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Small Talk: The Quiver

Lisin

By Lisin
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Genki

Genki

Anyone heard of the new Amazon show "The Man in the High Castle"?

 

Here's the description

 

 

 

It stars Gwen from Angel. It sounds interesting, to see an alternate take with America losing World War II. 

 

 

We read this book for my book club a few years ago, and I found it lacked a narrative drive or interesting characters. I can understand why it was so ground breaking when it was released, but for me and my friends, we needed more. I could see how it would work as a TV series, but I don't think I will check it out unless it gets STELLAR reviews.

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calliope1975
calliope1975

For no reason at all, I'm really sad right now, and as a brown girl in the US, my depression is hitting an all time high. Gonna take a xanax, hug the cats, and go to bed. I love you all. Be good to on

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BkWurm1

BkWurm1

I'm a bit slow apparently, but it just occurred to me that they are staking the comeback of a massive franchise on the shoulders of a girl. So much for women not being able to draw in an audience. Ha,ha,ha,ha!

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manbearpig

manbearpig

I'm a bit slow apparently, but it just occurred to me that they are staking the comeback of a massive franchise on the shoulders of a girl. So much for women not being able to draw in an audience. Ha,ha,ha,ha!

 

I'm actually surprised it's taken this long for JJ Abrams to direct a movie with a leading lady. I mean, Sydney Bristow and Felicity Porter are really good characters, but I haven't even been tempted to see most of his movies. I liked Super 8 fine but never bothered to see his other movies.

 

(Although in this case I also think the Star Wars brand is what will be drawing in the audience, but it's nice that they've given the lead role to a woman, and even that spin-off movie they're doing with Felicity Jones is female-led too).

 

I'm hoping that the last Hunger Games movie manages to make more than the other three. 

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kismet

kismet

I really liked JJ Abrams Mission Impossible, but it wasted Keri Russell's role.

 

TBH, I think JJ Abrams is an amazing ideas man. But he seems easily distractible. And once he moves on to another project, it can show in what he left behind. I don't know how it really reflects on him, except to say i think he leaves a big signature on his work that either fills a void or leaves a gaping hole.

 

On a Felicity & ALIAS note - Last night on Scandal, Scott Foley's (formerly known as Noel on Felicity) character had moment in dialogue where he used the expression "woman I loved" a lot in a few minute about both Liv & Mia Maestro (Sydney's sister on Alias) character in the same sentence. The line just made me chuckle a bit about how it reminded me of Arrow. That expression is such high soap operatic drama. And Arrow tries to say it doesn't have some soapy tendencies. :) Complete side note, I'm bummed about recent events on Scandal with MM character - but in someways it helps stop me from expecting Jennifer Garner to be around any corner at any given moment to really shatter all the different TV universes I have in my head. Some crossover is good, but the lines were getting a little blurry.

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foreverevolving

foreverevolving

(edited)

Anyone heard of the new Amazon show "The Man in the High Castle"?

 

Here's the description

 

 

 

It stars Gwen from Angel. It sounds interesting, to see an alternate take with America losing World War II. 

Watched the first two episodes, I like it. I may also read the book.. at some point when i'll have time to do more reading than just my textbooks.

 

We read this book for my book club a few years ago, and I found it lacked a narrative drive or interesting characters. I can understand why it was so ground breaking when it was released, but for me and my friends, we needed more. I could see how it would work as a TV series, but I don't think I will check it out unless it gets STELLAR reviews.

how was it considered groundbreaking? 

Edited by foreverevolving
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Genki

Genki

He uses a lot of writing devices that may be consider normal today but was rare or new in his day. The combination of the Alternate history, and the philosophical and spiritual thread of the i-ching and the novel within a novel concept.

Also if I remember correctly it is basically it is a science fiction novel since the alternative history is wrong and acknowledged/realised in the book as such. 

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kismet

kismet

I figured out why I don't hate flash fwds on principle, because shows like HTGAWM nail the narrative technique out of the park. Every week they seem to build up to the mystery and its not boring. Speculating about how it happened and piecing together the crazy is more fun than I thought it would be, unlike who's in the grave is getting more repetitive and boring by the minute.

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FurryFury

FurryFury

(edited)

Ugh I've had to watch Spectre on Friday and holy shit I've hated it so much. I've not seen a Bond movie in like 15 years so with me being now conscious of the inherent misogyny and the male power fantasy aspects of the franchise, that was painful. Plus, I don't find Daniel Craig attractive or charismatic at all. He looked old and tired. And I was really distracted that the Bond girl had her hair curled all the freaking time. I'm currently trying to learn how to curl my hair (it happens to be really thick and hard to set), so I couldn't help but notice it. Yeah, I know, a nitpick, but I really wish more movies and TV shows let women who logically don't have time to dress their hair have ponytails or short haircuts. It's so much more prevalent IRL than on TV.

