more watching
The Guns of Navarone
This was wonderful. And not only because Miller and Franklin did a little dance on top of my h/c and loyalty kink buttons with the whole broken leg storyline. It was also excellent storytelling and adventure, and I have to say Gregory Peck is extremely beautiful and is also my new mental model for Duv Galeni. And they introduced some good moral complexity with the assorted traitors in the ranks. I'm reading the book now, and it's quite different - the film introduced a lot of hostilities between the team of saboteurs which are not present in the book, especially Mallory and Andrea, who are an amazing devoted team in the book (and this is me not objecting to Andrea addressing Mallory as 'my Keith' all the time), whereas in the film Andrea is threatening to kill Mallory. I can see why they did the film the way they did, and it worked, but I do like the teamwork in the book better. On the other hand, the Miller/Franklin thing is only in the film; in the book there's a completely different character and storyline there. But both are good. Also, did I mention Gregory Peck? Have a picture (he's the one on the left):
Lie To Me (the first couple of episodes)
I liked this. It wasn't blow-your-mind amazing, but it was done well and clever and Dr Lightman is a good character and so is Dr Foster, and especially Ria Torres. I have no opinion on how accurate the science is, but they sell it reasonably well, and it only made me roll my eyes occasionally. I'm hoping for more interesting character stuff as this progresses.
Fringe (also the first couple of episodes)
This looks very promising. Olivia is reminding me so hard of a young Cordelia, and I love her courage and honesty and brains. Also Peter and Walter are utterly fascinating. And there's Philip, who totally has a crush on Olivia and who is very good-looking. Admittedly, it is the kind of thing where I close my eyes whenever the scary heartbeat music and spooky stuff happens, because I am so not a fan of scary and gory stuff, but I like it anyway. Oh, and Nina! Now there's an interesting character... definitely curious about where this is all going. I'm not particularly avoiding spoilers, but I'm not actively seeking them out either.
The Taming of the Shrew (the Zeffirelli one with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton)
Um. Er. It was very, um, colourful? I am not at all sure how seriously to take this play, or how seriously I want to take this play. Can someone please explain whether we're meant to, ah, accept the ending happily? I mean, it was all done very well, but ... ick.
X-Men First Class
It was okay. I can see why the slash fandom was dancing and singing over it, but it didn't do a lot for me. I liked Erik's storyline and they did a good job with his relationship with Charles, but I felt there could have been a lot more depth with the assembing a team of mutants stuff. I don't know why some things inspire fannishness in me and not others, but while I would happily read all the fic in the world for Mallory and Andrea, I have no particular interest in looking for Erik/Charles fic. Unfortunately, the rest of fandom appears to be the other way around.
The African Queen
Oh, this was wonderful! Utterly wonderful! I loved Charlie and I absolutely adored Rose - especially when she was all 'can we do that again' after they go down the death-defying rapids, and the whole story was fantastic and delightful.
The Lion in Winter
Wow. I followed about two out of three plot twists, but I didn't care a bit because oh wow that was good. Amazing acting, amazing storytelling, amazing writing - you can tell it was written as a play, because the script was so so good, so much clever banter and wordplay and lyricism all mixed together. Fantastic.
Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/77648.html