Week 7 viewing and being bad
I just ordered The Prestige from amazon and got a teensy carried away...also got a buncha Bristish productions I've been wanting for a while: Berkely Square, Clarissa, The Millionairess, Lorna Doone and The Moonstone...expect much babblings on those over the next few months.
(57) The Art of Seduction
(58) Numb3rs: Season 2
(59) Spiral: The Melody of Logic Vol 2(rewatch)
(60) Hwang Jin Yi
(61) Naruto Uncut Boxed Set 2
(62) The Illusionist
57, 59 and 60 already got their own posts.
Numb3rs
Like a lot of shows, season 1(while good) was the setup and season 2 was when it got good. Terry is gone, which depresses me to no end, but I do rather like Megan(and no, not because of her name) I'd rather have both, though. Season 1 barely got into the characters beyond Don, Charlie and their father, but season 2 focused on them a lot. I now have unreasonably levels of love for Larry, David and Colby. Like Bones, I like Numb3rs when I don't like most procedural shows because it's more about the characters and their relationships and interactions than the technology and methods they use(of course, for actual mysteries I turn to Poirot, Remington Steele, Veronica Mars and Monk) That said, as much as I love Charlie and Amita, Charlie needs to get his head screwed on straight pretty quick there or it's going to fizzle out(I get the feeling she's getting tired of waiting for him to figure out what he wants) Besides, aside from the occassional Larry/Megan scene there's not much OTP-ing going on, and they're my best hope, as Don is pretty much literally icapable of carrying on anything resembling a normal relationship(inless Terry comes back, she's good for Don and gets his issues)
Naruto
Dang they dragged out the Land of Waves story. It's a good story, but every episode reminded me that they were chewing up set space that could be used for the chunin exam, which is what made the series good. Beyond that, all I have to say about that arc is that I remain unconvinced that Haku is a guy.
Halfway through(after wasting some time for Naruto being stupid and Konohamaru being annoying) we FINALLY get to the chunin exam, where we start meeting the rest of the cast(read: the interesting characters) filling out my top 5 characters(Kakashi, Sakura, Shikimaru, Hinata and Kiba) and even the top ten(Temari, Sasuke, Iruka, Gai, Lee...honorable mentions for Neji and the Hokage...though we already met Iruka and the Hokage) The thing I like about the chunin exam is that it shows us how smart and crafty the characters(except Naruto) are capable of being, and how they have to be to survive. And it's also what changes Sakura from a shallow and annoying girl to one of the smarter females in manga. The one downside of Naruto is that it's one of those where the least interesting and most annoying character in the series is the main character, but the others make up for it.
The Illusionist
I hadn't heard about this one until
dangermousieposted about it when it came out, and it came and went from the theaters here(TWO WEEKS!) so fast that I didn't even KNOW it came out here and...sigh...*has Mirrormask deprivation flashbacks* A period romance-mystery-thriller with magic tricks? You KNOW this one was on my viewing list as soon as I heard about it.
The movie is about Eisenheim, a stage magician and illusionist who loved a noblewoman in his youth, but hasn't seen her in 15 years. When he hears that the prince of Vienna, who is known for misusing and hurting-even killing-his women has set his sights on her, he sets out to reenter her life and save her from him, rekindling their romance, only to have the prince apparently kill her in a jealous rage when he finds out, after which Eisenheim sets out to prove his guilt and get vengeance.
I figured out the big twist and most of the end uhm...about as soon as it came out, but that's largely because I semi-regularly mainline mysteries. But it was excellently acted, tightly plotted, and gorgeous, but not in the "look, I'm bright and shiny" way. I think it ties with PotC 2 as my favorite movie from '06(then again, there are so few new Hollywood movies I care enough about to see...)
Off to the parents before church to feed the cats and make sure they get SciFi(won't have time to go out, check, and make it back home between Dresden Files and church)