Media log, December
Jan. 17th, 2009 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jtniehofYou know the drill by now :)
Pastel 12: I may have to take back some of the negative things I said last volume...there's life in this series yet. I expected the central gimmick of this volume ("let's enter them in a 'best couples' context!") to be simply painful. Instead, it was a chance to get some insight on how Yuu views things. I also wonder if the pet peeve of this sort of series--the guy failing to cowboy up and ask the girl--is somewhat coloured by culture. Certainly there are a lot of impropriety/imposition issues involved that would, I think, be less significant in the US. Regardless, I do hope that, if the obvious two end up together, there's still some plot beyond that. This series, in particular, could have a lot of interesting conflict and development even once they hook up.
Daphne in the Brilliant Blue: Let's get the fanservice out of the way: big boobs, small costumes, okay, done. Plot-wise, this never quite lived up to the promise of the first episode, which was just weird and different. After that, everything settled down to your standard "bunch of people take on various jobs that mostly involve shooting things" anime. The background world's a little more intriguing than most, though, and slowly learning about it adds to the fun, even with few true surprises. A couple of genuine unexpected bits in the last episode do a lot to elevate the entire series.
Top Gear Season 5: Living in a Smart Car for 24 hours. Cheap Porsches. Smashing caravans against each other until they break (it doesn't take long.) The Ariel Atom (basically a car with no body, just an "exoskeleton." Seriously cool.)
Top Gear Season 4: Test driving a car undercover. Nun in a monster truck. 800 miles in an Audi A8 without refueling. Lawn darts with cars. Lionel Richie's story about buying several Mercedes at once.
Where in the World is Osama bin Laden: No, Morgan Spurlock doesn't find OBL. Worth watching if you're generally a Spurlock fan, but weaker than Supersize Me or 30 Days. I think it would have played better without the cheesy fake "make the world safe for my kid" plot layered on top; just send Spurlock around talking to people. The best line, though (in reference to FDR calling Stalin "our son of a bitch"): "By the 80's, we had sons of bitches from Central America to the Middle East."
21 (the movie based on Bringing Down the House): I've been curious about the MIT blackjack club for awhile. This is not a good introduction. I suspect the movie is largely an excuse to show a bunch of Vegas party scenes. Reasonably fun romp, predictable plot and wooden characters. Also: MIT looks exactly like BU, and the Tobin bridge is in Quincy.
The Demolished Man (Alfred Bester) (reread): I agree with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ayelle: just not quite as good as The Stars my Destination, probably because there isn't a central character with the same force as Gulliver Foyle. One of the earliest in-depth treatments of telepathy that I'm aware of, and obviously the (acknowledged) source of most of the TP treatment in Babylon 5. Still find it very hard to put my finger on the appeal of Bester: the plot doesn't stick with you after the fact, even though it draws you in during the reading. The fantastic craft in his writing doesn't hurt, either.
Geography of Nowhere (James Howard Kunstler): The story of how we turned into a nation of strip malls and McDonalds. Obviously the car gets a lot of the blame, but Kunstler points the finger also at a decay of civic art and civic spirit. He occasionally strays towards freakish anti-individualism. Best line: economies are communities. If people don't have a place to live and work and do business, you don't really have a community. Worthwhile read, with a bit of skepticism.
Soldiers Live (Glen Cook): Finally, the end of the story, at least so far. Unlike Water Sleeps, this story cooks along quite nicely the whole time, and brings everything to a fairly satisfying conclusion. I really can't think of Glittering Stone as different from the Books of the South, so that's six books of the plot being pretty well up in the air. I almost fear to see what he's going to start on with the rumoured new novels.
Survivorman Season 3: Les says this is the last time he'll do this, and I can certainly see why. He's a lot crankier in these episodes than he was in the past! It also seems he's done what he set out to do with the series...there aren't too many possible variations on "guy goes out in the middle of nowhere and starves for a week on camera." Curious what his next project will be. I get the impression he's always considered himself more of a filmmaker than an outdoorsman. Anyhow, he went out with a pretty fun season. Bear Grylls can suck it.
