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weyrbunny

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Everything posted by weyrbunny

  1. Yay!!!! I loved Incredibles 2, but I'm delighted that Spider-Verse won the Oscar.
  2. I've never said this about the Syfy channel in the history of ever... but that was the correct conclusion.
  3. I was disappointed to see that Jessie Buckley didn't win Rising Star. I've watched her in two things recently, Beast and The Woman in White, and she seems endlessly talented, like she's acting at a higher level than the people around her.
  4. I liked Event Horizon back in the day, so I thought, “yeah, sure, why not?” when I came across Nightflyers. Wrong, wrong decision. It’s just terrible, from start to finish. So erratic… and so incoherent by the end it made Helix look well-written. (Helix is also terrible.). I should’ve heeded the bad reviews. I actually sensed that this was going to suck until the end when Thale tried to burn a guy alive, and D’Branin responded with, “Oh, but he didn’t try to murder that guy with psychic powers, just with fire, so it’s OK.” Why I was even surprised later when the guy he tried to burn alive hung out with Thale? Why was I even still watching, is the better question. Rowan was my favorite character for the first half, because he was the (somewhat) voice of reason. Simply because he kept contradicting that flake, D’Branin. Sample exchange: D’Branin: “The aliens are talking to ME!!!” Rowan: “There’s zero evidence of that.” They were both right, I guess. But by the time Rowan became Jack Torrance for an episode and a half, then instantly got better, yeah, he was just as insufferable as the rest of it. Hard pass on season 2, not that it’ll get one. I'm going to look up this shit's writers and creators next, so that I can identify their work later and skip it.
  5. I laughed so hard at this, I cried. Twice. The first time was when pigeons stick to Miles' hands and he repeatedly smacks into windows while they peck him. The second time was this line: "It looks like a child dressed like Spider-Man dragging a homeless corpse behind a train." Because that's exactly what it looked like. And then they decapitate a snowman, and it sticks on Peter B's head. I am usually immune to slapstick, but the sheer absurdism on display got me so damn good. I would watch a sequel about "dad bod" Peter B. working to reconcile with Mary Jane. Seeing so many teen/young-adult versions of Spider-Man has made me indifferent to origin stories, so watching Peter at a different point in his life, in a mature relationship, seems appealing. Though... I recently rewatched Now and Again, so the appeal might be an offshoot of my nostalgia for its married couple, and wishing it had more episodes.
  6. This was fine but didn’t inspire any enthusiasm. Mostly, I surprised by how unoriginal it was, copying not just Futurama… there were scenes in 1.6 - Swamp and Circumstance where I thought, “Wait, didn’t The Last Airbender do that years ago?” It also bugged me that it feeds into a lazy trend of using drinking as shorthand to show that a woman is flawed, as if writers aren’t sure how women are flawed. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been distracted by this, but I watched Sharp Objects this week. Apples and oranges… but Disenchantment is “fake edgy” in comparison. I did laugh occasionally, like when every ship crashed while Bean worked in the lighthouse or when the scepters thrown by the king all landed in the same bar, The Flying Scepter. Some of the throw-away lines or visual gags were more interesting than the rote main characters. If I watch season 2, it’ll be for them.
  7. I know nothing about Andersen except for Faerie Tale Theatre. I'll have to IMDB her some time.
  8. So, I liked Impulse. It turned out to be so much more than its sci-fi pitch, and its unrepentant focus on the emotional layers to sexual assault was really impressive. I don’t know if it was greenlit before or after the #metoo movement began, but regardless, Impulse came out at the right time. But I am here to rant about how lazy and repetitive the writing is. I’m all for the symbolism of repeated patterns in storytelling, but Impulse is so effin’ repetitive that… there are four abductions in S1. Two in the same family even—Henry, the daughter, later her mother—both kidnapped by the same guy, Luke. The female deputy was also technically abducted when held at gunpoint and forced to drive; it just happened to be by the DEA. Throw in Henry being pressured into Bill’s car, feeling panicked and trapped when he refused to take her home, and we’re at four. FFS, four, like the writers had no other ideas. All abductions were carried out in a car, with the woman ultimately escaping the car, because obviously, the entire season is a repeated pattern of Henry’s attack and her escape from Clay’s truck. Scene after scene is a variation on that event, each showing a different outcome. And for a while, this echoing of the attack is fascinating. It feels like a vindication to see all the other ways that Clay could have behaved besides sexual assault. Clay chose rape, none of the other men with Henry did. The problem is that in order to stick to the scaffolding of replaying the attack, the writers have to manufacture drama by making the show’s female characters act foolishly. One example: it’s galling that, days after being assaulted, Henry would get out of her stepsister’s car, stranding herself on the side of the road, to confront her attacker’s brother. Henry’s instinct for safety made her evade Luke at the school and get into Jenna’s car to begin with, but she then strands herself with him?! It’s also not in character for Jenna to drive off, leaving Henry alone with a threatening guy. And it’s not believable that Henry would then get into Bill’s car after both an assault and kidnapping by his two sons. There’s a lot of manipulation in that sequence—Bill talking Henry into the car and later into blaming the Amish boy, and also of the audience into expecting Henry to use her superpower to escape. It’s standard horror-suspense, especially Henry getting into Bill’s car, but it still makes her behavior seem contrived just to repeatedly put her in danger. And that’s tiresome, even sexist writing. I’ll check out Season 2, though. I’m interested to see where they go with the characters and larger Jumper-verse.
