DVD and TV logging
Oct. 11th, 2015 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAnother Thin Man - I almost stopped watching this after about five minutes because I had somehow misremembered the blurb on the case and gotten the impression that there was a kidnapping involved. There wasn't. This was a perfectly respectable Nick and Nora Charles movie that didn't give me that sort of anxiety. I did feel that the plot was more than a little muddled by the end, but I wasn't watching for the plot.
Avengers: Age of Ultron - Eh. I don't care about action sequences, so most of this movie was just noise to me. Scott loves it, and Cordelia's enthusiastic. I'm just not really engaged. There are some character moments, but they're buried in other stuff that, well, makes my eyes glaze over.
Fraiser season 1 episodes 1-3 - I'm not sure if I'll go back to this or not. I enjoyed some of it, but there were also bits that made me flinch.
The Great Mouse Detective - In spite of owning the VHS tape of this (acquired used) for years, I had never watched it. I'm pretty sure that I bought the tape with the idea that Cordelia might want to watch it. All in all, I enjoyed this one. It's been long enough since I read the books by Eve Titus that I've forgotten all of the details. I just know that I liked them in elementary school. At any rate, someone told me yesterday that this is on Netflix streaming, so I watched it this morning and had fun. I sort of hoped Cordelia would be interested, but the lure of the new Rick Riordan novel is much stronger.
Guardians of the Museum - This is a four episode BBC show for kids. Unfortunately, it's really boring. The idea is that, in each episode, three kids undertake a series of challenges to see if they can become the Guardians of the Museum. If they fail, they'll be eternally imprisoned in the museum. There are three new kids in each episode, and not one of them has a personality or a backstory or a motivation for undertaking the challenge. Well, maybe it got better in episode three or four. I didn't watch them. I just couldn't.
Good Eats season 1 - I wish that Netflix had more of this because it's very soothing to watch. I like listening to Alton Brown. I don't agree with him on all food subjects, but I'm always interested in hearing what he has to say.
Green Lantern (animated) season 1 DVD 1 - Hal Jordan and his buddy (whose name I've already forgotten) are boring. The AI of the ship they're using intrigues me, and I'm interested in the Red Lantern they end up recruiting, but I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to care about the Green Lanterns, and I don't. Scott and I agreed to go on with the show, but we're not giving it high priority.
Home - I really liked The True Meaning of Smekday, the book this was sort of based on. (As Scott says, 'loosely based on the book cover.') I wanted more of the book, more of Tip's story instead of Oh's, more about the Boov as a colonizing power and the Gorg coming in as bigger and badder. And Tip should defeat them. Tip should be the main character. I'll give them a pass on changing J.Lo's name to Oh since I gather that was a trademark thing.
Jupiter Ascending - We couldn't talk Cordelia into trying this one with us. I think she'd have enjoyed it, but she'd heard too much about it being bad to be willing to try it. I'm kind of eh on the movie because action movies tend to leave me cold, but it really was an adolescent girl's fantasy, and I think it worked well that way.
Justice League: Gods and Monsters - This was disconcerting because it was very, very AU. There was a Superman, but he was Zod's son and raised by migrant workers. There was a Batman, but he wasn't Bruce Wayne, and he was a vampire. There was a Wonder Woman, but she came from another dimension and was not an Amazon. All three of them were willing to kill people. I kind of wanted more about Superman's backstory because he seemed to have had advantages that would be unlikely for the child of migrant workers. I would love to see fic explaining that. Pity I'm not doing Yuletide this year.
The Magic School Bus seasons 1-4 - This was perfect for while I was foggy due to the hydrocodone. Nothing was ever going to go wrong, and the stories weren't complicated, and the characters were static. It was all fun.
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries season 3 episodes 1-3 - I may come back later to watch more, but I also may not. I think that the problem is that I'm not interested in the mysteries particularly and don't find the character development enjoyable. Jack and Phryne have great chemistry, but they would make each other miserable because one or the other of them would have to change something basic about themselves in order for them to be together. For Dot and Hugh, Hugh seems to be wanting to get rid of the very things that attracted him to Dot to begin with, or, at least, the things I thought attracted him to Dot. He's trying to make her be someone she's not, and I'm not sure why she's sticking with him.
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb - I had to look away a couple of times when things got too embarrassing/too stressful, but all three of us enjoyed this movie. It was funny, and it was sweet, and it was sad. I had seen people say that Robin Williams' role had extra resonance, based on knowing what happened to him, and I think it did.
Ocean's Eleven (2001) - I didn't end up finishing this. I got an hour in, and I didn't care about the heist. I didn't remember anyone's name. Nothing drew my attention to the screen. Definitely not for me.
