Multiple reviews
Transatlantic twelve hour flights: made for movie marathons. So, en route to Los Angeles, I watched:
Spy: was as amusing as I was told, and made for someone like yours truly who enjoys both feminism and the occasional Bond film (and spoof of same, not for nothing is Our Man Bashirone of my favourite DS9 episodes). Melissa McCarthy rocked, and everyone else seems to have had a great time as well. (What the professional reviews never mentioned, though the fannish ones did, was that this isn't a one joke (watch the overweight 40s woman out-Bond them all) or one special woman movie; all but one of Susan's important relationships are with women. Her friendship with fellow analyst Nancy (odd to see Miranda Hart not as a midwife, though!), the traditionally prickly spymaster-agent one with her boss (Alison Janney's spy mistress is clearly C.J.'s (from West Wing) having to do the job for a while after a losing a bet with Kate), and the arch nemesis one with supervillain Raina (Rose Byrnes). The biggest surprise for me though was when what I thought was an obvious twist telegraphed from the start turned out to work out differently then I expected. If you're familiar with the genre, it's obvious from the get go that Jude Law's character isn't really dead, but will turn out to have worked for the bad guys. What I thought would happen was this, and that Susan thusly would get over her crush on him. What actually happened was in retrospect far more satisfying. Brady isn't a villain, he faked his death as an undercover ploy to gain Raina's trust, and tells Susan this as soon as he can, but by the end, she's over her crush anyway. This has the advantage that a) Susan doesn't have to feel foolish for her ten years partnership with him, b) the way he he had inadvertendly undermined her confidence by taking it for granted she wouldn't be good as a field agent, which worked out for his benefit, isn't a supervillain trait or a bad guy trait, it's something a non-villainous, even heroic character can do to a woman (far better statement about sexism than if he'd been revealed as a villain) and c) Susan getting over her crush and her dependency doesn't happen because of romantic disillusionment, it happens because she finds her confidence and proves to herself how good at her job she really is.
: Cinderella, live-action version: nice, but nothing outstanding. But then, my favourite Cinderella movie will always be the Czech one which in German has the title Drei Nüsse für Aschenbrödel. It's shown every Christmas and as a girl I must have watched it dozens of times. (Czech Cinderella also meeets the Prince first hunting, but that's because she's a proto Katnisss and secretly hunting in male disguise on a regular basis.)
Never Let Me Go: like the novel it's based on, the creepy horror of it lies in the way it never even occurs to the characters to revolt against the horrible premise; they've been far too well indoctrinated. I do have a problem with something utterly unrelated to the premise or the main themes, though. To wit: my lies with Ruth apologizing to Kathy and Tommy. No problem with Ruth asking for Kathy's forgiveness; Kathy was her best friend, Ruth knew Kathy was in love with Tommy, so Ruth going for Tommy out of jealousy was an emotional betrayal of that friendship. But it takes two to tango, so to speak, and nobody forced Tommy to respond to her advances, or to remain her boyfriend for years despite his emotions for Kathy. Every review describes this as Ruth "stealing" Tommy, but Tommy isn't a pair of ear rings! He's just as responsible for not having spend those years with Kathy instead of Ruth as Ruth is. Bah.
