Watching Stuff Logging
Jul. 1st, 2020 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI watched some of these more than a year ago (and others even longer ago). I'm very far behind on logging the things I've watched. This means that I've forgotten a lot of details about some of the movies and series.
At the Circus - Marx Brothers. There was complicated plot to provide the excuse for shenanigans and jokes. I didn't really try to follow that part. Scott commented that it was kind of sad to see the attractive young people in trouble getting screen time as if they were more than an excuse to let the comedy cut loose.
The Barbarian Empires of the Steppes - Great Courses set of 36 lectures by Professor Kenneth Harl of Tulane University. I'm glad that I didn't try this one as an audiobook because the maps are important. The lectures jump around in time quite a bit, too, because of the geographic scope. The lecturer credits the Chinese with having the best written records. He does have some issues in terms of using older terms and the older forms for transliterating Chinese.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - I'm still not sure what I think about this one. Tom Hanks was excellent as Mr Rogers. The various actors playing the people around him were also quite good. I liked the underlining of the fact that Mr Rogers worked to be who he was and to be kind. I still think that it takes a particular sort of person to be able to keep going on that way for so long and with such consistency, but I also think that we need to remember that it's deliberate work. As an analogy, becoming an Olympic athlete may be more than most of us can manage, but we can all keep trying to improve our physical fitness. It's frustrating and exhausting and just plain hard for all of us, and we won't get Olympic (or Mr Rogers) results, but... If we don't try, we get absolutely nothing at all. Going back to the movie, I failed to have much sympathy for the protagonist at any point during the story, even at the end when he's working hard on getting his life straight. I think that part of that was my ambivalence about the idea of reconciliation with abusive parents. Sometimes, it's a thing that can help a person heal; sometimes, it isn't. I felt like the movie was coming down hard on the side of thinking that there aren't valid reasons to say 'hell, no,' guilt-free, under some circumstances. There's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and a difference between both and letting go of past pain in order to go forward. The character for whom I had all the sympathy in the universe was the protagonist's wife.
Birds of Prey - DNF. We made it less than ten minutes into this before we agreed that it wasn't a good match for us. I'd kind of expected that because my tolerance for on-screen violence is pretty low. I find The Flash borderline too violent for me. Also, neither of us have any upfront investment in Harley as a character. I wanted to try the movie because I really want more action movies that focus on female characters.
Cranford - This was partly an extended exercise in where-have-I-seen-that-actor-before but not only that. I'd label the genre as slice of life with the caveat that it's historical in setting so that people die without particularly long build up. It's just part of how things are. I'm not sure of the exact year of the setting, but it's early enough that evening lighting is entirely candles. One of the points of conflict in the story is certain characters objecting to plans for a railroad on the grounds that it will make it too easy for the lower classes to leave the community in search of more appealing conditions. I think that this is something that I'd have preferred to watch serially instead of all at once because the DVD felt never endingly long even when I was enjoying the characters.
The Croods - We kind of watched this in as much as it was on while we were in the room. Scott and I put it on while we were babysitting the younger sister of one of Cordelia's friends. Her mother gave us a list of movies she liked and suggested that we put one on. The child didn't know us, and we weren't sure how long she'd be here. We spent most of the time chasing around our decidedly no longer child proofed living room to rescue things on shelves and finally got the girl to focus on the mirror on the back of the hall closet door. I thought this movie was reasonably good for this sort of situation but not really something I'd enjoy when I didn't have a child to entertain.
The Dragon Prince season 3 - I hope that this isn't the final season, but if it is, I would be reasonably satisfied with the ending. A lot of threads tie up neatly in the last episode. There's still space for compelling further story, however, because of the few threads that are left loose. My main dissatisfaction with the season was what they did with Claudia. I expected it based on things in season 2, but I think I'd be less cranky about it if Soren and Claudia were sisters instead of brother and sister.
Elementary season 7 - I have zero memory of the specific cases during this season. In my head, it's just one episode that showed where everyone ended up. I did have a few that's-not-how-it-works moments with regard to Joan's breast cancer, mostly having to do with timing and recovery.