The Wind Rises - Hm. We finished this, but we weren't happy with it. The doomed romance was more than a little annoying, and Scott and I both felt that the movie, like the main character, wasn't paying attention to what the planes were for. I was actually more interested in the main character's sister than in any of the other characters.
Our current TV watching is Doctor Who, The Daily Show, The Nightly Show, The Voice, Girl Meets World, The Muppets, The Flash, and Agents of SHIELD. Those, taken together, eat up enough time each week that we're not getting very far with our Netflix shows. Scott is also watching Heroes Reborn, but I'm leaving the room for that. I suspect I will need to leave the room for The Muppets, too, because I can't seem to deal with the storylines there.
Oh, and I do watch occasional episodes of Antiques Roadshow. Scott and Cordelia prefer not to be around for that, so I mostly use the DVR and watch during the school day.
I haven't decided what I think of Trevor Noah yet. I feel like I haven't seen enough of him yet to have an opinion. That will probably take a couple of months. There is, at least, nothing leaping out about him that repels me.
I still feel sort of like The Nightly Show is something I ought to watch rather than something I want to watch for fun. I think Larry Wilmore is doing some important things, and once in a while, I laugh, but I tend to lose track of the panel discussions to an embarrassing extent.
The Voice and Girl Meets World are Cordelia's picks. She's watching a lot less TV now than she used to (largely because she's watching things streaming from Netflix on her iPad and reading instead).
Scott and Cordelia are both interested in The Muppets and Agents of Shield, and Doctor Who and The Flash are also Scott's picks.
I rather miss having something to watch that I'm looking forward to, but I can't think of anything I've heard about that I'm willing to gamble on. I can only deal with Doctor Who and Agents of SHIELD by not paying very much attention to them, and The Flash kind of pushes my comfort zone, too. My tolerance for stress is a lot lower than it has been any time in the last few years.
Avengers: Age of Ultron - Eh. I don't care about action sequences, so most of this movie was just noise to me. Scott loves it, and Cordelia's enthusiastic. I'm just not really engaged. There are some character moments, but they're buried in other stuff that, well, makes my eyes glaze over.
Fraiser season 1 episodes 1-3 - I'm not sure if I'll go back to this or not. I enjoyed some of it, but there were also bits that made me flinch.
The Great Mouse Detective - In spite of owning the VHS tape of this (acquired used) for years, I had never watched it. I'm pretty sure that I bought the tape with the idea that Cordelia might want to watch it. All in all, I enjoyed this one. It's been long enough since I read the books by Eve Titus that I've forgotten all of the details. I just know that I liked them in elementary school. At any rate, someone told me yesterday that this is on Netflix streaming, so I watched it this morning and had fun. I sort of hoped Cordelia would be interested, but the lure of the new Rick Riordan novel is much stronger.
Guardians of the Museum - This is a four episode BBC show for kids. Unfortunately, it's really boring. The idea is that, in each episode, three kids undertake a series of challenges to see if they can become the Guardians of the Museum. If they fail, they'll be eternally imprisoned in the museum. There are three new kids in each episode, and not one of them has a personality or a backstory or a motivation for undertaking the challenge. Well, maybe it got better in episode three or four. I didn't watch them. I just couldn't.
Good Eats season 1 - I wish that Netflix had more of this because it's very soothing to watch. I like listening to Alton Brown. I don't agree with him on all food subjects, but I'm always interested in hearing what he has to say.
Green Lantern (animated) season 1 DVD 1 - Hal Jordan and his buddy (whose name I've already forgotten) are boring. The AI of the ship they're using intrigues me, and I'm interested in the Red Lantern they end up recruiting, but I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to care about the Green Lanterns, and I don't. Scott and I agreed to go on with the show, but we're not giving it high priority.
Home - I really liked The True Meaning of Smekday, the book this was sort of based on. (As Scott says, 'loosely based on the book cover.') I wanted more of the book, more of Tip's story instead of Oh's, more about the Boov as a colonizing power and the Gorg coming in as bigger and badder. And Tip should defeat them. Tip should be the main character. I'll give them a pass on changing J.Lo's name to Oh since I gather that was a trademark thing.
Jupiter Ascending - We couldn't talk Cordelia into trying this one with us. I think she'd have enjoyed it, but she'd heard too much about it being bad to be willing to try it. I'm kind of eh on the movie because action movies tend to leave me cold, but it really was an adolescent girl's fantasy, and I think it worked well that way.
Justice League: Gods and Monsters - This was disconcerting because it was very, very AU. There was a Superman, but he was Zod's son and raised by migrant workers. There was a Batman, but he wasn't Bruce Wayne, and he was a vampire. There was a Wonder Woman, but she came from another dimension and was not an Amazon. All three of them were willing to kill people. I kind of wanted more about Superman's backstory because he seemed to have had advantages that would be unlikely for the child of migrant workers. I would love to see fic explaining that. Pity I'm not doing Yuletide this year.