  9. The outcome was adult Jennifer’s self-awareness that she was sexually abused as a child. The outcome was her deconstructing “the tale” she wrote as a child to reframe it as abuse. She also called her abuser a rapist to his face—that was the breakthrough. Mirroring documentary film-making, this is about the process of exploring and exposing a truth, not about an, again, extrinsic label like "justice". I’m guessing it was set a decade or more ago. The Tale is autobiographical, and the director, Jennifer Fox, mentions being in her 40s during her investigation.
  10. My sympathies, @bilgistic, for encountering anything even remotely similar. I second the “wow” for The Tale. It is stunning, riveting, horrifying, with some of the best storytelling and film-making that I’ve seen in years. Calling it unflinching seems like such a cliché, but the word fits. I kept expecting the camera to pull back or cut away—because that is what TV does—but The Tale doesn’t let you, the viewer, turn away or avoid any part of Jenny’s discovery. And that is its power. It lays bare just how subtle and manipulative abusive relationships, or even adult-child interactions, can be, too. Everything about this seemed authentic, even the portrayal of Jenny breaking away from the abuse. It was a fraught decision that she built up to, I’m sure, but I liked how simply it was executed: Jenny calls and says she’s not coming, and then further severs contact by retrieving her horse a week later. This might seem like an odd thing to like, but having the “Oh. I don’t have to be around that person.” realization can be one of the most empowering moments a child (or adult) can experience. And most abuse stories focus on escape or rescue… on extrinsic action. The Tale subverts that by showing how a child, a girl, can make a decision to protect herself and then set it in motion. Which is powerfully important. This is now the baseline against which I judge all child-abuse movies and shows, I think. Near the end, I began to think back to 13 Reasons Why. Not to take away from its attempts to discuss teen mental health, but The Tale makes it look stereotypical now.
  11. Wait, so this isn't the Netflix show Anne with an E? I completely missed that there was another remake that aired on Masterpiece. Even though the/your reviews aren't favorable, I might look for this at the library.
  12. Nearly a decade late, I have finally watched every episode of Fringe. This is an accomplishment for me, since I no longer have the attention span for years-long series, and because I actively dislike Season 1. I’ve tried to watch Fringe before and never made it out of Season 1. Until now. And I do now agree with the “It gets better!” cries. I really like certain aspects—the characters, Peter’s story…but I end the show with the lingering sense that Fringe never truly lived up to its potential. It echoed so many ideas or plots from shows like The X-Files or Charlie Jade. It even echoed its own ideas in later seasons, though it made good use of them. Anyway, my opinions are unoriginal, and years behind, but I like ranking things, so here is my list from favorite to least, and why: Season 3 It fully invested in two universes and made them both interesting! The story finally paid off many details from earlier seasons, including Cortexiphan, the machine, the prophecy, you name it. I enjoyed that it explored Peter and Olivia/FauxLivia with more heart than soap opera. Peter vanishing in the finale cliffhanger is great, too. Also: Broyles, LSD, and a twizzler. Season 2 Walter and Peter’s—also Olivia’s—backstories and conflicts reveal that Fringe’s strength is character, not science fiction, and the show steadily improves. The larger arcs and conspiracies with the shapeshifters and Walternate also focus it for the better. Though vague, the Observers are intriguing. The fringe-science cases are still boring. Season 4, the middle and end Setting aside the beginning (see below), S4 affords better purpose to the MOTWs from S1 than S1 did. Better use of David Robert Jones and William Bell, too. Peter’s yearning for his timeline, and the team getting to know each other again, didn’t strike me as a huge step down from prior seasons, and so I enjoyed S4—more than others, apparently. But Olivia, Walter, and Fringe are different, less vibrant, because of the timeline changes, and the show ultimately doesn’t recover from it here or in Season 5. Season 1 I still don’t care for it. I especially don’t care for the cop-show clichés that abound. And the fringe cases, the monsters, are… “echoes” really is the best word. S1 didn’t inspire any investment until almost the finale. But it does an okay job of world-building, at least, and Walter is at his most eccentric and original. Thus, I rank it above S5. Season 5 Technically, I enjoyed watching it a lot more than S1, but the storytelling was “last-gasp” in quality. Example: the scaffolding of the Betamax-tape scavenger hunt. It also felt like a double knock-back for Olivia and Peter to be estranged again, though it lead to touching moments, as always. I missed the multiverses, too. The series ends beautifully, though. Season 4, the beginning Stunningly anti-climactic after S3, and a massive mistake to not bring back Peter in the premiere. I guess Fringe thought it was exploring Peter’s absence, but really it was wasting episodes. And one of them was about an emotional fungus, FFS. So, there you have it. I don’t have a concrete list of favorite episodes, so instead I'll include an exchange that has stuck in my mind through all the marathoning. From 4x9, Enemy of My Enemy: Four seasons into the show, it was a touching reminder of what Fringe was really about: a father and a son, both learning to be better men.
