OK, I finally saw it! I knew the most important plot points from hearing other people talk, but I can't really absorb soundtracks or songs without watching the performers, so it was only now I actually saw or heard it.
And, well, for me it was really amazing -- all those emotions which I'd *expected* to have, I experienced them just like I expected!
ghoti's enjoyment was rather impaired by some unfortunate things about this production which hadn't had the same impact on me though, if that makes a difference to you you should probably check with her.
I don't have a whole lot extra to say, "just like everyone said" covers most of it :) I enjoyed it pretty much continuously all the way through. All the actors were great. I especially loved the cabinet rap battles, the federalising monetary policy one and the keeping faith with France one. Like the American chopper meme, I want more things explained as high energy arguments where I can see both sides! :)
I may have some more overall thoughts when I've mulled it over some more :)
And, well, for me it was really amazing -- all those emotions which I'd *expected* to have, I experienced them just like I expected!
ghoti's enjoyment was rather impaired by some unfortunate things about this production which hadn't had the same impact on me though, if that makes a difference to you you should probably check with her.
I don't have a whole lot extra to say, "just like everyone said" covers most of it :) I enjoyed it pretty much continuously all the way through. All the actors were great. I especially loved the cabinet rap battles, the federalising monetary policy one and the keeping faith with France one. Like the American chopper meme, I want more things explained as high energy arguments where I can see both sides! :)
I may have some more overall thoughts when I've mulled it over some more :)
Thoughts on Justice League
Jun. 6th, 2018 11:50 amI didn't fall in love with it, but it managed at least some of the important things for a super hero film, some humour, some tension, and some reason for everyone other than superman to matter.
I enjoyed the little character moments like the Superman and Batman moments, the lasso of truth mishaps, and superman and flash racing each other. And Batman playing reluctant leader.
My basic prescription is, "like that, but more so".
Although I still find it hard to adjust to continuities where superman punches someone and then there's "more fight, but they're driven backwards into the ground" not "there's a comedy superman-shaped-fist"
( Spoilers )
I enjoyed the little character moments like the Superman and Batman moments, the lasso of truth mishaps, and superman and flash racing each other. And Batman playing reluctant leader.
My basic prescription is, "like that, but more so".
Although I still find it hard to adjust to continuities where superman punches someone and then there's "more fight, but they're driven backwards into the ground" not "there's a comedy superman-shaped-fist"
( Spoilers )
Solo, general thoughts
Jun. 4th, 2018 11:35 amOverall, it was quite fun, I enjoyed many parts of it, but I wanted a lot more of the parts I liked, even if I didn't dislike the other parts.
I enjoyed the first ten minutes or so, even if it was a bit all over the place, it felt like things were happening, and we were seeing Han's life in ways we didn't know in advance what was going to happen.
I enjoyed the lando cloaks, the gambling scenes, the droid rebellion bits, but I wanted lots more of all of that!
Rachel Manija helpfully summarises all the things that were bad about it, and I agree; I didn't dislike them as much as she did, but I agree, I wanted less of that. The dimness didn't bother me as much as some people, but it wasn't a positive either.
I was pleased to see Paul Bethany, Woody Harrelson, Warwick Davies and Donald Glover appearing in a major film. They all had roles I loved, and I'd hoped to see more of them even though I hadn't recently. And Mindy Kaling (from The Mindy Project) in Ocean's 8 trailer.
Funnily enough, my main observation was that I had almost no quibbles -- there were things which were mediocre, but almost nothing where I was like, "O M G how could they do that?" And apparently that didn't make a big difference to my enjoyment -- as I expected, my enjoyment seems to be "how many things I loved" a lot more often than "how many things I disliked" (the opposite being films which break a barrier of put-up-with-ness in me, when something is obnoxious enough, I stop loving it however many good things there are). And Solo was still, "fairly good, but not great". But the good bits were well worth seeing at least for me.
( Some spoilers )
I enjoyed the first ten minutes or so, even if it was a bit all over the place, it felt like things were happening, and we were seeing Han's life in ways we didn't know in advance what was going to happen.
I enjoyed the lando cloaks, the gambling scenes, the droid rebellion bits, but I wanted lots more of all of that!