Gate Keepers 21 episodes 1-2 - I bounced hard off of this anime. I didn't connect with the characters and had trouble following the events.
Going to the Devil: The Impeachment of 1868 - I hadn't known much of anything about President Andrew Johnson before. I'd had a vague sense that his presidency did not go well, but I hadn't realized quite how bad it was. This documentary isn't all that long, but it gives a fairly clear idea of what the issues were and of the deliberate damage Johnson did to Reconstruction. It's also pretty clear that the opposition to Johnson's policies was deliberately stepping outside of legal and constitutional limits. I think our nation would have been better off with a different president during those years, but I also think that the people trying to hamstring him were potentially setting some very bad precedents. It's a horrible mess, and we've still got repercussions from it a century and a half later.
The Hollow season 2 - I guessed what was going on in this season fairly early, but I thought I had to be wrong because it felt narratively obvious to me as something the characters wouldn't figure out immediately. The kids from season 1 find themselves back in the game universe and try very hard to find the way out again. I hope there's a season 3; there's a moment at the end of this season that hints at what they might do to open things up for more story. Also, I feel like the happy ending of this season wouldn't last very long at all. Still recommended.
Hustlers - I'm boggled by the fact that the marketing for this calls it a comedy. I thought that the library had made a mistake in cataloguing it as a comedy and was surprised to discover that that's due to the marketing. There were funny moments in the movie, but I'd have put it more in the drama category for the threads of heartbreak throughout. It wasn't a satire, either, so it doesn't edge into the comedy category that way. Leaving genre aside, the acting was excellent, and the thru line of the plot made complete sense. None of the women did anything that wasn't solidly supported by what had come before, both in events and in characterization. They and their actions/choices were plausible and real within their context.
I-Spy (2002) - DNF. Scott and I tried, but neither of us could follow the plot. We felt like the whole thing needed Jackie Chan in order to be watchable.
The Mandalorian season 1 - We refer to this as 'the Baby Yoda show' in our household. Scott and Cordelia watched the show well before I did. It was okay, but I didn't really connect with it on a plot/character level. I think that part of it was me not getting a clear sense of the main character as anything but a trope.
Milo Murphy's Law season 1 - This is a cartoon series put together by the same folks that did Phineas and Ferb (there're explicit crossovers). Things go ridiculously and extravagantly wrong around Milo. He's cheerfully matter-of-fact about it and carries a backpack filled with things he can use to try to remedy whatever happens. There's rather a lot of time travel. And pistachios. Lots of pistachios.
Miraculous Ladybug season 3-5 (by Netflix's listing) - Netflix dumped me into season 3, and I'm not 100% sure that I saw all of season 2. There was a long time gap between this watch and my previous go at the series. The IMDb has a different season division and episode order than Netflix does, so I'm very confused. The IMDb makes it look like I came back to the middle of season 2 (which would make more sense for where I thought I'd left off). At any rate, the show is still cute, and I'm starting to get a better handle on the broader cast of characters and on the worldbuilding aspects.
Naruto: Legend of the Stone of Gelel; Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow - Most of what I know about Naruto, beyond a certain point, is handwavy fanon. I'm trying to look at bits of the anime because a lot of the fic seems to draw heavily on details from the anime that aren't in the manga (and I never made it to the end of the manga because I thought that Sasuke and Itachi were extremely tedious). These movies were okay, but I have no idea how they could be wedged into the manga timeline. Also, the worldbuilding makes me want to tear out my hair. Most crucially, both movies came across as not being at all about the Naruto characters; they just happened to be there. It was other people who achieved goals and took risks and had character development.
Russian Doll episodes 1-3 - I've tried this series twice and just can't seem to connect with it. I hoped that I could because I like time travel and time loop stories, generally, but I bounced.
