DVD Logging
Mar. 2nd, 2011 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAria the Natural season 2 1-26 - There's something really soothing about watching a show in which nothing really goes wrong. I enjoyed the further exploration of the city, particularly the episodes with the King of the Cats. I liked all the characters. I even remembered their names. I really can't recommend this series highly enough.
Avatar - I wasn't sure whether to count this as something I watched or not. I didn't pay close attention to it and went to bed before it ended, so I only sort of watched part of it. I don't expect I'll ever watch more of it-- It wasn't the sort of movie I'd choose to spend time on. It was pretty. The CGI was amazing. The story annoyed me. I don't even want to touch the underlying themes and such.
Batman Superman Movie - Scott found the art of this disturbing. He kept remarking on the fact that almost all of the men were built the same way-- 'like Superman,' he said. Unfortunately, that's most of what I remember from the movie. The Joker was in it, and he was crazy. Lois Lane was there and fell for Bruce Wayne. Superman and Batman had some personality conflicts. I think I only recommend this for completists.
Bolt - I don't usually log movies I watched on TV. I'm not sure why. I think it's because most of them are things I watched because Delia watched them, Disney channel, made for TV movies. I'm logging this because it was in our Netflix queue. I remember that I added it because I thought Delia might watch it with us. Well, she watched it twice (they aired it two days in a row, once in the evening and once in the afternoon). The whole thing was reasonably cute. The movie's about a dog who plays a superdog on a hit TV show. The gimmick is that the folks making the show have convinced him that it's all real and that he really does have super powers. Then he accidentally gets shipped across the country and has to (he believes) get back to rescue his little girl. He's joined in his trip by a cat and a hamster. I'm not sure how the whole having Bolt believe everything was real would really work in practice. I can think of all sorts of problems with it, logical and logistical.
Burn Notice season 3 DVD 1-4 - I think I've already said that I wouldn't be watching this if it weren't for Scott. That's still true. I find the characters amusing enough, but they're not enough to hold my attention. I'm not quite sure why the show doesn't catch me. I enjoy the episodes well enough when I can get myself to invest time in them.
Case Closed: Phantom of Baker Street - I don't tend to expect heavy science fiction elements in a Detective Conan story, so I was thrown off a bit by the set up here-- Conan and his friends get a chance to try out an immersive virtual reality game and end up trapped in it by a rogue AI. Out in the real world, a murder has occurred. The murderer's identity is known to the audience from the moment the crime occurs. I was a bit boggled by the motivation for the murder as it didn't seem to me to be something worth the fuss. I suspect that's a cultural difference.
Chrono Crusade 1-2 - I simply couldn't get myself to care about this. Rosette came across as loud, klutzy and not very interesting, and Chrono's voice grated enough that, if I'd been interested enough to continue, I'd probably have tried the dub. Fighting monsters isn't really the sort of story that appeals to me, so this one might work well for somebody else.
Despicable Me - Cordelia caught part of this movie at a friend's house and said she wanted to see the rest, so I put it at the top of our Netflix queue. It was better than I expected-- cute and funny. I don't understand the financial benefit of stealing the moon, but I'm willing to accept that, in the world of the story, there would be one. The three orphans managed to have distinct personalities.
Due South pilot - I'm not sure we gave this show enough of a chance, but neither Scott nor I were interested in continuing after the pilot. I kept the DVD for a couple of extra days, thinking that I might try one more episode, just to be sure, but I didn't end up watching more. Neither of us are really much interested in cop shows or mysteries. Occasionally there's show that will catch us in spite of being outside our normal viewing habits, but this wasn't one.
Early Edition season 1 DVD 1 - Scott and I used to watch this sporadically when it originally aired. I added it to our Netflix queue because I remembered Scott liking it. I don't think we'll watch more of it now, though. Scott's comment was that the story is always the same-- The main character is always chasing something in the paper (For those not familiar with the series, the main character, every morning, receives a copy of the next day's paper. He spends his days trying to fix the things that he reads about). Scott was glad to see how it all started. We'd never seen the beginning.
