Lazy weekend not doing much at alll
Sep. 7th, 2025 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatAfter high humidity, thunderstorms through most of yesterday afternoon and well into the night, and rain this morning, it's cleared off and is actually bright and sunny and kind of cheerful outside.
Also almost six pm. A bit late to take a walk. I need to make dinner, lunch for tomorrow. Eat. And go to bed - hopefully by 9:30-9:45. I did manage to sleep 9 hours last night, which is a first.
And for some reason or other, I'm still craving chocolate chip cookies. I caved and baked three. The blood sugar eventually went up. I regretted it. Such is life. I won't cave again.
I intended to go to church this morning and do the high line in the city - but alas, it was raining. So I stayed home and watched it on FB instead. Glad I did - their bathrooms and kitchen had no water, and they were offering ice cream instead of carousel rides to the kiddies - because the picnic in Brooklyn Bridge Park had been cancelled. They ended with my favorite religious song - Harry Belafonte's Turn the World Around. My father's was Amazing Grace, mine is "Turn the World Around" - I want Turn the World Around sung at my funeral - although I don't want a funeral - I hate funeral's. I want a small happy gathering on a mountain top, around a campfire, at a river bank, and at a beach, with my ashes spread at each, and this song sung at each place.
That song just comforts me and makes me really happy. The fact that my church keeps singing it about five or six times a year - keeps pulling me back towards it like a magnet.
****
I didn't do much this weekend. My brain required a break so it took one?
I did watch a few things and re-watched a few things. It's September now, and I've always loved September. (My favorite seasons are the fall and spring, I tend to like the in-between, more then the extreme in both temperatures and growth - the waning of the light, and the renewal of it.) I feel it's a kind of renewal? Or chance at new things, and letting go of old things. It was always the start of school, new television seasons, and theater seasons - and in NYC - the start of a new cultural year. While at work - the beginning of the fall holiday season.
Television
1. K-Pop Demon Hunters - on Netflix. This is a fun little movie. I adored it. And I wouldn't consider myself a fan of K-Pop? Pop music tends to annoy me after a bit, and K-Pop is kind of an extreme form of it? Although it has great choreography. This movie also is a kind of 3D computer generated version of anime - which I am not a fan of? But? I loved this. It's adorable, it has an uplifting message, the characters are likable, and it's fun.
I didn't understand what all the hype was about - until I saw it. It's kind of a hopeful movie in difficult times?
2. K-Popped on Apple TV - this is a reality competition show that takes place in Seoul, Korea - and where they split a popular and very large girl's k-pop band into two groups, and pair each group of five or six girls with a popular Western singer. Then the girls teach the Western singer their choreography, the singer teaches the girls their song, and they K-Pop it, while sharing aspects of the Korean culture with the Western singers. They two groups compete. One wins, and it's all very nice, and not all that competitive. They are established - so there's no need to compete for money or fame. It's just a fun little competition.
The one I saw was Keisha's Savage vs. Patti La Belle's Lady Marmalade.
Personally I think Savage was better choreographed? But I prefer Lady Marmalade. I also learned or was reminded of what "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir" - meant.
It's kind of fun? I'm not a huge fan of pop or K-Pop, and watching people be interviewed, doesn't do a lot for me, but it's good background noise.
3. Rogue One and Star Wars: A New Hope - these two films work really well as a two-parter. Actually, Andor S1 and 2, followed directly with Rogue One, and finally Star Wars - is highly satisfying, tragic, and uplifting, and hopeful all at the same time. Talk about a prequel that manages to make the original film that aired over forty years prior, better? Star Wars was good without Rogue One and Andor, but both the film Rogue One and the series Andor - manage to provide a depth and gravitas to Star Wars that wasn't there prior? The stakes are higher somehow. Star Wars is a more suspenseful film after you see Rogue One and Andor, because you see how much is riding on Han, Leia, Luke, Obi-Wan, C3-PO and R2-D2's success. A lot of people died so they could take out the Death Star, and save the Rebel Base of Yavin.
It also makes the destruction of Alderaan that much more poignant and ironic. Star Wars is an ironic film - if you've seen everything else. It's among the few franchises that really makes the original films better.
Also, I was blown away by how well Star Wars stands up or holds up after all these years. I first saw Star Wars - forty-eight years ago. Before it was a franchise. And I've seen it several times since. But it had been about ten to fifteen years since the last time I watched it? So I'd forgotten bits and pieces of it. My memory of it - had gaps. This made it more enjoyable to watch of course - fresher somehow. But I was also a bit more objective - seeing it through the eyes of an adult and not a child.
And it holds up well. Mark Hamil is an under-rated actor. He sold that film, so too did Alec Guiness, Harrison Ford, and the others. Fisher is a bit wooden in places, but she loosens up with Ford and Hamil, and they all three have amazing on-screen chemistry. No wonder they were taxed with doing the publicity tour.
