Media binge!
So despite work eating up 35 hours of my week, it has granted me one bliss: nothing to worry about when I get home. In this single, small way, it is superior to the school year.
Because? At last, my Netflix is a steady stream again! At last, my wallet can afford overpriced DVD sets!
The rundown of what I've been watching:
Because? At last, my Netflix is a steady stream again! At last, my wallet can afford overpriced DVD sets!
The rundown of what I've been watching:
- Farscape Season 3 owns me. It is taking all my powers of restraint to go through these episodes as SLOWLY as possible (since I can't buy Season 4 right away) - currently up through "Incubator". I want to kiss the writers for being so brave. At first, the notion of cloned Johns just drove me nuts - I felt like Aeryn, all "I love you John, but wts do I do with two of you?!" And to the show: "I love you that you have no reset button, but wts are you doing?"
Gluing my eyes and brain (and heart) to the screen, obviously. This new structure - one ep on Moya, the other on Talyn... two versions of the same character, each playing out in realtime - is nutty, but it works. And somehow, it's made the show, already madcap fun, into a significant form of crack. The stakes just keep raising to giddy heights and dangit, Farscape, you're making me nervous. Not because I'm afraid you'll drop the ball anytime soon (you haven't yet; I've stopped expecting it) but just... howww are you getting them out of this? *frets* - The Painted Veil has mysteriously bumped all the unseen Edward Norton movies in my queue up to first priority. But heck, it's not just Norton that makes this movie fantastic. The first thirty minutes, I thought I knew everything about these characters - and I didn't like them much, at that. The rest of the film is spent disproving my initial impressions of both Walter and Kitty, which is wonderful because that's exactly what's happening between them. The structure reflects the conflict. And it's all so very understated, never melodramatic, although the subject matter might have pried that from lesser directors and actors (a disloyal wife, a loveless marriage, a cholera epidemic?). But it never feels less than real. Turns from a sad portrait of humanity into a beautiful image of redemption without one contrived moment. This one's a keeper.
- The recent 2006 Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Jane Eyre is all sorts of excellent, as well. Luke has seen more versions of JE than I have, I'm ashamed to admit, but he told me without hesitation that this one was "the best" of them. Honestly, I don't feel the need to watch the others and compare - I loved Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson enough to make them my definitives off the bat. I felt the depth of the characters without much effort from screenplay, which says a lot for how well those inbetween moments spoke: volumes. The production risked a lot on the strength of the acting and overall mood, to its benefit. Great music, too.