Various Things

[shipperx]

Haven't posted much. Might say that I've been busy, but that's not exactly true. It's been more 'bored' than busy. Anyway, various stuff:

* Attended my niece's high school graduation. I'm old.

* Attended my nephew's medical school graduation. God, I'm REALLY old.

* Have bought some of the materials I need to do my closet organization project, but haven't bought the plywood as of yet.

* Saw the Michael Douglas/Matt Damon "Liberace" movie that aired in Game of Throne's timeslot on HBO. Eh. Overall, I suppose it was good. Nothing particularly wrong with it anywhere. But... eh.

* I probably have things to say about this week's Mad Men episode, but don't really feel like saying them. Though I do not know why I bother to continue to read TWOP's thread on the show because the misogyny on that thread never fails to piss me off (I know I've mentioned it before, but it bears a great deal of mentioning).

* Watched several episodes of "Vice" on HBO. It has nothing to do with Miami but is actually a documentary/news type show. It did several interesting stories such as looking into the fury involved at the India/Pakistan border, "ghost towns" in China (there are entire cities with sky scrapers built for housing where NO ONE lives. It's the U.S. housing bubble pre-financial collapse X10), wealth disparity in Mumbai, human trafficking befalling women trying to escape North Korea, gun nuts in the U.S., that sort of thing. Interesting series. Scary as all hell (the world looks nuts) but interesting series.

* Saw "Lincoln" (Daniel Day Lewis version.) It does somewhat amuse me that in this movie two U.S. Presidents are played by UKers. Not just Lincoln. Grant was played by Mad Men's late Lane Price, Jared Harrison. I do appreciate when history is made relevant to modern audience so that we recognize ourselves in the past, and there was a lot of stuff that while shown happening then brings to mind much of what is happening now.

* Finally got around to watching the season finale of Revenge. That show had quite the sophomore slump. (For those who never watched it started as sort of a modern, female-centric Count of Monte Cristo rif with Emily having been betrayed and spent years building up to her returning under a fake name to seek revenge against those who harmed her and her late father). The show pretty much went off the rails in Season 2 as it introduced some mega shadow conspiracy with "The Initiative" and ripped the emotional core out of the show by making it almost some counter-terrorist thing rather than the visceral "revenge" the series started with. For that reason, I'm going to say that the season finale was actually a good one. Let me explain. The season finale did what it needed to do -- place the show back on track and set up the next season. The "Intiative" (and hopefully "the Falcon") have been dispensed with The Initiative disposed of by Conrad snarking that it never really existed in the first place. It was just billionaires taking advantage of news/crisis to fill their own coffers. This works in that it dispels of some shadow conspiracy and makes an identifiable villain of Conrad (finally. That has seemed to way to go for a while). and the characters given visceral rather than ephemeral reasons to seek revenge (Nolan having been framed gives Emily something to focus on. "Amanda's" and Declan's deaths gives Jack reason to seek revenge on Conrad. Emily revealing her identity to Jack allows Emily and Jack to pair up for Revenge, etc.They've scaled it back down to the characters rather than a conspiracy and sharpened character motivations. I think that should help. We'll see how the new show runner does (since it was the new show runner who set up the finale so this has to be the new show runner's plan).

* Also saw Scandal's season finale. It was enjoyable but I don't think it set up the next season as well as Revenge's finale did. In one sense, Scandal didn't need to. Unlike Revenge, Scandal had a good season. (For those who have never watched, Scandal follows political operative/'fixer' Olivia Pope. Olivia was campaign manager of the show's sitting U.S. President. She's also the President's on-again/off-again mistress. Oh, and she, along with First Lady, the Chief of Staff, and a Supreme Court justice, RIGGED the election that won President Fitz his office. And when he found out he was PISSED (though one notes, not enough to actually resign). So pissed that he broke up with Olivia... but assigned a CIA black-ops guy to stalk her...er... I mean spy on her (wait, that's not better is it?) Oh, and he also murdered a Supreme Court justice with his bare hands. Meanwhile, the Chief of Staff is gay and Republican (as is Pres. Fitz) and he hired a hit on his husband (shh! His husband doesn't know that). What I'm saying here is that these are some really screwed up people... and that makes the show rather fun (Doesn't hurt that as utterly screwed up and destructive as Olivia and President Fitz are, they have smoking chemistry). So, anyway, on the one hand, Scandal didn't have the needs that Revenge did in that Scandal has been clicking along (Hey, they President was nearly assassinated! WTF, they fixed the election?! OMG he murdered the Supreme Court Justice?!1!! that sort of thing) On the other hand, like Revenge they created an unweildy shadow-conspiracy (I swear so many people were mis-identified as "the mole" that it was like three seasons of 24 rolled into one (every season of 24 had a mole, didn't it?) Honestly, by the time the "real" mole was revealed, I'd forgotten what the mole actually did (as opposed to all the red herrings). So, while I'm glad that the finale got rid of all the stupid "It's a mole!" stuff, it honestly didn't matter to me at that point. Three red herrings earlier it had been interesting, by the end it was just OMG, whoever! I don't care! But, they did pull a nice twist at the last secondwith the reveal that the CIA black ops leader is Olivia's dad.That... actually explains a lot.So I give the finale a thumbs up, but mainly in terms of it being enjoyable, in terms of it being a roller coaster but it still felt a bit ephemeral.

