Reading and watching roundup
Man, this post is so, so overdue... It's been over two weeks since we watched Zootopia, and some of this stuff I read even longer ago, just couldn't find the time to collate all my impressions...
26. Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold, Death at the Dionyssus Club -- I actually liked this one even more than the first book! Not sure if it's explicitly because there's less in the way of traumatic boarding school flashbacks, or if it's because I understand the magical worldbuilding better now, so could follow it along more naturally, or just because the mystery is rather fun, in a gruesome way. Anyway, this was an even quicker read for me, and I'm looking forward to more from these authors and this universe within the next year or two. Spoilers from here!
I still like Julian, who is really not very good at people, and Ned's increasingly indulgent resignation to this, and Julian's non-standard moral code, where the main thing stopping him from asking Bolster to have someone kill the blackmailer is that Ned would find out and disapprove.
I like Hatton, too (the Lestrade), and especially his pragmatic philosophy about Ned's "crime" of sodomy: "If we had twice the men and twice the hours in the day, we culdn't stop even the worst of it. Not to mention have any time left over to pursue metaphysical creatures that are eating the populace. [...] I'm not saying I approve of your friends' vices, but it seems to me that they're all grown men and not in need of the Yard's intervention. [...] Don't thank me, damn it. I'm not doing you special favors as a friend. I'm only saying we've only got so many hours in the day, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend them hunting down gentlemen who don't make their private arrangements my business."
I continue to like Miss Frost (and kind of wish there'd been more of her in this one), and her determination to hold out for becoming a metaphysician once that becomes possible for women, which she believes she will yet see, because she's young. Actually, I kind of wish Hatton *had* been courting her in the romantic sense, as Ned had thought, and not just trying to hire her away, because I think they would make a totally cute couple. (Also, did we know in the first book that her name was Cordelia? It's a disease that I now forever think of cool female characters named Cordelia, especially scientifically-minded ones, as homages to Captain Naismith. No idea if that's any part of the intent here, but regardless it made me smile.)
The case is gruesome and weird (corpses with missing hearts! weird lacertaions affecting a corpse! sex magic rituals! blackmail!), and that made it more fun than the fairly straightforward murder in the first one. The chase of the protagonists by a murderous writing desk (which is afraid of milk) is about equal parts ridiculous and genuinely creepy, which is a neat trick -- the way the "writing desk" can duplicate the shape of any object, so things that look subtly wrong because there's an extra post or a second vase begin to signal deadly danger. I felt very sorry for Challice, and liked his wife's determination to help him even if it means talking to Julian, with all her distaste for him, and I wish both of them all the best. And Miss Frost's friend, Miss Barton the not-very-good teacher but very good writer of women's novels (which Ned genuinely enjoys and admires) was a lot of fun, with her planned revenge on her blackmailer by fictional crocodile.
The world building continues to be a lot of fun, with magic, industrial magic, present in all the little everyday ways: "rain hissed and spat as the water-shedding glamours on adjacent umbrellas met and battled". And the evidence of what happens when Victorian magic and non-conforming magic meet is very unsettling -- the Mobius strip house, the metaphycisist studying non-conforming magic who may or may not have turned himself into a duck (like the writing desk, both ridiculous and... not). And I really liked Oppenshaw, the conconforming metaphysics guy, with his abstracted professor airs belying a sharp and ruthless outlook, which Julian realizes at the end, when Oppenshaw won't let him come inside the warded room with Ned because he (wisely) doesn't trust him to be willing to sacrifice himself -- to sacrifice Ned, and also just plain to lose -- if necessary without trying anything dangerous. And I really, really liked the way Ned, as a true empiricist, goes about his investigation, like trying to find the blackmailer by collecting signatures and then trying to find just the right spell that would bring mimeographed pagest together (and I found it adorable that he felt compelled to help reunite the bits of paper fluttering pathetically under his spell), and experimenting both on a normally-dead corpse and a dead-by-writing-desk corpse with the boils spell.
Actually, Ned consulting with the police in this one and really using mataphysics as forensics made me realize that this world reminds me enough of Rivers of London and the Folly -- the Newtonian magic aspects, anyway -- that I'd be happy to see a crossover. Of course, one is an Unamsked World where magic has been present and public all along, and the other is a Maskerade (though Peter seems to be working on that part, inadvertently XD), but as parallel/divergent universes, maybe...
I found the tension in Julian and Ned's relationship in this one believable (especially given the -- also believable -- way Julian has apparently slept with anyone who offered but "Not for very long"), and liked the way it was resolved -- that Julian is so skittish and unwilling to open up because it might be a show of weakness that he has to be tricked into actually having an open conversation, because his odd but very rigid moral code won't let him back out of a bet, and that Ned used metaphysics to outcheat Julian who'd been cheating all along by sleight-of-hand to force that conversation.
I liked various little details, too, like Ned finding a guy to talk cricket with in one of Julian's clubs, and Bolster meeting Julian's "dog-thistle", which I was happy to see is still thriving.
Quotes:
"Neither of his parents was living, even then. I gather some elderly relative brought him up, as much as anyone did." It seemed a more tactful way of saying Lynes was raised by wolves. [...]
"I don' think Lynes is particularly gifted at making friends" [Lennox said]. Ned suspected that was also a tactful way of saying Lynes was raised by wolves.
Julian's list of things he likes and doesn't like in bed: "The no column was short, but blessedly informative; the other columns were intriguing."
"Julian seemed to have recovered from his moment of sentiment at Ned's survival, and looked cautiously fascinated."
And later:
"I am--" I'm very glad you aren't dead. No, perhaps that was not the best way to phrase it. He cleared his throat, and tried again. "You know I care very much--" That sounded as though he were trying to break things off, and he stopped again, feeling the color rising in his face.
"I love you, too," Ned said.
27. Jordan L. Hawk, Bloodline (Griffin & Whyborne #5) -- OK, this one was really fun! It's my favorite of the books so far, even though Whyborne being a dolt, and a stubborn one at that, is still annoying. Massive spoilers from here!
I'd actually been waiting for Whyborne's often-mentioned dead twin sister to be somehow significant all the way from book 1, but I had not expected her to actually show up (though I suppose that's what dead twins tend to do), or to be a fish-hybrid. I figured early on in this book that Whyborne's family was descended from the ketoi, but not guessed how far back -- I thought it would be an indiscretion of Heliabel's mother. And I figured out that Persephone was Whyborne's not-so-dead-after-all twin right at the halfway mark -- actually, the name was the tip-off. I'd wondered about the twin sister's name before, but the Whybornes seemed to never have named her, but Persephone just sounds like a good twin name to Percival, mythological and alliterative and about the same length, so at that point it clicked. And of course it's a good name for a daughter sent to the world beneath the waves. (If Emily the servant lady named her, Heliabel must've read a lot of Greek mythology to her, even before falling ill.) Once I'd guessed who Persephone was, it was very easy to see what "one for the land and one for the sea" referred to, and I rolled my eyes at Whyborne's certainty that the prophecy couldn't be about him. Though I did really enjoy his reaction to the prophecy itself: "Dear lord, what awful doggerel. The meter was terrible, the rhymes uninspired, the final line didn't resonate throughout, and, well, no wonder I'd never heard it." I actually kind of love it when Whyborne is obliviously being a snob, and it's nice to have it lampshaded that the majority of versified prophecies in fantasy are really awful from a poetic perspective XD Oh, and also I guessed that the "place of bones" where everything was going to go down was the museum, rather than the cemetery -- mostly because the whole haunted tours C plot had to pay off somehow.
What I totally failed to guess was the antagonist -- I'm still not fully sold on Stanford the fratricide, family history or not, although I do buy that he could kill Guinevere in an accident and then feel it was her fault. It does make sense for Stanford to be the antagonist, since he's been awful the whole time and progressively erratic, and his working with the ketoi is actually foreshadowed very early by a very ostentatious ring that Whyborne wonders about, but I didn't connect the two until I was looking back over my highlights. The revelation about the source of the ketoi jewelry (that Heliabel sold off) is also really nicely done. I also did not guess that Emily knew about the ketoi hybrid thing, until a lock of Whyborne (or Persephone's, I guess?) hair showed up with the shark tooth in her chest after she was dead. And, as heavy-handed as I think the foreshadowing was in retrospect, I also failed to pick up on the Endicott ritual in Cornwall being the reason Whyborne was sickly as a child, and Persephone had to be given to the see so she wouldn't die, and Heliabel's illness that she can't recover from.
