Fending off Vertigo & Review of the Newman/Woodward Documentary

Well, the Meclizine is kind of helping? No nausea. But still feel out off-balance. I'm fine, if I sit straight without moving my head too much - particularly not up or down. Side to side is fine. It's still congested. And the weather shift make it worse.

Because I was home sick today and couldn't do anything but watch television, I finished the Newman/Woodward Documentary airing on HBO Max (And according to my Aunt, on Amazon Prime). A couple of caveats? This is neither a memoir nor a biography in the traditional sense of the word, so viewers going into it with the expectations of getting what we'd normally get in either - will be sorely disappointed. The documentary doesn't start with either's childhood for example - it starts with Ethan Hawk on Zoom telling a bunch of his contemporaries that he's been tasked with this project, and requires their help in accomplishing it. He tells them that Newman dictated all these tapes to his friend, then for some unknown reason, destroyed them. But his friend had already transcribed all the tapes prior to their destruction. Then the documentary launches into Newman and Woodward's first major roles and introduction into acting and how they originally met. It's worth keeping in mind that this is documentary done by an actor and director, who was hired by Newmans' kids to do it, and enlists fellow actors and directors to aid him.

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At the end, this documentary is a documentary of the Woodward and Newman relationship to each other, their kids, and their professions and the effect it had on those around them. It's not a memoir or a biography.

Buffy S4 and Angel S1 Rewatch

1. Someone decided to "Monopolize" to be read or TBR reading lists. Basically they created a Monopoly version of a game to figure out what to read next from their home libraries.

Welcome to the internet - where you get everyone's opinions on things, and find out about weird game ideas that never occurred to you.

I don't know, sounds time consuming. Some people have a lot of free time on their hands, or don't watch as much television as I do. Granted television is pretty much all that my Vertigo will allow at the moment. Reading just aggravates it. This (DW) isn't as taxing - I can skim.

2. Buffy S4 and Angel S1 Rewatch - eh, Where the Wild Things Are is actually, gasp, better than War Zone. Both shows are attempting to be more diverse and failing miserably. Buffy S4 has Forrest, who well...just no? On a good day he's a chauvinist, on a bad day, a misogynist. War Zone picked the wrong family member to join up with Angel, it should have been Gunn's sister. Who was more interesting, and less obvious. I mean, they called him "Gunn" - how stereotypical can they be? I can't quite decide if they meant it ironically - it's possible? Except he kind of works as the proverbial "gun" on the show. Also Angel desperately needs more badass female characters. These are both weak episodes but for very different reasons. Gunn's sister didn't have an obvious name, and had character.

( War Zone, not the best episode )

Where the Wild Things Are - is written by Tracey Forbes, who also wrote Beer Bad, (& I think Something Blue) and possibly owned the kitten that Willow and Tara adopt, and we never see again. It's a mixed bag. The whole thing flops, but there are separate bits that work - actually everything that is not connected to the Initiative, Riley, Adam, or Buffy works in this episode. Xander/Anya are further developed, and the writers appear to notice their relationship is too much about sex, and in a nice twist have Anya upset with Xander for not wanting more of it. In previous seasons - Xander was dying for it, but once Faith takes advantage of him, he calms down. (I don't think he and Cordy ever slept together. It's pretty clear Faith was his first from their comments on it.) Also, more development of Giles - we get to see Head sing finally. But the skeevy sweaters have got to go? And the best scenes in the whole episode are actually between Spike and Anya, and Spike and well everybody. He's stealing every scene he's in. He's on for about ten minutes and steals all of them.

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