It's hard not to fall in love with that movie all over again. The special effects hold up, all of it does. Is it clunky in spots, yes. But not overly so. And it's very funny in places. And unlike Andor and Rogue One - directed towards kids.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I may well die a Star Wars fan. I think it and the Monkeys were my first fandoms.
4. Alien: Earth - still watching. But it's creepy, and we'll see how long I stick with it. I'm not a huge fan of body horror? And parasites? And this has both in spades. Also the Alien creatures give me the creeps and are the stuff of nightmares, as is the corporate owned landscape that is reminiscent of multiple sci-fi tropes - Alien, Terminator, Blade Runner, and Parable of the Sower.
I find it kind of horrifying (it's supposed to be - it's horror) and frightening (again horror), but I'm not entirely sure if I want both at the moment? Then again I kind of do? I love have a love/hate relationship with horror and the Alien films, I admit that.
What's it about? Competing corporations (five in total) own various sections of the globe, and are exploring space. One corporation has gone out into space to bring back various dangerous creatures from the dark corners of space to earth. While another corporation has found a way to make humans immortal by transferring the consciousnesses of five terminally ill kids into synthetic adult or pre-teen bodies. They are all named after the kids in Peter Pan, with a child prodigy, Boy Kavaliar, running the show (aka Prodigy). The space vessel transporting the creaturs (mainly parasites) crash lands on earth and in Prodigy's territory. The only survivor from the ship is a cyborg known as Morrow. Prodigy takes possession of the creatures, and Morrow is attempting to get them back for the other corporation.
The monsters in this story aren't really the creatures, but the humans playing games with them. It's a Noah Hawley story not Ridely Scott, so the focus is more on the ideas. So far it's pretty good? It's on Hulu.
Also almost six pm. A bit late to take a walk. I need to make dinner, lunch for tomorrow. Eat. And go to bed - hopefully by 9:30-9:45. I did manage to sleep 9 hours last night, which is a first.
And for some reason or other, I'm still craving chocolate chip cookies. I caved and baked three. The blood sugar eventually went up. I regretted it. Such is life. I won't cave again.
I intended to go to church this morning and do the high line in the city - but alas, it was raining. So I stayed home and watched it on FB instead. Glad I did - their bathrooms and kitchen had no water, and they were offering ice cream instead of carousel rides to the kiddies - because the picnic in Brooklyn Bridge Park had been cancelled. They ended with my favorite religious song - Harry Belafonte's Turn the World Around. My father's was Amazing Grace, mine is "Turn the World Around" - I want Turn the World Around sung at my funeral - although I don't want a funeral - I hate funeral's. I want a small happy gathering on a mountain top, around a campfire, at a river bank, and at a beach, with my ashes spread at each, and this song sung at each place.
That song just comforts me and makes me really happy. The fact that my church keeps singing it about five or six times a year - keeps pulling me back towards it like a magnet.
****
I didn't do much this weekend. My brain required a break so it took one?
I did watch a few things and re-watched a few things. It's September now, and I've always loved September. (My favorite seasons are the fall and spring, I tend to like the in-between, more then the extreme in both temperatures and growth - the waning of the light, and the renewal of it.) I feel it's a kind of renewal? Or chance at new things, and letting go of old things. It was always the start of school, new television seasons, and theater seasons - and in NYC - the start of a new cultural year. While at work - the beginning of the fall holiday season.
Television
1. K-Pop Demon Hunters - on Netflix. This is a fun little movie. I adored it. And I wouldn't consider myself a fan of K-Pop? Pop music tends to annoy me after a bit, and K-Pop is kind of an extreme form of it? Although it has great choreography. This movie also is a kind of 3D computer generated version of anime - which I am not a fan of? But? I loved this. It's adorable, it has an uplifting message, the characters are likable, and it's fun.
I didn't understand what all the hype was about - until I saw it. It's kind of a hopeful movie in difficult times?
2. K-Popped on Apple TV - this is a reality competition show that takes place in Seoul, Korea - and where they split a popular and very large girl's k-pop band into two groups, and pair each group of five or six girls with a popular Western singer. Then the girls teach the Western singer their choreography, the singer teaches the girls their song, and they K-Pop it, while sharing aspects of the Korean culture with the Western singers. They two groups compete. One wins, and it's all very nice, and not all that competitive. They are established - so there's no need to compete for money or fame. It's just a fun little competition.
The one I saw was Keisha's Savage vs. Patti La Belle's Lady Marmalade.
Personally I think Savage was better choreographed? But I prefer Lady Marmalade. I also learned or was reminded of what "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir" - meant.
It's kind of fun? I'm not a huge fan of pop or K-Pop, and watching people be interviewed, doesn't do a lot for me, but it's good background noise.