Secrets of the Manor House - PBS documentary about English manor houses before WWI. This was extremely superficial because it was less than an hour long, but it did emphasize how much work was required by servants to keep one of those places going.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power season 2-4 - Because I was the wrong age, I have no memories of the old show, so I'm coming to this series without preconceptions based on that. I'm finding the character interactions fascinatingly complex, and I'm very curious about how everything will tie up. I doubt that my pet theory about Entrapta being in a time loop will end up being right. I hope that Scorpia gets a happy ending. I'm not sure there's a path that will let Catra find redemption.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power season 5 - I said, above, that I wasn't sure about the possibility of a redemption arc for Catra. I'm glad I was wrong. The writers managed to make it work, and the actors sold it. Part of that was that they showed it as the beginning of a long term work in progress.
Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse - I really loved this movie, but I'm having trouble putting all of it into words that explain why. Some of it is me loving Miles and his family. Some of it is me loving this sort of crossover. Some of it is me loving other characters in the movie. It all feels like it has a lot of space for being new (as opposed to pulling out retread variant 34d to replace variant 33x).
Star Wars: Resistance season 1 - The animation is so very, very, very bad. There's not much smoothing between the parts of the animation that move and the parts that don't. Most of the characters have very faint white lines around them that make them look like they're overlaid on the background (which I'm sure they are). I didn't pay a lot of attention to this as Scott watched it, but he protested several times that the protagonist was TSTL.
Steven Universe the Movie - I don't remember this clearly. I know I watched it and enjoyed it, but I don't remember what happened.
The Story of Saiunkoku: season 1 part 2, part 3 DVD 1 - I've been watching this sporadically. The gaps are long enough that I can't track the supporting characters. I think this means that I'm losing a good portion of the plot complications and political maneuvering. It's always fairly clear how the characters connect to the heroine, but I'll be damned if I can remember how they relate to each other. I'm not sure that I can do better with this series, though, as I'm getting it on DVD from Netflix. I've got so many things that I'm watching that way, and I don't want to lose track of any of them.
Teen Titans Go! Season 5 pt. 1 - I’m glad the voice actors are still getting work, but there wasn’t really much funny here. The stories were very paint by numbers, and the characters no longer felt recognizable as themselves or even as parodies of themselves.
Time Toys - This is a kids' movie. A bunch of kids find a box filled with extraordinary devices from the future. They end up trying to fight a corporation to protect their neighborhood and the world.
Titans (TV) season 1 episode 1 - None of us wanted to watch more. I found it to violent and too badly lit. Cordelia didn’t like the pacing, the violence or the characters; she bailed before we did. Scott and I both found ourselves unimpressed by the actor playing Dick Grayson. We couldn’t figure out a reason why we’d enjoy going forward.
Top Hat - Rogers & Astaire. I think this was the second time I watched this. The plot has farcical elements in terms of assumptions and crossed wires that just go on way too long. There's a lot of humor in it, but it's also kind of too much for me. The joke goes on way, way too long. More song and dance numbers might have carried it better. It's also very dated.
Toy Story 4 - As I have with every new Toy Story movie, I worried that this would retread old territory. It didn't. The theme of not all change being bad continues, and Woody grows by learning when to let go. It's just that the movie is fun and feels very different from the previous three. The focus shifts to look at toys in the wild, the ones that have some level of community with each and who aren't looking to be owned by a particular child. The desire for a singular child to play with still comes across as a valid choice; it's just not the only happy option.
The Trouble with Angels - This follows two girls at a convent school as they get into trouble and grow up. At first, they're both contemptuous about the nuns and their rules. I didn't feel like the ending quite worked. I could see the set up for it, but I thought it needed more details. I'm also extremely dubious about the scene in which the nuns try to get bras for the girls and end up just getting them all the exact same size rather than let the girls go on trying on lingerie.
Umi ga Kikoeru | Ocean Waves - This is another one where I felt like the POV focus was on the least interesting character. The protagonist is boring. The girl is very Manic Pixie Dream Girl with hints around the edges that she could have been a much more interesting protagonist. I actually looked at Scott several times and asked him to confirm that I wasn't missing something about the story. Possibly there were depths that we missed, but this all felt more like a mud puddle than an ocean.
Understanding the New Testament - 24 episode lecture series by Professor David Brakke of Ohio State University. The lecturer spends a lot of time on the cultural context of the various texts and why certain things were brought into the canon and others excluded. That included theories on authorship (in terms of which things were by the same authors). He addressed apparent theological contradictions and the importance the destruction of the Temple. The differences in culture between the early Christians of Jewish background versus the early Christians from other backgrounds, in his opinion, explained the focus on certain things in the epistles.
