I watch things! Sometimes!
- Round Planet: Hilarious nature show with the visuals of your average nature show, but with Matt Lucas providing excellent voice-over comedy. Episode 5 contains the best and most BBC joke ever:
Round Planet: The story of everything. For legal reasons, my producer Tabitha is now telling me I have to point out other planets are available.
And, yeah, nature shows, not necessarily for me, since they often involve things I'm not interested in looking at. And that was still the case with this one, so a lot of the time I didn't physically-watch, while still enjoying the narration. Plus, episode 7 had an arachnophobia warning and then told you when it was over, which was much appreciated, even though they only did it that one time, it was nice they did it that time, especially considering that I recently unsubscribed from night vale's e-mail blast since they did their "surprise spiders" bullshit in the subject line (and also I stopped reading the book because of arachnophobia-punching, and also stopped reading their twitter because of...), anyway, I really appreciated that. - A Series Of Unfortunate Events, season 2: Before starting it, I was trying to remember why I'd thought s1 was so Jewish, like, what were the actual Jewish parts of it? And then right into s2e1, there's a joke involving Tu B'Shvat. Oh, right. It's got the Jewish background details entrenched. It's in the references they just assume you know which, for a show this devoted to defining things, is quite the feat. (I'm oddly reminded of my "I need to take an ice pick to the English canon to get rid of the entrenched Christianity" mood I reached during my English undergrad. Like, it's not to that level, but it gives me a glimpse into what that kind of level would look like in secular media)
I was very glad that I'd spoiled myself a bit so I wasn't being jerked around by that someone survives bullshit; I'd been taken in by the people being billed as Mother and Father in the first season and then been annoyed. So I was glad I wasn't getting jerked around, I don't have the anxiety spoons for that.
Also, that was some beautiful, beautiful foeyay between Jacques Snicket and Count Olaf. - Brooklyn 99: I was really annoyed with the season finale. I kept shouting "where's your family? Why aren't they here? There's no good reason for them not to be here!" at the screen during what was meant to be a moving and wonderful and defining moment. The conceit was that the wedding venue had a bomb threat, so they weren't going to have the wedding except, then, surprise, they did at the precinct instead. And it's not like the family didn't come for the wedding, since we got told that that the parents went out for dinner and also we saw one of Jake's aunts at the original venue. But then at the precinct... no family. What, did they not want to pay the parents actors? There was no good in-universe reason for the family, WHO WERE ALREADY THERE FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF ATTENDING THE WEDDING, to not actually end up attending the wedding.
I know they were going for "found family!!!" and all that, but ffs, YOU CAN HAVE BOTH. Ugh, this completely annoyed me and I was shouting at the screen. I'm glad the show got picked up by a different network, because if this had been the series finale instead of just the season finale, it would have left the show off with a really bad taste in my mouth, forever. - John Mulaney Kid Gorgeous comedy special: Very funny!
- John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid: Also funny, but I don't like it when people on stage call out people in the audience.
- John Mulaney: New In Town: Marginally less funny than above, he's definitely grown as a comic, but also had a point where I had to pause it because I was coughing-laughing so hard, and that was even on a clip I'd already seen on youtube, so, good job John Mulaney.
- The Lion In Winter (1968 version): This took me so long between thinking I should watch it and actually doing it, that I'm fairly certain that I got the play out from the library like six years ago and read some, if not all, of it then. *checks e-mail for library reserve records, sees that she took it out in August 2012, laughs* I also apparently took out the DVD then, too, but I don't think I watched in. In terms of watching the movie in 2018, well, it took me three or so tries, but I watched it! I did stutter for about two days on the "everyone hides behind tapestries and eavesdrops" scene because the whole entire point of this kind of farce is the layers of knowledge and that the person playing in front of it knows who is listening and works accordingly and it just felt increasingly like that wasn't the case and it hit a combination of Idiot Ball and Way Too Awkward and, yeah. But I made it through and found it out it was All A Plot, even if it was All A Stupid Plot. But yeah, the important thing is I made it through! I persevered! I enjoyed the slow pacing, it took a bit to get used to, but after I did, it was very nice, especially since I've been having really bad anxiety. The acting and the staging was very... theatrical. Going to try to watch the remake version to see if it's less noticeable. Also King Philip was very hot, according to Wikipedia he was also James Bond, that makes sense.
