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Book/Movie/DVD/TV Meanderings as of 3/29/10
In Books:
L.A. Outlaws, by T. Jefferson Parker: This was a good book group read, with three reasonably compelling characters and a fairly well-moving plot. I have to give Parker props for telling the story in one character's point of view by switching from third-person past to first-person present, and it worked surprisingly well. Also pleasing to me was the setting, which was mainly northeast San Diego county area, and therefore very relevant to my address.
Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde: I desperately wish that Jasper Fforde could pen an episode of Doctor Who. Fforde's narrative gifts would be well served by the Who production team, who could, without a shadow of a doubt, produce the props and monsters that inhabit Fforde's work and Fforde would write a world so convincingly alien that it wouldn't matter where the episode was shot. This latest work of his is perhaps his most dystopian and it's oddly chilling in places. Fforde posits a future where people can only see in shades of a certain color and a rigid social hierarchy based on these colors has sprung up. Carnivorous swans and man-eating plants menace from all sides and citizens fear a terrible disease called Mildew that spreads, plague-like, slowly, across the country. I'm only halfway through the book, but I'm desperately curious to find out what the Something That Happened to the Previous People was, ostensibly in the year 2084. I also have high hopes for the main character, who's not as much of a twit as he pretends to be. Very worthwhile read; Fforde is a gem of a writer.
(What I'd really like to read after this is some decent Thursday Next/Doctor Who fanfic. Not necessarily as a romantic pairing, but just seeing those two worlds intersect. The Doctor arguing with Thursday about his status as a fictional character would be highly, highly entertaining.)
In Movies:
How to Train Your Dragon: We saw this in 3D and were glad we'd paid the extra money to do so. I wanted to touch everything in sight: the wood that made up Vikings' homes, ships, and shields; the grouchy-looking sheep that warily grazed in the fields, and most of all, the dragons themselves. The animators have outdone themselves with the dragon designs, especially in the teeth department. But there's a strong narrative that's not overwhelmed by all the pyrotechnics of the special effects and furry/scaly things and stands quite well on its own. Our hero, Hiccup, is supposedly the most useless Viking in the entire tribe, scrawny and unable to do anything well in combat. His father, the leader of the tribe, is mortified that his son isn't a "proper" Viking and too short-sighted to see that while Hiccup may not do well in battle, he has an aptitude for strategy and tactics. Hiccup's inventions, machines designed to fight the dragons that swoop down and steal the tribe's sheep, never work until one day... they do. And Hiccup suddenly finds that he cannot bring himself to kill the dragon that he's felled. The story unfolds from there, a little slowly, but surely, as our hero comes to realize that all the assumptions of dragons being merciless killing machines has been wrong. Hiccup's dragon, named Toothless because of his retractable teeth, is a marvelous creation and the animation is lovingly done. Toothless reminded me, at times, of both a cat and dog, the best parts of both. The best parts of the movie are when Hiccup and Toothless fly, taking the time to work out the little problems in their partnership. This is a pretty male-dominated movie, but it's nice to have a hero who's willing to risk everything over his certainty in his own knowledge, not his prowess in a fight.
On DVD:
Spellbound: I'd been very excited to see this classic Hitchcock film, recently released on DVD and remastered. How disappointing the parade of vintage sexism was, then. Even the Salvador Dali dream sequence couldn't make up for the rest of the film, which lacked any sympathy for its main female character, a psychiatrist in love with a patient, doing all sorts of crazy things to prove his innocence of a crime that he couldn't quite remember. I can see why Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman were the idols of their day; both of them are great actors and have a good chemistry with one another. But all the chemistry in the world couldn't make up for the sexism in the script ("A woman in love is operating on the lowest field of intelligence!"), poor pacing, and a strangely tidy conclusion.