Kaleido Star: New Wings 1-3 - I bailed on this after the third episode because I realized that I resented the time I was giving to the episodes. I didn't like the heroine enough to deal with the characters I liked less. All of this wasn't helped by having the first two episodes be a summary of the first season of Kaleido Star. I haven't seen all of season one because Netflix is missing the second or third DVD, so the summary wasn't entirely wasted, but I didn't enjoy it. It was hitting the highlights of the plot without providing any depth of story or character development, and it made me want to smack people. Episode three started new plot but both immediately introduced two major and unlikable characters and gave me reasons to want to shake the heroine until her teeth rattled. It might get better, but I have other things to do with my time.
Les Miserables in Concert - (I debated how to alphabetize this. My training says to strip the article, but the play and book aren't known as just 'Miserables' any more than 'Los Angeles' can be reduced to 'Angeles.' I spent too long working in libraries.) I enjoyed the music but found the story more depressing than I really wanted to deal with. I should have expected the latter, given the title and the fragments I knew about the story. I also somehow didn't expect it to be so long (about two and a half hours).
Leverage season 2 DVD 1-4 - We had fun watching this season. We were never particularly eager to get the next DVD, but we enjoyed the episodes when we watched them. The complicated capers were always worth our time. I'd have liked to see less about Nate and more about the other characters.
Live at the Celtic Roots Festival DVD 1-3 - Decent music without being anything that I have to run right out and buy (which is a pity. I'd love some new music). Each artist/group did several numbers, so I got a feel for their overall style.
Lois & Clark season 1 DVD 1-6 - I found this more charming than I expected. I liked the characters and didn't mind spending time with them. I did keep wanting story arc, though, and don't feel any great urgency to go on to further seasons. I did keep expecting Smallville's Lex Luthor and being disappointed. Not that this Lex was bad exactly-- He just didn't quite work for me as an interesting villain.
Magic Users Club DVD 1-7 - I saw part of this series years ago (before Cordelia was born), but I couldn't remember exactly which parts or what happened, so I started at the beginning. I remember the characters, but none of the episodes have felt familiar. I liked the OAVs better than the series because the alien ship provided a strong arc. The club president's tendency to dive into sexual fantasy irritated me because those fantasies seemed to go on and on and weren't really funny. I find myself a bit surprised that the Magic Users Club remains so small-- I'd think that rumors of real magic would get around.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - Scott really wanted to see this movie. Left on my own, I'd never have bothered. I'd like the couple of hours back, even now. The movie was bad. The acting rose to mediocre. The effects were decent but didn't save the movie.
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency season 1 DVD 1-3 - I hesitated over continuing this series past the first DVD. My tastes run to SF and fantasy, and this has no elements of either. I liked the characters, though, and enjoyed the leisurely pace of the stories. It was also really interesting to see a place that's unlike any I've ever been-- Botswana. I did nearly abandon the series during the last DVD. I found the rival detective repulsive and evil and wanted nothing to do with him at all. The implicit violence of bringing Note back into Precious' life really put me off, not that I disbelieved it.
Ponyo - I expected to like this less than I did. I'm phobic of deep water, particularly water where I can't see the bottom, and flooding really gets to me. This, however, was stylized enough not to bother me too much. I'm not sure exactly why, but I didn't freak out or need to flee to another room. The sea life was gorgeously weird. I feel a bit sorry for the little boy-- He's committed to loving Ponyo forever or she'll die. That's a lot to put on a kid, and forever is a long time, especially as people change when they grow. I fear tragedy down the road even as there was a happy ending to the movie.
Psych season 3 DVD 2-4 - I missed the first DVD of this season in the immediate aftermath of the surgery-- I was too out of it to pay attention and not up to sitting upright for the length of an episode. Scott says I didn't miss anything crucial. I'm still spending part of every episode with my eyes averted and my ears covered.
Psych season 4 DVD 1-4 - We've reached the point where Scott's already seen most of the episodes. I have the impression that he still wants to watch this season. I'm not sure how much has to do with enjoying even a rewatch and how much to do with wanting to catch any episodes he's missed. I wouldn't mind going on to something else.
