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Oct. 2nd, 2011 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWell, I finally was able to access and see the season finale of Doctor Who S6 otherwise entitled The Wedding of River Song. But I almost killed my internet access attempting it. Not sure why the universe was attempting to stop my viewing of this episode, seemed rather innocuous to me. And a tad bit anti-climatic, but they always do appear that way - when you have to go through a lot of effort to see them. Same deal with Phantom of the Opera - I swear I would have appreciated it more if I didn't have to work so hard to see it. May post a review of Doctor Who at a later point. Need time to digest it first. Also been spending too much time today as it is wrangling my computer. I won, but it was an epic battle.
There's not that many good genre series airing this season, is there? Apparently they've reached their saturation point. While the cop procedurals...appear to not have one in sight. Very odd. You'd think people would get bored of the serial killer/murder of the week? But no. The highest rated season premiers appear to be Unforgettable, Person of Interest, NCIS (both versions), CSI, Castle, Hawaii 5-0, Blue Bloods, and Pam Am. Everything else was a sitcom, a news show, football, or a reality tv show. If you like cult television at all - you are a bit regulated to either cable, the low-rated shows no one mentions on the networks, or the CW. Depressing, isn't it?
Hung out with a friend last night - saw the flick Contagion by Steven Soderburg. It's okay. Nothing to jump up and down over. Although there is a rather funny line by Doctor Sussman (Elliot Gould) to annoying/whiny/opportunistic blogger (Jude Law - who by the way has pimples, quite visible when his face is the size of a wall):
"Blogging is just graffiti with punctuation marks. "
We roared with laughter. This thing did have a lot of really good one-liners. The main theme of the movie was how disinformation causes chaos. The villain if there was one - is the blogger played by Jude Law. Being uninformed or misinformed by unreliable internet sources and careless can kill you.
Friend's response was basically the same as mine - this would have worked much better as a mini-series on tv. We both wanted more. The movie format was too abbreviated for the story to be told in a satisfying manner. That's been my problem with a lot of movies lately...they are almost too short. Neither of us found it the least bit scary, in fact we both burst out laughing when the woman next to us started coughing. Possibly because we both know far too much about the subject - being junkies of this particular trope. (We've read Andromeda Strain, watched it, read Hot Zone, and I also read Virus hunters and just about every book, movie or tv series that pops up on the topic. Plus discussed at length with medical professionals. I find the process of hunting down a virus, figuring out how it was caused, how it was transmitted, and how to stop it rather fascinating. ) Overall, we liked it. And it was free - my friend had free passes, so we didn't have to pay. Spent the money on sushi, saki, magritias, and other munchies at various places instead.
We also discussed Game of Thrones and The GRR Martin Series - I told my friend that the tv series was actually pretty good. But she's decided to read the books instead. A friend of hers, a guy, said something that I found decidedly odd about the series, although it has been mentioned before, elsewhere. He stated that GRR Martin clearly either did not like women very much or had problems with women, because his women characters are horrible and shallow, with no depth. I thought, huh? Was more puzzled and bewildered by the comment than anything else. I just finished reading chapters in Brienne, Sansa, Yasha, and Cersie's points of view. But..He's read all the books apparently and is not a feminist, fairly conservative in his tastes, but like's female characters. Which doesn't tell me all that much. Just seemed an odd statement. Granted some could be better developed, but that's true with some of the male characters too. I don't know, I don't think Martin's female characters are as well drawn as Whedon's, Tolkien's (better than Tolkien's - Tolkien barely has any), and anyone else out there. What do you think?
Admittedly there are a few writers out there that I wonder about in that regard - Ryan Murphy, I keep wondering if he has some unresolved female issues. But I wouldn't say it about Martin. Martin seems pretty normal, as far as I can tell. Granted I've only read three of the books and am a quarter of the way through the fourth, but still.
