DVD Logging
Dec. 1st, 2009 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAngelic Layer 11-15 - I'm glad to be getting back to this series. I've managed to borrow it from a friend to bypass the missing DVD in the Netflix collection. The series is still sweet. I like having more about the main character's mother (at least, I don't remember all of this from the manga).
Eloise at Christmastime - Cordelia adores this movie. We've watched it half a dozen times already. I ended up spending a bit of time narrowing down when the movie's set. (For those who care, the window is 1965 through about 1972. Eloise once threw up on Coco Chanel who died in 1971. As Eloise is six and remembers it, she likely wasn't younger than four at the time. That's the upper limit. The lower limit comes from two data points-- Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is on TV in one scene. That movie came out in 1964. The other point is that two characters, at least four years before, used to dance to and sing songs from Gypsy. Gypsy opened in 1959.)
At any rate, the movie's sweet enough, but Eloise needs some discipline that she isn't getting. Fortunately, Cordelia doesn't seem to be taking her as a role model.
Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid 8-13 - I found myself rather surprised that nobody seemed to make the connection between Sousuke's sporadic success with the Lambda drive and Kaname's presence/absence. My impression was always that he did better when she was there or when he was directly protecting her. I can see that being inconvenient, but it seems like something to note and to explore.
This series was definitely darker than the first season, gorier too. All the silly went into FUMOFU (which I love). This series left threads that could be explored in future seasons but resolved Sousuke and Kaname's relationship to some extent. That last seems odd given that they spent so much of the time apart, but it's true. They both needed that separation to realize what they wanted and, at least in Sousuke's case, needed.
Handsome Siblings 11-15 - I finally got my hands on the third DVD from Netflix (the 'short wait' stretched about two months). I'm still not sure whether I should see this as a comedy with dark bits or a tragedy with lots of comedy. The Cantonese dub confused me by using a different voice for an actor I recognized so that I kept wondering who was talking (The evil eunuch in this series is played by, I believe, the same guy who played the evil eunuch in Patriotic Knights).
I'm not sure that I understand the villain's scheme to absorb yin and yang energy from women who're very yin and men who're very yang. Some of that, I think, is that the women seem to be identified by when they were born while the men are identified by what they do. Fortunately, I don't really need to understand it-- The supervillain is seeking ultimate power. If he gets it, things will be bad.
Handsome Siblings 16-20 - Wait-- Did the villain succeed? He absorbed energy from everybody, but Flawless Flower said that that didn't do what the villain expected. I'm not sure what the difference is between 'absorption' and 'transference' techniques.
This disk definitely skews to the tragic. I'm still waiting to see whether or not the big romantic pairing will end tragically. Halfway through the series seems early for that (but it gives time to develop a second romance).
I'm still boggled by the revenge scheme implemented by the leader of the Floral Palace. It's convoluted and ridiculous and aimed at never, ever moving on to thinking about something else. I tried to explain it to Scott, and he just blinked at me.
Kyo Kara Maoh 67-78 - I'm not at all sure I buy the ending. That is, I buy the big plot wrap up. I'm not as sure about some of the rest of it (and the parts I'm not sure of are spoilers, so I won't say unless asked).
Mai-HiME 17-20 - There are two more DVDs of this? Now I really want to know what happens and how the story stretches. Silly filler would feel horribly inappropriate now. The story has gotten darker but not in completely unexpected ways.
Mai-HiME 21-26 - The ending of the series left me with a few questions, not major questions but still questions. The resolution of the major plotline contained a few minor surprises but went about the way I expected. Parts of the final confrontation echoed Utena for me, but I think that was me more than the show. Overall satisfying, but I doubt I'll remember the characters in another week or two.
Mamma Mia! - I liked the music a lot, but the movie gave me a lot of trouble. I wanted to smack Sophie for not being honest with the people around her, and I felt bad for the three possible fathers. I liked all the characters. I just wanted to see them in situations that weren't quite so embarrassing. I gave up partway through, even with the music as a draw.
I was also a bit bothered by the background chorus at the inn, even knowing that they're a staple of musicals. Most members of the chorus were darker skinned than the actors with named parts, and I kept feeling disturbed by their apparent lack of other things to do than to be there to back up the very pale skinned leads. I also kept thinking about class issues which is not conducive to enjoying a fluffy musical that doesn't intend them as part of the story.