Edited by FurryFury
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wingster55

wingster55

I'm a bit slow apparently, but it just occurred to me that they are staking the comeback of a massive franchise on the shoulders of a girl. So much for women not being able to draw in an audience. Ha,ha,ha,ha!

I think that's more true for Rogue One. This one is carried by both being a Star Wars movie and seeing the original trio again. Which lets face it..mostly Han

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dtissagirl

dtissagirl

Look forward to your take on it :)

 

It's very very Starz -- 80% sex, 20% ballet, except the ballet is also all sex. Hee. It's VERY PRETTY, and VERY PRETENTIOUS, and I'm gonna give it a couple more episodes, but mostly it made me miss the teen soapyness of Dance Academy.

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kismet

kismet

(edited)

Wade was definitely emotionally stupid, but I didn't think he was actually stupid.  He was pretty good at various skills that require brains, e.g., plumbing, fixing cars, electrical work.  They had a similar problem on that show that they had on Arrow, that not a lot of the audience was into George and Zoe, which I'm pretty sure was the way it was supposed to go.  I always thought George looked like a squat fireman's plug and was pretty charmless, so I put myself into the G/Z NOPE category.

George & Zoe were definitely the plan. I do think they had some chemistry. Definitely not as much as Wade & Zoe. So I do see why TPTB switched course. I do think they stalled too much on George & Zoe, if they had got them together sooner they might have been able to capture some of the chemistry. But by the end, when they even attempted G & Z the moment had past.

 

I agree that Wade was not stupid. He was intelligent in other ways. I definitely think he is emotionally immature. His whole cheating on Zoe was just absolutely dumb. I was so disappointed in him. I wondered if the writers were attempting to open the door for something but then the prospective of renewal got less and less. And Rachel Bilson got pregnant IRL.

Edited by kismet
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dcinmb

dcinmb

(edited)

I thought George and Zoe had chemistry—certainly more than Oliver and Laurel. (Then again, Rocky and Bullwinkle had more chemistry than those two.) Remember the night George and Zoe almost got a hotel room in New Orleans? Wade/Wilson Bethel always looked too much like a dissipated meth addict to me.

ETA: I liked Zoe with Wade's brother (Justin Hartley) and wish he'd had a bigger role.

Edited by dcinmb
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looptab

looptab

The entire series of Dance Academy is on Netflix, if that helps :)

Thank you! Netflix became available in my country a couple weeks ago and I'm still deciding if it's worth subscribing, but if I do, I'll definitely check it out.:)

 

Aaand I just watched Center Stage. Because yes.

Can't blame you :D

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statsgirl

statsgirl

Today is the 101th anniversary of Hedy Lamarr's birth. So in honour of Felicity Smoak, another brilliant and beautiful lady:

 

  • Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna and at 18 starred in Gustav Machatý's film, Ecstasy, in which she shocked people when the camera showed her not only nude but her face while the character was having an orgasm.
  • Her husband was a munitions manufacturer with ties to Hitler and Mussolini.  She accompanied him on business meetings which taught her about applied science
  • She left/escaped from him before the war and went to America to become one of the most glamorous women on screen.
  • They told her to use her star status to sell war bonds which she did but she wanted to do more. So she started inventing such as an improved traffic stoplight. 
  • Her biggest contribution was finding, along with  George Antheil, a way to stop radio torpedoes from being jammed using a piano roll to unpredictably change the signal sent between a control center and the torpedo at short bursts within a range of 88 frequencies in the radio-frequency spectrum (there are 88 black and white keys on a piano keyboard).
  • This idea is the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as GPS, Bluetooth, COFDM (used in Wi-Fi network connections), and CDMA (used in some cordless and wireless cell phones

 

 

Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.

Smart lady.

 

And yes, I can't stop thinking of Hedley Lamarr from  Blazing Saddles.