Rachel Manija helpfully summarises all the things that were bad about it, and I agree; I didn't dislike them as much as she did, but I agree, I wanted less of that. The dimness didn't bother me as much as some people, but it wasn't a positive either.
I was pleased to see Paul Bethany, Woody Harrelson, Warwick Davies and Donald Glover appearing in a major film. They all had roles I loved, and I'd hoped to see more of them even though I hadn't recently. And Mindy Kaling (from The Mindy Project) in Ocean's 8 trailer.
Funnily enough, my main observation was that I had almost no quibbles -- there were things which were mediocre, but almost nothing where I was like, "O M G how could they do that?" And apparently that didn't make a big difference to my enjoyment -- as I expected, my enjoyment seems to be "how many things I loved" a lot more often than "how many things I disliked" (the opposite being films which break a barrier of put-up-with-ness in me, when something is obnoxious enough, I stop loving it however many good things there are). And Solo was still, "fairly good, but not great". But the good bits were well worth seeing at least for me.
( Some spoilers )
Wrinkle in Time
Mar. 29th, 2018 11:19 amThis was really good! I hadn't expected it to be filmable, but they did a really good job, conveying most of the original without worrying about changing little details.
The characters were excellent. Charles Wallace really seemed both like an empathetic genius but also like a six year old. Meg was great. The Mrses if anything seemed better portrayed, as otherworldly and strange, as good, as powerful and helpful, but not entirely practical. (I loved seeing Mindy Kaling in role other than The Mindy Project.)
The creepy bits were creepy. They did a good job conveying the magic and magical nature of reality with a connection to mainstream physics (although obviously I would have preferred technobabble that might actually click with physicists.
It's funny, usually I empathise with the put-upon lonely genius, but apparently I empathise with the put-upon loner a lot more than the genius when my empathy has to choose.
Liv excited if they make the sequel about mitochondria.
I hear BBC are making City and the City? Wow, that's going to be hard. But seeing Wrinkle in Time I wondered if they could actually make a good job adapting Young Wizards!
The characters were excellent. Charles Wallace really seemed both like an empathetic genius but also like a six year old. Meg was great. The Mrses if anything seemed better portrayed, as otherworldly and strange, as good, as powerful and helpful, but not entirely practical. (I loved seeing Mindy Kaling in role other than The Mindy Project.)
The creepy bits were creepy. They did a good job conveying the magic and magical nature of reality with a connection to mainstream physics (although obviously I would have preferred technobabble that might actually click with physicists.
It's funny, usually I empathise with the put-upon lonely genius, but apparently I empathise with the put-upon loner a lot more than the genius when my empathy has to choose.
Liv excited if they make the sequel about mitochondria.
I hear BBC are making City and the City? Wow, that's going to be hard. But seeing Wrinkle in Time I wondered if they could actually make a good job adapting Young Wizards!
I've been thinking about antagonists, or anti-heroes, maybe, people in general. Ones I liked as people, ones I liked the writing of, ones I didn't like, what worked well and what didn't.
And it occurred to me, what commonly works well, is that they have a sympathetic/plausible/justified motivation. But that they go too far or do bad things in the cause of it.
That most of what they think, what you'd see in a story from their point of view, is what you might agree with. That doesn't apply to everyone, some people genuinely spend all day doing horrible things, but there are several advantages to using a character like that, the audience finds it easy to sympathise with them, and so does the writer.
But the other half of the equation is that they do bad, unjustified things, but they usually don't *think* about whether they're ok, they're usually not "here is my complicated justification for why X is ok", they just take it as the way the world is.
You can recognise a spectrum. Some antagonists are not really better or worse than the protagonist, we just empathise with the protagonist because it's their story, the differences is that each just happen to be opposed by circumstance, their moral choices aren't very different. Some antagonists do clearly horrible things.
A common choice is a character who *usually* does bad things but isn't *right now*, and you can get invested in their story and then see if they redeem themselves, or if you get to know them before deciding they're still a horrible person even if you came to like them.
It can also be done inconsistently where the villain see-saws back and forth across "can the audience empathise" because the writer picks some things which are kinda bad and some things which are really horrible without regard to an overall arc.
