film and book reviews
Some books:
The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger
Steampunk paranormal romance adventures. These are basically over-the-top crazy romps through steampunk London with werewolves and vampires. The adventures are entertaining, the characters are fun, the worldbuilding is nice, and the romance is sweet. Plus, a pregnant heroine in several of the books, which I always like. The prose, sadly, kept making me wince: the jokes are trying way too hard, there are Americanisms and anachronisms everywhere, and in general I got the impression the author was aiming at Heyer and hit Dire instead. But despite that I enjoyed all the ones I've read so far.
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
This kept me happily entertained for hours. It's about the science and especially the biology of space travel, in all its messy human minutiae. The book is hilarious and full of fantastic nuggets of useless information that will mean you will never read any SF book set in space the same way again, because you will be wondering what kind of design Miles's spacesuit uses to make sure that if he throws up he doesn't aspirate his own vomit, and how exactly the quaddies' bladders are designed when normal human bladders use gravity to tell you when they're full, and how people cope with Newton's Third Law when having null-gee sex. And so on. Highly recommended (well, unless you find detailed discussions of bodily emissions and what happens to them in space off-putting; after my son, my squick receptors are pretty well burned out, and I kind of like seeing all the thought that goes into dealing with it all, it reminds me of my own life ;-).)
Oh, and apparently fish can get seasick.
And some film and TV:
Generation Kill
Pretty good. I probably should have watched this with the subtitles on, because what with the strong accents, the constant background noise and the military jargon, I understood maybe half of what was said, but I enjoyed it. Though I would point out that being grittily realistic does not excuse you from having a plot, and in some of the episodes the plot was very half-arsed. Still, they did a good job with the gritty realism, which was obviously the point of the exercise. Also, Lt Fick was cute.
Iron Man (1 and 2)
My main thought from these is that yes, RDJ could play Aral very nicely if someone could make him do it. The films were fun, though painfully heavy-handed at places (please, just kill the cute kids occasionally? Or don't show them at all) and I loved Pepper immensely. She was channelling CJ Cregg quite effectively throughout. Agent Coulson was also rather fun. Also, clearly, nothing says 'genius' like floating blue lines and silly robots. I shall maintain my view that nobody working in Hollywood has ever met a scientist in their lives. And after all the reading about space suit design, I kept going 'but, but--' at the armour in flight. Still, I enjoyed these, and they've finally got me to check out the fandom, which is full of entertainment; also full of good hurt/comfort fics, so I'm happy ;-). And this has tipped me towards wanting to go and see the Avengers film when it comes out.
Upstairs Downstairs, season 2
This is still going on, but it's being great fun. And it has Alex Kingston playing a lesbian archaeologist, so what's not to like? We're going through All the Serious Themes, but it's being done pretty well on the whole, not too heavy-handed for my tastes at least. And I discovered in myself a sudden desire to see all the Mr Amanjit/Mrs Fuller, because they were solid gold awesome in the most recent episode I watched. And Pamela! I love that this series has a character with Down's syndrome. She reminds me so much of one of the older girls at my son's school, and I just grin from ear to ear whenever she's on the screen.
Dharam-Veer
A fun Bollywood epic. I really enjoyed this one. There was a wonder falcon! And a twisted plot involving mistaken identities, long-lost brothers, swapping babies and people making unwise promises. And the Queen, who I fell completely in love with. And did I mention the falcon?
And some Shakespeare:
Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing
Every bit as good as you all said it was! Branagh and Thompson were fantastic, it was all adorable, and now I'm reading it, but honestly, reading it is nowhere near as much fun as watching it. I don't really have much to say about this other than that I loved it.
Love's Labour's Lost (1999)
This was light and fun and absolutely bonkers. I am still not at all sure about the randomly inserted songs. Branagh was fantastic, of course, and we both laughed at the scene in which the boys took turns discovering each other's hypocrisy, but ... 'There's No Business Like Show Business'? Really? The WW2 thing just about worked, better than the show tunes bit, anyway, though again, not sure about the newsreels. But I did love Geraldine McEwan, she did a beautiful job as Holofernes.
Branagh's Henry V
I've watched this about three times in the past, but this time I actually understood what was going on! Yay me! It was marvellous, and oh, so clever, how they handled the Chorus. I adored Jacobi in this. And the 'Upon the king' scene in particular was done brilliantly.
Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/75916.html
The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger
Steampunk paranormal romance adventures. These are basically over-the-top crazy romps through steampunk London with werewolves and vampires. The adventures are entertaining, the characters are fun, the worldbuilding is nice, and the romance is sweet. Plus, a pregnant heroine in several of the books, which I always like. The prose, sadly, kept making me wince: the jokes are trying way too hard, there are Americanisms and anachronisms everywhere, and in general I got the impression the author was aiming at Heyer and hit Dire instead. But despite that I enjoyed all the ones I've read so far.
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
This kept me happily entertained for hours. It's about the science and especially the biology of space travel, in all its messy human minutiae. The book is hilarious and full of fantastic nuggets of useless information that will mean you will never read any SF book set in space the same way again, because you will be wondering what kind of design Miles's spacesuit uses to make sure that if he throws up he doesn't aspirate his own vomit, and how exactly the quaddies' bladders are designed when normal human bladders use gravity to tell you when they're full, and how people cope with Newton's Third Law when having null-gee sex. And so on. Highly recommended (well, unless you find detailed discussions of bodily emissions and what happens to them in space off-putting; after my son, my squick receptors are pretty well burned out, and I kind of like seeing all the thought that goes into dealing with it all, it reminds me of my own life ;-).)
Oh, and apparently fish can get seasick.
And some film and TV:
Generation Kill
Pretty good. I probably should have watched this with the subtitles on, because what with the strong accents, the constant background noise and the military jargon, I understood maybe half of what was said, but I enjoyed it. Though I would point out that being grittily realistic does not excuse you from having a plot, and in some of the episodes the plot was very half-arsed. Still, they did a good job with the gritty realism, which was obviously the point of the exercise. Also, Lt Fick was cute.
Iron Man (1 and 2)
My main thought from these is that yes, RDJ could play Aral very nicely if someone could make him do it. The films were fun, though painfully heavy-handed at places (please, just kill the cute kids occasionally? Or don't show them at all) and I loved Pepper immensely. She was channelling CJ Cregg quite effectively throughout. Agent Coulson was also rather fun. Also, clearly, nothing says 'genius' like floating blue lines and silly robots. I shall maintain my view that nobody working in Hollywood has ever met a scientist in their lives. And after all the reading about space suit design, I kept going 'but, but--' at the armour in flight. Still, I enjoyed these, and they've finally got me to check out the fandom, which is full of entertainment; also full of good hurt/comfort fics, so I'm happy ;-). And this has tipped me towards wanting to go and see the Avengers film when it comes out.
Upstairs Downstairs, season 2
This is still going on, but it's being great fun. And it has Alex Kingston playing a lesbian archaeologist, so what's not to like? We're going through All the Serious Themes, but it's being done pretty well on the whole, not too heavy-handed for my tastes at least. And I discovered in myself a sudden desire to see all the Mr Amanjit/Mrs Fuller, because they were solid gold awesome in the most recent episode I watched. And Pamela! I love that this series has a character with Down's syndrome. She reminds me so much of one of the older girls at my son's school, and I just grin from ear to ear whenever she's on the screen.
Dharam-Veer
A fun Bollywood epic. I really enjoyed this one. There was a wonder falcon! And a twisted plot involving mistaken identities, long-lost brothers, swapping babies and people making unwise promises. And the Queen, who I fell completely in love with. And did I mention the falcon?
And some Shakespeare:
Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing
Every bit as good as you all said it was! Branagh and Thompson were fantastic, it was all adorable, and now I'm reading it, but honestly, reading it is nowhere near as much fun as watching it. I don't really have much to say about this other than that I loved it.
Love's Labour's Lost (1999)
This was light and fun and absolutely bonkers. I am still not at all sure about the randomly inserted songs. Branagh was fantastic, of course, and we both laughed at the scene in which the boys took turns discovering each other's hypocrisy, but ... 'There's No Business Like Show Business'? Really? The WW2 thing just about worked, better than the show tunes bit, anyway, though again, not sure about the newsreels. But I did love Geraldine McEwan, she did a beautiful job as Holofernes.
Branagh's Henry V
I've watched this about three times in the past, but this time I actually understood what was going on! Yay me! It was marvellous, and oh, so clever, how they handled the Chorus. I adored Jacobi in this. And the 'Upon the king' scene in particular was done brilliantly.
Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/75916.html