shadowkat: (Default)
1. Well, I submitted pandemic sunflower to the Brooklyn Art Museum Open Admission site. It's not really a contest - or it is - but the prize is being exhibited in the museum with a lot of other artists and having your work shown.
Read more... )

I'm proud of myself for submitting it. It's the first work of art that I've submitted to an exhibition in a very very long time, since I was a kid, actually.

2. Television

* Been binge-watching Resident Alien on Netflix, starring Alan Tudyk, there's two seasons of it available. Made it through about six episodes. They are about thirty minutes each and being Netflix, when one ends, the next one begins with barely a credits roll.

Set-up? vague spoilers - except all happen in first two episodes ) Think fish out of water tale such as Northern Exposure - except the fish out of water is an alien trying to destroy the human race, and failing miserably at it.

It's a comedy.

Started on Syfy, now on Netflix as well. Much easier to watch on Netflix.

* X-men '97 - Disney + - this is a reboot of the 1990-1996 Fox X-men Animated Series. I saw about two or three seasons of the 90s series back in the 90s. And it's really when the X-men became mainstream. Most people know about the X-men from the Fox 1990s series. (Ugh). The Fox 1990s series is not bad, it's actually better if you've not read the comics first. If you've read the comics first and remember them well - it will irritate you. The animation of the Fox 1990s series is on the clunky side (it was good in the 1990s however), but better than most cartoons. And the dialogue on the cheesy side. Cyclops is written kind of stiffly and not well at all. He's boring in the 90s series, the most interesting characters in the series are Rogue, Storm and Wolverine, Jean is kind of dull and poorly developed, as is Cyclops and Jubliee. Gambit is kind of edgy and creepy. That's the 1990s cartoon.

The 2024 reboot - or X-men '97 which was written and created by the (recently fired) Beau DeMayo is actually pretty good. And a vast improvement over the original. It has two episodes that have dropped. And it focuses on the late 1970s/early 1980s comics but - with big changes. Scott/Cyclops is written a tad better, as is Jean, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Gambit, Jubliee, etc. And they've brought back Morph. Xavier is gone, and Magneto is taking over.

What's odd is they fired the creator, and he's left social media entirely. Hasn't posted since the firing in early March, two weeks before the premiere.

No one knows why. Except he was posting semi nude pictures of himself - posing on Xitter - and well, he's Black and Gay. And it is Disney. But I'm hoping they had a better reason and guessing it was a legal one? No one knows, and no one is happy about it. The first two episodes were done well.
All the characters were written and drawn better, as were the action sequences.

On Beau DeMayo Firing and Where Things Currently Stand

Marvel is working towards rebooting the X-men films, and doing that through a reboot of the animated series, and the comic series - the X-men is its most popular flagship series, since it has the most diverse characters and the most diversified audience and ahem, appeals to women, LGBTA, trans, and not just nerdy heterosexual cisgendered fanboys.

And I foresee a Bridgerton rewatch in my future. Also the 3 Body Problem is on Netflix.

3. Almost forgot... Cillian Murphy forms a new production Company, Big Things Films

" EXCLUSIVE: Cillian Murphy, fresh off of the massive global success of Oppenheimer — and as he gets ready to debut Small Things Like These (in which he stars and he produced) as the opening-night gala of the Berlin Film Festival next week — has set his next starring and producing gig with Steve.

This adaptation of Max Porter’s novel Shy also officially launches Murphy’s production company, Big Things Films, with longtime collaborator Alan Moloney."

The article contains a discussion with Cillian and his producing partner.
Also Cillian is starting filming on a Peaky Blinders movie for Netflix in September.

This is the team that did Breakfast on Pluto, Intermission and Delingquent Season.

" An independent, story-driven company, Big Things was initially created to produce Small Things Like These, and aims to collaborate with singular filmmakers, writers, actors and directors, both new and established, who have something to say and are passionate about what they do. Big Things will collaborate with like-minded financiers, studios, distributors and streamers in both film and television.

The company will seek material in which Murphy will act, but not exclusively.

Projects will be designed to provoke, inspire and explore themes that take audiences to places that can sometimes be uncomfortable, but more often reveal core truths about who we are, regardless of genre or format, the partners say.

Meanwhile, Berlinale opener Small Things Like These is based on the Booker Prize-shortlisted novel by Claire Keegan with a screenplay by Enda Walsh. Murphy, Eileen Walsh and Emily Watson star in the story which takes place over Christmas 1985, when devoted father Bill Furlong (Murphy) discovers the startling secrets being kept by the convent in his town, and some shocking truths about his own life as well. "

So good news for Cillian Murphy fans.

Ryan Gosling is starring in Project Hail Mary - the Andy Weir novel adaptation, which I will most likely skip, because it has a friendly alien spider race in it. I can handle that in a book, I cannot handle looking at alien spiders on screen.