After a while it occurred to me that it would make sense for Heliabel to be healed through the transformation, but I was actually hoping that wouldn't be the case, because of Niles. I've... somehow ended up with Niles as my second favorite character, after Christine; what can I say, it's my Tywin kink -- apparently I have a thing for terrible, overbearing fathers who think they're doing the best thing for the family's good. But, you know, even in Whyborne's very negative (understandably) narration, I came to respect Niles and his unexpected willingness to admit that he was wrong, and I actually feel bad for him, now that his wife (who, despite Whyborne's unwillingness to believe it, I think he genuinely loved, in his own way) left him for the sea, his daughter has been murdered, and the son he had pinned his hopes on had turned out to be the murderer, while his one remaining non-locked-up, non-aquatic family member refused to have much to do with him. I certainly can't blame Whyborne for not wanting to reconcile with his father, after all the abuse of his childhood (and Niles is still generally an asshole, of course; he's just an asshole who has come to recognize Whyborne's worth), but I do wish they could be happier as a family, and I wish Heliabel (and Persephone) would come visit over Thanksgiving, too. At least Whyborne does seem to care enough about Niles to worry about him (after Griffin and Christine) in the museum attack and the threat of the tidal wave... I do like it that Niles and Griffin, at least, seem to have come to a mutual understanding; it makes sense to me, too, because Griffin is much more pragmatic and less romantic/naive than Whyborne, and seems to care more about family ties in general, courtesy of being an orphan and the estrangement from his adopted family. I'm looking forward to seeing if their relationship develops further.
Whyborne's angst over the revelation that he is a ketoi hybrid still felt exaggerated, but unlike all the other things Whyborne exaggeratedly angsts about, at least this was not out of all proportion, and a fairly reasonable expectation that someone might be put off by the revelation that he's not fully human. I did like how Griffin and Christine took it, and the point that he's not actually any different than he was before he knew his ketoi bloodline is a good one. Also, I really liked Griffin saying that "If you're one of the monsters we've fought against, then -- then they can't be monsters. No more so than humans, at any rate." Also joking about being "buggered by a fish-man" / "seduced by a shark-man", in a different vein. And it's been increasingly clear, from Stormhaven onward, between Whyborne's reaction to the dweller dreams, to his surprising facility with magic, to Daphne's words in the last book, that SOMETHING is going on with him that's out of the ordinary, so it's nice to know what it is now. Oh, and while there's nothing extraordinarily original about the ketoi society we see, it's nice that they are matriarchial and more liberal in a lot of respects -- including, apparently, a democratically elected government, sort of. Christine in absentia approving of the ketoi matriarchy and Persephone personally was cute, too.
I haven't said anything about the Endicott cousins yet. The first part of the book actually annoyed me quite a bit, with Whyborne being totally oblivious to Theo's not-very-subtle flirting and even more so sneaking around with them and lying about it to Griffin and Christine both. I mean, it's perfectly in character, but a) you'd think he'd have learned by now NOT TO, and b) for a really smart guy, Whyborne spends an awful lot of time being oblivious and/or deluded, and it's definitely starting to tax my disbelief. I liked the scene where Whyborne and the cousins go to confront Abbott, who Whyborne thinks is the murderer but is really only guilty of blackmailing Guinevere (over their affair) and Stanford, and it's actually nice to see the darkness that's been in Whyborne all along sort of come to the fore (and I hadn't thought of it that way, but when Whyborne draws the conclusion that this is something in which he resembled his father, that's nicely done, and I can see it), and Griffin and Christine showing up to stop them -- that was a nice dramatic scene. And I can cut Whyborne some amount of slack -- his sister has been brutally murdered, his mother and lover "attacked", so I can see him wanting to take action to protect them, sure; but I still had a hard time being sympathetic to him just jumping to the conclusion that Abbott must be to blame -- the evidence really isn't very strong, and you'd think a scholar like Whyborne would want to have sufficient data before drawing conclusions... It seems that the Endicott monster-hunters will be a recurring antagonist from here on, or could be at least, just like the ketoi could be a recurring ally? Or at least I certainly hope that the events of this book are not ignored. There's also the fact that Whyborne has used sorcery in front of donors, and been publicly accused of homosexuality in front of them, too -- although I doubt that Stanford's word carried much weight at this point. I wonder if anything will come at least of the sorcery part. On a final Endicott note, a ruthless sorceress named Fiona automatically made me think of Fiona of Amber.
I thought the thing with the sorcery-resistent sword was interesting, though the foreshadowing was rather telegraphed. I'm assuming this is being introduced as a thing because Whyborne is getting so powerful with his sorcery, and presumably also because we've now met other serious sorcerers, too.
It was nice to see a book without relationship drama, for once. Rather, Griffin and Whyborne do temporarily maybe-break-up, but it's over something other than romantic misunderstandings, and neither does anything stupid as a result, and it's rather refreshing, compared to the earlier books. And the ketoi rings at the end were very sweet, and Persephone calling Griffin brother-in-law, essentially, and finding it stupid that two men cannot marry among the land-folk. Also sweet was Whyborne wondering whether Griffin had made burial plans; well, sweet in a morbid way. And Griffin making Whyborne and Persephone birthday waffles on Halloween morning was just adorable.
It was nice to see Amelie again, and to see that she's doing well for herself.
I keep forgetting to mention that I do find it cute the way the W&G books all start with something very dramatic -- in this case, "Sharks swirled around me, waiting only for the scent of blood to attack." -- before it is revealed that the danger/drama is metaphorical and Whyborne is at a dinner party or a boring meeting or something. It's cute, and I look forward to seeing what each next one will be.
The case for the Lesters family -- I assume that's what one of the Griffin-POV short stories is about?
Quotes:
Griffin, after Whyborne tells him Theo kissed him and he turned him down: "I won't pretend I'm not relieved to hear it. An educated man... another sorcerer..that British accent..."
Whyborne: "Hmph. Perhaps I ought to be the one who's jealous."
Christine: "What sort of abomination from the sea is afraid of water? You're really terrible at the whole monstrous creature thing."
Christine, upon her and Whyborne arriving at the musuem overtaken by ketoi: "Sorry we're late. But I apologize for my earlier doubts, Dr.Hart. You were indeed correct about needing our expertise for this event."
28. Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson, The Wicked + The Divine, volume 3 -- OK, this one I'm considerably more meh on than the first two. I didn't hate it or anything, but it felt largely pointless.
Issue 12 -- ugh, the art D: Apparently a huge part what I liked about the original two collections was the art, and without it, I'm just no nearly as into it. The one-page of Inanna in the original style was like balm at the end. The only line I actually liked was Baal's "Quit your Game of Thrones bullshit" to the Morrigan, when she says to him, "Well met, lord of lightning."
Issue 13 -- OK, thank goodness, the art is better again, though still weird, like Minerva is way too kawaii and Baal sort of caricaturish-looking. So we finally get to meet Tara, and I actually rather liked Tara -- she is different from the other gods, and that's an interesting reaction to godhood. So of course she is the next to die. I'm increasingly doubting there's actually a point to all of this?
Issue 14 -- Huh. I can't say this makes me either care about or like or DISlike Woden any more. I'm just kind of apathetically confused. Who the hell is that at the end? Though, OK, fine, I acknowledge the meta-cleverness of building the issue about the god who can't work his powers for himself out of recycled art.
Issue 15 -- I do kind of like this art -- it's a different enough style to be an interesting departure, but not ugly, so that's a plus. Like, this is the first of the guest issues in which I may see a point to the guest artisits. As for actual contents... still don't care about Amaterasu. And am worried that I prefer pre-transformation Cassandra to Urthr. It was kind of cool to see the Meiji shrine in Tokyo, though, since I'd been there last summer.
Issue 16 -- OK, this one I actually liked! I finally felt like it was adding something to the canon. I liked Marian and Cam considerably more than their divine personas of Morrigan and Baphomet -- their vampire-LARP-ing, miniature-painting dissafected youth-ness was kind of adorable.
Issue 17 -- Aaaand we're back to art I don't like. And Sekhmet's arc, if that's supposed to be an arc, isn't doing anything for me, either. Like, I appreciate what it's going for, but it's not working for me without seeing more of her actual past/getting more of a feel for her as a person before she was Sekhmet.
I also got to read Issue 18 that just came out, so spoilers for Issue 18: [Issue 18]
Issue 18 -- which isn't part of collection 3 -- huh, so Laura is still around. And WTF is she doing sleeping with Cameron? When? WHY? O.o
**
We also watched some movies!
The first one was Bridge of Spies, which we rented for L: Mr M, her history teacher, is giving some extra credit if students watch a historically themed movie, write a report on it, and give a presentation, and this was one of the two she picked (the other being Dr Strangelove, which B is pretty sure we own but has yet to find).