The first couple of Game of Thrones books do this very well, most of the viewpoint characters I find very sympathetic, even if I hated some of them when reading about what they did from the outside.
An example prominent in my mind was Magneto. I recently saw someone saying "Magneto was right", and I thought that a lot after the first film I saw: that if he *could* fight back and do anything to prevent mutants being systematically contained and abused by society, that makes a lot of sense. It's possible Charles' approach is more likely to work, but it's possible Magneto's is (or more likely, both approaches together are more effective than either alone).
However, as I watched more movies that characterisation seems lost. It seems like in every single movie, Magneto's noble goals lead through a train of tortured reasoning, to "and then mass murder", or "and then genocide". And then the X-men get to be the 'good guys' without having to ask whether a more targeted campaign of violence they'd be wrong to oppose. I'm inclined to put that down to the characterisation suffering for the needs of the plot, because I like the character and don't want to condemn them. Or that it's pushing the message that "any violence leads to too much violence" which I *generally* agree with, but probably not for a minority fighting against their extermination. Or that Magneto has a character flaw where his justified hatred of non-mutants, leads to all his plans ending "and then a massive indiscriminate slaughter of non-mutants" which doesn't seem to actually help.
And it occurred to me, what commonly works well, is that they have a sympathetic/plausible/justified motivation. But that they go too far or do bad things in the cause of it.
That most of what they think, what you'd see in a story from their point of view, is what you might agree with. That doesn't apply to everyone, some people genuinely spend all day doing horrible things, but there are several advantages to using a character like that, the audience finds it easy to sympathise with them, and so does the writer.
But the other half of the equation is that they do bad, unjustified things, but they usually don't *think* about whether they're ok, they're usually not "here is my complicated justification for why X is ok", they just take it as the way the world is.
You can recognise a spectrum. Some antagonists are not really better or worse than the protagonist, we just empathise with the protagonist because it's their story, the differences is that each just happen to be opposed by circumstance, their moral choices aren't very different. Some antagonists do clearly horrible things.
A common choice is a character who *usually* does bad things but isn't *right now*, and you can get invested in their story and then see if they redeem themselves, or if you get to know them before deciding they're still a horrible person even if you came to like them.
It can also be done inconsistently where the villain see-saws back and forth across "can the audience empathise" because the writer picks some things which are kinda bad and some things which are really horrible without regard to an overall arc.
The first couple of Game of Thrones books do this very well, most of the viewpoint characters I find very sympathetic, even if I hated some of them when reading about what they did from the outside.
An example prominent in my mind was Magneto. I recently saw someone saying "Magneto was right", and I thought that a lot after the first film I saw: that if he *could* fight back and do anything to prevent mutants being systematically contained and abused by society, that makes a lot of sense. It's possible Charles' approach is more likely to work, but it's possible Magneto's is (or more likely, both approaches together are more effective than either alone).
However, as I watched more movies that characterisation seems lost. It seems like in every single movie, Magneto's noble goals lead through a train of tortured reasoning, to "and then mass murder", or "and then genocide". And then the X-men get to be the 'good guys' without having to ask whether a more targeted campaign of violence they'd be wrong to oppose. I'm inclined to put that down to the characterisation suffering for the needs of the plot, because I like the character and don't want to condemn them. Or that it's pushing the message that "any violence leads to too much violence" which I *generally* agree with, but probably not for a minority fighting against their extermination. Or that Magneto has a character flaw where his justified hatred of non-mutants, leads to all his plans ending "and then a massive indiscriminate slaughter of non-mutants" which doesn't seem to actually help.
Russel's Attic #3
I think it was kaberett who put me onto these. Some people have not-exactly-supernatural-but-better-than-humanly-possible talent. Cas does maths, so well she can predict paths of bullets and other matrix-reminiscent stuff in real time. And works as a freelance "acquirer".
What's lovely is her relationship with the few people she works with, the PI, the hacker, the office assistant, where she's instinctively opposed to human connections at all, but comes to value a few of them anyway. And Rio, the scary I'm-a-sociopath-but-happen-to-be-on-your-side character.