* Saw Nashville's season finale. Was there a soap cliche they forgot to leave out? Because they were really, really working the soap cliches. I literally went, they had better not have ________ because that would be soooo cliche, and then they promptly had ___________. Now, I've been quite the soap fan for many years, so it having a serverly soapy ending won't prevent me from tuning in again next season. But I won't be tuning in for the Rayna/Decon soap opera (too damn smug.) Or the Deacon/Rayna/Teddy triangle(and, seriously, show, they girlfriend had to be pregnant AS WELL AS the dumbass car accident? Come on! Just one soap cliche at a time!). I will tune in for Juliette and hope for a Juliette/Avery pairing somewhere down the line. But they REALLY need to focus more on the machinations of the music industry and pare down the soap cliches to only one or two of them at a time.

* Saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Enjoyable movie. Surprisingly so. Now, true, the reveal at the end seemed a bit much (though I read somewhere that the story is semi-autobiographical so I cannot say it was unrealistic. But it actually worked without making things quite that dark. Still overall, pretty good movie. I enjoyed it. Though it was sort of disturbing how the gay best friend in "Perks" was the same actor who played the sociopathic mass killer in We Need To Talk About Kevin (Which is a movie that is as disturbing as all fuck). To give the young actor credit, he pulled off both --completely dissimilar -- roles quite well. Oh, and The Vampire Diaries Nina Dobrev has a bit part in the movie as the protagonist's sister(with an abusive boyfriend).

* Saw 10 Years, which is a 10th High School Reunion movie starring Tatum Channing and the guy who played the IMac in the Mac/PC commercials. Enjoyable fluff.

* Saw Argo. Enjoyable movie. Given the hype one would think it awesome, which I don't know that it's quite that. But it is an enjoyable movie and worth watching.

Anything else? Probably. But I've probably rambled enough by now.

Oh! I almost forgot. The "Angel and Faith" comic was out today (I truly did forget until it popped up on Buffyforums). How surprised is anyone that Giles is angry for all of two minutes that Angel murdered him? Then, of course, Giles is grateful to Angel. Angel saved him from being enslaved to Eyghon, and... I swear to God, it's like they want us to make fun this comic and the fact that nothing Angel does actually matters. He's got "hero" tattooed on his forehead so it actually does. not. matter. what he does. He's always right and if he's not, he's promptly forgiven because, well gosh darn it, look at his face! He "meant well."  What's a little megalomonaical insanity and undifferentiated slaughter next to Angel feeling bad! How can we meanie-meansters actually want him to reflect on that and feel bad and -- oh hell-- LEARN SOMETHING before on?!!  Clearly, we're being unreasonable.  Besides, Angel always right in the end (convenient, that). If it ever looks like he might be wrong give it five minues they can retcon that!

Let's see, Spike dies saving the world and Giles couldn't spare a word or even a momentary expression of chagrin. Angel kills hundreds of Slayers, nearly destroys the world, and murders Giles... and within five minutes, Giles is saying 'thank you.' Yeah, that pretty much sums this up, doesn't it.)

Comments

[silverusagi]

there are entire cities with sky scrapers built for housing where NO ONE lives.

That's.... really creepy for some reason.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It was!