Anyway, it's not the sort of movie I'd normally watch, because it sounded dreary in description, but B was dealing with it and started watching just to check out if the disk was working right, and ended up watching the whole thing, and then watched a chunk for it again with L and me. O missed the first part, but was snagged by the U-2 plane introduction, and watched the rest of it with us from that point on.
Anyway, it was a REALLY good movie. Tom Hanks is one of those actors who is just GOOD. There are actors I enjoy watching because their faces and mannerisms work for me in whatever role, or because I like the kind of roles they tend to take on, but Hanks is not one of them. But whatever role he is playing, he is just great and compelling, the real magic of acting. I also really, really liked the guy who played Abel (no wonder he got the Oscar and a bunch of other awards). And, of course, Spielberg is a great director and the Coens are acclaimed writers for a reason. I pretty much liked everything about this movie -- the way the story hung together (and it's a compelling enough story on its own, right, but the writers took liberties with it, but did it well, at least from a narrative perspective), the casting and acting, the dialogue, the suspense (which it managed even though I knew how the story ended), the look of it (although the beginning part without words and the train across the wall were a bit slow for me). Minor spoilers from here
I really liked the way Donovan's dialogue kept coming back to little bits set up earlier in the film -- "my guy", "one, one, one" (which he'd originally been using to justify the claim that a motorist hitting five motorcyclists was all one event and later came up again when he was arguing for the Pryor-and-Powers for Abel swap), the way he convinces the judge to leave Abel alive as "insurance", which is something he knows a thing or two about -- it made for a nicely coherent story, and also great character detail. Abel was so, SO good. The "You're not worried?"/"Would it help?" exchange came up enough that it became a catchphrase, but it's a pretty great catchphrase, and that placid fatalism was such a great trait, very believable. The guy playing Shishkin, the "secretary"/head of KGB was also really spot on. It was so great to see an actual Russian actor in the role (and I find it hilarious that *B* recognized him from Banditski Peterburg; I went and checked his Russian filmography later, and sure enough, there he was XD) -- he just looked and talked the part perfectly. And it was nice to see that the Russian extras sentencing Powers and interrogating him had believable Russian accents and spoke Russian correctly -- it's really not that hard to find people for that! OK, Mark Rylance's Russian was not great, but he only had to say "stojkij muzhik", and he did that non-cringeworthily, so. We also all laughed at the young German aide saying "I don't want to say that my English is excellent, but it is excellent". Donovan's son was a bit annoying, but in the right sort of way, so that's not a complaint either, and I do think the scenes from the atomic bomb lecture at the school and the filled bathtub did a good job of driving home the Cold War consciousness.
Oh, and a random note that I encouraged L to put in her write-up for school and might as well include here, too. When we were at cousin D's birthday picnic (or was it Aunt M's birthday picnic? I forget), we were cornered by one of cousin D's relatives from his father's side. Who, it turned out, had been in the airforce in 1960, and served where he could see, on radar, Powers' plane shot down. And told us about how one of his friends in the Soviet airforce (Sergei Safronov, according to wikipedia; he didn't give a last name, but he did call him Serezha, so that checks out) was shot down as well in that incident -- he was flying close to the U-2 plane and was ordered to fall back while the Soviet airforce launched missiles, but didn't want to "lose" Powers and was shot down and died. It's really kind of crazy to know somebody only one degree of separation from history in this case...
But anyway. Man, what a good film! I suspect this will likely be the objectively-best movie I see this year, though there might be ones that I'm more squeeful about.
On Saturday (like, two weeks ago) we went to see Zootopia in theaters, having finally caved in to L's demands because enough people, including actual grown-ups, had had great things to say about it. Sadly, it was no longer playing at our neighborhood theater with nearly-empty auditoria and significantly cheaper tickets, so we had to go to Daly City. We waffled over whether to go for Sunday matinee or Saturday night, but ultimately opted for 3D anyway, and just went Saturday, since 3D wipes out any matinee savings. Still, OUCH, it was almost $70 for the four of us, between 3D surcharge, online ticket booking (which we could've skipped; the auditorium was not even half full), and the price of tickets over there. Well, we don't do this very often and can afford it, but it still feels like highway robbery. Anyway, at least the parking there is free, though we had to drive up all the way to the 4th floor of the structure to find an empty spot. Not sure what all those people were watching, but I'm glad it wasn't Zootopia.
We got a bunch of fairly lackluster trailers: Mowgli (which we'd already seen a trailer for with Star Wars; I will never get used to a male Bagheera, even if he is voiced by Ben Kingsley, and now WTF is up with making Kaa female? O.o), Secret Life of Pets (less exciting than what I thought last time, with a shorter trailer (this was also with Star Wars), but still pretty cute, and L, who hadn't seen the trailer before, really wants to see it), the latest Ice Age (as L said, "They keep getting stupider, but I still want to watch it." Rather, I agree with her on the "keep getting stupider" part, not so much on the still wanting to watch it, though the squirrel's antics are still amusing), Angry Birds (they'll make a movie out of ANYTHING, won't they), Finding Dory (this one actually looked legitimately neat; I'm a sucker for octopodes and manta rays, what can I say), and Storks (with a teaser that does not reveal anything about the plot at all). Only Finding Dory and The Secret Life of Pets look like something I'm likely to actually enjoy watching, which is not a great ratio...
As for the actual movie:
First of all, both B and I are really glad that we a) went to see it on the big screen and b) shelled out for 3D, because the best part was definitely the epic scenery, and I would've hated to miss out on that in all its glory. Spoilers from here!
The story was... cute. But I'd gotten the impression that the message was going to be non-anvilicious and unfortunately I did not find it particularly subtle, and that bugged me, and bugged B even more. Actually, there are two (related) messages in the movie, and I thought one of them was handled with enough humour to be OK (the "you can be anything you want!" message, which Judy amends at the end to something a bit more realistic: "Turns out real life's a little bit more complicated than a slogan on a bumper sticker."). The part that I thought was a bit too on the nose was the whole thing with anti-predator prejudice, because the plot makes such a strawman argument out of it. I mean, it's a sweet message, and the right message in the context of the movie, and it's *a* right message in the real world, too, but I sure would've appreciated either more nuance or less moralizing. There are moment that I thought were really well done: the "Go back to the forest!"/"I'm from the savannah." exchange was really great! And there are absolutely people like the assistant mayor who are looking to ride a wave of prejudice and fear for personal gain (boy are there ever...), but sadly the underlying problems are not as simple as "the bad guys were framing everyone all along". I mean, it's not that I think you can have a full, accurate, nuanced treatment of the real-world problems in a kids' movie that also needs to have hijinks and laughs, and better this message than the opposite one, obviously, but IDK, I don't like to see this sort of thing done simplistically, even for kids, and would rather not have it done at all.
Other than that, I really enjoyed the film! Judy was adorable, and I liked the way her pluckiness was just that -- an unwillingness to quit, and a willingness to think outside the box when her small size prevented her from doing things the "normal" way, as well as the willingness to manipulate events for a good cause while staying within the rules, like when she tossed the pen over the fence so that Nick would go after it so she'd have a reason to follow without a warrant. Nick was fun (although his Cub Scout backstory was laying it on a bit thick for my taste; he was a really cute cub, though!), and I liked his dynamic with Judy a lot, especially the times when she hustled him. I also liked the way the set piece at the end, Nick pretending to have become savage and Judy acting scared, echoed back to the opening play (which I thought had been a very cute way of establishing the world), and even the way the blueberries turned out to be plot-relevant, as well as the "moldy onions". Despite my reservations about the message, I did like it that the main antagonist was a small, underappreciated critter like Judy herself, sympathetic at first,
Background characters in this were pretty great. My favorite was Chief Bogo (who I did not realize was played by Idris Elba); I especially adored his speech about how "“Life isn't some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and all your insipid dreams magically come true! So let it go.” (You know what I really, really want to see now? Ankh-Morpork's Watch with an animal cast. Like, I'm 92% sure this already exists somewhere, and if it does, link me to it, please, but this movie just made me crave it. All that talk about the token bunny on the force, you know?
The DMV sloths were hilarious, and not even too drawn out (and I liked the sighting at the end, of Flash speeding), as was Nick's fennec accomplice (I liked their whole popsicle scam, actually; it was so great to have it be a hustle that only worked with the different sizes of the animals living in Zootopia), and I was amused by the mafia shrews, too (especially by the daughter shrew already being pregnant and ready to pop a week after her wedding :P). Also, the lemmings! The lemmings were both adorable and funny! And I liked the glance at the beaver construction workers (when Judy ends up standing in wet cement), and made sure to point them out to B, who'd noticed them, too.
