The 9-to-5 gig is going well and turns out to involve some opportunity to practice information architecture as well as content strategy, yay! But it limits my time on social media, so I thought I'd catch you all up on what I've been watching and reading.

Based on Connie Willis' recommendations in the prologue to The Winds of Marble Arch, I've ( Read more... )

We (The Man, the kids, and I) saw Hobbit 3 the other day. I think that somewhere, under the CG effects and the wire-fu inspired action, was a good story. But it's hard to find it ( Read more... )

Fall has arrived and with it the new TV season. The Man and I have picked up some new shows (and dropped one already):

• "Constantine" -- Loving Matt Ryan in it; he seems perfect. I like how episode 2 introduced an artist, so we have an excuse to look at drawings of Constantine. Not loving how they have him and the artist stand super-close to each ( Read more... )

It was pretty bad. I say this as someone who loves action/adventure movies. But it was so much a dad's revenge fantasy that I couldn't get into it.

( Cut for me rehashing the play-by-play... )

I saw "Guardians of the Galaxy" at a matinee. I loved individual scenes in it, especially the irreverent bits highlighted in the trailer. But it didn't work for me as a whole: the tone felt all over the place. I think I know why: I saw a different movie than the friends raving about how much fun it was. Pregnancy turned me into the person who tears ( Read more... )

(the Luc Besson film starring Scarlett Johansson) but my friend amnesiack described it so perfectly over on Google+:

Watching Lucy is like playing a one shot rules light RPG in the three hour slot at a convention. At first you're really taking your time, establishing scenes, characters, and details and making sure that the established fiction is really ( Read more... )

I was rewatching "Frozen" again last night, like you do when you have small kids, and I started thinking about Kristoff. On the one hand, it's a bit of a bummer that Anna needs the help of a guy, unlike Merida, who doesn't even think about asking her three suitors for help -- she ends up being helped by her little brothers, but only towards the end ( Read more... )

I saw Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier this weekend, and was going to write a review, but Harry Connolly pretty much covered it all, especially the comment that "the power fantasy aspects undercut the spy thriller parts". I found the action sequences to be so in-your-face and over-the-top that they overshadowed the quiet little moments. ( Read more... )

TL;DR version: If you're not already watching Elementary on CBS, you should probably start. Because feminism. Also, stuff about Star Trek: Into Darkness.

I've been wanting to write something about the display of women's bodies. Most recently, this has come up for me in media when we saw Star Trek: Into Darkness. As you know from the trailer, there ( Read more... )

A couple weeks ago, The Man and I watched Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. I was expecting it to be quirky and funny, like Juno, but it did not hit that bar for us. Perhaps if we were into indie music we would have liked it more, but as it was, we basically watched the weaker half of the plot of Holiday (the Kate Winslet/Jack Black half ( Read more... )