Understanding the Old Testament - Lecture series by Professor David D. Miller. A lot of this focused on issues of translation and on the things that may have been lost as the various stories were put together into a single work. The lecturer put more emphasis on historical context than on straight up theology. He also spent a lot of time speculating about which bits were poetical devices that we no longer have the context to understand fully or that we mangle because we assume literal factuality. The course covered only selections from the books of the Old Testament and only drew those from what Christians consider canon. The lecturer referred many times to Jewish scholarly traditions and seemed to have some grounding in/awareness of those, but it wasn't clear to me how accurate his knowledge was or if his study was from the outside. Now that I think of it, it bothers me that I'm not sure whether or not the lecturer was Jewish, Christian, atheist, or Pastafarian. It's not that I think the study should be limited to people with a particular background so much as that my not knowing means that I don't know what biases I may have failed to notice. (It's also possible that the lecturer gave this information at some point and that my brain failed to note and record it.)
Warcraft - DNF. The graphics/movement made me queasy. My eyes kept insisting that the wrong things were moving relative to my brain's understanding of how things can move. I suppose it was motion sickness of a sort. It's also an uncanny valley thing for me. I'm apt to get it from certain types of animated backgrounds; they're too close to real looking while still being wrong! wrong! wrong! according to my instincts. It's too obviously a disguise for a monster that's trying to lure me into range for eating. We lasted about three minutes. Scott was bored.
White Christmas - This was pure cotton candy. There's an attempt to insert romantic conflict via one of the female love interests jumping to conclusions based on an overheard fragment of conversation. The first half of the movie feels a little picaresque because it's meant to let the audience understand the characters and their relationships. The second half is all feel good sugar that lacks substance.
Your Name - I liked this much better than I expected that I would. The fact that the two characters lost track of parts of their lives when they swapped places helped explain why it went on without them communicating clearly. I liked that they each approached challenges in the other person's life differently than the original would have.
At the Circus - Marx Brothers. There was complicated plot to provide the excuse for shenanigans and jokes. I didn't really try to follow that part. Scott commented that it was kind of sad to see the attractive young people in trouble getting screen time as if they were more than an excuse to let the comedy cut loose.
The Barbarian Empires of the Steppes - Great Courses set of 36 lectures by Professor Kenneth Harl of Tulane University. I'm glad that I didn't try this one as an audiobook because the maps are important. The lectures jump around in time quite a bit, too, because of the geographic scope. The lecturer credits the Chinese with having the best written records. He does have some issues in terms of using older terms and the older forms for transliterating Chinese.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - I'm still not sure what I think about this one. Tom Hanks was excellent as Mr Rogers. The various actors playing the people around him were also quite good. I liked the underlining of the fact that Mr Rogers worked to be who he was and to be kind. I still think that it takes a particular sort of person to be able to keep going on that way for so long and with such consistency, but I also think that we need to remember that it's deliberate work. As an analogy, becoming an Olympic athlete may be more than most of us can manage, but we can all keep trying to improve our physical fitness. It's frustrating and exhausting and just plain hard for all of us, and we won't get Olympic (or Mr Rogers) results, but... If we don't try, we get absolutely nothing at all. Going back to the movie, I failed to have much sympathy for the protagonist at any point during the story, even at the end when he's working hard on getting his life straight. I think that part of that was my ambivalence about the idea of reconciliation with abusive parents. Sometimes, it's a thing that can help a person heal; sometimes, it isn't. I felt like the movie was coming down hard on the side of thinking that there aren't valid reasons to say 'hell, no,' guilt-free, under some circumstances. There's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and a difference between both and letting go of past pain in order to go forward. The character for whom I had all the sympathy in the universe was the protagonist's wife.
Birds of Prey - DNF. We made it less than ten minutes into this before we agreed that it wasn't a good match for us. I'd kind of expected that because my tolerance for on-screen violence is pretty low. I find The Flash borderline too violent for me. Also, neither of us have any upfront investment in Harley as a character. I wanted to try the movie because I really want more action movies that focus on female characters.