Other folks on my flist have pointed out how Zootopia the place is designed for all kinds of different critters of differen sizes -- from three different train doors at the beginning to the Little Rodentia rooftop chase complete with hamster tube tunnels to the giraffe car that Judy has to bounce off a lamppost to ticket, and all of that was really neat. Oh, and speaking of the world of Zootopia, the 'nudist retreat' Judy and Nick visit is hilariously done! Oh, and the Natural History museum, witht eh mammoth holding a spear, was also great!
This is definitely a movie that I would like to watch again to try and spot all kinds of the little things I'm sure I've missed. L spotted that the Macy's-like store where the mafia shrew daughter is doing her shopping is Mousy's (with the Macy's star), but I know there are tons of other shop fronts and products with puns like that. I caught the spoken Frozen reference by Chief Bogo, and L pointed out that the weasel's name is a Frozen reference, too -- actually more complex than she realized, because both the weasel and the Duke of Wesselton character being referenced were played by Alan Tudyk. I got the Breaking Bad reference too (despite not watching the show), but I know there are a bunch more that I probably missed.
Oh, and another thing I really liked were the names of the police officers -- the way they reflected all kinds of different ethnicities while also being related in some way to their species, like Delgado the lion, Snarloff the polar bear, Wolfowitz (I think), and so on.
So, all in all, this was a fun outing, and a movie I want to watch again, but not one I liked as much as Inside Out or Tangled, or was as impressed with as Big hero 6.
**
Finally, while B was away, I finished out the first half of season 2 of Angel.
Angel 2x03 (First Impressions) -- Heh, I like how the tip-off that it's a dream is Angel doing two of the three things he'd said he doesn't do (in ep 1 of season 2) -- dating and singing in public. Hee, David Nabit shows up again, being a huge dork and giving Angel financial advice (which Cordelia finds sexy; that's all kinds of adorable, actually). Gunn called Wes C3PO. The main trio sort of leaning on each other sorely against the side of the car after the vamp fight was rather adorable, and the OT3-ness was made further interesting by Wesley's head on Angel's shoulder. That's... not actually a pairing I considered before, but tbh I'm seeing more chemistry than between Angel/Cordy or Wes/Cordelia... And Angel riding bitch in a pink helmet while Wes tells him, "You look good. Hop on, gorgeous" did not do much to deter that. Or the naked thing, for that matter XD Cordy protecting Gunn (who is really intense) was cute at first, and I loved that she actually stopped the demon (temporarily) with her little pink Mace thing, but ugh, really, we're going to be playing the "you're the danger" thing straight? Ugh, platitudes...
Angel 2x04 (Untouched) -- This is maybe my favorite episode so far, mostly because it's so DARK. Like, not gratuitously dark-and-angsty, and not supernaturally dark, demons feeding on horrors or whatnot -- but, just, human darkness, and human ability to cope with it, and human willingness to callously exploit it for one's own ends. I was wondering if it would go beyond the implication that Bethany had been molested by her father in that attic flashback, when she was a little girl, or just leave it implied -- and not only did it go there explicitly, with Wesley's confrontation, it just kept going: the chilling conversation between Bethany and Angel about her being "a huge slut" and her feelings about sex, the confrontation with her father -- I genuinely thought they'd show her killing him, but I'm glad it ended up being a show of her control, not vengeance. I found it to be an unexpectedly powerful episode, and very well done. It also had some great lines, that made me laugh despite the dark tone of the whole thing, like Angel's "You wouldn't like me when I'm happy" and this exchange between him and Cordelia:
Angel: Do you know how hard it is to think straight with a rebar through your torso?
Cordy: Actually, I do. Benefits of a Sunnydale education.
I also laughed at Gunn's makeshift but badass hubcap axe.
The only negative for me about this episode was Cordelia's scene with Bethany. Ugh, I'm really not enjoying the "earnest psychotherapist Cordelia" phase. Cordy is so great when she's being Cordy, but this just feels so faaaake. It's like watching the actress is playing a completely different role in those moments, a role I have zero interest in.
On a random note, Lilah at home was sooo different, it took me a couple of moments to be sure it was really her.
Angel 2x05 (Dear Boy) -- Here we go, back to Darla... She is getting a bit more interesting, I guess, but I still wish we were doing some other arc... I did like seeing the backstory with Dru, and Angel's "I've got a thing for convents" line foreshadowing that. Angel's lines not getting reactions was actually pretty great ("Well, I thought that was funny"), and Angel aplogizing when he's done singing karaoke ("I'm very sorry") is a running gag I continue to enjoy. And that's about all I've got to say about this one.
Angel 2x06 (Guise Will Be Guise) -- But this was another one I liked, because it's funny, and not too Angel-centric, and what Angel there is, is mostly for comic relief ("I'm not a eunuch!" or talking about why he always wears black -- so he would always match, since he can't see his reflection). Cordy mimicking Angel ("count my sins and alphabetize them") was great, as was Wes pretending to be Angel for the thug and later Virginia (and the Wes/Ginny was actually rather nice -- and I'm pleased to see that they're continuing to be together in later episodes). And Cordelia being outraged that Wes got some was pretty funny. I'd liked Magnus Bryce and was sad when it turned out he was a daughter-sacrificing terrible person, but I liked the resolution, that Virginia (heh, yes, nice symbolic naming there, dad) had not been a virgin for many years, so her sleeping with Wesley didn't even matter. I had also liked the swami, T'ish Magev or whatever (it sounds vaguely like Hebrew to me, but I keep forgetting to ask B if it means anything, or just sounds like it might), or rather the imposter swami -- he was pretty fun.
Angel 2x07 (Darla) -- so Angel and the Master have some history! (though brief). I do like the way Angel being obsessed/distracted means Cordy and Wes are taking charge and taking care of him. Aaand more Darla and Angelus flashbacks, and I still don't care. Or about Lindsay and Darla.
Angel 2x08 (The Shroud of Rahmon) -- A non-Darla episode, but I don't have a lot to say about it, either. I hadn't expected it to come to Angel biting Lockley, even for her protection. The rest of the episode was just kind of eh. Although Angel pretending to be outgoing was a little bit funny, and Wes and Cordy's skepticism that he could do so even more.
Angel 2x09 (The Trial) -- OK, a Darla-centric episode that I actually liked, finally. I do like it that Darla and Angel are both motivated by something that's *genuinely* dramatic, rather than vampire angst -- Darla dying, and quickly, and Angel being determined to save her while preserving her "second chance" at a normal human life, rather than giving into her request to turn her into a vampire. The scene with Darla in the seedy bar, picking up green vamps was probably the first time I actually found her interesting, and I also liked her confrontation with Angel after ("I wasn't in any danger. I picked a stupid one. I always pick a stupid one.") The trial was an artificial set-up, but a really nice set-piece nevertheless; I liked the administrator guy, and the visual of the road paved with crosses, and the detail that Darla switches to calling him "Angel" rather than "Angelus" after the trial (or at least I think this is where the switch happens). I thought the bait and switch with her already having used up her second life was also neatly done, and while "destroy everything in rage" reactions very seldom work for me, the one from Angel actually worked for me here. Dru appearing at the end provided a nice symmetry/cyclicity with Angel having sired her. And on a totally unrelated note, I'm finally getting used to Cordy's short hair.
Angel 2x10 (Reunion) -- As I said above, I really do feel like for the first time in the Darla storyline the level of angst is actually commensurate with the actual level of drama and difficulty of the situation. There are some very nice visuals -- Dru in red, Darla in her white shroud, Angel in his usual black during the fight in the nursery. I really liked Holland in this episode (too bad it was his last one) -- being all avuncular with excited "expectant" Drusilla, trying to shmooze his way out of the trap at the end with Darla. Actually, the scene in the "people cellar" was pretty great overall: Lilah demanding that Angel help them, Lindsey's detatched smirk ("I care. I guess I just don't mind." talking about the likelihood of his death). And I really had not expected Angel to just walk away -- that is certainly an interesting change of direction from the do-gooder help-the-helpless persona. And I liked the Cordy (and the others) argued with him about it:
Angel: And I will stop them.
Cordy: When? When they've finished off all the people you don't like?
Angel 2x11 (Redefinition) -- The Angel part of this episode was pretty boring to me, except for the end, and while it was neat to see Cordy, Wes, and Gunn spending some time together, I didn't think them getting drunk together was particularly interesting either. But I liked Lilah trying to entrap Lindsey and the two of them getting the co-promotion, and (surprisingly) I liked Darla, especially when she said "Why is everybody trying to make this about Angel? For god's sake, can't a woman wreak a little havoc without a man being involved?" On a random note, Angel is smoking again when Dru and Darla come across him. Of course, it's part of his trap (to set them on fire, as they're standing in a puddle of gasoline), but that was still an interesting detail, since the last time we saw him smoking was in the flashback to the hotel, when he was not very big on humans.
26. Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold, Death at the Dionyssus Club -- I actually liked this one even more than the first book! Not sure if it's explicitly because there's less in the way of traumatic boarding school flashbacks, or if it's because I understand the magical worldbuilding better now, so could follow it along more naturally, or just because the mystery is rather fun, in a gruesome way. Anyway, this was an even quicker read for me, and I'm looking forward to more from these authors and this universe within the next year or two. Spoilers from here!
I still like Julian, who is really not very good at people, and Ned's increasingly indulgent resignation to this, and Julian's non-standard moral code, where the main thing stopping him from asking Bolster to have someone kill the blackmailer is that Ned would find out and disapprove.
I like Hatton, too (the Lestrade), and especially his pragmatic philosophy about Ned's "crime" of sodomy: "If we had twice the men and twice the hours in the day, we culdn't stop even the worst of it. Not to mention have any time left over to pursue metaphysical creatures that are eating the populace. [...] I'm not saying I approve of your friends' vices, but it seems to me that they're all grown men and not in need of the Yard's intervention. [...] Don't thank me, damn it. I'm not doing you special favors as a friend. I'm only saying we've only got so many hours in the day, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend them hunting down gentlemen who don't make their private arrangements my business."
I continue to like Miss Frost (and kind of wish there'd been more of her in this one), and her determination to hold out for becoming a metaphysician once that becomes possible for women, which she believes she will yet see, because she's young. Actually, I kind of wish Hatton *had* been courting her in the romantic sense, as Ned had thought, and not just trying to hire her away, because I think they would make a totally cute couple. (Also, did we know in the first book that her name was Cordelia? It's a disease that I now forever think of cool female characters named Cordelia, especially scientifically-minded ones, as homages to Captain Naismith. No idea if that's any part of the intent here, but regardless it made me smile.)
The case is gruesome and weird (corpses with missing hearts! weird lacertaions affecting a corpse! sex magic rituals! blackmail!), and that made it more fun than the fairly straightforward murder in the first one. The chase of the protagonists by a murderous writing desk (which is afraid of milk) is about equal parts ridiculous and genuinely creepy, which is a neat trick -- the way the "writing desk" can duplicate the shape of any object, so things that look subtly wrong because there's an extra post or a second vase begin to signal deadly danger. I felt very sorry for Challice, and liked his wife's determination to help him even if it means talking to Julian, with all her distaste for him, and I wish both of them all the best. And Miss Frost's friend, Miss Barton the not-very-good teacher but very good writer of women's novels (which Ned genuinely enjoys and admires) was a lot of fun, with her planned revenge on her blackmailer by fictional crocodile.
The world building continues to be a lot of fun, with magic, industrial magic, present in all the little everyday ways: "rain hissed and spat as the water-shedding glamours on adjacent umbrellas met and battled". And the evidence of what happens when Victorian magic and non-conforming magic meet is very unsettling -- the Mobius strip house, the metaphycisist studying non-conforming magic who may or may not have turned himself into a duck (like the writing desk, both ridiculous and... not). And I really liked Oppenshaw, the conconforming metaphysics guy, with his abstracted professor airs belying a sharp and ruthless outlook, which Julian realizes at the end, when Oppenshaw won't let him come inside the warded room with Ned because he (wisely) doesn't trust him to be willing to sacrifice himself -- to sacrifice Ned, and also just plain to lose -- if necessary without trying anything dangerous. And I really, really liked the way Ned, as a true empiricist, goes about his investigation, like trying to find the blackmailer by collecting signatures and then trying to find just the right spell that would bring mimeographed pagest together (and I found it adorable that he felt compelled to help reunite the bits of paper fluttering pathetically under his spell), and experimenting both on a normally-dead corpse and a dead-by-writing-desk corpse with the boils spell.
Actually, Ned consulting with the police in this one and really using mataphysics as forensics made me realize that this world reminds me enough of Rivers of London and the Folly -- the Newtonian magic aspects, anyway -- that I'd be happy to see a crossover. Of course, one is an Unamsked World where magic has been present and public all along, and the other is a Maskerade (though Peter seems to be working on that part, inadvertently XD), but as parallel/divergent universes, maybe...
I found the tension in Julian and Ned's relationship in this one believable (especially given the -- also believable -- way Julian has apparently slept with anyone who offered but "Not for very long"), and liked the way it was resolved -- that Julian is so skittish and unwilling to open up because it might be a show of weakness that he has to be tricked into actually having an open conversation, because his odd but very rigid moral code won't let him back out of a bet, and that Ned used metaphysics to outcheat Julian who'd been cheating all along by sleight-of-hand to force that conversation.
I liked various little details, too, like Ned finding a guy to talk cricket with in one of Julian's clubs, and Bolster meeting Julian's "dog-thistle", which I was happy to see is still thriving.
Quotes:
"Neither of his parents was living, even then. I gather some elderly relative brought him up, as much as anyone did." It seemed a more tactful way of saying Lynes was raised by wolves. [...]
"I don' think Lynes is particularly gifted at making friends" [Lennox said]. Ned suspected that was also a tactful way of saying Lynes was raised by wolves.
Julian's list of things he likes and doesn't like in bed: "The no column was short, but blessedly informative; the other columns were intriguing."
"Julian seemed to have recovered from his moment of sentiment at Ned's survival, and looked cautiously fascinated."
And later:
"I am--" I'm very glad you aren't dead. No, perhaps that was not the best way to phrase it. He cleared his throat, and tried again. "You know I care very much--" That sounded as though he were trying to break things off, and he stopped again, feeling the color rising in his face.
"I love you, too," Ned said.
27. Jordan L. Hawk, Bloodline (Griffin & Whyborne #5) -- OK, this one was really fun! It's my favorite of the books so far, even though Whyborne being a dolt, and a stubborn one at that, is still annoying. Massive spoilers from here!
I'd actually been waiting for Whyborne's often-mentioned dead twin sister to be somehow significant all the way from book 1, but I had not expected her to actually show up (though I suppose that's what dead twins tend to do), or to be a fish-hybrid. I figured early on in this book that Whyborne's family was descended from the ketoi, but not guessed how far back -- I thought it would be an indiscretion of Heliabel's mother. And I figured out that Persephone was Whyborne's not-so-dead-after-all twin right at the halfway mark -- actually, the name was the tip-off. I'd wondered about the twin sister's name before, but the Whybornes seemed to never have named her, but Persephone just sounds like a good twin name to Percival, mythological and alliterative and about the same length, so at that point it clicked. And of course it's a good name for a daughter sent to the world beneath the waves. (If Emily the servant lady named her, Heliabel must've read a lot of Greek mythology to her, even before falling ill.) Once I'd guessed who Persephone was, it was very easy to see what "one for the land and one for the sea" referred to, and I rolled my eyes at Whyborne's certainty that the prophecy couldn't be about him. Though I did really enjoy his reaction to the prophecy itself: "Dear lord, what awful doggerel. The meter was terrible, the rhymes uninspired, the final line didn't resonate throughout, and, well, no wonder I'd never heard it." I actually kind of love it when Whyborne is obliviously being a snob, and it's nice to have it lampshaded that the majority of versified prophecies in fantasy are really awful from a poetic perspective XD Oh, and also I guessed that the "place of bones" where everything was going to go down was the museum, rather than the cemetery -- mostly because the whole haunted tours C plot had to pay off somehow.
What I totally failed to guess was the antagonist -- I'm still not fully sold on Stanford the fratricide, family history or not, although I do buy that he could kill Guinevere in an accident and then feel it was her fault. It does make sense for Stanford to be the antagonist, since he's been awful the whole time and progressively erratic, and his working with the ketoi is actually foreshadowed very early by a very ostentatious ring that Whyborne wonders about, but I didn't connect the two until I was looking back over my highlights. The revelation about the source of the ketoi jewelry (that Heliabel sold off) is also really nicely done. I also did not guess that Emily knew about the ketoi hybrid thing, until a lock of Whyborne (or Persephone's, I guess?) hair showed up with the shark tooth in her chest after she was dead. And, as heavy-handed as I think the foreshadowing was in retrospect, I also failed to pick up on the Endicott ritual in Cornwall being the reason Whyborne was sickly as a child, and Persephone had to be given to the see so she wouldn't die, and Heliabel's illness that she can't recover from.
