Media Consumption Wednesday
8 Oct 2014 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecatI promise not to accumulate such a huge backlog of these in the future.
Captain Horatio Hornblower
Gregory Peck 1951 movie. It seems like Star Trek: TOS swiped some of the theme music and sound effects from it, as well as the concept of "Hornblower in spaaaace.") Pretty good sea adventure. I found the romance annoying.
American Gangster
Denzel Washington plays a conservative businessman who happens to deal heroin; Russell Crowe plays a painfully honest cop who is out to get him and also all the corrupt cops. Based ever so vaguely on some real people. Directed by Ridley Scott. Not a paragon of social awareness, but not totally faily either.
The Dark Knight
Batman with Heath Ledger playing the Joker. Ledger is fabulous—the only Joker I've ever had feelings about other than *cringe*. It was his last role.
Finding Vivian Meier
There's a wonderful movie called I've Heard the Mermaids Singing which is about a young socially awkward queer woman who works as an assistant in an art gallery and secretly takes bazillions of wonderful street photos. Turns out it's sort of true, except the woman worked as a housekeeper/nanny in the 1950s–70s in Chicago and New York City. This documentary lets you see a lot of her photos, but spends more time on interviewing people who hired her or knew her and trying to trace her ancestry. The interviewees proffer theories about Meier that usually say more about them than about Meier herself.
The Lives of Others
Story of an East German secret police agent assigned to spy on a popular writer. At one point I thought "one could segue from this into Der Himmel über Berlin without even realizing it." But that's just the atmosphere; this one has a more solid plot.
Velvet Goldmine
Various folks have been after me to watch this forever. A couple of the main characters are supposed to be based vaguely on David Bowie and Iggy Pop. The costumes are beautiful (it was nominated for best costume design in 1998). It's got this nostalgia-for-glam-rock feel that I can relate to. I was kind of meh about the plot though. (I have to admit, I felt the same way about Citizen Kane, which this movie is supposedly basing its narrative structure on.)
Agents of SHIELD
Watching the second season of this Marvel Comics creation...out of inertia, mostly. A whole bunch of changes went down at the end of the first season and I have yet to sort out all the new characters.
Orphan Black
This was the first TV series since Heroes that sucked the OH into binge-watching (we watched 4 episodes back to back). The actress who stars is very talented.
Torchwood
I watched about 20 episodes in two or three days (since the OH is not watching it with me) and finished the series. I probably shouldn't have, because I got kind of inured to Jack (spoiler) being buried alive when it happened in several episodes in a row. I wasn't crazy about the last two seasons, "Children of Earth" and "Miracle Day," although they had some good moments. But although there's plenty that's problematic about it, I really liked that almost everyone on the team was some flavor of bisexual.
Continuum
Some rebels/terrorists and a policewoman travel back in time to the early 21st century. We have watched several episodes and can't decide if we like it enough to keep going. I find it hard to sympathize with any of the characters.
Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher #1)
Thriller/mystery series set in the 1920s. This one was set in Australia. I listened to the audiobook and liked it quite a bit. I really like the protagonist. I guess I'd describe her as "if James Bond were a woman working independently instead of being a government agent."
Vonda N. McIntyre, "The Adventure of the Field Theorems"
Novella/short where Sherlock Holmes meets Arthur Conan Doyle, who is in his "believing in supernatural phenomena" phase. VERY well written, true to Doyle's style, and very funny. Also, a clever mystery.
Nora Roberts, Morrigan's Cross (Circle Trilogy #1)
I got about 3/4 of the way through, and I liked most of the characters OK, and I liked that two of the main characters were witches/sorcerers. But they all spent far too much time LAMENTING everything and not enough time fighting or strategizing, and also there was too much "plot advancement by means of stupidity." And the black guy was the vampire's servant, and he ended up getting killed before anyone else. And the narrator — DICK HILL, who is AMERICAN — uses a really fakey and overdramatic Irish accent, which was too dramatic much of the time. Also, he uses the same whiny voice for women that George Guidall uses, which was a really wrong voice for the witch protagonist. Anyway, I gave up on it because of those things.
Karl Schroeder, Pirate Sun (Virga #3)
Hard SF with a swashbuckling edge. I love the narrator and the Vanera Fanning character.
Revolution 60
Indie iPad game created by women in which all the characters are either female or robots or both. Really fun. I played it 3 or 4 times in quick succession to get different endings. In this article the developer apologizes for making all the female characters skinny.
http://www.cnet.com/news/revolution-60-a-game-by-and-about-badass-women/
Movies
Captain Horatio Hornblower
Gregory Peck 1951 movie. It seems like Star Trek: TOS swiped some of the theme music and sound effects from it, as well as the concept of "Hornblower in spaaaace.") Pretty good sea adventure. I found the romance annoying.
American Gangster
Denzel Washington plays a conservative businessman who happens to deal heroin; Russell Crowe plays a painfully honest cop who is out to get him and also all the corrupt cops. Based ever so vaguely on some real people. Directed by Ridley Scott. Not a paragon of social awareness, but not totally faily either.