  13. I agree, and I didn’t notice a significant difference to Series 3 either. It was engaging, funny—spider under the diaphragm is one for the ages—and risqué when it wanted to be. I’m also not convinced that Phryne and Jack starting a relationship automatically means the end of their banter or teasing. Phryne still has all those questions about the Chinese brothel, for example. I’ll concede that S3 is slow to start though, and that the second half’s episodes are better. (Same as with Series 1, come to think of it.) And some things were rushed—conversations, unfortunately. For example, at least twice, I noticed that Dot and Hugh apologized their way out of their conflict rather than articulating what they were thinking or feeling. The scene where Hugh returns from his fishing trip needed another 5-10 sentences, in particular. It’s easy to blame the reduced number of episodes for this rush, I suppose. Also, Phryne’s father… eh, he was both generic and irritating. But I did like that the season's ending focused on Phryne’s family and their history. It seemed like a callback in theme to S1’s final mystery, which was about Janey, her sister. (And to keep up, Series 4 could have concluded with a Gosford Park-esque murder involving Phryne’s mother. :-) ) Anyway, I am very glad to have discovered Miss Fisher’s… and I’m already tempted to rewatch it. ------- ETA: Hey thanks, @purist. That's very nice of you.
  14. There was a throw-away line at the beginning of ep 3.4 about Jack reading Zane Grey novels… I wondered then if Grey was popular in 1929 Australia, so I Googled him. Turns out he was very well-known after 1912 and that he even wrote about Australia—I had no idea, thinking him synonymous with the American western. And I believe now that Jack sending Hugh fishing is a callback to Grey, since he also wrote extensively about fishing, including some set in Australia and New Zealand. This added context helps greatly to mitigate my annoyance that Hugh just left without discussing with Dot how stressed out and angry he was, as does the fact that 3.4 lays the groundwork for the parallel of Hugh’s fishing trip with the women’s sanatorium in this episode, 3.5. Meaning, there are two “retreats” here, but with a dichotomy along gender lines: the man, Hugh, “has a think” to self-resolve his (internal) emotional turmoil while fishing, and the women at Aunt Prudence’s require (external) medical interventions or face hysterectomies. Symbolically, the gender stereotype of the intellectual vs. the biological. That the show explores the various women’s therapies and emerging psychological science of the time makes me once again glad at how progressive it is. Also, I am totally getting my Series 2 wish: Phryne and Jack are touching now, and it makes me smile.
  15. You know, there just isn’t enough quality flirting on TV. On many shows, flirting equates to melodrama or maybe love-hate power plays. So the slow and steady wit, innuendo, and friendship-building between Phryne and Jack really is a joy. But at this point, I have joined the “make out already” parade. The absence of touching stopped seeming natural as they grew closer—no hand-touching, or an arm to lean on, even in situations where one or the other needed comforting. I understand why it was thus—Jack’s not that kind’ve boy, and public affection would have been socially and professionally inappropriate. I do like that Jack, the man, is the one with boundaries for once, and that Phryne respects them. (Well, except for the Fan dance...) The gender reversal is great and yet another sign of how progressive Miss Fisher’s is. I enjoyed Series 1 and 2 about the same and am undecided about whether one is better than the other. There was more emotional depth to S2, less frivolity than S1, but there was more snark in S1. And I wished Jane, Aunt Prudence, and Dr. Mac weren’t so absent from S2. So… yeah, can’t decide. On to Series 3! Yes, that was so funny!
