What I've been watching
May. 29th, 2007 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarahmichigan"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (the movie). I watched this years ago when it first came out on VHS, but hadn't seen it since then. Recently, J. picked it up at the library, and we enjoyed the heck out of it all over again. Luke Perry can even kinda-sorta act. The TV show definitely takes liberties with some of the "rules" of the story's universe that were set up in the movie. In the movie, she can sense vampires and gets cramped up when they're nearby. In the TV show, they make a nod to her being able to sense vampires in the pilot, but later they contradict it when she walks right past a vampire or two without even noticing.
"Catwoman". The general consensus on this was, "It wasn't as bad as I was expecting!" It had such horrible press that I was really expecting it to stink worse than it did. Sure, it was bad, but the cat suit was fun, and I liked some of the mythos set-up. Of course, it also seemed like someone was trying to sex up the "crazy cat lady" archetype, which... just... *shudder*. Even Berry called it "A piece of shit" when she accepted a Razzie award for it.
Castaway. I never watched this until this weekend because I thought an hour and a half movie about a man being stranded alone on an island for four years would be boring. I liked it a lot better than I expected to. The "message" about slowing down and appreciating what you have seemed over-obvious, but I did think the dynamic between him and his fiancee and the psychology of his behavior on the island was spot on. Overall, I thought it was well done.
The 13th Warrior. I watched this once before about four years ago and remembered liking it, so we rented it again and showed it to my Mom. She doesn't usually like gory movies and was tired but stayed awake through the whole thing and enjoyed it. It *shouldn't* work as a movie. It's got about 2 minutes of set up, about 2 minutes of denoument, and the middle is a gorefest of Vikings vs. Goddess worshipping cannibals. But I do like it. My favorite scene is where Antonio Banderas' Arabic character reveals that he's learned the Northmen's language merely by listening carefully. Good stuff. Fluff, but cinematically gorgeous fluff.
Other entertainments:
-We listened to "America" by John Stuart as a book on CD on our Memorial Day trip. I'm not counting it toward my 50 books in 2007 because it was extremely abridged. However, it was a great artifact in and of itself. To begin with, it's 3 disks, with Disc One being red, Disc Two white, and Disc Three Blue. He does most of the reading, but there are other voice actors doing "supplemental material," including Rob Corddry and Stephen Colbert. Some of it was just grin-worthy, but other bits were laugh-out-loud. I think Stuart is better heard than read; we have a copy of his "Naked pictures of Famous People" and it's just kind of "eh". I don't think his humor comes across as well in writing.
-We've been watching Season Two of "News Radio" and listening to the actors' commentary tracks on several episodes. David Foley was asked to compare the cast with working on Kids in the Hall. He indicated that "Kids" was less fun because there was a sense of cut-throat competition. That's too bad, because "Kids" was freaking brilliant. Apparently, though, Phil Hartman was known to have made similar unfavorable comparisons between "News Radio" and SNL. I get the idea that actors feel they have to compete for air time more on sketch comedy shows than they do on an ensemble sit-com.
"Catwoman". The general consensus on this was, "It wasn't as bad as I was expecting!" It had such horrible press that I was really expecting it to stink worse than it did. Sure, it was bad, but the cat suit was fun, and I liked some of the mythos set-up. Of course, it also seemed like someone was trying to sex up the "crazy cat lady" archetype, which... just... *shudder*. Even Berry called it "A piece of shit" when she accepted a Razzie award for it.
Castaway. I never watched this until this weekend because I thought an hour and a half movie about a man being stranded alone on an island for four years would be boring. I liked it a lot better than I expected to. The "message" about slowing down and appreciating what you have seemed over-obvious, but I did think the dynamic between him and his fiancee and the psychology of his behavior on the island was spot on. Overall, I thought it was well done.
The 13th Warrior. I watched this once before about four years ago and remembered liking it, so we rented it again and showed it to my Mom. She doesn't usually like gory movies and was tired but stayed awake through the whole thing and enjoyed it. It *shouldn't* work as a movie. It's got about 2 minutes of set up, about 2 minutes of denoument, and the middle is a gorefest of Vikings vs. Goddess worshipping cannibals. But I do like it. My favorite scene is where Antonio Banderas' Arabic character reveals that he's learned the Northmen's language merely by listening carefully. Good stuff. Fluff, but cinematically gorgeous fluff.
Other entertainments:
-We listened to "America" by John Stuart as a book on CD on our Memorial Day trip. I'm not counting it toward my 50 books in 2007 because it was extremely abridged. However, it was a great artifact in and of itself. To begin with, it's 3 disks, with Disc One being red, Disc Two white, and Disc Three Blue. He does most of the reading, but there are other voice actors doing "supplemental material," including Rob Corddry and Stephen Colbert. Some of it was just grin-worthy, but other bits were laugh-out-loud. I think Stuart is better heard than read; we have a copy of his "Naked pictures of Famous People" and it's just kind of "eh". I don't think his humor comes across as well in writing.
-We've been watching Season Two of "News Radio" and listening to the actors' commentary tracks on several episodes. David Foley was asked to compare the cast with working on Kids in the Hall. He indicated that "Kids" was less fun because there was a sense of cut-throat competition. That's too bad, because "Kids" was freaking brilliant. Apparently, though, Phil Hartman was known to have made similar unfavorable comparisons between "News Radio" and SNL. I get the idea that actors feel they have to compete for air time more on sketch comedy shows than they do on an ensemble sit-com.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 05:41 pm (UTC)As a linguist, I was superuberlustcharged with that language learning bit in The Thirteenth Warrior. It rawked.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 06:26 pm (UTC)I've also read "Neverending Story" twice; once by myself, and then J. and I read it out loud to each other over the course of a week or two.
I love his writing.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 06:10 pm (UTC)They do still screw up from time to time, though. Another good one is Angel saying sometime that he couldn't eat regular food, when Spike eats all the time.
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Catwoman was just a cool spectacle. I didn't really care about the plot, but that didn't bother me, either.
speaking of continuity lapses
Date: 2007-05-29 11:42 pm (UTC)Re: speaking of continuity lapses
Date: 2007-05-30 12:04 am (UTC)Re: speaking of continuity lapses
Date: 2007-05-30 02:13 am (UTC)