After a while it occurred to me that it would make sense for Heliabel to be healed through the transformation, but I was actually hoping that wouldn't be the case, because of Niles. I've... somehow ended up with Niles as my second favorite character, after Christine; what can I say, it's my Tywin kink -- apparently I have a thing for terrible, overbearing fathers who think they're doing the best thing for the family's good. But, you know, even in Whyborne's very negative (understandably) narration, I came to respect Niles and his unexpected willingness to admit that he was wrong, and I actually feel bad for him, now that his wife (who, despite Whyborne's unwillingness to believe it, I think he genuinely loved, in his own way) left him for the sea, his daughter has been murdered, and the son he had pinned his hopes on had turned out to be the murderer, while his one remaining non-locked-up, non-aquatic family member refused to have much to do with him. I certainly can't blame Whyborne for not wanting to reconcile with his father, after all the abuse of his childhood (and Niles is still generally an asshole, of course; he's just an asshole who has come to recognize Whyborne's worth), but I do wish they could be happier as a family, and I wish Heliabel (and Persephone) would come visit over Thanksgiving, too. At least Whyborne does seem to care enough about Niles to worry about him (after Griffin and Christine) in the museum attack and the threat of the tidal wave... I do like it that Niles and Griffin, at least, seem to have come to a mutual understanding; it makes sense to me, too, because Griffin is much more pragmatic and less romantic/naive than Whyborne, and seems to care more about family ties in general, courtesy of being an orphan and the estrangement from his adopted family. I'm looking forward to seeing if their relationship develops further.
Whyborne's angst over the revelation that he is a ketoi hybrid still felt exaggerated, but unlike all the other things Whyborne exaggeratedly angsts about, at least this was not out of all proportion, and a fairly reasonable expectation that someone might be put off by the revelation that he's not fully human. I did like how Griffin and Christine took it, and the point that he's not actually any different than he was before he knew his ketoi bloodline is a good one. Also, I really liked Griffin saying that "If you're one of the monsters we've fought against, then -- then they can't be monsters. No more so than humans, at any rate." Also joking about being "buggered by a fish-man" / "seduced by a shark-man", in a different vein. And it's been increasingly clear, from Stormhaven onward, between Whyborne's reaction to the dweller dreams, to his surprising facility with magic, to Daphne's words in the last book, that SOMETHING is going on with him that's out of the ordinary, so it's nice to know what it is now. Oh, and while there's nothing extraordinarily original about the ketoi society we see, it's nice that they are matriarchial and more liberal in a lot of respects -- including, apparently, a democratically elected government, sort of. Christine in absentia approving of the ketoi matriarchy and Persephone personally was cute, too.
I haven't said anything about the Endicott cousins yet. The first part of the book actually annoyed me quite a bit, with Whyborne being totally oblivious to Theo's not-very-subtle flirting and even more so sneaking around with them and lying about it to Griffin and Christine both. I mean, it's perfectly in character, but a) you'd think he'd have learned by now NOT TO, and b) for a really smart guy, Whyborne spends an awful lot of time being oblivious and/or deluded, and it's definitely starting to tax my disbelief. I liked the scene where Whyborne and the cousins go to confront Abbott, who Whyborne thinks is the murderer but is really only guilty of blackmailing Guinevere (over their affair) and Stanford, and it's actually nice to see the darkness that's been in Whyborne all along sort of come to the fore (and I hadn't thought of it that way, but when Whyborne draws the conclusion that this is something in which he resembled his father, that's nicely done, and I can see it), and Griffin and Christine showing up to stop them -- that was a nice dramatic scene. And I can cut Whyborne some amount of slack -- his sister has been brutally murdered, his mother and lover "attacked", so I can see him wanting to take action to protect them, sure; but I still had a hard time being sympathetic to him just jumping to the conclusion that Abbott must be to blame -- the evidence really isn't very strong, and you'd think a scholar like Whyborne would want to have sufficient data before drawing conclusions... It seems that the Endicott monster-hunters will be a recurring antagonist from here on, or could be at least, just like the ketoi could be a recurring ally? Or at least I certainly hope that the events of this book are not ignored. There's also the fact that Whyborne has used sorcery in front of donors, and been publicly accused of homosexuality in front of them, too -- although I doubt that Stanford's word carried much weight at this point. I wonder if anything will come at least of the sorcery part. On a final Endicott note, a ruthless sorceress named Fiona automatically made me think of Fiona of Amber.
I thought the thing with the sorcery-resistent sword was interesting, though the foreshadowing was rather telegraphed. I'm assuming this is being introduced as a thing because Whyborne is getting so powerful with his sorcery, and presumably also because we've now met other serious sorcerers, too.
It was nice to see a book without relationship drama, for once. Rather, Griffin and Whyborne do temporarily maybe-break-up, but it's over something other than romantic misunderstandings, and neither does anything stupid as a result, and it's rather refreshing, compared to the earlier books. And the ketoi rings at the end were very sweet, and Persephone calling Griffin brother-in-law, essentially, and finding it stupid that two men cannot marry among the land-folk. Also sweet was Whyborne wondering whether Griffin had made burial plans; well, sweet in a morbid way. And Griffin making Whyborne and Persephone birthday waffles on Halloween morning was just adorable.
It was nice to see Amelie again, and to see that she's doing well for herself.
I keep forgetting to mention that I do find it cute the way the W&G books all start with something very dramatic -- in this case, "Sharks swirled around me, waiting only for the scent of blood to attack." -- before it is revealed that the danger/drama is metaphorical and Whyborne is at a dinner party or a boring meeting or something. It's cute, and I look forward to seeing what each next one will be.
The case for the Lesters family -- I assume that's what one of the Griffin-POV short stories is about?
Quotes:
Griffin, after Whyborne tells him Theo kissed him and he turned him down: "I won't pretend I'm not relieved to hear it. An educated man... another sorcerer..that British accent..."
Whyborne: "Hmph. Perhaps I ought to be the one who's jealous."
Christine: "What sort of abomination from the sea is afraid of water? You're really terrible at the whole monstrous creature thing."
Christine, upon her and Whyborne arriving at the musuem overtaken by ketoi: "Sorry we're late. But I apologize for my earlier doubts, Dr.Hart. You were indeed correct about needing our expertise for this event."
28. Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson, The Wicked + The Divine, volume 3 -- OK, this one I'm considerably more meh on than the first two. I didn't hate it or anything, but it felt largely pointless.
Issue 12 -- ugh, the art D: Apparently a huge part what I liked about the original two collections was the art, and without it, I'm just no nearly as into it. The one-page of Inanna in the original style was like balm at the end. The only line I actually liked was Baal's "Quit your Game of Thrones bullshit" to the Morrigan, when she says to him, "Well met, lord of lightning."
Issue 13 -- OK, thank goodness, the art is better again, though still weird, like Minerva is way too kawaii and Baal sort of caricaturish-looking. So we finally get to meet Tara, and I actually rather liked Tara -- she is different from the other gods, and that's an interesting reaction to godhood. So of course she is the next to die. I'm increasingly doubting there's actually a point to all of this?
Issue 14 -- Huh. I can't say this makes me either care about or like or DISlike Woden any more. I'm just kind of apathetically confused. Who the hell is that at the end? Though, OK, fine, I acknowledge the meta-cleverness of building the issue about the god who can't work his powers for himself out of recycled art.
Issue 15 -- I do kind of like this art -- it's a different enough style to be an interesting departure, but not ugly, so that's a plus. Like, this is the first of the guest issues in which I may see a point to the guest artisits. As for actual contents... still don't care about Amaterasu. And am worried that I prefer pre-transformation Cassandra to Urthr. It was kind of cool to see the Meiji shrine in Tokyo, though, since I'd been there last summer.
Issue 16 -- OK, this one I actually liked! I finally felt like it was adding something to the canon. I liked Marian and Cam considerably more than their divine personas of Morrigan and Baphomet -- their vampire-LARP-ing, miniature-painting dissafected youth-ness was kind of adorable.
Issue 17 -- Aaaand we're back to art I don't like. And Sekhmet's arc, if that's supposed to be an arc, isn't doing anything for me, either. Like, I appreciate what it's going for, but it's not working for me without seeing more of her actual past/getting more of a feel for her as a person before she was Sekhmet.
I also got to read Issue 18 that just came out, so spoilers for Issue 18: [Issue 18]
Issue 18 -- which isn't part of collection 3 -- huh, so Laura is still around. And WTF is she doing sleeping with Cameron? When? WHY? O.o
**
We also watched some movies!
The first one was Bridge of Spies, which we rented for L: Mr M, her history teacher, is giving some extra credit if students watch a historically themed movie, write a report on it, and give a presentation, and this was one of the two she picked (the other being Dr Strangelove, which B is pretty sure we own but has yet to find).
Anyway, it's not the sort of movie I'd normally watch, because it sounded dreary in description, but B was dealing with it and started watching just to check out if the disk was working right, and ended up watching the whole thing, and then watched a chunk for it again with L and me. O missed the first part, but was snagged by the U-2 plane introduction, and watched the rest of it with us from that point on.
