Books/TV Recs: Totally Surprised Edition
Monday, November 21st, 2011 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
retsukoOn TV:
The Simpsons: This season continues to be quite good, with an episode lampooning the teen lit industry and featuring Neil Gaiman and Andy Garcia. (Homer calling Gaiman "British Fonzie" was a thing of voice acting beauty.) There were all sorts of great visual throwaways (Teenlit titles included, "Nosferateen," "To Kill a Mockingjay," "Shaun White: Snow Vampire," and "Percy Sledge and the Olympians") and a good A-plot holding the episode together that parodied the Ocean's 11/12/13 movies. I am so pleasantly surprised that this season is not, in fact, terrible, that it makes my critical heart grow... maybe 1.1 sizes? I'd be worried if my heart grew more than a few sizes, since my chest would get crowded. Anyway, this episode is well worth catching on Hulu if you're able to.
Work of Art: In an unexpected twist, WoA eliminated its simultaneously most villainous and honest character. The Sucklord was sent home after failing to produce a supposedly viable work of street art. In typical Sucklord fashion, he went out with a bang ("Strike me down and I will only rise again, stronger!", to the judges' consternation), and it's sort of a pity. I was all set to not like him, but he kept being disarmingly pleasant in the interview situations, and gallantly defended his co-artist in the street art challenge (although I suspect she's not much longer for this competition, either.) In terms of a reality TV show, he was a character I expected to stick around much longer. He antagonized the judges, mocked the conventions of the show he was on, and interacted with his fellow participants in flirty, goofy ways. In other words, he was the ideal reality show contestant because he made a good show even more entertaining. His departure makes me wonder if the editors have decided that bratty Lola would make a better villain.
In any case, the actual art produced for the episode was... meh. All of it was problematic, but I think mostly because of the arbitrary constraints placed on the contestants by the episode's format. Dusty and Young won with a rather dull piece about a "dialogue" between the two of them regarding families; Dusty was edited to sound like a real hick regarding Young's gayness. I like Young, but his art, so far, is not the sort of thing that I'd pay to see in a museum. As for Dusty, his work has a real folksy appeal, but again, would I pay to see it? Not especially. I hope that the ultimate ending of this show is not to go with something dull, but the artist who actually has something to say with her/his art. So far, I'm not seeing that from any of the artists, which is a bit disappointing. Nonetheless, I shall continue watching!
In Books:
Specials (Uglies Trilogy #3), by Scott Westerfield: Although I had a fairly good idea of where this book would go, how Westerfield got there was very surprising, and I'm not entirely sure it was a satisfying ending. The trilogy as a whole is very good--gripping and emotional without being forced or overwrought. But the ending... reads as a little strange. The society that the books have built obviously cannot last, particularly as the actions of our heroine and her friends/frenemies threaten its ideological basis and infrastructure. However, the revelations of the last fifty pages or so of the last book undo the world construction of the first two, and this is a bit too arbitrary for this reader's taste. I'm glad I read the whole series, and the themes that the first two books so effectively present still hold true, but the ending is off-kilter.
The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus #2), by Rick Riordan: A highly satisfying book, although I worry that with installment #3, Riordan will fall into the "too many characters" trap and have to hastily divide everyone up again. I also found myself liking two of the new characters even better than the main hero(-es), and I sincerely hope they're not sidelined. Most of all, I like the contrast of the original Greek gods and their personas with the Roman ones. It's in the weaving of the mythologies that these books really shine.
The Simpsons: This season continues to be quite good, with an episode lampooning the teen lit industry and featuring Neil Gaiman and Andy Garcia. (Homer calling Gaiman "British Fonzie" was a thing of voice acting beauty.) There were all sorts of great visual throwaways (Teenlit titles included, "Nosferateen," "To Kill a Mockingjay," "Shaun White: Snow Vampire," and "Percy Sledge and the Olympians") and a good A-plot holding the episode together that parodied the Ocean's 11/12/13 movies. I am so pleasantly surprised that this season is not, in fact, terrible, that it makes my critical heart grow... maybe 1.1 sizes? I'd be worried if my heart grew more than a few sizes, since my chest would get crowded. Anyway, this episode is well worth catching on Hulu if you're able to.
Work of Art: In an unexpected twist, WoA eliminated its simultaneously most villainous and honest character. The Sucklord was sent home after failing to produce a supposedly viable work of street art. In typical Sucklord fashion, he went out with a bang ("Strike me down and I will only rise again, stronger!", to the judges' consternation), and it's sort of a pity. I was all set to not like him, but he kept being disarmingly pleasant in the interview situations, and gallantly defended his co-artist in the street art challenge (although I suspect she's not much longer for this competition, either.) In terms of a reality TV show, he was a character I expected to stick around much longer. He antagonized the judges, mocked the conventions of the show he was on, and interacted with his fellow participants in flirty, goofy ways. In other words, he was the ideal reality show contestant because he made a good show even more entertaining. His departure makes me wonder if the editors have decided that bratty Lola would make a better villain.
In any case, the actual art produced for the episode was... meh. All of it was problematic, but I think mostly because of the arbitrary constraints placed on the contestants by the episode's format. Dusty and Young won with a rather dull piece about a "dialogue" between the two of them regarding families; Dusty was edited to sound like a real hick regarding Young's gayness. I like Young, but his art, so far, is not the sort of thing that I'd pay to see in a museum. As for Dusty, his work has a real folksy appeal, but again, would I pay to see it? Not especially. I hope that the ultimate ending of this show is not to go with something dull, but the artist who actually has something to say with her/his art. So far, I'm not seeing that from any of the artists, which is a bit disappointing. Nonetheless, I shall continue watching!
In Books:
Specials (Uglies Trilogy #3), by Scott Westerfield: Although I had a fairly good idea of where this book would go, how Westerfield got there was very surprising, and I'm not entirely sure it was a satisfying ending. The trilogy as a whole is very good--gripping and emotional without being forced or overwrought. But the ending... reads as a little strange. The society that the books have built obviously cannot last, particularly as the actions of our heroine and her friends/frenemies threaten its ideological basis and infrastructure. However, the revelations of the last fifty pages or so of the last book undo the world construction of the first two, and this is a bit too arbitrary for this reader's taste. I'm glad I read the whole series, and the themes that the first two books so effectively present still hold true, but the ending is off-kilter.
The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus #2), by Rick Riordan: A highly satisfying book, although I worry that with installment #3, Riordan will fall into the "too many characters" trap and have to hastily divide everyone up again. I also found myself liking two of the new characters even better than the main hero(-es), and I sincerely hope they're not sidelined. Most of all, I like the contrast of the original Greek gods and their personas with the Roman ones. It's in the weaving of the mythologies that these books really shine.
