DVD Logging
Sep. 28th, 2011 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckCase Closed season 4 DVD 1 - I can only handle so much of this show at one time because mystery shows aren't my thing. I'm interested in the characters and basic situation of this anime, but those don't get much time at all next to the episodic, murder of the week plots. I started watching this (and reading the manga) because I read some fan fiction that I liked. For those who don't know, this series is about a teenage detective who gets poisoned by people trying to kill him. The poison instead shrinks him down so that he appears to be about seven. He has to hide from the folks who tried to kill him, so he has to pretend to be a real child. He finds ways to solve crimes anyway. There's an occasional glimmer of story arc in what I've watched and read, and fan fiction gives me the impression that, at some point later in the series, more information comes out. I'm not sure I have the patience to find it.
Chuck season 2 - I could sympathize with Chuck's quest to get the Intersect out of his head. It really messes up his life. I was more interested in following the stories of the continuing characters than I was in the episodic plots. The show continues to be charming and fun.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I - I found this largely tedious. I think I wasn't invested enough in the story to care. There were several sections where we could barely see what was going on on the screen because the scene was so dark. I know the whole thing is supposed to be depressing and supposed to give the sense that these are dark, almost hopeless days, but I wanted to be able to see what was going on.
Kaze no Stigma 1-24 - I could do with fewer (a lot fewer, preferably none) panty shots, but overall, I've enjoyed this series. The stand alone episodes were pretty weak, relying on humor that I didn't find very funny, but the arc episodes were strong. I was always interested to see what the enemy would be and how the characters would manage to overcome the challenges. I'm sad that the story didn't continue further (looking at Wikipedia, I suspect that there's a lot more story in the novels. Sadly, I'll never see it. I'm not likely to learn Japanese at this late date). The villains of the final arc walked away at the end, and I'd have liked to see that resolved.
Lois & Clark season 3 - Having Lois now aware that Clark is Superman does change the dynamic. I'm interested in how they negotiate their relationship given that. The ending of the season left an awful lot of unanswered questions, almost enough to make me move season 4 up my Netflix queue. New Krypton is an interesting complication to add to the mix.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - I found this movie sweet, overall. Some of the supporting characters weren't likable, but they obviously weren't meant to be. I sympathized pretty heavily with the main character and her continually frustrated quest for a meal. She was so desperate, but she still had her pride. The humor was mostly gentle. The main character was definitely out of her element in the job of social secretary to an aspiring actress, but she managed admirably.
Negima!? Magister Negi Magi 1-26 - I think I prefer the manga to the anime. The anime's not bad. I just prefer the way the manga handled partnerships. The anime suffers from the same problem I had with the manga-- There are too many girls in the class. Each one has a distinct personality and set of interests, but there are too many of them for me to keep track of. I felt lost a lot of the time when things got even a little bit beyond the few characters I was able to track. There's also something a bit creepy about several of the girls having crushes on Negi. He's what? Three years younger than they are? Four years younger? Something like that.
Soul Eater 1-2 - This didn't hook me. Even with not having brought much else with me on the trip, I wasn't really interested in seeing more. I didn't much like the characters and got no sense of story arc. I don't know if I'd have found something if I'd given the series more time. I just couldn't bring myself to.
Sports Night season 1 - I watched this streaming from Netflix on my laptop. I mainly kept at it because the episodes are short enough to fit into small bits of time and because, even streaming, it has the option for close captioning (I find myself wondering if I should get my hearing checked. I'm finding it hard to follow shows without closed captioning. But then, I can follow Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and the episodes of Stargate: SG-1 that Scott watches streaming). This is not to say that I dislike the show. The dialogue is snappy, and the characters are memorable and likable. By the end of the season, I could actually remember the names of most of the regulars. The show didn't generally set me off with embarrassment humor, so that was a plus, too.
Summer Wars - The central conflict for this movie was big and scary, but it somehow didn't feel truly big and scary. Part of that was, I suspect, me failing to grasp the scale-- a single computer system that does everything is a bit too big for me. I can see how it would make critical systems vulnerable and how having it invaded by a hostile AI would be terrifying. The movie simply felt more cheerful than that. The threads involving the extended family simply felt more real to me. I liked the movie a lot. The hero was believably geeky and definitely out of his depth in the family situation his female friend dragged him into.
Tales from Earthsea - I watched all of this, and I'm still confused about what was going on. The beginning sets up the idea of some sort of world wide crisis, and that kind of gets put aside for a smaller story. It's possible that the things the villain was doing caused all the problems, but that connection is never made (at least not in any form I perceived). Also, the main character murders his father at the beginning of the movie, and that's never adequately explained. Why on earth did he do that.
I'm not touching the question of how well or ill Studio Ghibli did in adapting this from LeGuin's books. As I watched, I pretty much pretended that I knew nothing about the books, that this was something quite different and unrelated. I'm not sure how this got to the top of my Netflix queue. I don't recall moving it up.