The Dark Knight
Batman with Heath Ledger playing the Joker. Ledger is fabulous—the only Joker I've ever had feelings about other than *cringe*. It was his last role.
Finding Vivian Meier
There's a wonderful movie called I've Heard the Mermaids Singing which is about a young socially awkward queer woman who works as an assistant in an art gallery and secretly takes bazillions of wonderful street photos. Turns out it's sort of true, except the woman worked as a housekeeper/nanny in the 1950s–70s in Chicago and New York City. This documentary lets you see a lot of her photos, but spends more time on interviewing people who hired her or knew her and trying to trace her ancestry. The interviewees proffer theories about Meier that usually say more about them than about Meier herself.
The Lives of Others
Story of an East German secret police agent assigned to spy on a popular writer. At one point I thought "one could segue from this into Der Himmel über Berlin without even realizing it." But that's just the atmosphere; this one has a more solid plot.
Velvet Goldmine
Various folks have been after me to watch this forever. A couple of the main characters are supposed to be based vaguely on David Bowie and Iggy Pop. The costumes are beautiful (it was nominated for best costume design in 1998). It's got this nostalgia-for-glam-rock feel that I can relate to. I was kind of meh about the plot though. (I have to admit, I felt the same way about Citizen Kane, which this movie is supposedly basing its narrative structure on.)
Episodics
Agents of SHIELD
Watching the second season of this Marvel Comics creation...out of inertia, mostly. A whole bunch of changes went down at the end of the first season and I have yet to sort out all the new characters.
Orphan Black
This was the first TV series since Heroes that sucked the OH into binge-watching (we watched 4 episodes back to back). The actress who stars is very talented.
Torchwood
I watched about 20 episodes in two or three days (since the OH is not watching it with me) and finished the series. I probably shouldn't have, because I got kind of inured to Jack (spoiler) being buried alive when it happened in several episodes in a row. I wasn't crazy about the last two seasons, "Children of Earth" and "Miracle Day," although they had some good moments. But although there's plenty that's problematic about it, I really liked that almost everyone on the team was some flavor of bisexual.
Continuum
Some rebels/terrorists and a policewoman travel back in time to the early 21st century. We have watched several episodes and can't decide if we like it enough to keep going. I find it hard to sympathize with any of the characters.
Fiction
Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher #1)
Thriller/mystery series set in the 1920s. This one was set in Australia. I listened to the audiobook and liked it quite a bit. I really like the protagonist. I guess I'd describe her as "if James Bond were a woman working independently instead of being a government agent."
Vonda N. McIntyre, "The Adventure of the Field Theorems"
Novella/short where Sherlock Holmes meets Arthur Conan Doyle, who is in his "believing in supernatural phenomena" phase. VERY well written, true to Doyle's style, and very funny. Also, a clever mystery.
Nora Roberts, Morrigan's Cross (Circle Trilogy #1)
I got about 3/4 of the way through, and I liked most of the characters OK, and I liked that two of the main characters were witches/sorcerers. But they all spent far too much time LAMENTING everything and not enough time fighting or strategizing, and also there was too much "plot advancement by means of stupidity." And the black guy was the vampire's servant, and he ended up getting killed before anyone else. And the narrator — DICK HILL, who is AMERICAN — uses a really fakey and overdramatic Irish accent, which was too dramatic much of the time. Also, he uses the same whiny voice for women that George Guidall uses, which was a really wrong voice for the witch protagonist. Anyway, I gave up on it because of those things.
Karl Schroeder, Pirate Sun (Virga #3)
Hard SF with a swashbuckling edge. I love the narrator and the Vanera Fanning character.
Games
Revolution 60
Indie iPad game created by women in which all the characters are either female or robots or both. Really fun. I played it 3 or 4 times in quick succession to get different endings. In this article the developer apologizes for making all the female characters skinny.
http://www.cnet.com/news/revolution-60-a-game-by-and-about-badass-women/
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no subject
Date: 9 Oct 2014 07:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Oct 2014 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Oct 2014 09:21 pm (UTC)BTW, thanks for the tip about Revolution 60. I've just purchased it and played the first hour and a half or so. Nice! It seems a bit un-polished in some small details (e.g. I'd love a volume adjustment so that I can turn down the music and crank up the speech; also some of the convo options have the non-sequitur nature) but I do love the combat model and the overall approach. It seems pretty interesting so far, and I always enjoy trying games that try something a bit different wrt gameplay mechanics. Plus, it's so nice to play games with female lead characters. You wouldn't think that should be a hard thing to find, but... yeah.
no subject
Date: 9 Oct 2014 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 11 Oct 2014 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 11 Oct 2014 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Oct 2014 12:41 am (UTC)If I'm going to watch crap (which is all my brain is generally good for) I'm going to watch something like Haven, where the people and the scenery are prettier, the music is pleasanter, and it doesn't take itself too seriously.
Will have to look up the Phryne Fisher, thanks
no subject
Date: 13 Oct 2014 12:56 am (UTC)That's definitely part of the problem with continuum, yeah.
no subject
Date: 13 Oct 2014 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Oct 2014 07:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Oct 2014 08:18 pm (UTC)