Up in the Air: This is a modern companion to Death of a Salesman, and come to think of it, this film and that play would be how I'd bookend a comparative literature/film course on "The Consequences of the American Dream". "Up in the Air" features virtuoso acting from Clooney, Farmiga, and Kendrick, but the story, much like the life of the main character, is all sound and fury that never truly lifts off the ground--or the few inches that it rises for as soundly dashed by a sad (and to me, entirely reasonable) ending. The most beautiful parts of this film occur in airports and hotels, places where the main character thinks he's "home", always on the move, with no human connection whatsoever to ruin his system for efficient travel. I don't think I've ever seen an American Airlines Admirals' Club photographed with such reverence. I don't want to say that this is a horribly depressing film; there's real heart here, but it's not immediately obvious and it doesn't linger. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't need to see it again for a while. I wonder how it will look in fifty years: hopelessly dated? Still true?
On YouTube:
Doctor Who: The End of Time, Parts 1 & 2: Netflix, for whatever reason, was taking forever to add this, so I finally just gave up and watched on YouTube. As I had expected, the YouTube copy was very poor quality. (The vocal track was about a second behind the visuals, which made for odd, anti-climatic speechifying.) I think I'm the last person on LiveJournal to have finally seen it, but in the interests of general propriety, I'll warn that there are spoilers ahead.
So, uhm, yeah. Not what I expected at all, even with the spoilers I'd already looked at. Sort of... hollow. The first half felt like "Being John Malkovich" mixed with "Heart of Darkness". The second half followed on the same formula, but with "War of the Worlds" thrown in for (good?) measure. And while there were plot elements that I was very interested in, like the Return of the Time Lords, they kept getting cut off by strange pacing. (The chase scene in the second half, in the cactus-people's ship, was largely unnecessary and seemed to exist only to fill up the running time.) The best parts of the story were the quiet talks between Wilf and the Doctor, but those were few and far between, unfortunately. Uhm, yeah. Yay for Donna getting married? Yay for Martha and Mickey (whose freelance mercenary lifestyle would make for a great spin-off, eh, BBC? *hints*)? Yay for Sarah Jane and Rose? Yay for #11? I don't quite know what I feel for the series at this point.
L.A. Outlaws, by T. Jefferson Parker: This was a good book group read, with three reasonably compelling characters and a fairly well-moving plot. I have to give Parker props for telling the story in one character's point of view by switching from third-person past to first-person present, and it worked surprisingly well. Also pleasing to me was the setting, which was mainly northeast San Diego county area, and therefore very relevant to my address.
Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde: I desperately wish that Jasper Fforde could pen an episode of Doctor Who. Fforde's narrative gifts would be well served by the Who production team, who could, without a shadow of a doubt, produce the props and monsters that inhabit Fforde's work and Fforde would write a world so convincingly alien that it wouldn't matter where the episode was shot. This latest work of his is perhaps his most dystopian and it's oddly chilling in places. Fforde posits a future where people can only see in shades of a certain color and a rigid social hierarchy based on these colors has sprung up. Carnivorous swans and man-eating plants menace from all sides and citizens fear a terrible disease called Mildew that spreads, plague-like, slowly, across the country. I'm only halfway through the book, but I'm desperately curious to find out what the Something That Happened to the Previous People was, ostensibly in the year 2084. I also have high hopes for the main character, who's not as much of a twit as he pretends to be. Very worthwhile read; Fforde is a gem of a writer.
(What I'd really like to read after this is some decent Thursday Next/Doctor Who fanfic. Not necessarily as a romantic pairing, but just seeing those two worlds intersect. The Doctor arguing with Thursday about his status as a fictional character would be highly, highly entertaining.)
