DVD Logging
Aug. 31st, 2017 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAdjustment Bureau - Okay, if the folks manipulating the timeline were remotely competent, there’d be no plot at all because Matt Damon’s character would never have found whatsherface again. I can’t believe that her being in that city and part of that particular dance troupe was future critical from their point of view. Of course, I also don’t really believe in the True Love part of things. I’d have been much more interested if Damon’s character spent the rest of his life trying to find out more about the manipulators and whether or not he could break their hold on the world or even if he should. I’d also have been more interested if the love interest was actually an agent for a rival group instead of, well, the love interest. Also, taking credit for all of the decisions made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and then up through 1910? So not a way to make me trust that your group is making decisions for the good of the entire world.
Africa’s Great Civilizations - This is a six episode (each episode runs about 50 minutes, plus opening and closing ‘paid for by’ commercials) PBS series. It has easily readable captioning. Professor Henry Gates, Jr. is the host. Nothing is covered in any great depth because they’re covering millennia in six hours. The first DVD covers the parts I know least about (they covered more than just Egypt!), so I wish that that part had been longer. The second DVD covers parts of history I knew more about but mentions a lot of people and nations and such that I either hadn’t ever heard of or or hadn’t heard much about, so I’d have loved that part being longer, too. The series doesn’t touch on 20th century history much at all.
Archaeology: An Introduction to the World’s Greatest Sites - Series of 24 half hour lectures by Professor Eric H. Cline of George Washington University. This is from both Great Courses and National Geographic. This is another series that I think works better as DVDs than just as audio. There are pictures of both artifacts and excavation sites (to demonstrate different techniques). The lecturer is reasonably engaging, but the lectures kind of meander. That is, each one is focused, but they don’t necessarily connect to each other directly. The lectures on techniques and such are interspersed among lectures about specific sites.
Castle season 1 episodes 1-3 - Neither of us were really into this, so we didn’t even finish the DVD before sending it back. Scott wants mysteries with more humor (Psych or Monk) while I go more toward cozies (Murder She Wrote or Rosemary & Thyme). This just wasn’t quite right for either of us.
Gifted - I want to see what else Chris Evans can do. Scott and I both really enjoyed this. We put in the DVD with some trepidation, but the dialogue snapped along, and the acting by all parties was excellent. Recommended.
Great Artists of the Renaissance - Series of 36 half hour lectures by Professor William Kloss of the Smithsonian Institution. This one absolutely wouldn’t work on CD, so I’m very glad that I could get the DVD set from the library. Because much of the discussion involved analyzing and comparing works of art, I couldn’t let the lecture run in the background while I did other things that covered the window where the lecture was showing. I’m not convinced this was the right place for me to start learning about art/artistic techniques because the lecturer assumes some basic knowledge of western art history.
The Great British Baking Show season 1 - I will probably not go further with this show. There’s nothing wrong with it as background noise, but I think that I just don’t get cooking competition shows on a very basic level. I spend a lot of time looking at the things people are making and thinking, “Well, that would make me really, really sick. And so would that and that and that and...” I also find competitions hugely stressful even when they’re as low key as this.
How to Listen to and Understand Great Music - Series of 48 lectures by Professor Robert Greenburg of San Francisco Performances. Each lecture is about 45 minutes long, so the whole series is 36 hours long. I only made it through half of the lectures before having to return it. I probably won’t check it out again because I’m pretty sure I failed to understand anything about music. History of music, yes, that I got, but I could not follow what Prof. Greenburg was telling me to listen for. Possibly if I gave the lectures 100% of my attention, I’d do better, but I kind of suspect not. Most music that I enjoy, I enjoy for the combination of the poetry of the lyrics with the music as support (this means I very rarely connect to instrumental music or to songs with lyrics not in English. It does happen but not often). I can listen to Cordelia play the viola and hear some of the false notes and identify songs I’ve heard before, but beyond that, I can’t actually tell if she plays well. That is, I can’t tell competently played instrumental music from brilliantly played instrumental music. I was hoping to learn a little and maybe become semi-literate but, alas, not to be. I will note that Prof. Greenburg was an engaging lecturer with clear delivery who definitely seemed to be starting with basics and building on them. I’m not convinced I’d do better with a different lecturer.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword - We watched about half of this. Scott wasn’t interested in the rest. I kind of was but not enough so to watch it on my own. I very definitely didn’t see anything Arthurian beyond the character names, and I think I’d have liked it better without those names. I liked the general idea as a more original fantasy plot, and the acting wasn’t terrible by any means. I suppose that using the character names brings in more viewers.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo: In Harmony: Live at Royal Albert Hall - I was so very tired when I watched this that I ended up zoning out rather than appreciating the music. I should have kept the DVD to rewatch when I was awake instead of sending it instantly back to Netflix, but I really was running on autopilot. This was exactly what the title promised.