- Hannah Gadsby - Nanette: This came highly recommended, I was a little wary, based on tumblr gifsets and various oblique warnings, that this would be too heavy. And I didn't find laugh out loud funny, or, um, all that funny at all. It is, however, very Relatable, and also was basically straight out of every support group and safe space I've ever been in, down to the constant nervous self-deprecating laughter. Like, I do not recommend this as a comedy show. It's not exactly funny. It's somewhere between a support group and a lecture that had some jokes sprinkled in.
I've had Thoughts about the kind of observational comedy that's like "hey, this funny thing happened, let me tell you the story", it doesn't work for me a lot (like, looking up at the John Mulaney stuff? His salt and pepper diner sketch? I find it incredibly unfunny). This takes that even further, where it just is like "hey, these funny stories aren't actually funny, but instead of making it funny, I'm going to have a venting session and then call it comedy". It's really not comedy. It's is absolutely a venting session with jokes sprinkled in. It's like I'm on my support group calls or back in safe space groups. I basically kept watching out of hope that it would start being comedy. By the time she got to talking about having been raped with less than five minutes left, that's when I turned it off. Not recommended. - The Lion In Winter 2003: Much more toward my taste in terms of acting, much less theatrical. There's this theater thing where the actors who aren't talking/focus of interaction don't move at all, even when their characters should be reacting to what's in front of them (that whole "we're gonna hide behind the tapestries thing" in the original was so painful when it was all revealed because two of the dudes were just standing on the right side of the screen not moving at all or reacting because they weren't the focus, so they become immovable parts of the background set). Much more cinematic, with some really great reaction shots. It was such better acted, especially on JRM's part, that I had no problem getting through the tapestry scene and actually got through it without pausing, because it was clear he was doing it on purpose and why he was doing it. Basically overall, the acting was so much better. Highly enjoyable and rewatchable! Especially because it did things like *remember it's a movie and not on stage* and so could do things like show Philip leaving instead of having him just completely vanish, as well as having servants and guards so I'm not just like "where are the servants, these people have servants" half the time. And it gave a much more conclusion (and the final touches of characterization) to the three sons by showing them leave (or not leave, in John's case) instead of just running out of a room. Just, overwhelmingly, much more characterization going on here, and a lot of lovely moments, I really enjoyed. A+, better than the original.
- Follow-up:
Grand Designs: of all the three Grand Designs serieses I have watched (UK, Australia, New Zealand), New Zealand is by far the best, followed by Australia, with the UK lagging a very very very judgmental third. :P
But I don't care how popular it is, cor-ten steel is still fucking ugly. - And to end this off, because I really should at some point, especially with bake off starting up again soon... every few years or so, I fall deep into the hole of acrobatic gymnastics. Here I present to you an amazing routine by the Israeli men's group team at the 2018 World Championships. Also I can't get over how they're all basically the same height. That's absurdly impressive. And they have great choreo! And they all do stuff! So much of acro gym is "the top and then some other people", which I have negative interest in, but with this group, they're all doing stuff. Also, going back and watching previous years, it does seem like it's possible that their top just kept growing and they didn't replace him, probably due to lack of other acrobats, but oh my god, them all being of a height is a really great effect. They're amazing entertainers.
-Israel (ISR) - 2018 Acrobatic Worlds, Antwerpen (BEL) - Dynamic Men's Group
...okay and also their balance routine from 2017 Europeans, I can't choose.
-Men’s Group ISRAEL- 2017 Balance Acrobatic European champions
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