Cranford - This was partly an extended exercise in where-have-I-seen-that-actor-before but not only that. I'd label the genre as slice of life with the caveat that it's historical in setting so that people die without particularly long build up. It's just part of how things are. I'm not sure of the exact year of the setting, but it's early enough that evening lighting is entirely candles. One of the points of conflict in the story is certain characters objecting to plans for a railroad on the grounds that it will make it too easy for the lower classes to leave the community in search of more appealing conditions. I think that this is something that I'd have preferred to watch serially instead of all at once because the DVD felt never endingly long even when I was enjoying the characters.
The Croods - We kind of watched this in as much as it was on while we were in the room. Scott and I put it on while we were babysitting the younger sister of one of Cordelia's friends. Her mother gave us a list of movies she liked and suggested that we put one on. The child didn't know us, and we weren't sure how long she'd be here. We spent most of the time chasing around our decidedly no longer child proofed living room to rescue things on shelves and finally got the girl to focus on the mirror on the back of the hall closet door. I thought this movie was reasonably good for this sort of situation but not really something I'd enjoy when I didn't have a child to entertain.
The Dragon Prince season 3 - I hope that this isn't the final season, but if it is, I would be reasonably satisfied with the ending. A lot of threads tie up neatly in the last episode. There's still space for compelling further story, however, because of the few threads that are left loose. My main dissatisfaction with the season was what they did with Claudia. I expected it based on things in season 2, but I think I'd be less cranky about it if Soren and Claudia were sisters instead of brother and sister.
Elementary season 7 - I have zero memory of the specific cases during this season. In my head, it's just one episode that showed where everyone ended up. I did have a few that's-not-how-it-works moments with regard to Joan's breast cancer, mostly having to do with timing and recovery.
Gate Keepers 21 episodes 1-2 - I bounced hard off of this anime. I didn't connect with the characters and had trouble following the events.
Going to the Devil: The Impeachment of 1868 - I hadn't known much of anything about President Andrew Johnson before. I'd had a vague sense that his presidency did not go well, but I hadn't realized quite how bad it was. This documentary isn't all that long, but it gives a fairly clear idea of what the issues were and of the deliberate damage Johnson did to Reconstruction. It's also pretty clear that the opposition to Johnson's policies was deliberately stepping outside of legal and constitutional limits. I think our nation would have been better off with a different president during those years, but I also think that the people trying to hamstring him were potentially setting some very bad precedents. It's a horrible mess, and we've still got repercussions from it a century and a half later.
The Hollow season 2 - I guessed what was going on in this season fairly early, but I thought I had to be wrong because it felt narratively obvious to me as something the characters wouldn't figure out immediately. The kids from season 1 find themselves back in the game universe and try very hard to find the way out again. I hope there's a season 3; there's a moment at the end of this season that hints at what they might do to open things up for more story. Also, I feel like the happy ending of this season wouldn't last very long at all. Still recommended.
Hustlers - I'm boggled by the fact that the marketing for this calls it a comedy. I thought that the library had made a mistake in cataloguing it as a comedy and was surprised to discover that that's due to the marketing. There were funny moments in the movie, but I'd have put it more in the drama category for the threads of heartbreak throughout. It wasn't a satire, either, so it doesn't edge into the comedy category that way. Leaving genre aside, the acting was excellent, and the thru line of the plot made complete sense. None of the women did anything that wasn't solidly supported by what had come before, both in events and in characterization. They and their actions/choices were plausible and real within their context.
I-Spy (2002) - DNF. Scott and I tried, but neither of us could follow the plot. We felt like the whole thing needed Jackie Chan in order to be watchable.
The Mandalorian season 1 - We refer to this as 'the Baby Yoda show' in our household. Scott and Cordelia watched the show well before I did. It was okay, but I didn't really connect with it on a plot/character level. I think that part of it was me not getting a clear sense of the main character as anything but a trope.