The Lodger - Silent movie directed by Hitchcock. Mostly sepia. Not sure if deliberate or artifact of age. The central plot would fall apart if people talked to each other at all.
Much Ado About Nothing - This is the version Joss Whedon made in two or three days. It’s black and white. The acting is good. The problem I had was that I kept slamming hard into parts of the fundamental plot that didn’t fit, didn’t work with the sets and costuming. I didn’t see anything that would mean the story couldn’t be set today. Basically, I need more convincing, if the story’s set now, that (a) Hero’s life is destroyed if she’s not a virgin and (b) Beatrice can’t just punch Claudio herself. Hero’s father being an asshole about the embarrassment and wasted expense is plausible, but the degree of it doesn’t fit with his earlier words and actions if he’s a generic white guy from the modern US. At any rate, I never emotionally engaged.
The Painting - I watched the dubbed version of this French animated film because that’s what the DVD defaulted to. I suspect that I’ll be thinking about the movie for a while because some bits had great philosophical depth while others seemed to have facile resolutions to really complicated problems. The movie starts inside a painting (it might or might not be the one in the title as there are other candidates later). Some people inside it have been completely painted and consider themselves the elite, to the point of some of them beating a ‘Sketchie,’ a person who has only been barely outlined by the Painter, to death while all the others look on. That scene is really brutal and makes me very definite that this is not a movie for kids (I don’t think kids would understand a lot of other things that happen later). There are also people called ‘Halfies’ who are partially painted. Even a little bit unpainted is enough to put a person into that category. The Halfies look down on the Sketchies, long to be Allduns, and fear losing their status as better than the Sketchies. Through various events, a Sketchie, a Halfie, and an Alldun end up leaving to go in search of the vanished Painter to find out why he left things the way he did. I was pretty sure how that search would end, and I was mostly right. One character continued on after the point where I expected things to end with the destruction of the old social stratification system. (You’ll never convince me that people who would do the things that these folks did wouldn’t find a different system to create elite status for themselves. I’m also not entirely happy with the idea that all people have to become physically similar-- not alike visually-- in order for there to be equality. The Sketchies are definitely presented as physically disabled, slower, weaker, more easily damaged, than either of the other groups, and the Halfies are considered disfigured.) That one character goes on to explore more outside of the original painting and to focus more on the question of why someone would deliberately create an imperfect world. I didn’t expect that last bit and would have liked more of it.
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982) - I ended up not finishing this because I got most of the way through and realized that I was forcing myself to continue. I just couldn’t come up with a compelling reason to keep doing that. Part of it was that the DVD lacked subtitles, so I missed about ⅔ of the dialogue. It was interesting, though, seeing how many of the actors looked vaguely familiar.
Snow White with the Red Hair season 1 - I had heard good things about this while it was airing, but I’m lazy about tracking such things down and don’t often stream things because I just forget that I was intending to watch something if I don’t have a physical object to remind me. So I grabbed this as soon as the library got it. I’m glad I did. The lead characters were sweet and very supportive of each other, and there was a lot of quiet competence.
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse - Superman’s cousin crashlands in Gotham and causes a lot of trouble because she doesn’t know the language or understand where she is. After she’s started to figure out what being on Earth means, some of Darkseid’s people start trying to kidnap her and eventually succeed. Then, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Barda head to Apokalyps (sp?) to retrieve her. I’m not entirely sure that Batman’s actions there were in character, and I’m curious as to what other people think. I’m of the definite opinion that the title doesn’t match the story. I understand wanting Superman and Batman there in the title because they’re the big draws for fans, but it’s not really their story. It’s Supergirl’s origin story. Scott and I were both unhappy with the voices for the villains. The acting was fine; it was just that the voices sounded wrong.
