Films, Spooks and LJ
oo1. Are you wondering where all those little preview pop-ups came from that might be peppering your LJ wherever you've included a link? See this post from news. You can select/deselect the Graphic Preview option here.
oo2. DVDs seen recently: We watched Borat in two installments. It's funny in an utterly tasteless, train-wreck sort of way, and it's also utterly horrifying. Sacha Baron Cohen is very good at pushing all the buttons of Wrong and at emphasizing how awful people can be (with tiny glimmers of light every now and then). We also watched an okay rom-com entitled Imagine Me & You starring Matthew Goode (Match Point), Piper Perabo doing a not-so-great British accent (isn't she Texan?) and a wonderful Lena Headey. I always love Lena, regardless of the quality of the production. The plot? Rachel (Piper Perabo) connects eyes with Lena Headey's Luce while walking down the aisle to marry her long-time love Heck (Matthew Goode). It's a bit distasteful in that the burgeoning romance occurs after the wedding, which is always horribly sad, and yet it's not done too badly, despite all the predictability of the genre. I'm probably being generous because I love Lena! :P
oo3. I got to see one of my favorite, favorite movies: Blade Runner on the the biggest screen in town this week. This was absolutely the week's highlight. A month ago I linked to the New York Times' review of Ridley's Scott's 'Final Cut' of the the film which will be coming out on DVD in December, and I'm happy to say they were spot on. I've seen the film many times before, but never like this, never in the theater on a huge screen. It was an amazing experience, and I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity.
oo4. Spooks episode 6.04, what ridiculousness! I can completely understand why alexandral has dropped Spooks from her watchlist after the utter preposterousness of this week's episode.
I can understand that the writers may have to work around budget cuts, but good grief, maybe they can try to be more creative rather than give us scenes of Adam frantically running - yes, RUNNING, I say - from the Savoy hotel in London to the other fancy hotel quite some distance away (whose name I just forgot) to stop the bad guys from bombing the Iranian Special Consul. Ugh. The best part of the episode was the genuine tension generated by the scene with the Special Consul's wife killing her husband's aide when he burst in on her secretly recording her husband's meeting. Although even there I was rolling my eyes that MI5 would even consider asking an asset such as Anna to do what she did without any proper training, etc. Or how about Jo getting kidnapped - I have to admit wanting to agree with CIA Bob even though I also wanted to slap him for being so annoying!
...the episode was definitely lacking and full of 'wtf?' moments, and yet I'm still watching because I could never not watch, not as long as Harry's in charge and there's still even the possibility of a good story. :) The team is still interested in determining Zaf's ultimate fate, although it's poor writing to really register no reaction to Zaf's disappearance/possible death from the gang, because that coupled with the frequent mentions of his name just underline the fact that he's not dead. Way to telegraph that to us! And if for some reason he IS dead, then the writers have dropped the ball even further by giving a core character the worst exit possible: the non-exit.
Hmm, I wish I didn't sound so negative. THEY ALL LOOK SO PRETTY and it's edited and filmed so nicely that it sort of makes me feel a bit better, but only a bit. I hope next episode is better. SEE? This is why I prefer to mainline dramas: the bad sort of fades into the good - when I watch television like this on a weekly basis, the flaws become enormous.
oo2. DVDs seen recently: We watched Borat in two installments. It's funny in an utterly tasteless, train-wreck sort of way, and it's also utterly horrifying. Sacha Baron Cohen is very good at pushing all the buttons of Wrong and at emphasizing how awful people can be (with tiny glimmers of light every now and then). We also watched an okay rom-com entitled Imagine Me & You starring Matthew Goode (Match Point), Piper Perabo doing a not-so-great British accent (isn't she Texan?) and a wonderful Lena Headey. I always love Lena, regardless of the quality of the production. The plot? Rachel (Piper Perabo) connects eyes with Lena Headey's Luce while walking down the aisle to marry her long-time love Heck (Matthew Goode). It's a bit distasteful in that the burgeoning romance occurs after the wedding, which is always horribly sad, and yet it's not done too badly, despite all the predictability of the genre. I'm probably being generous because I love Lena! :P
oo3. I got to see one of my favorite, favorite movies: Blade Runner on the the biggest screen in town this week. This was absolutely the week's highlight. A month ago I linked to the New York Times' review of Ridley's Scott's 'Final Cut' of the the film which will be coming out on DVD in December, and I'm happy to say they were spot on. I've seen the film many times before, but never like this, never in the theater on a huge screen. It was an amazing experience, and I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity.
oo4. Spooks episode 6.04, what ridiculousness! I can completely understand why alexandral has dropped Spooks from her watchlist after the utter preposterousness of this week's episode.
I can understand that the writers may have to work around budget cuts, but good grief, maybe they can try to be more creative rather than give us scenes of Adam frantically running - yes, RUNNING, I say - from the Savoy hotel in London to the other fancy hotel quite some distance away (whose name I just forgot) to stop the bad guys from bombing the Iranian Special Consul. Ugh. The best part of the episode was the genuine tension generated by the scene with the Special Consul's wife killing her husband's aide when he burst in on her secretly recording her husband's meeting. Although even there I was rolling my eyes that MI5 would even consider asking an asset such as Anna to do what she did without any proper training, etc. Or how about Jo getting kidnapped - I have to admit wanting to agree with CIA Bob even though I also wanted to slap him for being so annoying!
...the episode was definitely lacking and full of 'wtf?' moments, and yet I'm still watching because I could never not watch, not as long as Harry's in charge and there's still even the possibility of a good story. :) The team is still interested in determining Zaf's ultimate fate, although it's poor writing to really register no reaction to Zaf's disappearance/possible death from the gang, because that coupled with the frequent mentions of his name just underline the fact that he's not dead. Way to telegraph that to us! And if for some reason he IS dead, then the writers have dropped the ball even further by giving a core character the worst exit possible: the non-exit.
Hmm, I wish I didn't sound so negative. THEY ALL LOOK SO PRETTY and it's edited and filmed so nicely that it sort of makes me feel a bit better, but only a bit. I hope next episode is better. SEE? This is why I prefer to mainline dramas: the bad sort of fades into the good - when I watch television like this on a weekly basis, the flaws become enormous.