Gay cowboys! (& also A&E)
Right, so, the weekend was eventful.
Saturday morning, I was asleep. I slept for a good 13/14 hours, which was a good thing, as it turned out, as within an hour of emptyplace coming to visit me he'd sliced his hand open to the bone attempting to do the washing up and gone into shock. I checked his pupils (bad), his blood loss (fine), his skin (cold & clammy) and vision (bad), made an executive decision and called an ambulance. They took us both to the A&E of St George's Hospital, wherein we spent a good four hours. Five stitches, a tetanus jab and many antibiotics later, we got home and watched 'Deadwood'.
The original gay cowboys! Forget 'Brokeback Mountain', boys, Deadwood brings the hard and gritty and also the very pretty.
Episode 1, wherein Sethh Bullock turns up at Deadwood (and, coincidentally, so does Wild Bill Hickock), had to be watched twice for me to understand the language. Quite simply, it was too obsence for me to be able to follow right off the bat, but after some practice I got into it and whaddoyo know, it's actually rather smashing. Bullock (aka 'Montana') is a Good Guy, as is Hickock in a way (except the bit where he's a professional gunslinger, which prompted more than one discussion of how exactly that works), except that a case could be made that they're both Bad Guys, but less bad than the rest. The rest kill children, rape women and steal money, and as far as I can tell, Montana and Bill only really kill men. Which is fine. :)
Then you come to the meat of the matter, who is called... er, Swearenger? maybe. Anyway, it's Lovejpoy being deliciously horrible. He's a brothel-and-casino-and-bar owner, and he's a horrible, hoerrible person. Except that the relationship he has with one of his whores, Trixie, is absolutely fascinating and worth the price of admission alone.
As the episodes progress and stuff happens that someone like me who has no idea about Western history would find very surprising, what really got me about Deadwood is how wrong all the characters are. Each episode is a day long, and this lets you see the reasoning that goes into how and why they come to the decisions that they make, but that doesn't stop them from being wrong. Not Evil (tm), mind you, but just wrong. Oddly tragic in a way, actually, much like Londo in Season 2 - making all the wrong decisions all the way through, unable to see the forest for the trees.
Then there is the fact that Bill and Montana have all that fabulous USt going on, which made emptyplace and myself squeal like little girls.
So, having seen episodes 1-4, I'm going to finish up Deadwood at some point soon and then sing its praises some more. Yes.
Yesterday we went to see 'Jarhead'. Now, I wasn't expecting Apocalypse Now for our generation, which is good as I would have been sorely disappointed. It was a good movie - funny in some parts, truly repugnant in others, the cinematography was wonderful, and I loved the postmodern touches of text-within-text (the frequent uses of other films and iconic music to 'borrow' a mood and direction that is then subverted), even though at times it did descend into pastiche. mossman commented that this could be because Mendes over-relied on Gyllenhall's ironic smile to carry the film, which I agree with. There is only so much irony etc etc that can be conveyed by a single perspective within the textual mish-mash of a work like 'Jarhead' without it degerating into pastiche. At the end of the day, empty parody isn't really anything at all.
On the other hand, as entertainment, the movie did well. Pretty cast, Saarsgard was fabulous, some lovely shots, some truly amusing scenes, and things blowing up. What more could you ask for to go with your popcorn on a Sunday afternoon?
8 out of 10
And now, I'm back at work. Admittedly, I turned up at around midday, slightly surprised to have made it in at all. My HR person is still fluttering around, trying to send me back to bed with antibiotics and weak tea, but I am Strong (tm), and shall resist the temptation. Plus, I am mighty sick of sleep and intend to actually qualify as a CPFA at some point in my life. 400 days of practical experience don't just accumulate like that *snaps fingers*, you know.
Saturday morning, I was asleep. I slept for a good 13/14 hours, which was a good thing, as it turned out, as within an hour of emptyplace coming to visit me he'd sliced his hand open to the bone attempting to do the washing up and gone into shock. I checked his pupils (bad), his blood loss (fine), his skin (cold & clammy) and vision (bad), made an executive decision and called an ambulance. They took us both to the A&E of St George's Hospital, wherein we spent a good four hours. Five stitches, a tetanus jab and many antibiotics later, we got home and watched 'Deadwood'.
The original gay cowboys! Forget 'Brokeback Mountain', boys, Deadwood brings the hard and gritty and also the very pretty.
Episode 1, wherein Sethh Bullock turns up at Deadwood (and, coincidentally, so does Wild Bill Hickock), had to be watched twice for me to understand the language. Quite simply, it was too obsence for me to be able to follow right off the bat, but after some practice I got into it and whaddoyo know, it's actually rather smashing. Bullock (aka 'Montana') is a Good Guy, as is Hickock in a way (except the bit where he's a professional gunslinger, which prompted more than one discussion of how exactly that works), except that a case could be made that they're both Bad Guys, but less bad than the rest. The rest kill children, rape women and steal money, and as far as I can tell, Montana and Bill only really kill men. Which is fine. :)
Then you come to the meat of the matter, who is called... er, Swearenger? maybe. Anyway, it's Lovejpoy being deliciously horrible. He's a brothel-and-casino-and-bar owner, and he's a horrible, hoerrible person. Except that the relationship he has with one of his whores, Trixie, is absolutely fascinating and worth the price of admission alone.
As the episodes progress and stuff happens that someone like me who has no idea about Western history would find very surprising, what really got me about Deadwood is how wrong all the characters are. Each episode is a day long, and this lets you see the reasoning that goes into how and why they come to the decisions that they make, but that doesn't stop them from being wrong. Not Evil (tm), mind you, but just wrong. Oddly tragic in a way, actually, much like Londo in Season 2 - making all the wrong decisions all the way through, unable to see the forest for the trees.
Then there is the fact that Bill and Montana have all that fabulous USt going on, which made emptyplace and myself squeal like little girls.
So, having seen episodes 1-4, I'm going to finish up Deadwood at some point soon and then sing its praises some more. Yes.
Yesterday we went to see 'Jarhead'. Now, I wasn't expecting Apocalypse Now for our generation, which is good as I would have been sorely disappointed. It was a good movie - funny in some parts, truly repugnant in others, the cinematography was wonderful, and I loved the postmodern touches of text-within-text (the frequent uses of other films and iconic music to 'borrow' a mood and direction that is then subverted), even though at times it did descend into pastiche. mossman commented that this could be because Mendes over-relied on Gyllenhall's ironic smile to carry the film, which I agree with. There is only so much irony etc etc that can be conveyed by a single perspective within the textual mish-mash of a work like 'Jarhead' without it degerating into pastiche. At the end of the day, empty parody isn't really anything at all.
On the other hand, as entertainment, the movie did well. Pretty cast, Saarsgard was fabulous, some lovely shots, some truly amusing scenes, and things blowing up. What more could you ask for to go with your popcorn on a Sunday afternoon?
8 out of 10
And now, I'm back at work. Admittedly, I turned up at around midday, slightly surprised to have made it in at all. My HR person is still fluttering around, trying to send me back to bed with antibiotics and weak tea, but I am Strong (tm), and shall resist the temptation. Plus, I am mighty sick of sleep and intend to actually qualify as a CPFA at some point in my life. 400 days of practical experience don't just accumulate like that *snaps fingers*, you know.