Superman/Shazam! The Return of Black Adam - This is actually an anthology of four shorts. The Superman and Shazam! v. Black Adam story is Shazam’s origin story. There’s a very creepy Jonah Hex story (or is it too redundant to say that?) that I wouldn’t watch right before bed, a Green Arrow bit with him trying to rescue the Queen or somewhere or another, and something focused on The Specter that Scott says was boring (and that I missed because I wanted a shower).
Africa’s Great Civilizations - This is a six episode (each episode runs about 50 minutes, plus opening and closing ‘paid for by’ commercials) PBS series. It has easily readable captioning. Professor Henry Gates, Jr. is the host. Nothing is covered in any great depth because they’re covering millennia in six hours. The first DVD covers the parts I know least about (they covered more than just Egypt!), so I wish that that part had been longer. The second DVD covers parts of history I knew more about but mentions a lot of people and nations and such that I either hadn’t ever heard of or or hadn’t heard much about, so I’d have loved that part being longer, too. The series doesn’t touch on 20th century history much at all.
Archaeology: An Introduction to the World’s Greatest Sites - Series of 24 half hour lectures by Professor Eric H. Cline of George Washington University. This is from both Great Courses and National Geographic. This is another series that I think works better as DVDs than just as audio. There are pictures of both artifacts and excavation sites (to demonstrate different techniques). The lecturer is reasonably engaging, but the lectures kind of meander. That is, each one is focused, but they don’t necessarily connect to each other directly. The lectures on techniques and such are interspersed among lectures about specific sites.
Castle season 1 episodes 1-3 - Neither of us were really into this, so we didn’t even finish the DVD before sending it back. Scott wants mysteries with more humor (Psych or Monk) while I go more toward cozies (Murder She Wrote or Rosemary & Thyme). This just wasn’t quite right for either of us.
Gifted - I want to see what else Chris Evans can do. Scott and I both really enjoyed this. We put in the DVD with some trepidation, but the dialogue snapped along, and the acting by all parties was excellent. Recommended.
Great Artists of the Renaissance - Series of 36 half hour lectures by Professor William Kloss of the Smithsonian Institution. This one absolutely wouldn’t work on CD, so I’m very glad that I could get the DVD set from the library. Because much of the discussion involved analyzing and comparing works of art, I couldn’t let the lecture run in the background while I did other things that covered the window where the lecture was showing. I’m not convinced this was the right place for me to start learning about art/artistic techniques because the lecturer assumes some basic knowledge of western art history.
The Great British Baking Show season 1 - I will probably not go further with this show. There’s nothing wrong with it as background noise, but I think that I just don’t get cooking competition shows on a very basic level. I spend a lot of time looking at the things people are making and thinking, “Well, that would make me really, really sick. And so would that and that and that and...” I also find competitions hugely stressful even when they’re as low key as this.
How to Listen to and Understand Great Music - Series of 48 lectures by Professor Robert Greenburg of San Francisco Performances. Each lecture is about 45 minutes long, so the whole series is 36 hours long. I only made it through half of the lectures before having to return it. I probably won’t check it out again because I’m pretty sure I failed to understand anything about music. History of music, yes, that I got, but I could not follow what Prof. Greenburg was telling me to listen for. Possibly if I gave the lectures 100% of my attention, I’d do better, but I kind of suspect not. Most music that I enjoy, I enjoy for the combination of the poetry of the lyrics with the music as support (this means I very rarely connect to instrumental music or to songs with lyrics not in English. It does happen but not often). I can listen to Cordelia play the viola and hear some of the false notes and identify songs I’ve heard before, but beyond that, I can’t actually tell if she plays well. That is, I can’t tell competently played instrumental music from brilliantly played instrumental music. I was hoping to learn a little and maybe become semi-literate but, alas, not to be. I will note that Prof. Greenburg was an engaging lecturer with clear delivery who definitely seemed to be starting with basics and building on them. I’m not convinced I’d do better with a different lecturer.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword - We watched about half of this. Scott wasn’t interested in the rest. I kind of was but not enough so to watch it on my own. I very definitely didn’t see anything Arthurian beyond the character names, and I think I’d have liked it better without those names. I liked the general idea as a more original fantasy plot, and the acting wasn’t terrible by any means. I suppose that using the character names brings in more viewers.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo: In Harmony: Live at Royal Albert Hall - I was so very tired when I watched this that I ended up zoning out rather than appreciating the music. I should have kept the DVD to rewatch when I was awake instead of sending it instantly back to Netflix, but I really was running on autopilot. This was exactly what the title promised.