One of the side stories is "Rio adopts a puppy" and it's, um, very moving, in good ways, but also, without anything very gory happening, rather emotionally scary too.
In book #3, we finally have Cas interacting with research mathematicians, and learning her opinions on various maths research, and it's really quite cool. If you like books about freelance mercenaries and cutting edge mathematical research.
Shambling Guide #2: Ghost Train to New Orleans
A protagonist sucked into working for a publishing house run by a vampire, writing a travel guide for supernatural creatures, the second volume now visiting New Orleans. I enjoyed it, maybe more than the first book, as the worldbuilding has settled down a bit, and it doesn't feel like everything that they encounter came out of nowhere.
Good place
A recent sitcom about a woman who goes to the afterlife, "your notions of heaven and hell are not exactly correct, but there's a good place, and a bad place", and is in the good place by mistake. Or rather, it gets more complicated than that, but that's the premise.
If you like comedy that regularly mentions Kant and Hume, this is it :) The humour isn't very intense, but isn't very cringeworthy, but the relaxed humorous tone lets it explore what that afterlife might be like in ways a more serious attempt wouldn't be able to.
I think it was kaberett who put me onto these. Some people have not-exactly-supernatural-but-better-than-humanly-possible talent. Cas does maths, so well she can predict paths of bullets and other matrix-reminiscent stuff in real time. And works as a freelance "acquirer".
What's lovely is her relationship with the few people she works with, the PI, the hacker, the office assistant, where she's instinctively opposed to human connections at all, but comes to value a few of them anyway. And Rio, the scary I'm-a-sociopath-but-happen-to-be-on-your-side character.
One of the side stories is "Rio adopts a puppy" and it's, um, very moving, in good ways, but also, without anything very gory happening, rather emotionally scary too.
In book #3, we finally have Cas interacting with research mathematicians, and learning her opinions on various maths research, and it's really quite cool. If you like books about freelance mercenaries and cutting edge mathematical research.
Shambling Guide #2: Ghost Train to New Orleans
A protagonist sucked into working for a publishing house run by a vampire, writing a travel guide for supernatural creatures, the second volume now visiting New Orleans. I enjoyed it, maybe more than the first book, as the worldbuilding has settled down a bit, and it doesn't feel like everything that they encounter came out of nowhere.
Good place
A recent sitcom about a woman who goes to the afterlife, "your notions of heaven and hell are not exactly correct, but there's a good place, and a bad place", and is in the good place by mistake. Or rather, it gets more complicated than that, but that's the premise.
If you like comedy that regularly mentions Kant and Hume, this is it :) The humour isn't very intense, but isn't very cringeworthy, but the relaxed humorous tone lets it explore what that afterlife might be like in ways a more serious attempt wouldn't be able to.
Arrival ranting
Aug. 20th, 2017 11:44 pmSo, Arrival (the film, adapted from the Ted Chiang story). I didn't have a lot to say about it. Aliens, were great. Linguist, was great. Kind-of-sympathetic kind-of-antagonist military were a bit gratuitous, but generally good. But I did have thoughts about a few specific things.
And, yes, I'm annoyed it wasn't EVEN MORE like a Ted Chiang story than it was, but please do adapt as many Ted Chiang stories as you can. The tower-of-babel one would be amazing...
( Spoilers )
And, yes, I'm annoyed it wasn't EVEN MORE like a Ted Chiang story than it was, but please do adapt as many Ted Chiang stories as you can. The tower-of-babel one would be amazing...
( Spoilers )
In Lucky Number Slevin, there's a bit where a guy who's life is a disaster gets a second hand tip and makes a bet on a horse race with an (illegal) bookie he can't afford, and unsurprisingly it goes horrible wrong and they try to kill him.
The main moral is "prohibition makes for good films and disastrous government policy".
But then I got to thinking about the mechanics of running a bookie without access to law enforcement and banking infrastructure, and I didn't actually understand it.
I assumed, illegal bookies would exist on a spectrum. The more honest implementation being like a legal bookie: accept bets with cash up-front, or from people you're pretty sure are a good credit risk. Pay out if they win. That's it.