The Magic School Bus seasons 1-4 - This was perfect for while I was foggy due to the hydrocodone. Nothing was ever going to go wrong, and the stories weren't complicated, and the characters were static. It was all fun.
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries season 3 episodes 1-3 - I may come back later to watch more, but I also may not. I think that the problem is that I'm not interested in the mysteries particularly and don't find the character development enjoyable. Jack and Phryne have great chemistry, but they would make each other miserable because one or the other of them would have to change something basic about themselves in order for them to be together. For Dot and Hugh, Hugh seems to be wanting to get rid of the very things that attracted him to Dot to begin with, or, at least, the things I thought attracted him to Dot. He's trying to make her be someone she's not, and I'm not sure why she's sticking with him.
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb - I had to look away a couple of times when things got too embarrassing/too stressful, but all three of us enjoyed this movie. It was funny, and it was sweet, and it was sad. I had seen people say that Robin Williams' role had extra resonance, based on knowing what happened to him, and I think it did.
Ocean's Eleven (2001) - I didn't end up finishing this. I got an hour in, and I didn't care about the heist. I didn't remember anyone's name. Nothing drew my attention to the screen. Definitely not for me.
The Wind Rises - Hm. We finished this, but we weren't happy with it. The doomed romance was more than a little annoying, and Scott and I both felt that the movie, like the main character, wasn't paying attention to what the planes were for. I was actually more interested in the main character's sister than in any of the other characters.
Our current TV watching is Doctor Who, The Daily Show, The Nightly Show, The Voice, Girl Meets World, The Muppets, The Flash, and Agents of SHIELD. Those, taken together, eat up enough time each week that we're not getting very far with our Netflix shows. Scott is also watching Heroes Reborn, but I'm leaving the room for that. I suspect I will need to leave the room for The Muppets, too, because I can't seem to deal with the storylines there.
Oh, and I do watch occasional episodes of Antiques Roadshow. Scott and Cordelia prefer not to be around for that, so I mostly use the DVR and watch during the school day.
I haven't decided what I think of Trevor Noah yet. I feel like I haven't seen enough of him yet to have an opinion. That will probably take a couple of months. There is, at least, nothing leaping out about him that repels me.
I still feel sort of like The Nightly Show is something I ought to watch rather than something I want to watch for fun. I think Larry Wilmore is doing some important things, and once in a while, I laugh, but I tend to lose track of the panel discussions to an embarrassing extent.
The Voice and Girl Meets World are Cordelia's picks. She's watching a lot less TV now than she used to (largely because she's watching things streaming from Netflix on her iPad and reading instead).
Scott and Cordelia are both interested in The Muppets and Agents of Shield, and Doctor Who and The Flash are also Scott's picks.
I rather miss having something to watch that I'm looking forward to, but I can't think of anything I've heard about that I'm willing to gamble on. I can only deal with Doctor Who and Agents of SHIELD by not paying very much attention to them, and The Flash kind of pushes my comfort zone, too. My tolerance for stress is a lot lower than it has been any time in the last few years.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-11 11:32 pm (UTC)My reaction The Wind Rises, which we watched a few weeks ago, was also similar to yours. The love story was just maudlin, and I too wanted more about the sister. My husband thinks the movie is supposed to be Miyazaki's statement about his own career, about wanting to make beautiful things and having to work within corrupting constraints. If so, I think it's a poor analogy.
I've been trying to think of DVDs that are well-made and engaging, but not anxiety-provoking, to recommend to you and not coming up with anything really useful, alas.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-13 04:15 pm (UTC)My favorite bit was assistant robot dealing with the bureaucracy. There could be an entire story there that I'd probably like better.
In Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, I think Hugh would really prefer the little woman who stays at home and makes the house for him. He loves Dot as she is, but that's not the wife he wants. Unless they can manage some sort of poly setup, I think the on-TV relationship is doomed to stasis because there's no satisfactory resolution. Unless Hugh suffers some sort of devastating injury and is invalided out, and he becomes the homemaker. But Dot is going to want to keep living with Phryne, so even that might not work. Maybe Hugh could become part of Phryne's retinue.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-14 06:05 pm (UTC)I do think I prefer the way that the Hugh/Dot romance goes in the books. It's there, but marriage is a very, very distant thing (Dot's expecting to spend years preparing for it, gathering all the things she expects to need for it), and there's not much exploration of what either Dot or Hugh expect of married life. Greenwood both wants time to pass and to keep the characters in stasis. I think that works better in written works. Also, Hugh isn't as much of a developed character in the books, I think. At any rate, based on the books, I wasn't expecting the romance to go anywhere within the frame of canon, certainly not as far as talking to a priest about it.