The Lodger - Silent movie directed by Hitchcock. Mostly sepia. Not sure if deliberate or artifact of age. The central plot would fall apart if people talked to each other at all.
Much Ado About Nothing - This is the version Joss Whedon made in two or three days. It’s black and white. The acting is good. The problem I had was that I kept slamming hard into parts of the fundamental plot that didn’t fit, didn’t work with the sets and costuming. I didn’t see anything that would mean the story couldn’t be set today. Basically, I need more convincing, if the story’s set now, that (a) Hero’s life is destroyed if she’s not a virgin and (b) Beatrice can’t just punch Claudio herself. Hero’s father being an asshole about the embarrassment and wasted expense is plausible, but the degree of it doesn’t fit with his earlier words and actions if he’s a generic white guy from the modern US. At any rate, I never emotionally engaged.
The Painting - I watched the dubbed version of this French animated film because that’s what the DVD defaulted to. I suspect that I’ll be thinking about the movie for a while because some bits had great philosophical depth while others seemed to have facile resolutions to really complicated problems. The movie starts inside a painting (it might or might not be the one in the title as there are other candidates later). Some people inside it have been completely painted and consider themselves the elite, to the point of some of them beating a ‘Sketchie,’ a person who has only been barely outlined by the Painter, to death while all the others look on. That scene is really brutal and makes me very definite that this is not a movie for kids (I don’t think kids would understand a lot of other things that happen later). There are also people called ‘Halfies’ who are partially painted. Even a little bit unpainted is enough to put a person into that category. The Halfies look down on the Sketchies, long to be Allduns, and fear losing their status as better than the Sketchies. Through various events, a Sketchie, a Halfie, and an Alldun end up leaving to go in search of the vanished Painter to find out why he left things the way he did. I was pretty sure how that search would end, and I was mostly right. One character continued on after the point where I expected things to end with the destruction of the old social stratification system. (You’ll never convince me that people who would do the things that these folks did wouldn’t find a different system to create elite status for themselves. I’m also not entirely happy with the idea that all people have to become physically similar-- not alike visually-- in order for there to be equality. The Sketchies are definitely presented as physically disabled, slower, weaker, more easily damaged, than either of the other groups, and the Halfies are considered disfigured.) That one character goes on to explore more outside of the original painting and to focus more on the question of why someone would deliberately create an imperfect world. I didn’t expect that last bit and would have liked more of it.
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982) - I ended up not finishing this because I got most of the way through and realized that I was forcing myself to continue. I just couldn’t come up with a compelling reason to keep doing that. Part of it was that the DVD lacked subtitles, so I missed about ⅔ of the dialogue. It was interesting, though, seeing how many of the actors looked vaguely familiar.
Snow White with the Red Hair season 1 - I had heard good things about this while it was airing, but I’m lazy about tracking such things down and don’t often stream things because I just forget that I was intending to watch something if I don’t have a physical object to remind me. So I grabbed this as soon as the library got it. I’m glad I did. The lead characters were sweet and very supportive of each other, and there was a lot of quiet competence.
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse - Superman’s cousin crashlands in Gotham and causes a lot of trouble because she doesn’t know the language or understand where she is. After she’s started to figure out what being on Earth means, some of Darkseid’s people start trying to kidnap her and eventually succeed. Then, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Barda head to Apokalyps (sp?) to retrieve her. I’m not entirely sure that Batman’s actions there were in character, and I’m curious as to what other people think. I’m of the definite opinion that the title doesn’t match the story. I understand wanting Superman and Batman there in the title because they’re the big draws for fans, but it’s not really their story. It’s Supergirl’s origin story. Scott and I were both unhappy with the voices for the villains. The acting was fine; it was just that the voices sounded wrong.
Superman/Shazam! The Return of Black Adam - This is actually an anthology of four shorts. The Superman and Shazam! v. Black Adam story is Shazam’s origin story. There’s a very creepy Jonah Hex story (or is it too redundant to say that?) that I wouldn’t watch right before bed, a Green Arrow bit with him trying to rescue the Queen or somewhere or another, and something focused on The Specter that Scott says was boring (and that I missed because I wanted a shower).
no subject
Date: 2017-09-01 02:53 am (UTC)