The other end of the spectrum being like a loan shark: extend credit to as many people as possible, let people get in over their heads, and then milk them for as long as possible before their life falls apart in ruins. If anyone decides to just not pay, force them or make an example out of them with physical violence.
But in Slevin, it seems like, the organised crime people knew in advance the mug was broke and could never really pay. So why do they accept the bet at all? As soon as the horse loses, they make a move on him. So they never expected to get *any* money from him whatever the race outcome. Even if you're *willing* to messily kill people, what do they gain by getting into that in the first place?
Is it just to get a splashy example so other people pay up? But don't you want them to dig themselves in FIRST? If you START by scaring everyone, maybe they just won't borrow money from you?
The main moral is "prohibition makes for good films and disastrous government policy".
But then I got to thinking about the mechanics of running a bookie without access to law enforcement and banking infrastructure, and I didn't actually understand it.
I assumed, illegal bookies would exist on a spectrum. The more honest implementation being like a legal bookie: accept bets with cash up-front, or from people you're pretty sure are a good credit risk. Pay out if they win. That's it.
The other end of the spectrum being like a loan shark: extend credit to as many people as possible, let people get in over their heads, and then milk them for as long as possible before their life falls apart in ruins. If anyone decides to just not pay, force them or make an example out of them with physical violence.
But in Slevin, it seems like, the organised crime people knew in advance the mug was broke and could never really pay. So why do they accept the bet at all? As soon as the horse loses, they make a move on him. So they never expected to get *any* money from him whatever the race outcome. Even if you're *willing* to messily kill people, what do they gain by getting into that in the first place?
Is it just to get a splashy example so other people pay up? But don't you want them to dig themselves in FIRST? If you START by scaring everyone, maybe they just won't borrow money from you?
Recent media
Jun. 7th, 2016 12:28 pmCaped anthology
A collection of superhero short stories. Not a must-read, but I found all were a good read in a different way.
Archivist Wasp, book
Which was on the wiki of "potential hugo nominations" with a great title. I loved the basic setting, a post-apocalyptic world, where the protagonist is honoured/trapped as the archivist, ghost-hunter, forced each year by the priest to fight to the death to keep her role as intermediate to the supernatural. Straining to keep the community safe from dangerous ghosts, and to record what scraps of information she can, to add to the archives for future archivists.
Then she meets a pre-apocalypse (or contemporary-with-apocalypse) ghost, much stronger than any other, and they flee together, passing through the ghost underworld, and... Well, I liked the start but got bored, so I didn't finish it.
Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi
I loved the premise here, all about life in a mostly-post-uplift solar system. The inner planets are ruled by some of the cabal who were uplifted first, now effectively Gods. The Oubliette is one of the few havens for non-uplifted, but ruled by a massive shared exo-memory, people share or refuse permissions from. Other humans live in the Oort cloud. Jean Le Flambeur is an anti-hero thief, with unspecified ties to the "gods", broken out of a virtual prison to recover... something from Oubliette.
When I first read it, I completely bounced off it. On second reading, all that mostly made sense to me, and I was really interested in it. But I wasn't sure how consistent it could be, if it would be kept up for the following books or not. I will probably try them at some point.
And it constantly felt like they waved "quantum" around as magic, and I'm not sure, if my understanding is lacking, or the book's is.
Better Call Saul
The prequel series to Breaking Bad, about Jimmy McGill (later aka Saul Goodman), an ex-huckster small-time lawyer trying to make good, and torn between his impulses to "be basically decent", "screw everything up" and "open his mouth at the wrong time". From the reviews it sounded like I would enjoy it more than BB, and I quite enjoyed the first half-a-dozen episodes, but then I mostly lost interest.
A collection of superhero short stories. Not a must-read, but I found all were a good read in a different way.
Archivist Wasp, book
Which was on the wiki of "potential hugo nominations" with a great title. I loved the basic setting, a post-apocalyptic world, where the protagonist is honoured/trapped as the archivist, ghost-hunter, forced each year by the priest to fight to the death to keep her role as intermediate to the supernatural. Straining to keep the community safe from dangerous ghosts, and to record what scraps of information she can, to add to the archives for future archivists.