There's not that many good genre series airing this season, is there? Apparently they've reached their saturation point. While the cop procedurals...appear to not have one in sight. Very odd. You'd think people would get bored of the serial killer/murder of the week? But no. The highest rated season premiers appear to be Unforgettable, Person of Interest, NCIS (both versions), CSI, Castle, Hawaii 5-0, Blue Bloods, and Pam Am. Everything else was a sitcom, a news show, football, or a reality tv show. If you like cult television at all - you are a bit regulated to either cable, the low-rated shows no one mentions on the networks, or the CW. Depressing, isn't it?
Hung out with a friend last night - saw the flick Contagion by Steven Soderburg. It's okay. Nothing to jump up and down over. Although there is a rather funny line by Doctor Sussman (Elliot Gould) to annoying/whiny/opportunistic blogger (Jude Law - who by the way has pimples, quite visible when his face is the size of a wall):
"Blogging is just graffiti with punctuation marks. "
We roared with laughter. This thing did have a lot of really good one-liners. The main theme of the movie was how disinformation causes chaos. The villain if there was one - is the blogger played by Jude Law. Being uninformed or misinformed by unreliable internet sources and careless can kill you.
Friend's response was basically the same as mine - this would have worked much better as a mini-series on tv. We both wanted more. The movie format was too abbreviated for the story to be told in a satisfying manner. That's been my problem with a lot of movies lately...they are almost too short. Neither of us found it the least bit scary, in fact we both burst out laughing when the woman next to us started coughing. Possibly because we both know far too much about the subject - being junkies of this particular trope. (We've read Andromeda Strain, watched it, read Hot Zone, and I also read Virus hunters and just about every book, movie or tv series that pops up on the topic. Plus discussed at length with medical professionals. I find the process of hunting down a virus, figuring out how it was caused, how it was transmitted, and how to stop it rather fascinating. ) Overall, we liked it. And it was free - my friend had free passes, so we didn't have to pay. Spent the money on sushi, saki, magritias, and other munchies at various places instead.
We also discussed Game of Thrones and The GRR Martin Series - I told my friend that the tv series was actually pretty good. But she's decided to read the books instead. A friend of hers, a guy, said something that I found decidedly odd about the series, although it has been mentioned before, elsewhere. He stated that GRR Martin clearly either did not like women very much or had problems with women, because his women characters are horrible and shallow, with no depth. I thought, huh? Was more puzzled and bewildered by the comment than anything else. I just finished reading chapters in Brienne, Sansa, Yasha, and Cersie's points of view. But..He's read all the books apparently and is not a feminist, fairly conservative in his tastes, but like's female characters. Which doesn't tell me all that much. Just seemed an odd statement. Granted some could be better developed, but that's true with some of the male characters too. I don't know, I don't think Martin's female characters are as well drawn as Whedon's, Tolkien's (better than Tolkien's - Tolkien barely has any), and anyone else out there. What do you think?
Admittedly there are a few writers out there that I wonder about in that regard - Ryan Murphy, I keep wondering if he has some unresolved female issues. But I wouldn't say it about Martin. Martin seems pretty normal, as far as I can tell. Granted I've only read three of the books and am a quarter of the way through the fourth, but still.
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Date: 2011-10-02 10:56 pm (UTC)If he's not a feminist than it might be that the women are not stereotypically female enough. You know, not kind, caring and nurturing enough. With Martin the women go all across the board, but also on the dark sides. Power is corrupting, Being a fighter means you get your hands bloody, for men and for women.
I think people who don't reflect much about the depiction of women have maybe gone away from the nice background characters that just look pretty, but they now expect these infallable ueberchicks that can do everything, and are supernice and supercute while doing it all in high heels (it's a beef i sometimes have with whedon even). So when there are flawed women, hardened women, women who's dreams don't work out, like Martin's then it's perceived as weird.
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Date: 2011-10-03 12:49 am (UTC)Agree on your criticism of Whedon - I have a similar beef, although to be fair, on the tv series - I don't think that was his initial intent - he tried to be more creative with the casting on Buffy at least, but the network nixed it and/or didn't work.