DVD Logging

[the_rck]

The A-Team - Scott and I only watched the first half an hour or so of this. We were curious, but nothing caught our attention enough to make us want to keep going. Nostalgia for the series wasn't enough.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame - I enjoyed this one. It took me a long time to get around to watching it. Netflix has had it streaming for quite a while, but somehow I never got around to it until the DVD came. Everything was very pretty, and the fight scenes were excellent. The plot was more than a little over complicated, but I expected that. I don't know that the mystery was quite fair, but I don't suppose people watched this as a mystery.

Doctor Who: Dreamland - This was very slight. It only ran forty-four minutes, and the plot wasn't much of anything. The animation felt awkward to me, and the new characters that were introduced didn't get much beyond cardboard. Scott commented that this lacked what has interested him about the new Who-- the characters.

Frozen - Scott bought this the day it came out. Cordelia had already seen it and loved it, and that was enough for Scott. There was a lot I liked about this one. Having the central relationship be the one between the sisters made the movie stronger, and I liked the idea that the romance was just getting started at the end. I also liked that Elsa kept and controlled her power. I wish they'd been making movies like this when I was a kid. I hope they keep making movies like this.

The Maigret Collection DVD 1 episode 1 - I didn't care for this, so I didn't push forward with it. Everything in it felt kind of... beige, for want of a better word. None of the characters stood out to me, and I didn't have the patience to see if later episodes might have given me more.

Sharpe's Peril - I watched 2/3 to 3/4 of this and enjoyed it reasonably well. It's just that I was tired while Scott was watching the second half and didn't feel motivated either to stay up with him and watch or to ask him to hold off on watching the rest. I got ready for bed instead of watching the end. I do miss the supporting cast from the early movies, however. These movies are why I never assume that Sean Bean's characters are doomed. They're how I met him first.

Thor: the Dark World - We ended up watching the first half of this twice because we started over so that Cordelia could see the first part. I'm fairly neutral on this one. Superhero stories are more Scott's thing than mine. I'm not against them, not at all. I just don't appreciate them the way he does. This one had plenty of action and kept my attention. Cordelia commented that it was almost too scary for her.

Comments

[inkstone]

The plot was more than a little over complicated

The hilarious thing about this is that, having watched the director's other movies, Detective Dee's plot is actually pretty coherent by comparison!

[the_rck]

That's interesting to know. My knowledge of Chinese films is very limited and hasn't extended to tracking directors (I'm bad about tracking directors for US films, too, so it's not just the language barrier). I haven't figured out what to do to get Netflix to recommend interesting films for me. I think the recommendation algorithm falls down when it comes to any sort of Asian film or show.

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

I saw Detective Dee in the theater with ken_3k since we both like the old Robert van Gulick (I think it's Robert) Detective Dee stories, which are "translations" of the original Chinese books. There really was a Judge Dee in the early 1200s (I think) and there were a bunch of Chinese detective stories about him through the years. van Gulik began translating them, and writing new ones in English in the early 20th century.
Anyway, the movie was fun, though I really quibbled about some of the costume choices of the Empress and I liked the stories better, since Dee is a Judge and has a whole society/entourage in them.... Eh. It was fun, though.

We picked up Frozen and Thor: The Dark World on DVD this weekend. I'd seen Frozen at the theater, of course, but it was nice to rewatch and see the little bits I'd missed on the first watching. (I love the Easter Eggs!) I haven't seen Thor yet, but I am looking forward to that!

Edited to fix Ken's user name. Sigh.

[the_rck]

I've read van Gulik's books. I enjoyed them a lot. I actually bought all the ones that turned up at Borders back when they were being re-issued. I was intrigued to see what the movie would do with Dee.

Eleanor Cooney and Daniel Altieri wrote a couple of long Judge Dee novels. I've read the first one and liked it, but I've never seen the second one. The first one was called Deception when I read it but, according to Amazon, is now called The Iron Empress. The second one is apparently called The Shore of Pearls. I hadn't heard of it until I searched the first one on Amazon just now.