Then she meets a pre-apocalypse (or contemporary-with-apocalypse) ghost, much stronger than any other, and they flee together, passing through the ghost underworld, and... Well, I liked the start but got bored, so I didn't finish it.
Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi
I loved the premise here, all about life in a mostly-post-uplift solar system. The inner planets are ruled by some of the cabal who were uplifted first, now effectively Gods. The Oubliette is one of the few havens for non-uplifted, but ruled by a massive shared exo-memory, people share or refuse permissions from. Other humans live in the Oort cloud. Jean Le Flambeur is an anti-hero thief, with unspecified ties to the "gods", broken out of a virtual prison to recover... something from Oubliette.
When I first read it, I completely bounced off it. On second reading, all that mostly made sense to me, and I was really interested in it. But I wasn't sure how consistent it could be, if it would be kept up for the following books or not. I will probably try them at some point.
And it constantly felt like they waved "quantum" around as magic, and I'm not sure, if my understanding is lacking, or the book's is.
Better Call Saul
The prequel series to Breaking Bad, about Jimmy McGill (later aka Saul Goodman), an ex-huckster small-time lawyer trying to make good, and torn between his impulses to "be basically decent", "screw everything up" and "open his mouth at the wrong time". From the reviews it sounded like I would enjoy it more than BB, and I quite enjoyed the first half-a-dozen episodes, but then I mostly lost interest.
Captain America; Civil War
May. 12th, 2016 04:23 pmThat was pretty good. None of the MCU were perfect for me, but this one did a lot of good stuff. (And some awful stuff as usual :( )
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Film: Fight Club
May. 11th, 2016 02:28 pmAnother film I think I watched once, but then absorbed a lot more of from popular culture. I think it held up pretty well.
As with many films *about* violence, it walks an uneasy line between talking about it and exploring why some people are drawn to it, and exploring why it's bad.
Spoilers:
( Read more... )
As with many films *about* violence, it walks an uneasy line between talking about it and exploring why some people are drawn to it, and exploring why it's bad.
Spoilers:
( Read more... )
Film: Usual Suspects
May. 4th, 2016 01:18 pmOne of the classic films I saw at some point on TV, but wasn't paying enough attention to really follow at the time.
Mostly recounted by Verbal Kint, a small-time confidence trickster in an interview with the police after a bloodbath at a freighter ship, recounting how he and four other guys met at a police line-up, did a robbery, fell into a job set up by legendary illusive crime-lord Keyser Soze, and how he ended up involved in the massacre.
And questioning, what else is going on that makes these events only make sense in retrospect.
It's not exactly a heist movie, but it has some of the same feel, it's a classic if you don't object to fairly violent crime movies, and enjoy an air of intellectual questioning.
( Lots of spoilers )
Mostly recounted by Verbal Kint, a small-time confidence trickster in an interview with the police after a bloodbath at a freighter ship, recounting how he and four other guys met at a police line-up, did a robbery, fell into a job set up by legendary illusive crime-lord Keyser Soze, and how he ended up involved in the massacre.
And questioning, what else is going on that makes these events only make sense in retrospect.
It's not exactly a heist movie, but it has some of the same feel, it's a classic if you don't object to fairly violent crime movies, and enjoy an air of intellectual questioning.
( Lots of spoilers )
Hudson Hawk, Steven Universe
Jan. 25th, 2016 01:39 pmHudson Hawk
A film with Bruce Willis as a once-famous cat burglar just getting out of jail, blackmailed into taking several Leonardo Da Vinci related heists. I once played a very good 8-bit platform game based on it, which captured the feel of catburgling quite well for the time. It was one of the first games I actually finished, which was really exciting.
A few bits are really fun, when they sing the same song to time themselves and keep themselves in sync as they go around different parts of the building. And the introduction of the gang with candy-bar codenames. But then it descends from heist movie into slapstick action movie and I mostly lose interest.
Steven Universe
One of the animated children's TV shows which lots and lots of people have been very excited by recently. The crystal gems are three gemstone-themed alien people who protect the earth from various monsters, aided by half-human half-gem Steven.