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dtissagirl

dtissagirl

(edited)

More from Vulture's teen tv series, Josh Schwartz and Rob Thomas talk The OC, Gossip Girl, and Veronica Mars:

http://www.vulture.com/2015/11/josh-schwartz-rob-thomas.html

Schwartz: The fun thing about TV is you get the opportunity to discover things, and somebody who starts off in a smaller part can really emerge and surprise you. In The O.C., for instance, Rachel Bilson was a guest star. She had three lines in the pilot, and one of them was like, "I've got to pee." But everybody really responded to her and she had great chemistry with Adam Brody. Her role evolved and she became a series regular, and we were able to discover that and see that chemistry. You start to write toward that. Sometimes you have an actor like Ed Westwick, who starred as Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl, and was basically the villain. Suddenly, his romance with Blair took center stage. Neither of those romances were designed to be the center of those shows. The audience tells you, and you see it onscreen, and you really have a chance to react to it.

Thomas: I had a really similar experience. The big romance happened between our leads of course. But then the guy we hired to play the bad guy, we did not hire him thinking that would be where we steered the show. It was sitting there watching dailies come in and watching those two and saying, "We want more of that." That's what makes us excited, so let's hope the audience buys into it, too. Then trying to resist the urge of watching it, and knowing you want to go there, but taking your time getting there because the urge of just smashing them together was so great. The thing is, we're watching the same things the fans are watching — we just get to see it a few weeks earlier.

Edited by dtissagirl
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FurryFury

FurryFury

Such a sad year for TV. An awfully boring show with zero spark gets a renewal (and I had high hopes for it, I just have to admit it sucks) while actually creative stuff like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is certain to be canceled (and Supergirl, while formulaic, is really fun, definitely no worse than The Flash, and struggles too).

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Danny Franks

Danny Franks

Such a sad year for TV. An awfully boring show with zero spark gets a renewal (and I had high hopes for it, I just have to admit it sucks) while actually creative stuff like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is certain to be canceled (and Supergirl, while formulaic, is really fun, definitely no worse than The Flash, and struggles too).

 

Well, I finally succumbed to the Jessica Jones anticipation and watched the trailer. That's going to be good. Really good. And a second strong outing for Marvel when it comes to female leads, after Agent Carter. I just don't think networks are where most good television is to be found, nowadays. Netflix and Amazon are where it's at.

 

The Man in the High Castle looks like a very interesting (if loose) adaptation, which I will definitely check out.

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FurryFury

FurryFury

Oh, I'm totally hyped for Jessica Jones. I expect much better from it than from Daredevil, TBH, because it's a female hero, Kristen Ritter (I like her a lot) and the whole plot seems much more interesting and noir-y. Plus, David Tennant! 

 

Agent Carter is 2 months away, sadly. But it's my favorite new show of last year, so I expect great things for season 2 as well... As long as they don't hook her up with boring-ass Sousa, as much as I love the actor.

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statsgirl

statsgirl

(edited)

That was a lovely post.  Good for her.

People judge by the surface. "You're finished your cancer treatment? Good, you're okay then."

 

 

In 406, Donna and Felicity talked about Space Camp. Going to Space Camp was one of the highlights of my youth--are there any other Space Camp alums here?

Is Space Camp only in the US?

Canada has a really good organization called CAGIS for girls in sciences. 

 

It sounds like it would be fun.  I went to riding camp (and did my CIT there). I sent my daughter to Debate Camp.  I think I should have sent her to Riding Camp.

Edited by statsgirl
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EmeraldArcher

EmeraldArcher

Is Space Camp only in the US?

Canada has a really good organization called CAGIS for girls in sciences. 

 It sounds like it would be fun.  I went to riding camp (and did my CIT there). I sent my daughter to Debate Camp.  I think I should have sent to to Riding Camp.

I think Space Camp is only in the US. When I went in the late 80s, there were two campuses, one in Huntsville, Alabama and one on the NASA campus in Florida. Like 99.9% of the campers, I did not become an astronaut. :-)

Riding camp sounds like a lot of fun, and I'm glad your daughter got to experience Debate Camp. Is a CIT a Counselor-In-Training?

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kismet

kismet

Don't know if anyone here watches Nashville, but this FB post by Clare Bowen (Scarlett) is worth reading:

 

https://www.facebook.com/topic/Clare-Bowen/107720159375452?source=whfrt&position=2&trqid=6216375935294907818

Thanks for posting! I love Nashville. That show has a magical superpower to make introduce unlikeable characters and then somehow make you like them. It's so soapy, but all the characters feel very human and I enjoy that. It's a great way for me to cap off my Wednesday night, like a really yummy cup of hot chocolate.

 

As for Clare Bowen's hair, I enjoyed the post. I was surprised they cut it, but I love that the actress was so into it and shared her story. There also was a very good in-show reason about grieving her Mom. And then when her promoter questioned it, she mentioned the pediatric cancer thing. So it was a nice story all around.

