting to scan and skim, you will regret it later, as I have discovered the hard way. Right now? I'm enjoying it -

( spoilers, albeit vague, very very vague about Feast of Crows and Martin books )

I don't agree with some of the rabid feminists who despise the books. Although, I'm not sure they've actually read them. The books have some extremely interesting and various female characters. (Brienne, Ayra, Gilly, Sansa, Daenrys, Asha, Obara, Meliandsara, Val, Dalle, Catelynn, and Cersei to name a few). Martin creates as many interesting and diverse women as he does men, and they aren't all beautiful or male sex objects, quite a few aren't. He does a good job of describing how they struggle in world where male power dominates. The Medieval period is actually a good period to choose for this type of fantasy...it provides a way of exploring the power dynamics...of those who are not physically strong and capable vs. those that are. Intellect vs. Brute Strength is a key theme. And how people who we may perceive as weak or victims can surprise you. In Martin's novels brute strength does not necessarily equal power. If anything I think Martin is fairly equal in his handling of gender. More so actually than some female writers out there.

As for the writing...it's dense, but not pretty. I'm not a fan of pretty prose - beautiful poetic sentences that wander and play at the page's edge. Okay, maybe I am. But I'm leery of it. We writers have a tendency to fall in love with our own poetic prose forgetting the prose is supposed to further the tale, communicate it to a reader, not well be pretty. I include myself in that category by the way. Too often I've found myself distracted by a poetic turn of phrase, that I will lose my train of thought and wander off. Instead of communicating what is inside my mind, or
telling the truth, I'll let the poetry of the sentence win out. Which is not communication, it is masturbation. And we have a habit of awarding it far too often. (I think I've done it a few times in this post, sorry about that.)