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Oct. 8th, 2005 11:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatA rainy weekend, which feels a bit of a relief really - means I can stay indoors, be lazy, veg, write, watch the two netflix movies I've rented - "DonkeySkin" - a 1970s French film starring Catherine Deneuve based on the fairy tale. And "Kiki's Delivery Service."
"Serenity" like "A History of Violence" seems to grow better in my head with the passage of time. Have been recommending both to assorted people. Describing Serenity to people who have never heard of it as basically Han Solo's adventures if he never met the Rebellion and obtained a higher purpose. That said have read a couple of online reviews that fit more or less how I experienced the film.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dlgood, londonkds and apotch aptly describe my difficulties with the film. Of the three I find myself agreeing the most with dlgood reservations, both in his own journal and in response to londonkds's review. That said, there is a fascinating essay on www.teaatheford.com by someone named Sylvia that revealed what I loved about it (inner critic be damned) and why I will most likely buy it when it is released on DVD, to watch again without the rude audience interruptions or the desire to rewind a particular sequence so I can rehear a bit of dialogue that I missed due to cinematic score or background noise. Whedon remains the dialogue king. He can do more with one line of dialogue than most screen-writers in Hollywood appear to be able to do with reams of it. So when you miss a line, you get antsy and want subtitles.
What Sylvia reveals in her essay, which I cannot remember the name of and may not be up for public viewing yet anyhow - (sorry)- is the elements of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" that Whedon elegantly weaves into the plot, where River becomes the naive yet worldly voice of Miranda, the crew of Serenity lead by Mal - Caliban, and the Alliance represented by the Operative - an odd Prospero. I don't think I'm revealing too much by saying that.If you can find the essay at teaatheford, I recommend it. She does a marvelous job of linking the ending of Serenity to the endings of Whedon's other series, which I think tracks.
For myself? Too busy really to write much on it. I think the days of the long media essays may be over. At least for now. Feel an odd need to just enjoy and not worry over the bits and pieces too much.
Last night spent some time with CW, we saw Wallace & Gromit and attempted the whole eating out bit. Eating out with friends is still proving to be quite the obstacle course. Ended up with wicked heartburn, yet again. And I was careful - did corn nachos, didn't eat any peppers, ate very little. But the chicken didn't quite agree and the pinot noir, definitely not - could taste the acid in it. So left it undrunk. Oh well, did find a rice crust frozen pizza the other day, and the gluten free muffins aren't bad - not as light and fluffy as the other variety, but what can one do? On the bright side - eating a lot more fruit than before (high in fiber) and more squash. Been substituting spaghetti squash for spaghetti.
CW liked Wallace and Gromit more than I did. Found it a bit slow in places - course this may have been due to a sudden urge to go to the bathroom half-way through the movie and the subsequent pain of holding it, so would not miss anything important. Hard to laugh when one's bladder is full. There are some wonderfully subtle jokes in it and overall, much better than Corspe Bride. Although I'm not sure the two are really comparable. Bit like comparing a Granny Smith Apple with a Macintosh if you get my drift. No one at work seemed to have heard of it.
CW and I talked tv briefly. We've both given up on Veronica Mars, even though we both enjoyed the first season quite a bit. I actually adored elements of it and up until I watched the season premiere was intent on watching it this season.
Neither CW nor I could get into the second season of Veronica Mars and both watch Lost. Lost is actually the only show CW watchs regularly any more. We both felt Veronica Mars had become more of a teen soap than the noirish teen detective show we'd enjoyed. As CW aptly put it:"Don't have anything against teen soap operas, lots of people love them, just not my thing is all." Yep. People have said Veronica Mars is the new Buffy, and I don't disagree necessarily, since Buffy could also be described as a teen soap, except with monsters and cool metaphors and snappy dialogue (no one does dialogue like Whedon), but here's the thing, I don't necessarily want to watch a show that is similar to Buffy in any way. What I enjoyed about VM last year was its noirish underpinnings, the male fatales, the snarky distrust, the eerie flashbacks and then the reveals that at times proved the heroine right in her mistrust of her universe and at times wrong. The lovely metaphors and the sense that heroine could not find love or friendship even if it was right in front of her nose. Didn't see that in the first episode this season - I did try, I even taped, then switched off the tape, and switched to Lost which unlike its premiere the week before, immediately grabbed my attention and had me riveted to the screen. I switched back to VM during commercials to see if it had improved. (Interesting tid-bit, Lost is on while VM in commercials, VM on while Lost in commercials. Odd that since most networks have annoying habit of timing their commericial breaks at exactly the same time, possibly to prevent people from doing this.). At any rate, VM hadn't improved or presented one character that grabbed my interest. Read re-cap on TWOPY site, felt the same way.