3. Rogue One and Star Wars: A New Hope - these two films work really well as a two-parter. Actually, Andor S1 and 2, followed directly with Rogue One, and finally Star Wars - is highly satisfying, tragic, and uplifting, and hopeful all at the same time. Talk about a prequel that manages to make the original film that aired over forty years prior, better? Star Wars was good without Rogue One and Andor, but both the film Rogue One and the series Andor - manage to provide a depth and gravitas to Star Wars that wasn't there prior? The stakes are higher somehow. Star Wars is a more suspenseful film after you see Rogue One and Andor, because you see how much is riding on Han, Leia, Luke, Obi-Wan, C3-PO and R2-D2's success. A lot of people died so they could take out the Death Star, and save the Rebel Base of Yavin.
It also makes the destruction of Alderaan that much more poignant and ironic. Star Wars is an ironic film - if you've seen everything else. It's among the few franchises that really makes the original films better.
Also, I was blown away by how well Star Wars stands up or holds up after all these years. I first saw Star Wars - forty-eight years ago. Before it was a franchise. And I've seen it several times since. But it had been about ten to fifteen years since the last time I watched it? So I'd forgotten bits and pieces of it. My memory of it - had gaps. This made it more enjoyable to watch of course - fresher somehow. But I was also a bit more objective - seeing it through the eyes of an adult and not a child.
And it holds up well. Mark Hamil is an under-rated actor. He sold that film, so too did Alec Guiness, Harrison Ford, and the others. Fisher is a bit wooden in places, but she loosens up with Ford and Hamil, and they all three have amazing on-screen chemistry. No wonder they were taxed with doing the publicity tour.
It's hard not to fall in love with that movie all over again. The special effects hold up, all of it does. Is it clunky in spots, yes. But not overly so. And it's very funny in places. And unlike Andor and Rogue One - directed towards kids.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I may well die a Star Wars fan. I think it and the Monkeys were my first fandoms.
4. Alien: Earth - still watching. But it's creepy, and we'll see how long I stick with it. I'm not a huge fan of body horror? And parasites? And this has both in spades. Also the Alien creatures give me the creeps and are the stuff of nightmares, as is the corporate owned landscape that is reminiscent of multiple sci-fi tropes - Alien, Terminator, Blade Runner, and Parable of the Sower.
I find it kind of horrifying (it's supposed to be - it's horror) and frightening (again horror), but I'm not entirely sure if I want both at the moment? Then again I kind of do? I love have a love/hate relationship with horror and the Alien films, I admit that.
What's it about? Competing corporations (five in total) own various sections of the globe, and are exploring space. One corporation has gone out into space to bring back various dangerous creatures from the dark corners of space to earth. While another corporation has found a way to make humans immortal by transferring the consciousnesses of five terminally ill kids into synthetic adult or pre-teen bodies. They are all named after the kids in Peter Pan, with a child prodigy, Boy Kavaliar, running the show (aka Prodigy). The space vessel transporting the creaturs (mainly parasites) crash lands on earth and in Prodigy's territory. The only survivor from the ship is a cyborg known as Morrow. Prodigy takes possession of the creatures, and Morrow is attempting to get them back for the other corporation.
The monsters in this story aren't really the creatures, but the humans playing games with them. It's a Noah Hawley story not Ridely Scott, so the focus is more on the ideas. So far it's pretty good? It's on Hulu.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 12:09 am (UTC)I adored reading about your experience re-watching the original movie. I am biased, as you are likely aware. (LOL)
It really does hold up and I admit I've been savoring it and haven't yet watched it post-Andor season 2. I feel like that might be my 'treat' next weekend for making it through the coming week.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 01:14 am (UTC)I'd been savoring it as well. And waited a little while to watch Rogue One and Star Wars back to back - and they are REALLY wonderful back to back - a real treat. I may watch Empire and Jedi back to back next weekend. And watch Star Wars: Rebels afterwards.
RE chocolate chip cookies? They were good. But I probably should have spaced them out a bit more.
And adding ice cream (cardamon chai) probably wasn't the best idea?
no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 07:52 am (UTC)I love the original Star Wars New Hope. It really does hold up so well, and the characters are so engaging.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 03:55 pm (UTC)Good to know about Alien: Earth, most helpful summary I've seen so far, perhaps the ideas are worth the body horror.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 10:22 pm (UTC)Re Alien Earth: It's worth a shot - if you like the Alien Universe and films. The writer does a good job of playing with Ridely Scott's toys, and improving on it. Providing a bit more depth to the world.
The location is the jungles of Thailand and Indonesia, not the US, which is also kind of interesting. There is no US, no Thailand, etc in this verse. Just the five territories owned by the five corporations.
I find the characters engaging - enough to stick with it. While it is gory in places, it's not that bad? And they've created a new creature - actually the monsters are kind of interesting in their own way.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-11 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-11 10:15 pm (UTC)That said? I have no idea if Alien Earth is mindful of those things? The characters so far look and speak like Americans, and are portrayed by American actors, who are mostly white, with maybe a few Black folks in the mix. And the Asian are well the other corporation. Boy Kavaliar is clearly American.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 08:23 pm (UTC)Sometimes you just need a chocolate chip cookie! (or two or three....)
no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 10:13 pm (UTC)I like knowing there are other Star Wars fans out there too. ;-) Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-08 10:15 pm (UTC)