And now for something completely fannish
My wife and I have been enjoying our subscription to HBO, which we got when we moved as part of our package from Comcast, although how long that will last is open to question, as we find Comcast's billing practices to be "surprising" to put it charitably. Charter had its own issues with reliability but its billing practices were very predictable. At least Comcast is reliable and has a high quality fee. But enough of our cable provider; such mundane things are not "completely fannish."
So, HBO is giving us a really great selection of films and original TV shows. The one that struck my fancy first was "Hung." kaligreeneyes and I had watched the late-night promos and were not terribly impressed. Then we caught the season premiere over the weekend. Hey, the show is set in Detroit, with lots of location shots (there was an extended sequence at the Detroit Institute of Arts, for example). That's a plus and something I never knew about the show before. Also, I find the characters and situation interesting--it's a slightly novel take on how do people deal with hard times (and times that aren't hard enough ;-) Finally, the conceit of the show is that it's about a middle-aged guy who has lots of sex with good-looking mature women (and I'm including his madam among them--she's not conventionally pretty, but she's certainly interesting). What's not to like about that from the perspective of my fantasies?
Now to a show that has a lot more buzz--"True Blood." kaligreeneyes and I caught that after "Hung." My first thought was "vampires in trailer parks--that's not something you see every day." I rather enjoyed the twist on the usual setting of Gothic horror--it certainly isn't a European high culture locale. As for the show itself, it's a really warped supernatural soap opera, as in "Dark Shadows" for the 21st Century (I'm sure I'm not the first to call it that). I could summarize it, but io9 has a much better one: True Blood's vampire sex scene that will live on in infamy. That pretty much summed up the episode--it was hot and disturbing at the same time. As one of the commenters wrote "Wow....and you thought Lost was a giant steaming pile of WTF?"
I also watched "Watchmen" but I'll describe my reactions in a separate post; the movie deserves it.
So, HBO is giving us a really great selection of films and original TV shows. The one that struck my fancy first was "Hung." kaligreeneyes and I had watched the late-night promos and were not terribly impressed. Then we caught the season premiere over the weekend. Hey, the show is set in Detroit, with lots of location shots (there was an extended sequence at the Detroit Institute of Arts, for example). That's a plus and something I never knew about the show before. Also, I find the characters and situation interesting--it's a slightly novel take on how do people deal with hard times (and times that aren't hard enough ;-) Finally, the conceit of the show is that it's about a middle-aged guy who has lots of sex with good-looking mature women (and I'm including his madam among them--she's not conventionally pretty, but she's certainly interesting). What's not to like about that from the perspective of my fantasies?
Now to a show that has a lot more buzz--"True Blood." kaligreeneyes and I caught that after "Hung." My first thought was "vampires in trailer parks--that's not something you see every day." I rather enjoyed the twist on the usual setting of Gothic horror--it certainly isn't a European high culture locale. As for the show itself, it's a really warped supernatural soap opera, as in "Dark Shadows" for the 21st Century (I'm sure I'm not the first to call it that). I could summarize it, but io9 has a much better one: True Blood's vampire sex scene that will live on in infamy. That pretty much summed up the episode--it was hot and disturbing at the same time. As one of the commenters wrote "Wow....and you thought Lost was a giant steaming pile of WTF?"
I also watched "Watchmen" but I'll describe my reactions in a separate post; the movie deserves it.