What was wrong? Well, to give tWop credit they actually stated what was wrong with the first episode and why I lost interest so quickly - the writer's attempt to sum up VM's entire summer, her entire train-wreck relationship with Logan, the mystery of Felix's death, VM's reconcilation with Duncan all in ten minute flashbacks. I felt in a word, gypped. Instead of showing me how Veronica came to grips with these things or how they messed her up or the other characters up, the writer spent time on a mystery that was a time-worn cliche. I sort of predicted it within the first five minutes it was introduced. So I just did not care. I kept flipping back in an attempt to care. But it just did not connect for me.
Lost - took the opposite approach. Instead of summarizing everything. It went into detail. First episode we get Jack's perspective on the hatch. Second episode Kate and Locke's. The second episode showed us the team's entry into the hatch from three different perspectives, flipped to the rafting accident, giving us more back story on why Mike felt the way he did about his son and how he was projecting that guilt onto Sawyer, while Sawyer was projecting his Daddy issues onto Mike. The third episode of Lost, gave us a bit more back story on Lock. So now we have full-fledged back stories explaining why Locke and Jack cling to what they believe in. I found myself identifying with Locke and Jack both in Lost, as well as the other characters. Jack who somewhere along the line has lost faith in his universe, who believes in nothing but what he can touch and sees a logical explanation behind everything. He takes the Occam's Razor thesis to its limit. Or the misinterpretation of the thesis. While Locke desperately clings to the belief in things beyond his understanding and wants a why but at the same time prefers not having one because he hates the answer. In Lost each character feels distinct to me and less cliche, the plots are cheesy, but the characters are holding my attention for now. I'm enjoying it.
Meanwhile, during the commercial breaks, I attempt Veronica MArs again. And every scene I hit on, I feel as if I've seen before. The dialogue feels that way as well. The scene at the bus, which reminds me vaguely of the Sweet Hereafter, not a great movie but does the same topic far better. Veronica's relationship with Duncan, sigh, dull. Logan's with Kendall, sigh, duller. I miss his interactions with his sister, played by Hannigan in a decidely non-glamourous role. And Steve Guttenberg is no Kyle Secor or Harry Hamlin, never was very fond of this actor to be honest. Veronica Mars...I may rent on netflix some day, who knows? But right now, not my cup of poison. Lost on the other hand is hitting the right notes for me. I'm actually making a point of watching it. I set up a tape, in case pottery runs over. And it is nice to come home to after pottery class.
"Serenity" like "A History of Violence" seems to grow better in my head with the passage of time. Have been recommending both to assorted people. Describing Serenity to people who have never heard of it as basically Han Solo's adventures if he never met the Rebellion and obtained a higher purpose. That said have read a couple of online reviews that fit more or less how I experienced the film.
dlgood, londonkds and apotch aptly describe my difficulties with the film. Of the three I find myself agreeing the most with dlgood reservations, both in his own journal and in response to londonkds's review. That said, there is a fascinating essay on www.teaatheford.com by someone named Sylvia that revealed what I loved about it (inner critic be damned) and why I will most likely buy it when it is released on DVD, to watch again without the rude audience interruptions or the desire to rewind a particular sequence so I can rehear a bit of dialogue that I missed due to cinematic score or background noise. Whedon remains the dialogue king. He can do more with one line of dialogue than most screen-writers in Hollywood appear to be able to do with reams of it. So when you miss a line, you get antsy and want subtitles.What Sylvia reveals in her essay, which I cannot remember the name of and may not be up for public viewing yet anyhow - (sorry)- is the elements of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" that Whedon elegantly weaves into the plot, where River becomes the naive yet worldly voice of Miranda, the crew of Serenity lead by Mal - Caliban, and the Alliance represented by the Operative - an odd Prospero. I don't think I'm revealing too much by saying that.If you can find the essay at teaatheford, I recommend it. She does a marvelous job of linking the ending of Serenity to the endings of Whedon's other series, which I think tracks.
For myself? Too busy really to write much on it. I think the days of the long media essays may be over. At least for now. Feel an odd need to just enjoy and not worry over the bits and pieces too much.
Last night spent some time with CW, we saw Wallace & Gromit and attempted the whole eating out bit. Eating out with friends is still proving to be quite the obstacle course. Ended up with wicked heartburn, yet again. And I was careful - did corn nachos, didn't eat any peppers, ate very little. But the chicken didn't quite agree and the pinot noir, definitely not - could taste the acid in it. So left it undrunk. Oh well, did find a rice crust frozen pizza the other day, and the gluten free muffins aren't bad - not as light and fluffy as the other variety, but what can one do? On the bright side - eating a lot more fruit than before (high in fiber) and more squash. Been substituting spaghetti squash for spaghetti.