Empire, pilot episode:
zahrawithaz described this to me as a modern day The Lion in Winter AU, which as the pilot shows is indeed the case. (Though the pilot, as opposed to Goldman's drama and film whichleft her out, includes a Constance of Brittany equivalent as the wife of the Geoffrey character. I wonder whether this will spell doom for any kids they have...) Finding a current day equivalent for Eleanor's 16 years as Henry's prisoner after her failed war against him, or for the importance of the duchy of Aquitaine in the Plantagenet family power plays, I imagine was hardest, but lo, the writing team came up with something: she did time because she took the fall for the drugs which both she and Lucious traded before they made it big time in the music business, and now she's out, she wants her share of the business I thought that was a far better modern equivalent than what Susan Howatch found in Penmarric. Though I have one nitpick: for me, one key to the Eleanor and Henry relationship is that neither of them is the sole wronged party, is the one always in the right while the other is in the wrong. They both did terrible things to each other. Whereas with Cookie and Lucious in the pilot at least, there's a clear "she's right, he's wrong" narrative, added by the fact Lucious is the archetypical underappreciative and homophobic dad to Jamal, the Richard Lionhart character. I hope the season as a whole is a bit more subtle. Otherwise, I'll try to get the dvds as soon as they get released in Germany.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1110564.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Spy: was as amusing as I was told, and made for someone like yours truly who enjoys both feminism and the occasional Bond film (and spoof of same, not for nothing is Our Man Bashirone of my favourite DS9 episodes). Melissa McCarthy rocked, and everyone else seems to have had a great time as well. (What the professional reviews never mentioned, though the fannish ones did, was that this isn't a one joke (watch the overweight 40s woman out-Bond them all) or one special woman movie; all but one of Susan's important relationships are with women. Her friendship with fellow analyst Nancy (odd to see Miranda Hart not as a midwife, though!), the traditionally prickly spymaster-agent one with her boss (Alison Janney's spy mistress is clearly C.J.'s (from West Wing) having to do the job for a while after a losing a bet with Kate), and the arch nemesis one with supervillain Raina (Rose Byrnes). The biggest surprise for me though was when what I thought was an obvious twist telegraphed from the start turned out to work out differently then I expected. If you're familiar with the genre, it's obvious from the get go that Jude Law's character isn't really dead, but will turn out to have worked for the bad guys. What I thought would happen was this, and that Susan thusly would get over her crush on him. What actually happened was in retrospect far more satisfying. Brady isn't a villain, he faked his death as an undercover ploy to gain Raina's trust, and tells Susan this as soon as he can, but by the end, she's over her crush anyway. This has the advantage that a) Susan doesn't have to feel foolish for her ten years partnership with him, b) the way he he had inadvertendly undermined her confidence by taking it for granted she wouldn't be good as a field agent, which worked out for his benefit, isn't a supervillain trait or a bad guy trait, it's something a non-villainous, even heroic character can do to a woman (far better statement about sexism than if he'd been revealed as a villain) and c) Susan getting over her crush and her dependency doesn't happen because of romantic disillusionment, it happens because she finds her confidence and proves to herself how good at her job she really is.
: Cinderella, live-action version: nice, but nothing outstanding. But then, my favourite Cinderella movie will always be the Czech one which in German has the title Drei Nüsse für Aschenbrödel. It's shown every Christmas and as a girl I must have watched it dozens of times. (Czech Cinderella also meeets the Prince first hunting, but that's because she's a proto Katnisss and secretly hunting in male disguise on a regular basis.)
Never Let Me Go: like the novel it's based on, the creepy horror of it lies in the way it never even occurs to the characters to revolt against the horrible premise; they've been far too well indoctrinated. I do have a problem with something utterly unrelated to the premise or the main themes, though. To wit: my lies with Ruth apologizing to Kathy and Tommy. No problem with Ruth asking for Kathy's forgiveness; Kathy was her best friend, Ruth knew Kathy was in love with Tommy, so Ruth going for Tommy out of jealousy was an emotional betrayal of that friendship. But it takes two to tango, so to speak, and nobody forced Tommy to respond to her advances, or to remain her boyfriend for years despite his emotions for Kathy. Every review describes this as Ruth "stealing" Tommy, but Tommy isn't a pair of ear rings! He's just as responsible for not having spend those years with Kathy instead of Ruth as Ruth is. Bah.
Empire, pilot episode:
zahrawithaz described this to me as a modern day The Lion in Winter AU, which as the pilot shows is indeed the case. (Though the pilot, as opposed to Goldman's drama and film whichleft her out, includes a Constance of Brittany equivalent as the wife of the Geoffrey character. I wonder whether this will spell doom for any kids they have...) Finding a current day equivalent for Eleanor's 16 years as Henry's prisoner after her failed war against him, or for the importance of the duchy of Aquitaine in the Plantagenet family power plays, I imagine was hardest, but lo, the writing team came up with something: she did time because she took the fall for the drugs which both she and Lucious traded before they made it big time in the music business, and now she's out, she wants her share of the business I thought that was a far better modern equivalent than what Susan Howatch found in Penmarric. Though I have one nitpick: for me, one key to the Eleanor and Henry relationship is that neither of them is the sole wronged party, is the one always in the right while the other is in the wrong. They both did terrible things to each other. Whereas with Cookie and Lucious in the pilot at least, there's a clear "she's right, he's wrong" narrative, added by the fact Lucious is the archetypical underappreciative and homophobic dad to Jamal, the Richard Lionhart character. I hope the season as a whole is a bit more subtle. Otherwise, I'll try to get the dvds as soon as they get released in Germany.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1110564.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.