In Movies:
How to Train Your Dragon: We saw this in 3D and were glad we'd paid the extra money to do so. I wanted to touch everything in sight: the wood that made up Vikings' homes, ships, and shields; the grouchy-looking sheep that warily grazed in the fields, and most of all, the dragons themselves. The animators have outdone themselves with the dragon designs, especially in the teeth department. But there's a strong narrative that's not overwhelmed by all the pyrotechnics of the special effects and furry/scaly things and stands quite well on its own. Our hero, Hiccup, is supposedly the most useless Viking in the entire tribe, scrawny and unable to do anything well in combat. His father, the leader of the tribe, is mortified that his son isn't a "proper" Viking and too short-sighted to see that while Hiccup may not do well in battle, he has an aptitude for strategy and tactics. Hiccup's inventions, machines designed to fight the dragons that swoop down and steal the tribe's sheep, never work until one day... they do. And Hiccup suddenly finds that he cannot bring himself to kill the dragon that he's felled. The story unfolds from there, a little slowly, but surely, as our hero comes to realize that all the assumptions of dragons being merciless killing machines has been wrong. Hiccup's dragon, named Toothless because of his retractable teeth, is a marvelous creation and the animation is lovingly done. Toothless reminded me, at times, of both a cat and dog, the best parts of both. The best parts of the movie are when Hiccup and Toothless fly, taking the time to work out the little problems in their partnership. This is a pretty male-dominated movie, but it's nice to have a hero who's willing to risk everything over his certainty in his own knowledge, not his prowess in a fight.
On DVD:
Spellbound: I'd been very excited to see this classic Hitchcock film, recently released on DVD and remastered. How disappointing the parade of vintage sexism was, then. Even the Salvador Dali dream sequence couldn't make up for the rest of the film, which lacked any sympathy for its main female character, a psychiatrist in love with a patient, doing all sorts of crazy things to prove his innocence of a crime that he couldn't quite remember. I can see why Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman were the idols of their day; both of them are great actors and have a good chemistry with one another. But all the chemistry in the world couldn't make up for the sexism in the script ("A woman in love is operating on the lowest field of intelligence!"), poor pacing, and a strangely tidy conclusion.
Up in the Air: This is a modern companion to Death of a Salesman, and come to think of it, this film and that play would be how I'd bookend a comparative literature/film course on "The Consequences of the American Dream". "Up in the Air" features virtuoso acting from Clooney, Farmiga, and Kendrick, but the story, much like the life of the main character, is all sound and fury that never truly lifts off the ground--or the few inches that it rises for as soundly dashed by a sad (and to me, entirely reasonable) ending. The most beautiful parts of this film occur in airports and hotels, places where the main character thinks he's "home", always on the move, with no human connection whatsoever to ruin his system for efficient travel. I don't think I've ever seen an American Airlines Admirals' Club photographed with such reverence. I don't want to say that this is a horribly depressing film; there's real heart here, but it's not immediately obvious and it doesn't linger. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't need to see it again for a while. I wonder how it will look in fifty years: hopelessly dated? Still true?
On YouTube:
Doctor Who: The End of Time, Parts 1 & 2: Netflix, for whatever reason, was taking forever to add this, so I finally just gave up and watched on YouTube. As I had expected, the YouTube copy was very poor quality. (The vocal track was about a second behind the visuals, which made for odd, anti-climatic speechifying.) I think I'm the last person on LiveJournal to have finally seen it, but in the interests of general propriety, I'll warn that there are spoilers ahead.
So, uhm, yeah. Not what I expected at all, even with the spoilers I'd already looked at. Sort of... hollow. The first half felt like "Being John Malkovich" mixed with "Heart of Darkness". The second half followed on the same formula, but with "War of the Worlds" thrown in for (good?) measure. And while there were plot elements that I was very interested in, like the Return of the Time Lords, they kept getting cut off by strange pacing. (The chase scene in the second half, in the cactus-people's ship, was largely unnecessary and seemed to exist only to fill up the running time.) The best parts of the story were the quiet talks between Wilf and the Doctor, but those were few and far between, unfortunately. Uhm, yeah. Yay for Donna getting married? Yay for Martha and Mickey (whose freelance mercenary lifestyle would make for a great spin-off, eh, BBC? *hints*)? Yay for Sarah Jane and Rose? Yay for #11? I don't quite know what I feel for the series at this point.