CW liked Wallace and Gromit more than I did. Found it a bit slow in places - course this may have been due to a sudden urge to go to the bathroom half-way through the movie and the subsequent pain of holding it, so would not miss anything important. Hard to laugh when one's bladder is full. There are some wonderfully subtle jokes in it and overall, much better than Corspe Bride. Although I'm not sure the two are really comparable. Bit like comparing a Granny Smith Apple with a Macintosh if you get my drift. No one at work seemed to have heard of it.
CW and I talked tv briefly. We've both given up on Veronica Mars, even though we both enjoyed the first season quite a bit. I actually adored elements of it and up until I watched the season premiere was intent on watching it this season.
Neither CW nor I could get into the second season of Veronica Mars and both watch Lost. Lost is actually the only show CW watchs regularly any more. We both felt Veronica Mars had become more of a teen soap than the noirish teen detective show we'd enjoyed. As CW aptly put it:"Don't have anything against teen soap operas, lots of people love them, just not my thing is all." Yep. People have said Veronica Mars is the new Buffy, and I don't disagree necessarily, since Buffy could also be described as a teen soap, except with monsters and cool metaphors and snappy dialogue (no one does dialogue like Whedon), but here's the thing, I don't necessarily want to watch a show that is similar to Buffy in any way. What I enjoyed about VM last year was its noirish underpinnings, the male fatales, the snarky distrust, the eerie flashbacks and then the reveals that at times proved the heroine right in her mistrust of her universe and at times wrong. The lovely metaphors and the sense that heroine could not find love or friendship even if it was right in front of her nose. Didn't see that in the first episode this season - I did try, I even taped, then switched off the tape, and switched to Lost which unlike its premiere the week before, immediately grabbed my attention and had me riveted to the screen. I switched back to VM during commercials to see if it had improved. (Interesting tid-bit, Lost is on while VM in commercials, VM on while Lost in commercials. Odd that since most networks have annoying habit of timing their commericial breaks at exactly the same time, possibly to prevent people from doing this.). At any rate, VM hadn't improved or presented one character that grabbed my interest. Read re-cap on TWOPY site, felt the same way.
What was wrong? Well, to give tWop credit they actually stated what was wrong with the first episode and why I lost interest so quickly - the writer's attempt to sum up VM's entire summer, her entire train-wreck relationship with Logan, the mystery of Felix's death, VM's reconcilation with Duncan all in ten minute flashbacks. I felt in a word, gypped. Instead of showing me how Veronica came to grips with these things or how they messed her up or the other characters up, the writer spent time on a mystery that was a time-worn cliche. I sort of predicted it within the first five minutes it was introduced. So I just did not care. I kept flipping back in an attempt to care. But it just did not connect for me.
Lost - took the opposite approach. Instead of summarizing everything. It went into detail. First episode we get Jack's perspective on the hatch. Second episode Kate and Locke's. The second episode showed us the team's entry into the hatch from three different perspectives, flipped to the rafting accident, giving us more back story on why Mike felt the way he did about his son and how he was projecting that guilt onto Sawyer, while Sawyer was projecting his Daddy issues onto Mike. The third episode of Lost, gave us a bit more back story on Lock. So now we have full-fledged back stories explaining why Locke and Jack cling to what they believe in. I found myself identifying with Locke and Jack both in Lost, as well as the other characters. Jack who somewhere along the line has lost faith in his universe, who believes in nothing but what he can touch and sees a logical explanation behind everything. He takes the Occam's Razor thesis to its limit. Or the misinterpretation of the thesis. While Locke desperately clings to the belief in things beyond his understanding and wants a why but at the same time prefers not having one because he hates the answer. In Lost each character feels distinct to me and less cliche, the plots are cheesy, but the characters are holding my attention for now. I'm enjoying it.
Meanwhile, during the commercial breaks, I attempt Veronica MArs again. And every scene I hit on, I feel as if I've seen before. The dialogue feels that way as well. The scene at the bus, which reminds me vaguely of the Sweet Hereafter, not a great movie but does the same topic far better. Veronica's relationship with Duncan, sigh, dull. Logan's with Kendall, sigh, duller. I miss his interactions with his sister, played by Hannigan in a decidely non-glamourous role. And Steve Guttenberg is no Kyle Secor or Harry Hamlin, never was very fond of this actor to be honest. Veronica Mars...I may rent on netflix some day, who knows? But right now, not my cup of poison. Lost on the other hand is hitting the right notes for me. I'm actually making a point of watching it. I set up a tape, in case pottery runs over. And it is nice to come home to after pottery class.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-08 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-08 08:46 pm (UTC)Interesting.
;o)