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statsgirl

statsgirl

Like Felicity, I wish I could have gone to Space Camp.  (Definitely better than the French immersion camp my parents thought I needed.)

Is a CIT a Counselor-In-Training?

Yes. Actually we were Stable Hand In Training but for some reason the camp directors didn't like us to use the acronym.  We still did though, out of their hearing.

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kismet

kismet

Any of my fellow Scandal watchers a little bummed about PapaPope?I thought I loved the master manipulation from prison no less. But this week they made a mess of him, and almost s3 MMd him to pretzel him into a plot.

PapaPope was one of the best TV villains in a long time. I hope the Scandal writers have a better plan for him. Also Fitz has that crazy look in his eye like after he found out about Defiance which is either really good or really bad considering how far he skidded off the rails after that.

Next week is the winter finale and it usually is insane, so I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed. They very rarely disappoint during the finales,

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EmeraldArcher

EmeraldArcher

Like Felicity, I wish I could have gone to Space Camp.  (Definitely better than the French immersion camp my parents thought I needed.)

Yes. Actually we were Stable Hand In Training but for some reason the camp directors didn't like us to use the acronym.  We still did though, out of their hearing.

French Immersion camp?  I didn't even know something like that existed!

 

It might be fun to list the various camps we've attended, for those who are interested.

 

As a kid, I attended these camps:

  • YMCA Summer Camp
  • Girl Scout Camp
  • Cheer leading (don't judge!)
  • Band
  • WISE (academic camp for gifted students that enabled 7th graders to take college short courses)
  • Space Camp
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lemotomato

lemotomato

<p>

French Immersion camp? I didn't even know something like that existed!

It might be fun to list the various camps we've attended, for those who are interested.

As a kid, I attended these camps:

  • YMCA Summer Camp
  • Girl Scout Camp
  • Cheer leading (don't judge!)
  • Band
  • WISE (academic camp for gifted students that enabled 7th graders to take college short courses)
  • Space Camp
I'm so jealous. I always wanted to go to summer camp and the like, but my parents thought they were frivolous. They sent me to every advanced prep class they could afford, though-- math, English, college writing, Chinese. The one glorious summer of swim lessons at the YMCA was one and only "camp". I went from polliwog to shark.
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WaitandHope

WaitandHope

We were too poor for camp. I played in the backyard of a neighbor who smoked packs of cigarettes and watched soaps. Or I was just left with whatever older sibling would take me. I make up for it with my kids...it's an endless stream of amazing camps. (Sometimes I wonder how life can possibly get any better for them).

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EmeraldArcher

EmeraldArcher

We were too poor for camp. I played in the backyard of a neighbor who smoked packs of cigarettes and watched soaps. Or I was just left with whatever older sibling would take me. I make up for it with my kids...it's an endless stream of amazing camps. (Sometimes I wonder how life can possibly get any better for them).

Waitandhope, what kind of camps do you send your kids to? I'd asked about the types of camps in general because I'm fascinated by the vast variety of them.

I hope my survey about camps wasn't rude to those who didn't have the same opportunities. I grew up as a child of divorce and lived with my mom and step-dad most of the time. They always struggled financially and wouldn't have been able to afford extras like camp. My dad and stepmom were the ones who sent me, but they had two professional incomes and no kids for most of the year. It was an odd childhood to vacillate between two sets of parents who were completely different in every possible way. It's helped me to appreciate both the struggle and the plenty.

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calliope1975

calliope1975

We were too poor for camp. I played in the backyard of a neighbor who smoked packs of cigarettes and watched soaps. Or I was just left with whatever older sibling would take me. 

 

There's a lot to be said for all the summers that I had nothing to do but ride my bike for hours around the neighborhood. Back when I actually used my degree (Child Development,) we talked a lot about some of the skills kids learned when they were left alone without supervision for the summer - e.g. directional skills, conflict resolution, negotiating, etc.

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EmeraldArcher

EmeraldArcher

There's a lot to be said for all the summers that I had nothing to do but ride my bike for hours around the neighborhood. Back when I actually used my degree (Child Development,) we talked a lot about some of the skills kids learned when they were left alone without supervision for the summer - e.g. directional skills, conflict resolution, negotiating, etc.

My siblings and I rode bikes all over. We were strictly forbidden from leaving the house when we were home alone all summer. But, we knew what times our mom got her breaks at the factory and made sure we were home when she called from the pay phone in the break room! Lots of adventures happened before 10:00, from 10:15-12:30, and from 1:00-4:30!

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