  16. The ex-wife’s fiancé seemed suspect from the moment he debuted on screen in Series 1, but I really did not expect the show to go “white slavery” with him. His involvement felt a little overly manufactured, really. I suppose it was borne out of economy of effort, to make use of existing characters and their personal connection to Jack. This was still an enjoyable episode, though. The stakes seemed higher than usual, which is appropriate for a season-ender. And any opportunity taken to give Jack something else to do is welcome.
  17. Wow, Nathan Page’s singing voice. I don’t know why I was surprised by how deep it was. Essie Davis sounded great, as well, but I wasn’t surprised, because at this point I expect Phryne/Essie to be capable of anything.
  18. I’ve discovered this show on Acorn.tv, and it really is a delight! I was noncommittal about it at first, though. The pilot and first few episodes felt too breezy, with easily guessed, easily wrapped up murder mysteries. (There are a couple guest stars… eeny, meeny, miny, moe… that one is the murderer.) But, it amused me enough to stick with it, because Phryne started to remind me of… Batman. Unlimited funds, plenty of costumes, skilled at almost anything, life shaped by the death of her sister. She even has a ward. And, of course, now at the end of Series 1, I find it all very compelling. I’ve become engrossed by the conversations and characters! It’s a thrill that it’s so blatantly progressive, too. Many of the episodes’ writers and/or directors are women, it’s nice to see. (Some are also alumni of Farscape—bonus points for that.) The show has made me nostalgic: so many of the guest actors/actresses, I recognize from Australian TV shows or independent films that I’ve seen over the years. Anyway… I’m off to mainline Series 2 now.
  19. Hoopla has plenty to offer—the James McAvoy years of Shameless UK, anyone?—though the player will lock up sometimes. My sense is that Hoopla, and libraries, are struggling to keep up with demand, and so they add more caps with each passing year. I’m trying to enjoy it while it lasts. Two sites that I forgot… BritBox.com Includes newer UK shows, and if Acorn or Hoopla don’t have a British show, BritBox might. Not free, but has free trials, etc. Freeform The only place I could find 10 Things I Hate About You. Some of the on-air shows aren’t free, unless as a promotion. But, if you’re looking for older ABC Family shows like Bunheads, or even some ABC shows, check here. If you can’t find a CW, UPN, or WB show on CWSeed, check here. Thanks for mentioning Tubi.tv, @Writing Wrongs. I’d never heard of it, and it has Black Books! I’m now watching Running Wilde though, and my new favorite word is “Unnece-soirée.”
  20. Huh. I did not know this thread existed. To contribute to the cord-cutting cause, here are some other free streaming sites: go90.com Verizon's attempt to compete. Skip past the teen melodramas and "web-isodes", etc. and you find a mix of 80's-90's classic movies and more recent TV--every episode of Veronica Mars and Fringe, for example. And anime like FMA: Brotherhood and Durarara!!. CWseed.com It was the only place I could find Aliens in America. Mentioned here before, but FYI, it has "hidden" shows like AiA not listed in their search or menus. If you're looking for older CW, WB, or CBS shows, google them or edit the CWseed URL to check. I don't know why Max Headroom is on there, but I'm glad it is. And also Pushing Daisies. Some shows have ads, some don't. Acorn.tv Free via login from the public library, if your library subscribes, or seems to have free trials often. Has a spectrum of modern British shows and movies--the way BBC America used to be. Includes hard-to-find Masterpiece Theatre classics like The Flame Trees of Thika, too. hoopladigital.com Free with a library card. Regular rotation of BBC shows, Canadian shows, things you find at a public library. At one point, it had a ton of Starz shows--every episode of Spartacus and the like--but that must have ended in 2017. YahooView BTW, Hulu still offers free TV episodes... on YahooView. Pluto.tv also partnered with Hulu, but I tired of it (ads) and haven't used it in months. There are just so many other options. Like Tumblr. You can watch the cult show Other Space free on Tumblr. Which, if you want to laugh, you should do.
