Book/Movie/TV Recs: It Came from the '60s Edition
The first two items below have a '60s setting and/or publishing date. And in some ways, they're remarkably similar, particularly in regards to the social problems they present. But, hey, fashion advice guide and superhero movie... worlds apart, right?
At the Movies:
X-Men: First Class: I enjoyed this very much, although there was a pivotal point in the plot where I wanted someone, anyone to say, "Boys! Boys! There's plenty of time for bickering about ideology and the nature of humanity later! Right now, we've got a crisis on our hands!" But I liked how this movie was basically the story of a bunch of social misfits coming together to stop the forces of depression, hatred, and darkness. Yay for the ragtag group of individuals! Boo to the either/or logical fallacy!
Other yay points:
* Sebastian Shaw may be an evil bastard, but wow his interior decorating skills were top-notch! Did you see the gorgeous wallpaper in that submarine?
* Charles' pick-up line was a thing of nerdy beauty.
* Eee! Cameos! Eee!
* Moira MacTaggart = made of awesome, win, and chutzpah.
Some difficult points:
* There was a little too much retconning for my taste, especially in the final plot twist. I find it hard to believe that Professor X would do that.
* Gender/race representation problems. These have already been talked about at great length by better persons than I, so I won't go into it here. Darwin's mutation was So. Cool! Why couldn't he have survived, dammit?
Anyway, so, yeah. I liked it a lot, although I'd also pay money to see an expanded version of the middle of the movie where Erik and Charles travel all over the place recruiting mutants. That film would be exceedingly relevant to my interests. I'd also pay to see something like, "How Moira Got Her Groove Back", but I suspect that's even less likely to get made.
In Books:
How to Dress for Success, by Edith Head: If only this book did not have the problems it does, I would recommend it to all and sundry. Edith Head, costume designer to the stars and fashion guru, is a down-to-earth writer (with a little help from a named editor) and her advice, when it's not mired in '60s weirdness, is actually quite practical and useful. As she says in the introduction, "If your liabilities seem overwhelming, remember this: in more than twenty years of designing for and dressing the world's most glamorous women for motion pictures, theatre, and television, I have yet to meet one who is physically flawless. Most of the beauties you think are perfect have defects just as you do. But they have learned how to accentuate the positive and camouflage the negative." She has a great number of suggestions that make a lot of sense: make sure you can move in the clothes you buy by moving in them before purchasing them; don't spend your money on trends that will be passe by next year; assess your body type and what flatters it, and shop accordingly. In her final chapter, she exhorts women to clean up their minds as well as their wardrobes and go forth boldly for the things they want in life. It's a fast, breezy read, and it's laid out in a pragmatic, easy to understand manner.
But there are many, many signs that it's from the '60s and rather dated. For one thing, Head insists that hats are the accessory that will make any outfit work, and that Nice Ladies should have enough hats to match their best outfits. She also spends a large part of a chapter dictating how wives should make sure their husbands dress ("It is very often some little defect in a man's wardrobe that keeps him from looking his sartorial best, and here again your wifely wisdom and loving care can go to work.") and her list of fashion icons is made up of only white women (the darkest skin tone she discusses is "olive".)
Still, there's some good advice here, and it's a funny love letter from almost forty-five years ago. I suspect Head would be appalled by my wardrobe, and the wardrobe of most Southern Californians'. After all, I have no outfits for entertaining and my current favorite hat is a Vader baseball cap.
Without the '60s setting, and on TV:
Doctor Who, "A Good Man Goes to War": I have a theory on this episode, and it hinges on the fact that I was spoiled for the ending, while D. was not. (The spoiling on my part was unintentional, of course, and was no fault of the person who spoiled it for me; rather, it was my fault for clicking on something I shouldn't have.) My theory is that if you went into this unspoiled and unprepared, this was the best episode ever; but if you went in knowing what was going to happen, the whole thing turned into a rather unsatisfying exercise in waiting for the other shoe to drop. D. loved the episode, but I came out from it excited, but not adoring.
This wasn't helped by some rather wooden dialogue, which surprised me; Moffat's episodes aren't usually that clunky or obvious. But: "My friend, you have never risen higher"? Really? The exact phrase that River uses earlier to foreshadow what's going to come? I get the point of parallel structure and emphasis, but this isn't subtle at all; it's a ham-handed attempt to bookend the action and it feels, for lack of a better word, rail road-ish. (Like a storyteller in a RPG who keeps reminding the characters that they HAVE TO RESCUE THE PRINCESS. You want to go where? A tavern? Oh, did I mention that you HAVE TO RESCUE THE PRINCESS?)
This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the episode. I really did, especially all the character bits. I adored Badass!Roman!Rory, and I really liked the Silurian and Jenny, and now wish they could have their own spinoff show. River and the Doctor's interaction, in the wake of the revelation, was just wonderful. Matt Smith and Alex Kingston appeared to be having a fabulous time making in their little in-jokes before the Doctor rushed off to RESCUE THE PRINCESS rescue Melody. The Doctor's entrance was spectacular and grand, too, and I liked the little motifs of the gathering of the army, and it made me wish I could go to every episode that was being referenced, to see exactly what the reference was.
And I will say that one image that really unnerved me was Amy's Flesh/Avatar baby melting in her arms. (It reminded me of the book I hated as a child, Outside Over There, by Maurice Sendak, where the heroine, Ida, discovers that her baby brother has been replaced with a changeling: "The ice thing only dripped and stared, and Ida, mad, knew the goblins had been there.") Perhaps it's because I'm a new parent and still hopped up a bit on hormones, but that sequence really bothered me.
