various unrelated topics
I spent this week rewatching Firefly (and fuming, of course, that there are so few episodes to watch). As a result, I have a few random thoughts.
1. Inara really doesn't do it for me until Heart of Gold, where that moment of vulnerability after she finds out about Mal and Nandy actually makes me care about her character. I think it's because the actress is really too young to pull off the wise-to-the-world air that they wrote for the character; she just comes across as petty and often childish. But until they let us *see* that the world-weary act is, in fact, an act, I didn't have much use for her.
2. I could watch Kaylee all day.
3. I'm very curious about Mal and Zoe's background--what were they doing in between the war and buying the ship? How did they end up sticking with each other? Even though they burst any Mal/Zoe potential with War Stories, I still think there's some there there *g*.
4. They could have dropped the Chinese phrases. It's a great idea, and a few short words/terms would have done the trick, but these longer phrases just sound so acted; they *don't* fall naturally off the characters' tongues, begging the question of why they would use them. Ditto for some of the western lingo; again, it's a nice idea and helps in worldbuilding, but it doesn't sound natural to the characters and even the setting.
5. Riffing off the Chinese phrases...where are all the Asian people?
6. Weirdly, Mal/Jayne seems like such a natural slash pairing to me now, though it didn't ping me before. The whole battle for dominance, particularly pre-Arial, has such an interesting sexual tension to it.
7. Jayne's hat in The Message...LOVE.
8. Simon also seemed a more interesting character to me than before; not sure why that is, and it's something I'll have to muse on more.
I was supposed to watch the UMD game with a friend, then go out for dinner and Finding Neverland--and then she ended up sick and full of germs, so we scratched that idea. In lieu of that, I watched the UMD game alone (and the less said about that the better; the only thing I will say is that the refs at U of Miami are ON CRACK) and then watched Wimbledon (the movie), which was...interesting. Mildly entertaining, and Paul Bettany was certainly worth the hour and a half I spent watching it, but I continue to be less than fond of Kirsten Dunst, and well, some other spoilery things:
I wish movie makers wouldn't assume that if you put a pretty boy and a pretty girl together in a situation that throws them together, then of course there will be romance. There was zero chemistry between the two of them. I kept thinking that I would have been much more engaged with their relationship if they'd made it, say, a past relationship reemerging. They needed some history together to make the whole love thing believable.
And also, if this was Lizzie Bradbury's first Wimbledon, then chances are she'd be about 16--certainly no more than 17 or 18, to Paul Bettany's 31. Let's face it--they were at totally different periods in their lives, looking to do different things. The chances of that relationship working out are pretty slim.
Putting cynicism aside, I did like Peter's storyline. It's hard to make a sports movie--particularly one that's relying on the "improbable victory" formula--and I thought they did a decent job with this one. They certainly did a great job exploring the psychology of individual sports, and how more broadly that relates to just life; I mean, we all have times when we choke, when we talk ourselves out of success, when we're too afraid of the future to just reach and do it, to lamely quote Nike. Those aren't sports issues; they do, however, tend to be more visible in some sports.
That being said, they still could have done more with what they had. There was a lot of ground left unexplored.
(Wading into the shallow pool: how beautiful was Peter's hitting partner? And the line, that went something like this (when Peter was asked about his partner's weaknesses): "He has a weakness for men in leather pants." Great backstory slipped in with just a passing reference--no other mention was made of it. Actually, there was a lot of background in the movie (his parents and brother, where he grew up, etc) that came through really well without hitting one over the head with it.)
And with that I am heading off to bed and some nighttime reading :).
1. Inara really doesn't do it for me until Heart of Gold, where that moment of vulnerability after she finds out about Mal and Nandy actually makes me care about her character. I think it's because the actress is really too young to pull off the wise-to-the-world air that they wrote for the character; she just comes across as petty and often childish. But until they let us *see* that the world-weary act is, in fact, an act, I didn't have much use for her.
2. I could watch Kaylee all day.
3. I'm very curious about Mal and Zoe's background--what were they doing in between the war and buying the ship? How did they end up sticking with each other? Even though they burst any Mal/Zoe potential with War Stories, I still think there's some there there *g*.
4. They could have dropped the Chinese phrases. It's a great idea, and a few short words/terms would have done the trick, but these longer phrases just sound so acted; they *don't* fall naturally off the characters' tongues, begging the question of why they would use them. Ditto for some of the western lingo; again, it's a nice idea and helps in worldbuilding, but it doesn't sound natural to the characters and even the setting.
5. Riffing off the Chinese phrases...where are all the Asian people?
6. Weirdly, Mal/Jayne seems like such a natural slash pairing to me now, though it didn't ping me before. The whole battle for dominance, particularly pre-Arial, has such an interesting sexual tension to it.
7. Jayne's hat in The Message...LOVE.
8. Simon also seemed a more interesting character to me than before; not sure why that is, and it's something I'll have to muse on more.
I was supposed to watch the UMD game with a friend, then go out for dinner and Finding Neverland--and then she ended up sick and full of germs, so we scratched that idea. In lieu of that, I watched the UMD game alone (and the less said about that the better; the only thing I will say is that the refs at U of Miami are ON CRACK) and then watched Wimbledon (the movie), which was...interesting. Mildly entertaining, and Paul Bettany was certainly worth the hour and a half I spent watching it, but I continue to be less than fond of Kirsten Dunst, and well, some other spoilery things:
I wish movie makers wouldn't assume that if you put a pretty boy and a pretty girl together in a situation that throws them together, then of course there will be romance. There was zero chemistry between the two of them. I kept thinking that I would have been much more engaged with their relationship if they'd made it, say, a past relationship reemerging. They needed some history together to make the whole love thing believable.
And also, if this was Lizzie Bradbury's first Wimbledon, then chances are she'd be about 16--certainly no more than 17 or 18, to Paul Bettany's 31. Let's face it--they were at totally different periods in their lives, looking to do different things. The chances of that relationship working out are pretty slim.
Putting cynicism aside, I did like Peter's storyline. It's hard to make a sports movie--particularly one that's relying on the "improbable victory" formula--and I thought they did a decent job with this one. They certainly did a great job exploring the psychology of individual sports, and how more broadly that relates to just life; I mean, we all have times when we choke, when we talk ourselves out of success, when we're too afraid of the future to just reach and do it, to lamely quote Nike. Those aren't sports issues; they do, however, tend to be more visible in some sports.
That being said, they still could have done more with what they had. There was a lot of ground left unexplored.
(Wading into the shallow pool: how beautiful was Peter's hitting partner? And the line, that went something like this (when Peter was asked about his partner's weaknesses): "He has a weakness for men in leather pants." Great backstory slipped in with just a passing reference--no other mention was made of it. Actually, there was a lot of background in the movie (his parents and brother, where he grew up, etc) that came through really well without hitting one over the head with it.)
And with that I am heading off to bed and some nighttime reading :).