Anyway, it was a REALLY good movie. Tom Hanks is one of those actors who is just GOOD. There are actors I enjoy watching because their faces and mannerisms work for me in whatever role, or because I like the kind of roles they tend to take on, but Hanks is not one of them. But whatever role he is playing, he is just great and compelling, the real magic of acting. I also really, really liked the guy who played Abel (no wonder he got the Oscar and a bunch of other awards). And, of course, Spielberg is a great director and the Coens are acclaimed writers for a reason. I pretty much liked everything about this movie -- the way the story hung together (and it's a compelling enough story on its own, right, but the writers took liberties with it, but did it well, at least from a narrative perspective), the casting and acting, the dialogue, the suspense (which it managed even though I knew how the story ended), the look of it (although the beginning part without words and the train across the wall were a bit slow for me). Minor spoilers from here
I really liked the way Donovan's dialogue kept coming back to little bits set up earlier in the film -- "my guy", "one, one, one" (which he'd originally been using to justify the claim that a motorist hitting five motorcyclists was all one event and later came up again when he was arguing for the Pryor-and-Powers for Abel swap), the way he convinces the judge to leave Abel alive as "insurance", which is something he knows a thing or two about -- it made for a nicely coherent story, and also great character detail. Abel was so, SO good. The "You're not worried?"/"Would it help?" exchange came up enough that it became a catchphrase, but it's a pretty great catchphrase, and that placid fatalism was such a great trait, very believable. The guy playing Shishkin, the "secretary"/head of KGB was also really spot on. It was so great to see an actual Russian actor in the role (and I find it hilarious that *B* recognized him from Banditski Peterburg; I went and checked his Russian filmography later, and sure enough, there he was XD) -- he just looked and talked the part perfectly. And it was nice to see that the Russian extras sentencing Powers and interrogating him had believable Russian accents and spoke Russian correctly -- it's really not that hard to find people for that! OK, Mark Rylance's Russian was not great, but he only had to say "stojkij muzhik", and he did that non-cringeworthily, so. We also all laughed at the young German aide saying "I don't want to say that my English is excellent, but it is excellent". Donovan's son was a bit annoying, but in the right sort of way, so that's not a complaint either, and I do think the scenes from the atomic bomb lecture at the school and the filled bathtub did a good job of driving home the Cold War consciousness.
Oh, and a random note that I encouraged L to put in her write-up for school and might as well include here, too. When we were at cousin D's birthday picnic (or was it Aunt M's birthday picnic? I forget), we were cornered by one of cousin D's relatives from his father's side. Who, it turned out, had been in the airforce in 1960, and served where he could see, on radar, Powers' plane shot down. And told us about how one of his friends in the Soviet airforce (Sergei Safronov, according to wikipedia; he didn't give a last name, but he did call him Serezha, so that checks out) was shot down as well in that incident -- he was flying close to the U-2 plane and was ordered to fall back while the Soviet airforce launched missiles, but didn't want to "lose" Powers and was shot down and died. It's really kind of crazy to know somebody only one degree of separation from history in this case...
But anyway. Man, what a good film! I suspect this will likely be the objectively-best movie I see this year, though there might be ones that I'm more squeeful about.
On Saturday (like, two weeks ago) we went to see Zootopia in theaters, having finally caved in to L's demands because enough people, including actual grown-ups, had had great things to say about it. Sadly, it was no longer playing at our neighborhood theater with nearly-empty auditoria and significantly cheaper tickets, so we had to go to Daly City. We waffled over whether to go for Sunday matinee or Saturday night, but ultimately opted for 3D anyway, and just went Saturday, since 3D wipes out any matinee savings. Still, OUCH, it was almost $70 for the four of us, between 3D surcharge, online ticket booking (which we could've skipped; the auditorium was not even half full), and the price of tickets over there. Well, we don't do this very often and can afford it, but it still feels like highway robbery. Anyway, at least the parking there is free, though we had to drive up all the way to the 4th floor of the structure to find an empty spot. Not sure what all those people were watching, but I'm glad it wasn't Zootopia.
We got a bunch of fairly lackluster trailers: Mowgli (which we'd already seen a trailer for with Star Wars; I will never get used to a male Bagheera, even if he is voiced by Ben Kingsley, and now WTF is up with making Kaa female? O.o), Secret Life of Pets (less exciting than what I thought last time, with a shorter trailer (this was also with Star Wars), but still pretty cute, and L, who hadn't seen the trailer before, really wants to see it), the latest Ice Age (as L said, "They keep getting stupider, but I still want to watch it." Rather, I agree with her on the "keep getting stupider" part, not so much on the still wanting to watch it, though the squirrel's antics are still amusing), Angry Birds (they'll make a movie out of ANYTHING, won't they), Finding Dory (this one actually looked legitimately neat; I'm a sucker for octopodes and manta rays, what can I say), and Storks (with a teaser that does not reveal anything about the plot at all). Only Finding Dory and The Secret Life of Pets look like something I'm likely to actually enjoy watching, which is not a great ratio...
As for the actual movie:
First of all, both B and I are really glad that we a) went to see it on the big screen and b) shelled out for 3D, because the best part was definitely the epic scenery, and I would've hated to miss out on that in all its glory. Spoilers from here!
The story was... cute. But I'd gotten the impression that the message was going to be non-anvilicious and unfortunately I did not find it particularly subtle, and that bugged me, and bugged B even more. Actually, there are two (related) messages in the movie, and I thought one of them was handled with enough humour to be OK (the "you can be anything you want!" message, which Judy amends at the end to something a bit more realistic: "Turns out real life's a little bit more complicated than a slogan on a bumper sticker."). The part that I thought was a bit too on the nose was the whole thing with anti-predator prejudice, because the plot makes such a strawman argument out of it. I mean, it's a sweet message, and the right message in the context of the movie, and it's *a* right message in the real world, too, but I sure would've appreciated either more nuance or less moralizing. There are moment that I thought were really well done: the "Go back to the forest!"/"I'm from the savannah." exchange was really great! And there are absolutely people like the assistant mayor who are looking to ride a wave of prejudice and fear for personal gain (boy are there ever...), but sadly the underlying problems are not as simple as "the bad guys were framing everyone all along". I mean, it's not that I think you can have a full, accurate, nuanced treatment of the real-world problems in a kids' movie that also needs to have hijinks and laughs, and better this message than the opposite one, obviously, but IDK, I don't like to see this sort of thing done simplistically, even for kids, and would rather not have it done at all.
Other than that, I really enjoyed the film! Judy was adorable, and I liked the way her pluckiness was just that -- an unwillingness to quit, and a willingness to think outside the box when her small size prevented her from doing things the "normal" way, as well as the willingness to manipulate events for a good cause while staying within the rules, like when she tossed the pen over the fence so that Nick would go after it so she'd have a reason to follow without a warrant. Nick was fun (although his Cub Scout backstory was laying it on a bit thick for my taste; he was a really cute cub, though!), and I liked his dynamic with Judy a lot, especially the times when she hustled him. I also liked the way the set piece at the end, Nick pretending to have become savage and Judy acting scared, echoed back to the opening play (which I thought had been a very cute way of establishing the world), and even the way the blueberries turned out to be plot-relevant, as well as the "moldy onions". Despite my reservations about the message, I did like it that the main antagonist was a small, underappreciated critter like Judy herself, sympathetic at first,
Background characters in this were pretty great. My favorite was Chief Bogo (who I did not realize was played by Idris Elba); I especially adored his speech about how "“Life isn't some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and all your insipid dreams magically come true! So let it go.” (You know what I really, really want to see now? Ankh-Morpork's Watch with an animal cast. Like, I'm 92% sure this already exists somewhere, and if it does, link me to it, please, but this movie just made me crave it. All that talk about the token bunny on the force, you know?
The DMV sloths were hilarious, and not even too drawn out (and I liked the sighting at the end, of Flash speeding), as was Nick's fennec accomplice (I liked their whole popsicle scam, actually; it was so great to have it be a hustle that only worked with the different sizes of the animals living in Zootopia), and I was amused by the mafia shrews, too (especially by the daughter shrew already being pregnant and ready to pop a week after her wedding :P). Also, the lemmings! The lemmings were both adorable and funny! And I liked the glance at the beaver construction workers (when Judy ends up standing in wet cement), and made sure to point them out to B, who'd noticed them, too.