A lot of people praise the handling of emotional themes, eg. Greta Christina on episode 5: http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2015/12/10/steven-universe-episode-5-frybo/ on how one of Steven's friends disappoints his father. It's generally a good role model, having lots of examples of flawed people who are not all good or bad and easily-accessible examples of complicated emotional stuff.
The episodes mostly about some of the humans don't hit my emotions as hard as they do other people, but I also liked a lot else about it.
The gems are all aliens who, it seems, don't have two different sexes, but are all coded as "female" in the show, whatever their role in society. Which I think works very well, considering the number shows which have used "male" as if it were equivalent to "default, no marked gender".
Steven's emotional maturity and skill with his gem powers are shown growing really realistically. It's not always a straightforward "he learns how to do this, and then can do it henceforth", but there's a clear sequence of "he can't do this", "he can do this some of the time and is excited when it works", "he makes a lot of effort and isn't sure if he'll succeed", and finally "he does this fairly reliably". I think, if you watched episodes slightly out of order, it would still work nearly as well, but there's a definite benefit to watching the whole series mostly in order.
And in many ways, the "struggling to learn how to do it" is more realistic than having a "one episode where he learns it". It's very moving to watch Steven progress from automatically being left at home during missions, to being automatically included in the team.
The worldbuilding is great. The early episodes do a very good job of painting the general situation, the gems, raising Steven, protecting the world, etc. But as we slowly learn more, learning about the gems original homeworld, and where the monsters come from, and the history of Steven's mother, we learn a richer story that doesn't contradict what we learned. And it's all sufficiently consistent, it's possible to speculate and be correct, and things introduced in later episodes don't make nonsense of the earlier episodes where they weren't established yet.
I'd rather have MORE of that, but then, it's not aimed primarily at me.
A film with Bruce Willis as a once-famous cat burglar just getting out of jail, blackmailed into taking several Leonardo Da Vinci related heists. I once played a very good 8-bit platform game based on it, which captured the feel of catburgling quite well for the time. It was one of the first games I actually finished, which was really exciting.
A few bits are really fun, when they sing the same song to time themselves and keep themselves in sync as they go around different parts of the building. And the introduction of the gang with candy-bar codenames. But then it descends from heist movie into slapstick action movie and I mostly lose interest.
Steven Universe
One of the animated children's TV shows which lots and lots of people have been very excited by recently. The crystal gems are three gemstone-themed alien people who protect the earth from various monsters, aided by half-human half-gem Steven.
A lot of people praise the handling of emotional themes, eg. Greta Christina on episode 5: http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2015/12/10/steven-universe-episode-5-frybo/ on how one of Steven's friends disappoints his father. It's generally a good role model, having lots of examples of flawed people who are not all good or bad and easily-accessible examples of complicated emotional stuff.
The episodes mostly about some of the humans don't hit my emotions as hard as they do other people, but I also liked a lot else about it.
The gems are all aliens who, it seems, don't have two different sexes, but are all coded as "female" in the show, whatever their role in society. Which I think works very well, considering the number shows which have used "male" as if it were equivalent to "default, no marked gender".
Steven's emotional maturity and skill with his gem powers are shown growing really realistically. It's not always a straightforward "he learns how to do this, and then can do it henceforth", but there's a clear sequence of "he can't do this", "he can do this some of the time and is excited when it works", "he makes a lot of effort and isn't sure if he'll succeed", and finally "he does this fairly reliably". I think, if you watched episodes slightly out of order, it would still work nearly as well, but there's a definite benefit to watching the whole series mostly in order.
And in many ways, the "struggling to learn how to do it" is more realistic than having a "one episode where he learns it". It's very moving to watch Steven progress from automatically being left at home during missions, to being automatically included in the team.
The worldbuilding is great. The early episodes do a very good job of painting the general situation, the gems, raising Steven, protecting the world, etc. But as we slowly learn more, learning about the gems original homeworld, and where the monsters come from, and the history of Steven's mother, we learn a richer story that doesn't contradict what we learned. And it's all sufficiently consistent, it's possible to speculate and be correct, and things introduced in later episodes don't make nonsense of the earlier episodes where they weren't established yet.