Reaper episode 1-2 - We got the first DVD of this from Netflix but didn't like it enough to watch all four episodes. On my own, I might have persevered to the end of the DVD, but Scott was decidedly not interested. We may not have been fair to the series as two episodes isn't enough for a show to start showing a lot of variety. Of course, we only watched episode two to see if it improved, varied, something. The story's about a slacker who discovers that, before he was born, his parents sold him to the Devil. The Devil wants him to retrieve souls that have escaped from Hell.
Sarah Jane Adventures season 3 DVD 1-2 - It's a pity these seasons are so short. I enjoy the episodes and would like more of them. I wonder if Delia's old enough to appreciate this show. It's scarier than anything she usually watches, but it might not be too scary. At any rate, this is Sarah Jane and the kids saving the world over and over.
Shaolin Soccer - It's been long enough that I don't remember this movie clearly. I remember that it was funny and that the kung fu stunts were spectacular. Combining soccer with magical levels of kung fu works surprisingly well.
Tales of Phantasia - This was actually rather dull. I didn't care about any of the characters, and the plot was fragmented. It's based on a videogame, so perhaps I'd have cared more if I'd played the game. I doubt it, though. The plot is a fairly standard fantasy quest. The biggest twist is that it involves time travel, and the time travel hardly matters.
Toy Story 3 - Delia really wanted to see this, so we moved it to the top of our Netflix queue. The stuff I'd heard about it from those who'd seen it made me hesitate to watch it, so I'd previously been content to let it slowly move up the queue. Over all, I enjoyed it. The toys' desperation to be played with moved me. The daycare setting was scary, very much a police state.
Twelve Kingdoms 1-45 - I'd seen part of this years ago, but I watched it from the beginning because I wasn't sure where I'd left off. I also figured that reviewing the early material would be helpful. My memory's not always the best for such things. As each DVD arrived from Netflix, I'd put off watching it, but the moment I started a DVD, I'd rush through it and be annoyed by interruptions. As I watched, I kind of got used to characters who start out unlikable and develop into better people.
The last episode was unnecessary. Seriously, who puts a clip show as the last episode? Worse, it's a clip show covering only the previous five or so episodes, nothing that viewers will have forgotten. I suppose it's evidence that they were expecting to animate more of the novels. I'll have to try reading the novels to see what more is in there. The arcs animated feel fairly complete (apart from the major dangling plot threads about Taiki), so I wouldn't be surprised if the books are quite close to the anime.
Avatar - I wasn't sure whether to count this as something I watched or not. I didn't pay close attention to it and went to bed before it ended, so I only sort of watched part of it. I don't expect I'll ever watch more of it-- It wasn't the sort of movie I'd choose to spend time on. It was pretty. The CGI was amazing. The story annoyed me. I don't even want to touch the underlying themes and such.
Batman Superman Movie - Scott found the art of this disturbing. He kept remarking on the fact that almost all of the men were built the same way-- 'like Superman,' he said. Unfortunately, that's most of what I remember from the movie. The Joker was in it, and he was crazy. Lois Lane was there and fell for Bruce Wayne. Superman and Batman had some personality conflicts. I think I only recommend this for completists.
Bolt - I don't usually log movies I watched on TV. I'm not sure why. I think it's because most of them are things I watched because Delia watched them, Disney channel, made for TV movies. I'm logging this because it was in our Netflix queue. I remember that I added it because I thought Delia might watch it with us. Well, she watched it twice (they aired it two days in a row, once in the evening and once in the afternoon). The whole thing was reasonably cute. The movie's about a dog who plays a superdog on a hit TV show. The gimmick is that the folks making the show have convinced him that it's all real and that he really does have super powers. Then he accidentally gets shipped across the country and has to (he believes) get back to rescue his little girl. He's joined in his trip by a cat and a hamster. I'm not sure how the whole having Bolt believe everything was real would really work in practice. I can think of all sorts of problems with it, logical and logistical.
Burn Notice season 3 DVD 1-4 - I think I've already said that I wouldn't be watching this if it weren't for Scott. That's still true. I find the characters amusing enough, but they're not enough to hold my attention. I'm not quite sure why the show doesn't catch me. I enjoy the episodes well enough when I can get myself to invest time in them.