Other folks on my flist have pointed out how Zootopia the place is designed for all kinds of different critters of differen sizes -- from three different train doors at the beginning to the Little Rodentia rooftop chase complete with hamster tube tunnels to the giraffe car that Judy has to bounce off a lamppost to ticket, and all of that was really neat. Oh, and speaking of the world of Zootopia, the 'nudist retreat' Judy and Nick visit is hilariously done! Oh, and the Natural History museum, witht eh mammoth holding a spear, was also great!
This is definitely a movie that I would like to watch again to try and spot all kinds of the little things I'm sure I've missed. L spotted that the Macy's-like store where the mafia shrew daughter is doing her shopping is Mousy's (with the Macy's star), but I know there are tons of other shop fronts and products with puns like that. I caught the spoken Frozen reference by Chief Bogo, and L pointed out that the weasel's name is a Frozen reference, too -- actually more complex than she realized, because both the weasel and the Duke of Wesselton character being referenced were played by Alan Tudyk. I got the Breaking Bad reference too (despite not watching the show), but I know there are a bunch more that I probably missed.
Oh, and another thing I really liked were the names of the police officers -- the way they reflected all kinds of different ethnicities while also being related in some way to their species, like Delgado the lion, Snarloff the polar bear, Wolfowitz (I think), and so on.
So, all in all, this was a fun outing, and a movie I want to watch again, but not one I liked as much as Inside Out or Tangled, or was as impressed with as Big hero 6.
**
Finally, while B was away, I finished out the first half of season 2 of Angel.
Angel 2x03 (First Impressions) -- Heh, I like how the tip-off that it's a dream is Angel doing two of the three things he'd said he doesn't do (in ep 1 of season 2) -- dating and singing in public. Hee, David Nabit shows up again, being a huge dork and giving Angel financial advice (which Cordelia finds sexy; that's all kinds of adorable, actually). Gunn called Wes C3PO. The main trio sort of leaning on each other sorely against the side of the car after the vamp fight was rather adorable, and the OT3-ness was made further interesting by Wesley's head on Angel's shoulder. That's... not actually a pairing I considered before, but tbh I'm seeing more chemistry than between Angel/Cordy or Wes/Cordelia... And Angel riding bitch in a pink helmet while Wes tells him, "You look good. Hop on, gorgeous" did not do much to deter that. Or the naked thing, for that matter XD Cordy protecting Gunn (who is really intense) was cute at first, and I loved that she actually stopped the demon (temporarily) with her little pink Mace thing, but ugh, really, we're going to be playing the "you're the danger" thing straight? Ugh, platitudes...
Angel 2x04 (Untouched) -- This is maybe my favorite episode so far, mostly because it's so DARK. Like, not gratuitously dark-and-angsty, and not supernaturally dark, demons feeding on horrors or whatnot -- but, just, human darkness, and human ability to cope with it, and human willingness to callously exploit it for one's own ends. I was wondering if it would go beyond the implication that Bethany had been molested by her father in that attic flashback, when she was a little girl, or just leave it implied -- and not only did it go there explicitly, with Wesley's confrontation, it just kept going: the chilling conversation between Bethany and Angel about her being "a huge slut" and her feelings about sex, the confrontation with her father -- I genuinely thought they'd show her killing him, but I'm glad it ended up being a show of her control, not vengeance. I found it to be an unexpectedly powerful episode, and very well done. It also had some great lines, that made me laugh despite the dark tone of the whole thing, like Angel's "You wouldn't like me when I'm happy" and this exchange between him and Cordelia:
Angel: Do you know how hard it is to think straight with a rebar through your torso?
Cordy: Actually, I do. Benefits of a Sunnydale education.
I also laughed at Gunn's makeshift but badass hubcap axe.
The only negative for me about this episode was Cordelia's scene with Bethany. Ugh, I'm really not enjoying the "earnest psychotherapist Cordelia" phase. Cordy is so great when she's being Cordy, but this just feels so faaaake. It's like watching the actress is playing a completely different role in those moments, a role I have zero interest in.
On a random note, Lilah at home was sooo different, it took me a couple of moments to be sure it was really her.
Angel 2x05 (Dear Boy) -- Here we go, back to Darla... She is getting a bit more interesting, I guess, but I still wish we were doing some other arc... I did like seeing the backstory with Dru, and Angel's "I've got a thing for convents" line foreshadowing that. Angel's lines not getting reactions was actually pretty great ("Well, I thought that was funny"), and Angel aplogizing when he's done singing karaoke ("I'm very sorry") is a running gag I continue to enjoy. And that's about all I've got to say about this one.
Angel 2x06 (Guise Will Be Guise) -- But this was another one I liked, because it's funny, and not too Angel-centric, and what Angel there is, is mostly for comic relief ("I'm not a eunuch!" or talking about why he always wears black -- so he would always match, since he can't see his reflection). Cordy mimicking Angel ("count my sins and alphabetize them") was great, as was Wes pretending to be Angel for the thug and later Virginia (and the Wes/Ginny was actually rather nice -- and I'm pleased to see that they're continuing to be together in later episodes). And Cordelia being outraged that Wes got some was pretty funny. I'd liked Magnus Bryce and was sad when it turned out he was a daughter-sacrificing terrible person, but I liked the resolution, that Virginia (heh, yes, nice symbolic naming there, dad) had not been a virgin for many years, so her sleeping with Wesley didn't even matter. I had also liked the swami, T'ish Magev or whatever (it sounds vaguely like Hebrew to me, but I keep forgetting to ask B if it means anything, or just sounds like it might), or rather the imposter swami -- he was pretty fun.
Angel 2x07 (Darla) -- so Angel and the Master have some history! (though brief). I do like the way Angel being obsessed/distracted means Cordy and Wes are taking charge and taking care of him. Aaand more Darla and Angelus flashbacks, and I still don't care. Or about Lindsay and Darla.
Angel 2x08 (The Shroud of Rahmon) -- A non-Darla episode, but I don't have a lot to say about it, either. I hadn't expected it to come to Angel biting Lockley, even for her protection. The rest of the episode was just kind of eh. Although Angel pretending to be outgoing was a little bit funny, and Wes and Cordy's skepticism that he could do so even more.
Angel 2x09 (The Trial) -- OK, a Darla-centric episode that I actually liked, finally. I do like it that Darla and Angel are both motivated by something that's *genuinely* dramatic, rather than vampire angst -- Darla dying, and quickly, and Angel being determined to save her while preserving her "second chance" at a normal human life, rather than giving into her request to turn her into a vampire. The scene with Darla in the seedy bar, picking up green vamps was probably the first time I actually found her interesting, and I also liked her confrontation with Angel after ("I wasn't in any danger. I picked a stupid one. I always pick a stupid one.") The trial was an artificial set-up, but a really nice set-piece nevertheless; I liked the administrator guy, and the visual of the road paved with crosses, and the detail that Darla switches to calling him "Angel" rather than "Angelus" after the trial (or at least I think this is where the switch happens). I thought the bait and switch with her already having used up her second life was also neatly done, and while "destroy everything in rage" reactions very seldom work for me, the one from Angel actually worked for me here. Dru appearing at the end provided a nice symmetry/cyclicity with Angel having sired her. And on a totally unrelated note, I'm finally getting used to Cordy's short hair.
Angel 2x10 (Reunion) -- As I said above, I really do feel like for the first time in the Darla storyline the level of angst is actually commensurate with the actual level of drama and difficulty of the situation. There are some very nice visuals -- Dru in red, Darla in her white shroud, Angel in his usual black during the fight in the nursery. I really liked Holland in this episode (too bad it was his last one) -- being all avuncular with excited "expectant" Drusilla, trying to shmooze his way out of the trap at the end with Darla. Actually, the scene in the "people cellar" was pretty great overall: Lilah demanding that Angel help them, Lindsey's detatched smirk ("I care. I guess I just don't mind." talking about the likelihood of his death). And I really had not expected Angel to just walk away -- that is certainly an interesting change of direction from the do-gooder help-the-helpless persona. And I liked the Cordy (and the others) argued with him about it:
Angel: And I will stop them.
Cordy: When? When they've finished off all the people you don't like?
Angel 2x11 (Redefinition) -- The Angel part of this episode was pretty boring to me, except for the end, and while it was neat to see Cordy, Wes, and Gunn spending some time together, I didn't think them getting drunk together was particularly interesting either. But I liked Lilah trying to entrap Lindsey and the two of them getting the co-promotion, and (surprisingly) I liked Darla, especially when she said "Why is everybody trying to make this about Angel? For god's sake, can't a woman wreak a little havoc without a man being involved?" On a random note, Angel is smoking again when Dru and Darla come across him. Of course, it's part of his trap (to set them on fire, as they're standing in a puddle of gasoline), but that was still an interesting detail, since the last time we saw him smoking was in the flashback to the hotel, when he was not very big on humans.