Anyway, a good ending to a highly satisfying season, and next up, we have... "Let's Kill Hitler"...?! Uhm, really? You're going there, and by there, I mean as in concept, not place? Well. Hence, my "oh, my!" icon.
At the Movies:
X-Men: First Class: I enjoyed this very much, although there was a pivotal point in the plot where I wanted someone, anyone to say, "Boys! Boys! There's plenty of time for bickering about ideology and the nature of humanity later! Right now, we've got a crisis on our hands!" But I liked how this movie was basically the story of a bunch of social misfits coming together to stop the forces of depression, hatred, and darkness. Yay for the ragtag group of individuals! Boo to the either/or logical fallacy!
Other yay points:
* Sebastian Shaw may be an evil bastard, but wow his interior decorating skills were top-notch! Did you see the gorgeous wallpaper in that submarine?
* Charles' pick-up line was a thing of nerdy beauty.
* Eee! Cameos! Eee!
* Moira MacTaggart = made of awesome, win, and chutzpah.
Some difficult points:
* There was a little too much retconning for my taste, especially in the final plot twist. I find it hard to believe that Professor X would do that.
* Gender/race representation problems. These have already been talked about at great length by better persons than I, so I won't go into it here. Darwin's mutation was So. Cool! Why couldn't he have survived, dammit?
Anyway, so, yeah. I liked it a lot, although I'd also pay money to see an expanded version of the middle of the movie where Erik and Charles travel all over the place recruiting mutants. That film would be exceedingly relevant to my interests. I'd also pay to see something like, "How Moira Got Her Groove Back", but I suspect that's even less likely to get made.
In Books:
How to Dress for Success, by Edith Head: If only this book did not have the problems it does, I would recommend it to all and sundry. Edith Head, costume designer to the stars and fashion guru, is a down-to-earth writer (with a little help from a named editor) and her advice, when it's not mired in '60s weirdness, is actually quite practical and useful. As she says in the introduction, "If your liabilities seem overwhelming, remember this: in more than twenty years of designing for and dressing the world's most glamorous women for motion pictures, theatre, and television, I have yet to meet one who is physically flawless. Most of the beauties you think are perfect have defects just as you do. But they have learned how to accentuate the positive and camouflage the negative." She has a great number of suggestions that make a lot of sense: make sure you can move in the clothes you buy by moving in them before purchasing them; don't spend your money on trends that will be passe by next year; assess your body type and what flatters it, and shop accordingly. In her final chapter, she exhorts women to clean up their minds as well as their wardrobes and go forth boldly for the things they want in life. It's a fast, breezy read, and it's laid out in a pragmatic, easy to understand manner.
But there are many, many signs that it's from the '60s and rather dated. For one thing, Head insists that hats are the accessory that will make any outfit work, and that Nice Ladies should have enough hats to match their best outfits. She also spends a large part of a chapter dictating how wives should make sure their husbands dress ("It is very often some little defect in a man's wardrobe that keeps him from looking his sartorial best, and here again your wifely wisdom and loving care can go to work.") and her list of fashion icons is made up of only white women (the darkest skin tone she discusses is "olive".)
Still, there's some good advice here, and it's a funny love letter from almost forty-five years ago. I suspect Head would be appalled by my wardrobe, and the wardrobe of most Southern Californians'. After all, I have no outfits for entertaining and my current favorite hat is a Vader baseball cap.
Without the '60s setting, and on TV:
Doctor Who, "A Good Man Goes to War": I have a theory on this episode, and it hinges on the fact that I was spoiled for the ending, while D. was not. (The spoiling on my part was unintentional, of course, and was no fault of the person who spoiled it for me; rather, it was my fault for clicking on something I shouldn't have.) My theory is that if you went into this unspoiled and unprepared, this was the best episode ever; but if you went in knowing what was going to happen, the whole thing turned into a rather unsatisfying exercise in waiting for the other shoe to drop. D. loved the episode, but I came out from it excited, but not adoring.
This wasn't helped by some rather wooden dialogue, which surprised me; Moffat's episodes aren't usually that clunky or obvious. But: "My friend, you have never risen higher"? Really? The exact phrase that River uses earlier to foreshadow what's going to come? I get the point of parallel structure and emphasis, but this isn't subtle at all; it's a ham-handed attempt to bookend the action and it feels, for lack of a better word, rail road-ish. (Like a storyteller in a RPG who keeps reminding the characters that they HAVE TO RESCUE THE PRINCESS. You want to go where? A tavern? Oh, did I mention that you HAVE TO RESCUE THE PRINCESS?)
This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the episode. I really did, especially all the character bits. I adored Badass!Roman!Rory, and I really liked the Silurian and Jenny, and now wish they could have their own spinoff show. River and the Doctor's interaction, in the wake of the revelation, was just wonderful. Matt Smith and Alex Kingston appeared to be having a fabulous time making in their little in-jokes before the Doctor rushed off to RESCUE THE PRINCESS rescue Melody. The Doctor's entrance was spectacular and grand, too, and I liked the little motifs of the gathering of the army, and it made me wish I could go to every episode that was being referenced, to see exactly what the reference was.
And I will say that one image that really unnerved me was Amy's Flesh/Avatar baby melting in her arms. (It reminded me of the book I hated as a child, Outside Over There, by Maurice Sendak, where the heroine, Ida, discovers that her baby brother has been replaced with a changeling: "The ice thing only dripped and stared, and Ida, mad, knew the goblins had been there.") Perhaps it's because I'm a new parent and still hopped up a bit on hormones, but that sequence really bothered me.
Anyway, a good ending to a highly satisfying season, and next up, we have... "Let's Kill Hitler"...?! Uhm, really? You're going there, and by there, I mean as in concept, not place? Well. Hence, my "oh, my!" icon.