There was this moment where the reporter got a real estate agent to show him one of the apartments (which was quite nice). Then he left the apartment and went floor to floor to floor looking for any other person in the building and never found one. He got to the basement and said that if there was a spa/gym/pool in there, he was coming back later. But when he opened the door it was this long, dark concrete hallway of doors. You could see the guy gulp then he said it felt like he'd just walked into a horror movie (nothing was there but it was indeed creeeeeeepy.)

[silverusagi]

I watched some episodes of this on HBO GO. Interesting stuff. Did you watch the episode about the private Christian school with armed teachers?

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Let's see, Spike dies saving the world and Giles couldn't spare a word or even a momentary expression of chagrin. Angel kills hundreds of Slayers, nearly destroys the world, and murders Giles... and within five minutes, Giles is saying 'thank you.' Yeah, that pretty much sums this up, doesn't it.

My unsent letter to Scott Allie really needs to be a bunch of your quotes about the comics pasted together.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

That's both flattering and rather depressing. :D

[shapinglight]

What's a little megalomonaical insanity and undifferentiated slaughter next to Angel feeling bad! How can we meanie-meansters actually want him to reflect on that and feel bad and -- oh hell-- LEARN SOMETHING before on?!! Clearly, we're being unreasonable. Besides, Angel always right in the end (convenient, that). If it ever looks like he might be wrong give it five minues they can retcon that!

Scott Allie voice: Ah, you're just saying that because you hate Angel and want to see him completely destroyed.

That's their answer for every question about Angel now.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

To be fair, it must be difficult to face that you've managed to bungle two seasons of story so badly that you've utterly destroyed a character.

[shapinglight]

Yeah, no wonder they're in denial.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Honestly, A&F has destroyed Angel's likability worse than Season 8. In Season 8 he was nuts but at least you could envision that once reality hit him, it would hit him like a ton of bricks and he'd have to rethink what it was that led him down such a destructive path. Rather than pursue that (which at least would make Angel sympathetic) they pursued the "That never happened! Not like you thought it did!" path with every character brought in to enable and/or excuse him while he blithely goes about pretty much doing the exact same things!

Honestly, at the end of AtS I rather loved Angel. Sure he could make me roll my eyes on occasion, but I generally liked the guy. These days, I just want to see A&F Angel punched in the face (without backing down and insta-enabling him.)

Dark Horse is responsible for that (Well, Joss too. But I have a growing rant about how overpraised Joss Whedon has become. Given the flaws in Firefly, Dollhouse, and Cabin in the Woods, I actually have come to believe that Whedon is clever but not as good a writer as as he's made out to be. He's too distracted by the shiny and the gutpunch and yet he's also too lazy to craft things much further than his clever idea. Once the 'clever' is out of the way, there isn't a lot there.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Well, they can't really have him learn to stop doing it when the whole point of S9 has been to say that he was, if not right, at least well-intentioned and that's all that matters.

It's maybe the most recurring theme in the things. Andrew, Angel, Annaheed hiding out and paying Buffy's bills behind her back, Willow, Xander, etc. Over and over again the statement is Intent > Action. Ends > Means.

In other words, the exact opposite of the shows.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Not entirely true. Apparently Buffy's great sin isn't that she abandoned her army to run off with the enemy or that she robbed banks to finance castles and limos. Those weren't mistakes. Her "mistake" was breaking an asspull McGuffin to save the frickin' world!

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

But those weren't problems because they were well-intentioned, apparently. Also, I suspect, because it made no frickin' sense character-wise, they've decided to play it like it never happened.

The whole thing is bizarro land.

[rahirah]

I honestly didn't get the impression that Giles was thanking Angel for resurrecting him. Since he was speaking to everyone at the time, I got the impression it was more "I'm glad all of you care about me. That said, this was stupid and destructive. DON'T DO IT AGAIN."

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It's the rather familiar pattern of their having a character gripe at Angel for three seconds then go blithely along with whatever Angel is up to. They like to think that they're holding Angel accountable by hanging a lantern on the fact that he did something, but it carries no weight because there aren't really any consequences. It probably bugs me more with Giles because Giles refused to give Spike an inch. Angel on the other hand goes consequence free with Giles. Giles gets to bitch for three seconds then enable Angel.

It's really making me resent Angel and I end up resenting the comics for making me dislike the character now.

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

I yawn-roll at A&F. It's a cross between a yawn and n eye-roll.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Heh. Sounds like the appropriate reaction.