Monsters vs. Aliens - Scott and I enjoyed this, but we concluded that, even if the matinee Scott tried to take Cordelia to hadn't featured a preview for 9, Cordelia probably wouldn't have made it through the movie. The preview for 9 just guaranteed that she wouldn't last more than ten minutes into the movie.
Moribito 8-17 - So far, the pacing has been excellent. The slow episodes came just when they were needed as did the revelations about the egg inside the prince. I've been watching the dub with the subtitles on, and it's not bad.
Primeval season 3 DVD 1-2 - I like Danny. I didn't expect to, but I do. It's fun to see each member of the team having a chance to be competent. The new villain is interesting. I expect very, very bad things to come of her plans. I think, too, that Helen may have caused what she intended to prevent.
Primeval season 3 DVD 3 - If I hadn't heard that there's likely going to be a season four, I'd be homicidal over the last episode of this season. It ends with lots of stuck in untenable situations. I'd hate to leave them there. I still find Helen a bit incomprehensible and still wonder about the terrible future world and how to prevent it.
Shingu, Secret of the Stellar Wars 1-10 - I'm a little wobbly on this one. The balance between middle school hijinks and protecting the Earth from alien threats is a bit precarious even when, as here, it's well integrated. I'm also still having trouble tracking all the characters, so I'm not following all the plot threads as well as I might otherwise.
Shingu, Secret of the Stellar Wars 11-21 - I'm still not sure what's going on. There's more fighting aliens, more alien politics and more middle school day to day stuff. I have no idea where any of this is going. I'm having trouble giving this my full attention. I'm not sure it's a problem with the series as much as a problem with me. That is, anything I tried to watch would be getting only a fraction of my attention.
Star Trek - Scott bought this immediately (only to discover that the storage is non-standard. I don't think he's figured out what to do with the DVDs yet as the model of the Enterprise isn't going to work with our space constraints). I didn't love it, and I didn't hate it. I thought the acting was good and that the action moved along briskly. I'd have liked a bit more light on the sets, but that seems to be the current aesthetic for SF-- dark and dim.
Eloise at Christmastime - Cordelia adores this movie. We've watched it half a dozen times already. I ended up spending a bit of time narrowing down when the movie's set. (For those who care, the window is 1965 through about 1972. Eloise once threw up on Coco Chanel who died in 1971. As Eloise is six and remembers it, she likely wasn't younger than four at the time. That's the upper limit. The lower limit comes from two data points-- Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is on TV in one scene. That movie came out in 1964. The other point is that two characters, at least four years before, used to dance to and sing songs from Gypsy. Gypsy opened in 1959.)
At any rate, the movie's sweet enough, but Eloise needs some discipline that she isn't getting. Fortunately, Cordelia doesn't seem to be taking her as a role model.
Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid 8-13 - I found myself rather surprised that nobody seemed to make the connection between Sousuke's sporadic success with the Lambda drive and Kaname's presence/absence. My impression was always that he did better when she was there or when he was directly protecting her. I can see that being inconvenient, but it seems like something to note and to explore.
This series was definitely darker than the first season, gorier too. All the silly went into FUMOFU (which I love). This series left threads that could be explored in future seasons but resolved Sousuke and Kaname's relationship to some extent. That last seems odd given that they spent so much of the time apart, but it's true. They both needed that separation to realize what they wanted and, at least in Sousuke's case, needed.
Handsome Siblings 11-15 - I finally got my hands on the third DVD from Netflix (the 'short wait' stretched about two months). I'm still not sure whether I should see this as a comedy with dark bits or a tragedy with lots of comedy. The Cantonese dub confused me by using a different voice for an actor I recognized so that I kept wondering who was talking (The evil eunuch in this series is played by, I believe, the same guy who played the evil eunuch in Patriotic Knights).
I'm not sure that I understand the villain's scheme to absorb yin and yang energy from women who're very yin and men who're very yang. Some of that, I think, is that the women seem to be identified by when they were born while the men are identified by what they do. Fortunately, I don't really need to understand it-- The supervillain is seeking ultimate power. If he gets it, things will be bad.