  21. I stumbled across this series I-don’t-know-how, and decided to try it when I noticed that Greg Yaitanes directed every episode. (He’s been a favorite since Children of Dune, and his work on Banshee was so insanely good, I’ll watch anything he directs.) I’m glad I did. It was better than I expected. Turns out I find linguistic forensics really interesting. And, the direction was pretty great. I liked the tense atmospherics a lot, and every episode was visually arresting in both large and small ways. It felt like they went the extra mile to get some of the imagery, b-roll, montages, etc. Yes, it was overly contrived “fiction” and had so, so many clichés—marriage, crime, workplace, academic clichés. All that boilerplate talk devoted to male motivation, legacy and credibility, too. I guess the writers couldn’t think of anything insightful to say. But, some scenes rang true, when Tabby and the Comparative Lit student called out Fitz for using them, only relating to them to service the case, for example. And the face-to-face scenes with Fitz and Kaczynski were well-done, as @LADreamr said. I also liked how the significance of details to the story unfolded with delayed explanation… the importance of “wudder”, the mom’s throw-away comment about Harvard. It was a reminder of how overused “info dump” explication scenes are in many crime shows. M:U reaffirmed my belief that Sam Worthington is a character actor who Hollywood mistakenly miscasts as an action star. He’s been giving really nuanced performances in indie films for years, and he followed suit in M:U. Especially in the early episodes, Worthington does more with body language than other actors do with words. The writing for Fitz wasn’t consistent, but the depth to Worthington’s acting was. The finale’s opening image of the airlifted cabin was brilliant. I wish the preview hadn’t spoiled it a bit. The cabin in the garage was a re-creation of the psychological “humiliation” study at Harvard—the moment Fitz showed the brother’s TV interview to Kaczynski, this occurred to me. Isolated in a “basement”… the brother saying false things about his mental health the way the study’s fake letter from his mother said false things… the “panel” of government figures/agents judging him in the background, and then Fitz repeating back Ted’s words and manifesto, like the professor using the interview video against him. That was an interrogation scene, the cabin as manipulation, using the Harvard study’s techniques. And because of that scene, I could forgive the finale’s anti-climatic courtroom parts and its heavy-handed lionizing of Fitz. I found it absorbing to the end, regardless.
  22. I’ve been marathoning China Girl this week. (I had also rewatched S1 in June when I heard that there would be a sequel.) I found S2 compelling and looked forward to binging the next episode as I watched… but there was definitely something less primal about it, and more contrived and sensationalist. The scene where David Wenham’s character attacks Robin stood out as massively implausible—the moment he locked the door, she should have put the table between them and planned her escape. And/or hit record on her cell phone. Instead? She stood there like she has no survival instinct and isn’t a trained cop. Mary’s manipulativeness and immaturity got on my last nerve, as did the way that her 3 parents were cowed by her, but I was ultimately able to see her underlying teen-rebellion motives. There was a fear of rejection in a fair amount of her actions, coupled with massive self-delusion about Puss. That was actually part of what I found compelling: how messy the characters were. Robin, Mary, and the others don’t just make one wrong decision, they make a series of flawed, emotional decisions. I also liked that the ending didn’t devolve into a simple good/bad dichotomy. To side with exploited sex workers seems natural. But to side with the sex workers who are already pregnant surrogates is to devastate and defraud families desperate for children.
  23. In an effort to further get over my anime burnout, I’ve been watching ninjas kill each other in Basilisk. Well, the story also has Shakespearian levels of tragedy, chess-game-like political maneuverings, and a pervasive sense of doomed history—all of which I like in an anime. But on the surface, yeah… mostly ninja badass-ery. A ninja stands over his dead enemy and says, “Hell welcomes you.” Damn, that’s cool. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I originally watched Basilisk maybe 10 years ago, and I decided to revisit it after noticing that a sequel is in development. Apparently, I was more forgiving a decade ago: though it’s still an interesting concept about feuding feudal clans, I now find Basilisk vilely misogynistic. Did I watch an edited or censored version on some TV channel originally? Because I didn’t remember the multiple rapes and attempted rapes, the rape fantasy imagery in fight scenes, or the endless sexual degradation of female characters. It actually got repetitive that so many of the kunoichi killed with sex or were punished for love or lust. JFC, one of the women had to be sexually aroused in order for her ninja superpower to activate, which the show used as an excuse for her onscreen rape! I laughed when one of the ninjas said, “Women are frightening creatures no matter how you look at them,” because it perfectly encapsulated the show’s attitudes: women are inhuman “others” to be objectified, leered at, and feared by men. Basilisk does include an impressive spectrum of female roles, at least: leaders, warriors, caretakers, lovers, adversaries, wives, a princess—and they get to be naïve, smart, chaste, wanton, pacifist, bloodthirsty, manipulative, manipulated… not just sexual. To be fair, there is also a gamut of male characters, including some who object to or put a stop to the sexual violence. And one who has killer nose hair. (Not a euphemism.) Anyway… I’m now undecided about whether to watch the sequel when it comes out in 2018 or whenever. Do better, Basilisk sequel, or fuck off, I guess.
  24. I was about to complain about Sony impacting Funimation, but then I remembered that I have an Internet connection and that there are tons of other places to stream anime, if it goes to hell. Serial Experiments Lain isn't weird so much as surreal, unnerving, and very, very brilliant. I wish there were more anime like it.
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