Milo Murphy's Law season 1 - This is a cartoon series put together by the same folks that did Phineas and Ferb (there're explicit crossovers). Things go ridiculously and extravagantly wrong around Milo. He's cheerfully matter-of-fact about it and carries a backpack filled with things he can use to try to remedy whatever happens. There's rather a lot of time travel. And pistachios. Lots of pistachios.
Miraculous Ladybug season 3-5 (by Netflix's listing) - Netflix dumped me into season 3, and I'm not 100% sure that I saw all of season 2. There was a long time gap between this watch and my previous go at the series. The IMDb has a different season division and episode order than Netflix does, so I'm very confused. The IMDb makes it look like I came back to the middle of season 2 (which would make more sense for where I thought I'd left off). At any rate, the show is still cute, and I'm starting to get a better handle on the broader cast of characters and on the worldbuilding aspects.
Naruto: Legend of the Stone of Gelel; Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow - Most of what I know about Naruto, beyond a certain point, is handwavy fanon. I'm trying to look at bits of the anime because a lot of the fic seems to draw heavily on details from the anime that aren't in the manga (and I never made it to the end of the manga because I thought that Sasuke and Itachi were extremely tedious). These movies were okay, but I have no idea how they could be wedged into the manga timeline. Also, the worldbuilding makes me want to tear out my hair. Most crucially, both movies came across as not being at all about the Naruto characters; they just happened to be there. It was other people who achieved goals and took risks and had character development.
Russian Doll episodes 1-3 - I've tried this series twice and just can't seem to connect with it. I hoped that I could because I like time travel and time loop stories, generally, but I bounced.
Secrets of the Manor House - PBS documentary about English manor houses before WWI. This was extremely superficial because it was less than an hour long, but it did emphasize how much work was required by servants to keep one of those places going.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power season 2-4 - Because I was the wrong age, I have no memories of the old show, so I'm coming to this series without preconceptions based on that. I'm finding the character interactions fascinatingly complex, and I'm very curious about how everything will tie up. I doubt that my pet theory about Entrapta being in a time loop will end up being right. I hope that Scorpia gets a happy ending. I'm not sure there's a path that will let Catra find redemption.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power season 5 - I said, above, that I wasn't sure about the possibility of a redemption arc for Catra. I'm glad I was wrong. The writers managed to make it work, and the actors sold it. Part of that was that they showed it as the beginning of a long term work in progress.
Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse - I really loved this movie, but I'm having trouble putting all of it into words that explain why. Some of it is me loving Miles and his family. Some of it is me loving this sort of crossover. Some of it is me loving other characters in the movie. It all feels like it has a lot of space for being new (as opposed to pulling out retread variant 34d to replace variant 33x).
Star Wars: Resistance season 1 - The animation is so very, very, very bad. There's not much smoothing between the parts of the animation that move and the parts that don't. Most of the characters have very faint white lines around them that make them look like they're overlaid on the background (which I'm sure they are). I didn't pay a lot of attention to this as Scott watched it, but he protested several times that the protagonist was TSTL.
Steven Universe the Movie - I don't remember this clearly. I know I watched it and enjoyed it, but I don't remember what happened.
The Story of Saiunkoku: season 1 part 2, part 3 DVD 1 - I've been watching this sporadically. The gaps are long enough that I can't track the supporting characters. I think this means that I'm losing a good portion of the plot complications and political maneuvering. It's always fairly clear how the characters connect to the heroine, but I'll be damned if I can remember how they relate to each other. I'm not sure that I can do better with this series, though, as I'm getting it on DVD from Netflix. I've got so many things that I'm watching that way, and I don't want to lose track of any of them.
Teen Titans Go! Season 5 pt. 1 - I’m glad the voice actors are still getting work, but there wasn’t really much funny here. The stories were very paint by numbers, and the characters no longer felt recognizable as themselves or even as parodies of themselves.
Time Toys - This is a kids' movie. A bunch of kids find a box filled with extraordinary devices from the future. They end up trying to fight a corporation to protect their neighborhood and the world.