Case Closed: Phantom of Baker Street - I don't tend to expect heavy science fiction elements in a Detective Conan story, so I was thrown off a bit by the set up here-- Conan and his friends get a chance to try out an immersive virtual reality game and end up trapped in it by a rogue AI. Out in the real world, a murder has occurred. The murderer's identity is known to the audience from the moment the crime occurs. I was a bit boggled by the motivation for the murder as it didn't seem to me to be something worth the fuss. I suspect that's a cultural difference.
Chrono Crusade 1-2 - I simply couldn't get myself to care about this. Rosette came across as loud, klutzy and not very interesting, and Chrono's voice grated enough that, if I'd been interested enough to continue, I'd probably have tried the dub. Fighting monsters isn't really the sort of story that appeals to me, so this one might work well for somebody else.
Despicable Me - Cordelia caught part of this movie at a friend's house and said she wanted to see the rest, so I put it at the top of our Netflix queue. It was better than I expected-- cute and funny. I don't understand the financial benefit of stealing the moon, but I'm willing to accept that, in the world of the story, there would be one. The three orphans managed to have distinct personalities.
Due South pilot - I'm not sure we gave this show enough of a chance, but neither Scott nor I were interested in continuing after the pilot. I kept the DVD for a couple of extra days, thinking that I might try one more episode, just to be sure, but I didn't end up watching more. Neither of us are really much interested in cop shows or mysteries. Occasionally there's show that will catch us in spite of being outside our normal viewing habits, but this wasn't one.
Early Edition season 1 DVD 1 - Scott and I used to watch this sporadically when it originally aired. I added it to our Netflix queue because I remembered Scott liking it. I don't think we'll watch more of it now, though. Scott's comment was that the story is always the same-- The main character is always chasing something in the paper (For those not familiar with the series, the main character, every morning, receives a copy of the next day's paper. He spends his days trying to fix the things that he reads about). Scott was glad to see how it all started. We'd never seen the beginning.
Kaleido Star: New Wings 1-3 - I bailed on this after the third episode because I realized that I resented the time I was giving to the episodes. I didn't like the heroine enough to deal with the characters I liked less. All of this wasn't helped by having the first two episodes be a summary of the first season of Kaleido Star. I haven't seen all of season one because Netflix is missing the second or third DVD, so the summary wasn't entirely wasted, but I didn't enjoy it. It was hitting the highlights of the plot without providing any depth of story or character development, and it made me want to smack people. Episode three started new plot but both immediately introduced two major and unlikable characters and gave me reasons to want to shake the heroine until her teeth rattled. It might get better, but I have other things to do with my time.
Les Miserables in Concert - (I debated how to alphabetize this. My training says to strip the article, but the play and book aren't known as just 'Miserables' any more than 'Los Angeles' can be reduced to 'Angeles.' I spent too long working in libraries.) I enjoyed the music but found the story more depressing than I really wanted to deal with. I should have expected the latter, given the title and the fragments I knew about the story. I also somehow didn't expect it to be so long (about two and a half hours).
Leverage season 2 DVD 1-4 - We had fun watching this season. We were never particularly eager to get the next DVD, but we enjoyed the episodes when we watched them. The complicated capers were always worth our time. I'd have liked to see less about Nate and more about the other characters.
Live at the Celtic Roots Festival DVD 1-3 - Decent music without being anything that I have to run right out and buy (which is a pity. I'd love some new music). Each artist/group did several numbers, so I got a feel for their overall style.
Lois & Clark season 1 DVD 1-6 - I found this more charming than I expected. I liked the characters and didn't mind spending time with them. I did keep wanting story arc, though, and don't feel any great urgency to go on to further seasons. I did keep expecting Smallville's Lex Luthor and being disappointed. Not that this Lex was bad exactly-- He just didn't quite work for me as an interesting villain.
Magic Users Club DVD 1-7 - I saw part of this series years ago (before Cordelia was born), but I couldn't remember exactly which parts or what happened, so I started at the beginning. I remember the characters, but none of the episodes have felt familiar. I liked the OAVs better than the series because the alien ship provided a strong arc. The club president's tendency to dive into sexual fantasy irritated me because those fantasies seemed to go on and on and weren't really funny. I find myself a bit surprised that the Magic Users Club remains so small-- I'd think that rumors of real magic would get around.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - Scott really wanted to see this movie. Left on my own, I'd never have bothered. I'd like the couple of hours back, even now. The movie was bad. The acting rose to mediocre. The effects were decent but didn't save the movie.