Pastel 12: I may have to take back some of the negative things I said last volume...there's life in this series yet. I expected the central gimmick of this volume ("let's enter them in a 'best couples' context!") to be simply painful. Instead, it was a chance to get some insight on how Yuu views things. I also wonder if the pet peeve of this sort of series--the guy failing to cowboy up and ask the girl--is somewhat coloured by culture. Certainly there are a lot of impropriety/imposition issues involved that would, I think, be less significant in the US. Regardless, I do hope that, if the obvious two end up together, there's still some plot beyond that. This series, in particular, could have a lot of interesting conflict and development even once they hook up.
Daphne in the Brilliant Blue: Let's get the fanservice out of the way: big boobs, small costumes, okay, done. Plot-wise, this never quite lived up to the promise of the first episode, which was just weird and different. After that, everything settled down to your standard "bunch of people take on various jobs that mostly involve shooting things" anime. The background world's a little more intriguing than most, though, and slowly learning about it adds to the fun, even with few true surprises. A couple of genuine unexpected bits in the last episode do a lot to elevate the entire series.
Top Gear Season 5: Living in a Smart Car for 24 hours. Cheap Porsches. Smashing caravans against each other until they break (it doesn't take long.) The Ariel Atom (basically a car with no body, just an "exoskeleton." Seriously cool.)
Top Gear Season 4: Test driving a car undercover. Nun in a monster truck. 800 miles in an Audi A8 without refueling. Lawn darts with cars. Lionel Richie's story about buying several Mercedes at once.
Where in the World is Osama bin Laden: No, Morgan Spurlock doesn't find OBL. Worth watching if you're generally a Spurlock fan, but weaker than Supersize Me or 30 Days. I think it would have played better without the cheesy fake "make the world safe for my kid" plot layered on top; just send Spurlock around talking to people. The best line, though (in reference to FDR calling Stalin "our son of a bitch"): "By the 80's, we had sons of bitches from Central America to the Middle East."
21 (the movie based on Bringing Down the House): I've been curious about the MIT blackjack club for awhile. This is not a good introduction. I suspect the movie is largely an excuse to show a bunch of Vegas party scenes. Reasonably fun romp, predictable plot and wooden characters. Also: MIT looks exactly like BU, and the Tobin bridge is in Quincy.
The Demolished Man (Alfred Bester) (reread): I agree with
ayelle: just not quite as good as The Stars my Destination, probably because there isn't a central character with the same force as Gulliver Foyle. One of the earliest in-depth treatments of telepathy that I'm aware of, and obviously the (acknowledged) source of most of the TP treatment in Babylon 5. Still find it very hard to put my finger on the appeal of Bester: the plot doesn't stick with you after the fact, even though it draws you in during the reading. The fantastic craft in his writing doesn't hurt, either.Geography of Nowhere (James Howard Kunstler): The story of how we turned into a nation of strip malls and McDonalds. Obviously the car gets a lot of the blame, but Kunstler points the finger also at a decay of civic art and civic spirit. He occasionally strays towards freakish anti-individualism. Best line: economies are communities. If people don't have a place to live and work and do business, you don't really have a community. Worthwhile read, with a bit of skepticism.
Soldiers Live (Glen Cook): Finally, the end of the story, at least so far. Unlike Water Sleeps, this story cooks along quite nicely the whole time, and brings everything to a fairly satisfying conclusion. I really can't think of Glittering Stone as different from the Books of the South, so that's six books of the plot being pretty well up in the air. I almost fear to see what he's going to start on with the rumoured new novels.
Survivorman Season 3: Les says this is the last time he'll do this, and I can certainly see why. He's a lot crankier in these episodes than he was in the past! It also seems he's done what he set out to do with the series...there aren't too many possible variations on "guy goes out in the middle of nowhere and starves for a week on camera." Curious what his next project will be. I get the impression he's always considered himself more of a filmmaker than an outdoorsman. Anyhow, he went out with a pretty fun season. Bear Grylls can suck it.