Sigh, it's that time again - off to bed.
shadowkat: (Tv shows)
Way back in 1973, sci-fi writer, Michael Crichton wrote and directed a science fiction film entitled Westworld about a Western amusement park where the androids malfunction and start to kill the human tourists. It starred James Brolin, Yul Brunner, and Richard Benjamin. There was a sequel, that I actually saw years later, entitled Futureworld which starred Peter Fonda and Yul Brunner made a cameo appearance in a dream sequence.

The film version of Westworld aired again recently, and I still have it on the DVR, but have had troubles getting into it. Also, in the 1980s, there was a short-lived television series that I vaguely remember watching entitled "Beyond Westworld".

Now, years later, JJ Abrahams and company have revisited and rebooted Westworld as a television series for HBO. A far shinier, a far more violent series than the original. Also in some respects better written. Spoiler alert? It sort of ends the same, or rather, as one might expect.
It also at one point, references the original movie by following the journey of two guests to the park, William and Logan, who weirdly resemble Brolin and Benjamin's original characters.

The series is a fascinating philosophical study of consciousness or how we reach it. And that to find oneself, one must travel within, not without. You won't find the meaning of life or figure out who you are by looking outside yourself or out there, but rather within. Which is a Buddhist concept, I think. Or rather it's what I've been reading recently within Buddhist teachings. Although, I seriously doubt the Buddhists would agree with the graphic violence or the need for it.

The writers of this series aren't that found of humans, it is rather misanthropic. And there is a heavy meta-narrative on the exploitative nature of television or film. Reminding me a great deal of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. Having now watched the whole thing, I'd say the two series have a lot more common than I'd originally thought and in some respects end on a similar note.

eh spoilers for the series Dollhouse and Westworld )
shadowkat: (Calm)
current cultural obsession )

[ETA: Ugh. I can't seem to write anything without skipping words. I don't know what is up with that.
I'll re-read what I wrote and go, wait, what happened to that word? I know I wrote it. It's almost as if my brain is moving faster than my fingers can type. Or it thinks my fingers are typing the word and they aren't. I need another pair of eyes and apparently fingers. Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me?]
shadowkat: (Default)
1. Watching Trek Universe - there's an interesting bit with George Lucas.

"Star Trek and Star Wars are not reality shows, they are imagination shows. The story is really the thing that makes it work. In the beginning that's all there was with Star Trek, story, and that's what made it compelling."
Read more... )
2. Still on this romance novel binge, and beginning to notice a couple of trends emerging. Because my brain is a pattern making machine that can't stop, that's why.
read more if you dare )

3. Started watching S3 of Fringe and beginning to understand the fan love of this incredibly inventive and imaginative series. It thinks outside the box, examines things others haven't and actually does a parallel universe. Olivia journies to both universes. The show is split into two - we follow Olivia in the RedVerse with her Fringe team - Lincoln, Charlie, Broyles and Mr. Secretary (Walternate) and Olivia in the BlueVerse with Peter, Walter Bishop, Astrid, and Broyles. Plus we get great guest stars, Butters from The Wire, and Sebastian Roche. This show is worth watching if only for this season. You can skip S1, watch the last five episodes of S2, and follow it well enough. First three to four episodes are amongst the best of the series to date.
shadowkat: (Default)
Just finished watching "Sleeper" - episode 2.2 of Torchwood. (You remember the time in which it was hard to figure out the names of these episodes and you had to be an obsessed fan in order to do so? Now all you have to do is click info on your remote and there it is along with a composite summary. The information revolution really has changed things.)

Will now have to hunt through flist for all the spoilery reviews that I skipped when everyone else saw the episode, which was sometime last week. BBC America is roughly two weeks behind the UK BBC and net airings. Annoying that. Guess that's how everyone outside the US without the ability to download stuff felt about Buffy, eh? Also, by now, everyone is on to the last episode and sick of talking about it. Fun being late to the party. Not that I care all that much. Not really in the Torchwood fandom. And hardly obsessed. It's sort of nice actually. Being emotionally and cereberally invested in a tv series is exhausting not to mention incredibly time consuming. While watching it sort of casually is fun and entertaining.

on the joys of not being fannish and a shipper regarding Torchwood, or rather not a relationship 'shipper' for tv shows in general )

Anywho...have mixed feelings about this episode. It wasn't as much fun as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Although it does have a few funny lines - which are delivered a bit too flatly. I'm guessing that's a fault of direction not acting? The overall theme is interesting, but I think it was addressed in some ways far better in both BattleStar Galatica (version2) and Star Trek The Next Generation. Here, I found it a bit uneven and obvious.

Huge Spoilers for Sleeper, vague ones for Heroes, Lost, Battlestar Galatica S1-2 )
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