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency season 1 DVD 1-3 - I hesitated over continuing this series past the first DVD. My tastes run to SF and fantasy, and this has no elements of either. I liked the characters, though, and enjoyed the leisurely pace of the stories. It was also really interesting to see a place that's unlike any I've ever been-- Botswana. I did nearly abandon the series during the last DVD. I found the rival detective repulsive and evil and wanted nothing to do with him at all. The implicit violence of bringing Note back into Precious' life really put me off, not that I disbelieved it.
Ponyo - I expected to like this less than I did. I'm phobic of deep water, particularly water where I can't see the bottom, and flooding really gets to me. This, however, was stylized enough not to bother me too much. I'm not sure exactly why, but I didn't freak out or need to flee to another room. The sea life was gorgeously weird. I feel a bit sorry for the little boy-- He's committed to loving Ponyo forever or she'll die. That's a lot to put on a kid, and forever is a long time, especially as people change when they grow. I fear tragedy down the road even as there was a happy ending to the movie.
Psych season 3 DVD 2-4 - I missed the first DVD of this season in the immediate aftermath of the surgery-- I was too out of it to pay attention and not up to sitting upright for the length of an episode. Scott says I didn't miss anything crucial. I'm still spending part of every episode with my eyes averted and my ears covered.
Psych season 4 DVD 1-4 - We've reached the point where Scott's already seen most of the episodes. I have the impression that he still wants to watch this season. I'm not sure how much has to do with enjoying even a rewatch and how much to do with wanting to catch any episodes he's missed. I wouldn't mind going on to something else.
Reaper episode 1-2 - We got the first DVD of this from Netflix but didn't like it enough to watch all four episodes. On my own, I might have persevered to the end of the DVD, but Scott was decidedly not interested. We may not have been fair to the series as two episodes isn't enough for a show to start showing a lot of variety. Of course, we only watched episode two to see if it improved, varied, something. The story's about a slacker who discovers that, before he was born, his parents sold him to the Devil. The Devil wants him to retrieve souls that have escaped from Hell.
Sarah Jane Adventures season 3 DVD 1-2 - It's a pity these seasons are so short. I enjoy the episodes and would like more of them. I wonder if Delia's old enough to appreciate this show. It's scarier than anything she usually watches, but it might not be too scary. At any rate, this is Sarah Jane and the kids saving the world over and over.
Shaolin Soccer - It's been long enough that I don't remember this movie clearly. I remember that it was funny and that the kung fu stunts were spectacular. Combining soccer with magical levels of kung fu works surprisingly well.
Tales of Phantasia - This was actually rather dull. I didn't care about any of the characters, and the plot was fragmented. It's based on a videogame, so perhaps I'd have cared more if I'd played the game. I doubt it, though. The plot is a fairly standard fantasy quest. The biggest twist is that it involves time travel, and the time travel hardly matters.
Toy Story 3 - Delia really wanted to see this, so we moved it to the top of our Netflix queue. The stuff I'd heard about it from those who'd seen it made me hesitate to watch it, so I'd previously been content to let it slowly move up the queue. Over all, I enjoyed it. The toys' desperation to be played with moved me. The daycare setting was scary, very much a police state.
Twelve Kingdoms 1-45 - I'd seen part of this years ago, but I watched it from the beginning because I wasn't sure where I'd left off. I also figured that reviewing the early material would be helpful. My memory's not always the best for such things. As each DVD arrived from Netflix, I'd put off watching it, but the moment I started a DVD, I'd rush through it and be annoyed by interruptions. As I watched, I kind of got used to characters who start out unlikable and develop into better people.
The last episode was unnecessary. Seriously, who puts a clip show as the last episode? Worse, it's a clip show covering only the previous five or so episodes, nothing that viewers will have forgotten. I suppose it's evidence that they were expecting to animate more of the novels. I'll have to try reading the novels to see what more is in there. The arcs animated feel fairly complete (apart from the major dangling plot threads about Taiki), so I wouldn't be surprised if the books are quite close to the anime.