White Collar season 1 DVD 1 - We neither loved nor hated this. It was okay. I was sorry not to fall in love with it because I've heard so many good things about the show, but it didn't happen. I put the next DVD in our queue, but I didn't move it up. We've got things we'd rather watch. This'll be there when we want something to fill some time and don't have anything else in mind.
Chuck season 2 - I could sympathize with Chuck's quest to get the Intersect out of his head. It really messes up his life. I was more interested in following the stories of the continuing characters than I was in the episodic plots. The show continues to be charming and fun.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I - I found this largely tedious. I think I wasn't invested enough in the story to care. There were several sections where we could barely see what was going on on the screen because the scene was so dark. I know the whole thing is supposed to be depressing and supposed to give the sense that these are dark, almost hopeless days, but I wanted to be able to see what was going on.
Kaze no Stigma 1-24 - I could do with fewer (a lot fewer, preferably none) panty shots, but overall, I've enjoyed this series. The stand alone episodes were pretty weak, relying on humor that I didn't find very funny, but the arc episodes were strong. I was always interested to see what the enemy would be and how the characters would manage to overcome the challenges. I'm sad that the story didn't continue further (looking at Wikipedia, I suspect that there's a lot more story in the novels. Sadly, I'll never see it. I'm not likely to learn Japanese at this late date). The villains of the final arc walked away at the end, and I'd have liked to see that resolved.
Lois & Clark season 3 - Having Lois now aware that Clark is Superman does change the dynamic. I'm interested in how they negotiate their relationship given that. The ending of the season left an awful lot of unanswered questions, almost enough to make me move season 4 up my Netflix queue. New Krypton is an interesting complication to add to the mix.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - I found this movie sweet, overall. Some of the supporting characters weren't likable, but they obviously weren't meant to be. I sympathized pretty heavily with the main character and her continually frustrated quest for a meal. She was so desperate, but she still had her pride. The humor was mostly gentle. The main character was definitely out of her element in the job of social secretary to an aspiring actress, but she managed admirably.
Negima!? Magister Negi Magi 1-26 - I think I prefer the manga to the anime. The anime's not bad. I just prefer the way the manga handled partnerships. The anime suffers from the same problem I had with the manga-- There are too many girls in the class. Each one has a distinct personality and set of interests, but there are too many of them for me to keep track of. I felt lost a lot of the time when things got even a little bit beyond the few characters I was able to track. There's also something a bit creepy about several of the girls having crushes on Negi. He's what? Three years younger than they are? Four years younger? Something like that.
Soul Eater 1-2 - This didn't hook me. Even with not having brought much else with me on the trip, I wasn't really interested in seeing more. I didn't much like the characters and got no sense of story arc. I don't know if I'd have found something if I'd given the series more time. I just couldn't bring myself to.
Sports Night season 1 - I watched this streaming from Netflix on my laptop. I mainly kept at it because the episodes are short enough to fit into small bits of time and because, even streaming, it has the option for close captioning (I find myself wondering if I should get my hearing checked. I'm finding it hard to follow shows without closed captioning. But then, I can follow Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and the episodes of Stargate: SG-1 that Scott watches streaming). This is not to say that I dislike the show. The dialogue is snappy, and the characters are memorable and likable. By the end of the season, I could actually remember the names of most of the regulars. The show didn't generally set me off with embarrassment humor, so that was a plus, too.
Summer Wars - The central conflict for this movie was big and scary, but it somehow didn't feel truly big and scary. Part of that was, I suspect, me failing to grasp the scale-- a single computer system that does everything is a bit too big for me. I can see how it would make critical systems vulnerable and how having it invaded by a hostile AI would be terrifying. The movie simply felt more cheerful than that. The threads involving the extended family simply felt more real to me. I liked the movie a lot. The hero was believably geeky and definitely out of his depth in the family situation his female friend dragged him into.
Tales from Earthsea - I watched all of this, and I'm still confused about what was going on. The beginning sets up the idea of some sort of world wide crisis, and that kind of gets put aside for a smaller story. It's possible that the things the villain was doing caused all the problems, but that connection is never made (at least not in any form I perceived). Also, the main character murders his father at the beginning of the movie, and that's never adequately explained. Why on earth did he do that.
I'm not touching the question of how well or ill Studio Ghibli did in adapting this from LeGuin's books. As I watched, I pretty much pretended that I knew nothing about the books, that this was something quite different and unrelated. I'm not sure how this got to the top of my Netflix queue. I don't recall moving it up.
White Collar season 1 DVD 1 - We neither loved nor hated this. It was okay. I was sorry not to fall in love with it because I've heard so many good things about the show, but it didn't happen. I put the next DVD in our queue, but I didn't move it up. We've got things we'd rather watch. This'll be there when we want something to fill some time and don't have anything else in mind.
