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Oct 08, 2006 21:46

We've spent a lot of time recently sipping wine and watching TV and films, so time for a brief roundup:

Robin Hood )

bones, film, television, the wire, deadwood, aaron sorkin, veronica mars

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veggiesu October 8 2006, 21:21:58 UTC
So I suppose I'm the only one who quite liked Robin Hood then? Thought so :-p I guess I just approached it as typical Saturday early-evening viewing. I wasn't expecting do see a "drama", and certainly very little in the way of historical authenticity (I doubt I would have recognised it if I had seen it, tbh). I think you're right about the Hercules comparison, but I don't mind that.

AOL to what you said about Veronica Mars.

Similar to what you said about Children of Men, except the SF bit (go on, you know you're not the slightest bit surprised about that).

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tizzle_b October 8 2006, 22:46:48 UTC
I said I liked Robin Hood :(

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veggiesu October 8 2006, 22:49:06 UTC
You did! And I forgot, because I'm so terribly old tired.

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iainjclark October 8 2006, 23:07:52 UTC
Robin Hood was okay in places, but overall I found it slightly more tiresome than not. I'm willing to watch it next week.

Okay Children of Men isn't particularly highbrow, or particularly SF, but to me it still feels more like highbrow SF than an action flick.

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coalescent October 9 2006, 00:26:51 UTC
I don't believe that even you can claim that Children of Men is not sf. Sorry. :p

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veggiesu October 9 2006, 05:26:51 UTC
What I was saying was that it didn't feel like highbrow SF to me. It felt like high-quality drama; it seemed to me to have more in common with the conspiracy thrillers of the seventies/eighties than anything else (guy thrown into a situation out of his depth and control, not knowing who to trust, artificially imposed deadlines, people shooting at you, that kind of thing). That was what it felt like to me.

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coalescent October 9 2006, 07:58:07 UTC
What does highbrow sf feel like to you, then?

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veggiesu October 9 2006, 16:52:21 UTC
I'll let you know when I see some :-p

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coalescent October 9 2006, 17:28:19 UTC
...

"sf's no good!" The bellow 'till we're deaf
"But this looks good--" "Well then, it's not sf."

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veggiesu October 9 2006, 19:08:29 UTC
That's neither what I said or meant, but he you insist :-p

btw, I didn't realise that had posted; am playing with my shiny new phone, and it just have of an error message when I tried posting.

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coalescent October 9 2006, 19:14:42 UTC
am playing with my shiny new phone

Ah! To write it makes your good English.

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veggiesu October 9 2006, 20:11:30 UTC
Muchly so :-)

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iainjclark October 9 2006, 07:17:00 UTC
Well it's an odd film in that it clearly *is* SF, but it also postulates no significant new technology - it merely exaggerates the world and attitudes of today using one particular SF concept (the infertility) as a catalyst. Which is just the kind of thing that leads mainstream authors to make futile claims that their novel is not SF, even though everyone knows that it is. But I could understand why the film might not come across as overtly SF in a lot of ways.

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coalescent October 9 2006, 11:06:07 UTC
it merely exaggerates the world and attitudes of today using one particular SF concept (the infertility) as a catalyst.

What's interesting about this is that it's exactly what vast amounts of 'golden age' sf always did. Almost anything John Wyndham wrote, for instance. What we now think of as traditionally multivariate (tm Graham) futures arguably didn't become mainstream until Stand on Zanzibar/Neuromancer.

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veggiesu October 10 2006, 22:11:26 UTC
multivariate

?

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iainjclark October 10 2006, 22:57:47 UTC
I'm guessing this means a future dependent on multiple interacting variables rather than a single high concept premise. But I may be wrong. :-)

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