I'd rather have MORE of that, but then, it's not aimed primarily at me.
Lucy is not bad. Lucy is a struggling drop-out in Taipei, who is dragged unwillingly by her new boyfriend into a drug deal gone wrong, used as a drug mule, accidentally ingests a fictional drug which unlocks human potential, acquires lots of psychic powers, and begins transcending humanity into... something.
The first bit, with Taipei drug gangs who don't speak English, is quite effectively scary.
As long as you manage (with GREAT difficulty) to ignore the "only use 10% of our brains" premise, the science is internally fairly consistent.
It's comparatively male-gaze-free, and just passes the Bechdel test (though maybe could have done better).
It paints a good picture of becoming superhuman. OTOH, I was left feeling a bit "...and? so?"
And a few things bugged me. Do international drug gangs really storm French universities in the teeth of a machine-gun battle with interpol? Like, I know I tend to over-estimate how much civil order is the norm, but that seems a bit... blatant? I thought drug gangs, even big ones, tended to try to keep things deniable, to get expendable minions to take the rap and keep going, not take on governments head on. Like, sure, you appear to be able to outgun the first twenty or so police who turn up, but France has tanks.
It wasn't unrealistic, but I was amused by "she won't give up" -- no, you haven't really established whether she'd give up if she had any reason to give up, you've just established she's immune to bullets.
I get, part of becoming superhuman may be caring less about individual human lives (whether or not I agree). But "flipping three policecars into a crowded street market" just seems gratuitously carnage-ful. What was wrong with plan A, "have your policeman friend ask them nicely to stop"? Or plan B "let them follow you to the drug-gang-shootout where they'd be quite handy"? Or plan C, "just ignore them?" Or plan D, "use psychic powers to make them just roll gently to a stop?"
The first bit, with Taipei drug gangs who don't speak English, is quite effectively scary.
As long as you manage (with GREAT difficulty) to ignore the "only use 10% of our brains" premise, the science is internally fairly consistent.
It's comparatively male-gaze-free, and just passes the Bechdel test (though maybe could have done better).
It paints a good picture of becoming superhuman. OTOH, I was left feeling a bit "...and? so?"
And a few things bugged me. Do international drug gangs really storm French universities in the teeth of a machine-gun battle with interpol? Like, I know I tend to over-estimate how much civil order is the norm, but that seems a bit... blatant? I thought drug gangs, even big ones, tended to try to keep things deniable, to get expendable minions to take the rap and keep going, not take on governments head on. Like, sure, you appear to be able to outgun the first twenty or so police who turn up, but France has tanks.
It wasn't unrealistic, but I was amused by "she won't give up" -- no, you haven't really established whether she'd give up if she had any reason to give up, you've just established she's immune to bullets.
I get, part of becoming superhuman may be caring less about individual human lives (whether or not I agree). But "flipping three policecars into a crowded street market" just seems gratuitously carnage-ful. What was wrong with plan A, "have your policeman friend ask them nicely to stop"? Or plan B "let them follow you to the drug-gang-shootout where they'd be quite handy"? Or plan C, "just ignore them?" Or plan D, "use psychic powers to make them just roll gently to a stop?"
Inside Out
Jul. 30th, 2015 01:21 pmWow. I loved the way the emotions were characterised and worked together in running Riley. I wasn't as engaged by the plot as some people were or as I was in some other Pixar films, I was really interested, but I expected things to happen basically as they did.
There were lots of funny moments. There were a few things that really annoyed me, but not as many as I feared from the trailer.
I thought the basic message about how different feelings contribute to the whole person was really well done, more detail and caveats below.
And wow, it had a lot about feelings and depression and sad moments, which left me really thoughtful, but I suspect will not matter to some people and maybe hit other people like a hammer blow.
( Spoilers )
There were lots of funny moments. There were a few things that really annoyed me, but not as many as I feared from the trailer.
I thought the basic message about how different feelings contribute to the whole person was really well done, more detail and caveats below.
And wow, it had a lot about feelings and depression and sad moments, which left me really thoughtful, but I suspect will not matter to some people and maybe hit other people like a hammer blow.
( Spoilers )