Handsome Siblings 16-20 - Wait-- Did the villain succeed? He absorbed energy from everybody, but Flawless Flower said that that didn't do what the villain expected. I'm not sure what the difference is between 'absorption' and 'transference' techniques.
This disk definitely skews to the tragic. I'm still waiting to see whether or not the big romantic pairing will end tragically. Halfway through the series seems early for that (but it gives time to develop a second romance).
I'm still boggled by the revenge scheme implemented by the leader of the Floral Palace. It's convoluted and ridiculous and aimed at never, ever moving on to thinking about something else. I tried to explain it to Scott, and he just blinked at me.
Kyo Kara Maoh 67-78 - I'm not at all sure I buy the ending. That is, I buy the big plot wrap up. I'm not as sure about some of the rest of it (and the parts I'm not sure of are spoilers, so I won't say unless asked).
Mai-HiME 17-20 - There are two more DVDs of this? Now I really want to know what happens and how the story stretches. Silly filler would feel horribly inappropriate now. The story has gotten darker but not in completely unexpected ways.
Mai-HiME 21-26 - The ending of the series left me with a few questions, not major questions but still questions. The resolution of the major plotline contained a few minor surprises but went about the way I expected. Parts of the final confrontation echoed Utena for me, but I think that was me more than the show. Overall satisfying, but I doubt I'll remember the characters in another week or two.
Mamma Mia! - I liked the music a lot, but the movie gave me a lot of trouble. I wanted to smack Sophie for not being honest with the people around her, and I felt bad for the three possible fathers. I liked all the characters. I just wanted to see them in situations that weren't quite so embarrassing. I gave up partway through, even with the music as a draw.
I was also a bit bothered by the background chorus at the inn, even knowing that they're a staple of musicals. Most members of the chorus were darker skinned than the actors with named parts, and I kept feeling disturbed by their apparent lack of other things to do than to be there to back up the very pale skinned leads. I also kept thinking about class issues which is not conducive to enjoying a fluffy musical that doesn't intend them as part of the story.
Monsters vs. Aliens - Scott and I enjoyed this, but we concluded that, even if the matinee Scott tried to take Cordelia to hadn't featured a preview for 9, Cordelia probably wouldn't have made it through the movie. The preview for 9 just guaranteed that she wouldn't last more than ten minutes into the movie.
Moribito 8-17 - So far, the pacing has been excellent. The slow episodes came just when they were needed as did the revelations about the egg inside the prince. I've been watching the dub with the subtitles on, and it's not bad.
Primeval season 3 DVD 1-2 - I like Danny. I didn't expect to, but I do. It's fun to see each member of the team having a chance to be competent. The new villain is interesting. I expect very, very bad things to come of her plans. I think, too, that Helen may have caused what she intended to prevent.
Primeval season 3 DVD 3 - If I hadn't heard that there's likely going to be a season four, I'd be homicidal over the last episode of this season. It ends with lots of stuck in untenable situations. I'd hate to leave them there. I still find Helen a bit incomprehensible and still wonder about the terrible future world and how to prevent it.
Shingu, Secret of the Stellar Wars 1-10 - I'm a little wobbly on this one. The balance between middle school hijinks and protecting the Earth from alien threats is a bit precarious even when, as here, it's well integrated. I'm also still having trouble tracking all the characters, so I'm not following all the plot threads as well as I might otherwise.
Shingu, Secret of the Stellar Wars 11-21 - I'm still not sure what's going on. There's more fighting aliens, more alien politics and more middle school day to day stuff. I have no idea where any of this is going. I'm having trouble giving this my full attention. I'm not sure it's a problem with the series as much as a problem with me. That is, anything I tried to watch would be getting only a fraction of my attention.
Star Trek - Scott bought this immediately (only to discover that the storage is non-standard. I don't think he's figured out what to do with the DVDs yet as the model of the Enterprise isn't going to work with our space constraints). I didn't love it, and I didn't hate it. I thought the acting was good and that the action moved along briskly. I'd have liked a bit more light on the sets, but that seems to be the current aesthetic for SF-- dark and dim.
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Date: 2009-12-01 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 11:48 pm (UTC)