Titans (TV) season 1 episode 1 - None of us wanted to watch more. I found it to violent and too badly lit. Cordelia didn’t like the pacing, the violence or the characters; she bailed before we did. Scott and I both found ourselves unimpressed by the actor playing Dick Grayson. We couldn’t figure out a reason why we’d enjoy going forward.
Top Hat - Rogers & Astaire. I think this was the second time I watched this. The plot has farcical elements in terms of assumptions and crossed wires that just go on way too long. There's a lot of humor in it, but it's also kind of too much for me. The joke goes on way, way too long. More song and dance numbers might have carried it better. It's also very dated.
Toy Story 4 - As I have with every new Toy Story movie, I worried that this would retread old territory. It didn't. The theme of not all change being bad continues, and Woody grows by learning when to let go. It's just that the movie is fun and feels very different from the previous three. The focus shifts to look at toys in the wild, the ones that have some level of community with each and who aren't looking to be owned by a particular child. The desire for a singular child to play with still comes across as a valid choice; it's just not the only happy option.
The Trouble with Angels - This follows two girls at a convent school as they get into trouble and grow up. At first, they're both contemptuous about the nuns and their rules. I didn't feel like the ending quite worked. I could see the set up for it, but I thought it needed more details. I'm also extremely dubious about the scene in which the nuns try to get bras for the girls and end up just getting them all the exact same size rather than let the girls go on trying on lingerie.
Umi ga Kikoeru | Ocean Waves - This is another one where I felt like the POV focus was on the least interesting character. The protagonist is boring. The girl is very Manic Pixie Dream Girl with hints around the edges that she could have been a much more interesting protagonist. I actually looked at Scott several times and asked him to confirm that I wasn't missing something about the story. Possibly there were depths that we missed, but this all felt more like a mud puddle than an ocean.
Understanding the New Testament - 24 episode lecture series by Professor David Brakke of Ohio State University. The lecturer spends a lot of time on the cultural context of the various texts and why certain things were brought into the canon and others excluded. That included theories on authorship (in terms of which things were by the same authors). He addressed apparent theological contradictions and the importance the destruction of the Temple. The differences in culture between the early Christians of Jewish background versus the early Christians from other backgrounds, in his opinion, explained the focus on certain things in the epistles.
Understanding the Old Testament - Lecture series by Professor David D. Miller. A lot of this focused on issues of translation and on the things that may have been lost as the various stories were put together into a single work. The lecturer put more emphasis on historical context than on straight up theology. He also spent a lot of time speculating about which bits were poetical devices that we no longer have the context to understand fully or that we mangle because we assume literal factuality. The course covered only selections from the books of the Old Testament and only drew those from what Christians consider canon. The lecturer referred many times to Jewish scholarly traditions and seemed to have some grounding in/awareness of those, but it wasn't clear to me how accurate his knowledge was or if his study was from the outside. Now that I think of it, it bothers me that I'm not sure whether or not the lecturer was Jewish, Christian, atheist, or Pastafarian. It's not that I think the study should be limited to people with a particular background so much as that my not knowing means that I don't know what biases I may have failed to notice. (It's also possible that the lecturer gave this information at some point and that my brain failed to note and record it.)
Warcraft - DNF. The graphics/movement made me queasy. My eyes kept insisting that the wrong things were moving relative to my brain's understanding of how things can move. I suppose it was motion sickness of a sort. It's also an uncanny valley thing for me. I'm apt to get it from certain types of animated backgrounds; they're too close to real looking while still being wrong! wrong! wrong! according to my instincts. It's too obviously a disguise for a monster that's trying to lure me into range for eating. We lasted about three minutes. Scott was bored.
White Christmas - This was pure cotton candy. There's an attempt to insert romantic conflict via one of the female love interests jumping to conclusions based on an overheard fragment of conversation. The first half of the movie feels a little picaresque because it's meant to let the audience understand the characters and their relationships. The second half is all feel good sugar that lacks substance.
Your Name - I liked this much better than I expected that I would. The fact that the two characters lost track of parts of their lives when they swapped places helped explain why it went on without them communicating clearly. I liked that they each approached challenges in the other person's life differently than the original would have.
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Date: 2020-07-02 04:08 am (UTC)