DVD and TV Logging
May. 19th, 2016 02:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAgatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence: Partners in Crime, set 1, vol. 1-2 - This is the production from the 1980s with Francesca Annis and James Warwick rather than the more recent one. I haven’t seen the more recent one yet, so I can’t compare them. The library doesn’t have the entire set, and our library doesn’t participate in ILL for anything except books, so I’ll have to see about getting the rest from Netflix. I rather enjoyed these even if some bits were more than a little far fetched.
Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence: Partners in Crime, set 2, vol. 1-2 Netflix delivered promptly. I was less taken with these. I didn’t hate them, and I watched them quickly, but I had trouble paying attention (that may be more down to what’s been going on in my life than to the episodes. I can’t tell).
Arrow season 1 DVD 3? - I was surprised to get this because I thought I’d taken Arrow out of my Netflix queue. I decided that, since it was here, I should watch it, so I put it in and watched about fifteen minutes. Then I left it for two weeks. At which point, I decided I’d better just send it back because, obviously, I wasn’t interested enough to watch more.
Avengers ’63 DVD 1 - I had trouble following this. The image quality was bad enough that I noticed it as a problem. The three episodes I watched focused heavily on one off characters, and I felt like I was missing a lot of context. This is the earliest DVD that our library has, but the IMDb says that it’s not the first season. Maybe things would have made more sense with more context. It looks like Diana Rigg comes in in 1965, and she’s a big reason I was interested. Unfortunately, the library only has DVDs from the 1963 season. Netflix didn’t have a complete run the last time I checked, either.
Baahubali - I really enjoyed this a lot, and I think Scott did, too. I wasn’t entirely sure that what I put a hold on at the library was the movie I’d seen recommended because the library titled it 'Bahubali' without the appropriate diacritic over the first 'a.' The plot contains no real surprises, but the acting is good. There are songs and dances and epic battles. I was a little surprised that, right when I expected the movie to end (I’d been warned that it ends with the story unresolved), it went into a forty minute or so flashback to the life of the hero’s father. The hero’s father is played by the same actor who plays the hero (thus explaining why everyone recognizes the hero when he arrives in the kingdom of his birth). I want the second movie now. Sadly, I’ll have to wait a while.
Case Closed season 5 DVD 4 - I’m not sure there’s much to say. It’s been long enough since I watched this that I don’t remember any of the specific cases. This series is pretty even in terms of quality. I like both the Japanese voice actors and the English dub, so this is something I can watch either way.
Continuum season 1 DVD 2 - It took us more than a month to get through this DVD because we kept forgetting we had it and because we don’t get that much time to watch TV when Cordelia’s not around. We wouldn’t object to her watching this; she’s the one who’s against it. I really like time travel stories, and this one is just twisty enough to fascinate me. I like the fact that the future, from the glimpses we see, is pretty dystopic. It creates a tension I like— The protagonist is trying to defend that future, and she’s likable and compassionate. The antagonists are trying to change it, but they’re willing to kill people. And then, the last episode gives us just enough information to call all sorts of things into question without offering any answers. We want season two immediately.
Danny Phantom season 1 - I think I had seen some of these episodes before. I know I watched some of this show when Netflix had it streaming (I’m not sure if they do any more, but I almost never finish anything that I start watching streaming because it’s somehow more trouble than watching a DVD), but I don’t remember where exactly I stopped, so I thought I’d better start over. I originally got interested in the show when I read some fic for it by authors who’d written stuff I liked in other fandoms. At any rate, this is somewhere between SF and fantasy, a cartoon series about a kid who can turn into a ghost in order to fight ghostly invaders from another dimension. It’s heavy on the comedy.
Drunk History season 1 first ten minutes - I know I’ve got a friend or two with emetophobia, and just, really, don’t watch this. Scott and I tried to watch, but we couldn’t. I’m told that it actually gets to be funny later on, but I didn’t feel like slogging through stuff that was actively repelling me in order to get to humor that might or might not appeal to me.
Far from the Madding Crowd - I was sick when I tried to watch this and wasn’t able to focus enough to read. Sadly, that meant I wasn’t able to focus enough to watch this movie. I only managed about fifteen minutes, and I don’t have a clear idea of who the characters were or of what happened.
Liberty’s Kids episode 1 - I just bounced off this one completely. I’m not sure how much was me not feeling well and how much was this just not being my sort of thing. The friend who recommended this to me is passionate about the American Revolution.
The Martian - Scott adores this movie. He saw it in the theater and couldn’t wait to buy it and show it to me (Cordelia insists that she wants to read the book first but isn’t in any hurry to pick up the book). I thought the movie was well done and that the story was solid. I enjoyed it. It just wasn’t the sort of thing that catches me hard the way that it’s caught Scott. I wouldn’t mind watching it again, but I don’t know that I’ll bother with the book.
Mirror, Mirror - I must confess that I missed a lot of this one. Cordelia and I watched it together, and I was stressed out and tired. I’m not sure, though, that I would have finished it on my own. I wasn’t actually very interested.
Mr Holmes - This is another one I started and then stalled out on. I may try it again later as I was sick when I tried it, but the waitlist at the library is still pretty long, and I don’t feel particularly motivated, so I don’t know.
Red 2 - I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as I did the first movie, but I liked it quite a lot anyway. It had just the right mix of the ridiculous with action. I liked the fact that they kept the love interest from the previous movie— So many series dump those characters and never mention them again that I was worried. But she was still very central to what was going on, and she got character development.
Reilly, Ace of Spies episode 1 - I gave up in the middle of the first episode because I really wanted to throw something at the TV. I wasn’t at all enthusiastic about the way the title character was acting. It was all very reasonable for what he was doing and for the time and place, but I didn’t want to spend hours more with the character. The IMDb assures me that the female character survives, but I didn’t like the way he was manipulating her. I’m pretty sure that he knew exactly what the real risks were and that she didn’t. She was afraid things would go badly, but she didn’t seem to have a grasp on just how bad it could get.
Rick and Morty episode 1 - The things I’ve heard about this series lead me to believe that the story might interest me long term, but I couldn’t tolerate anything about the show in the short term.
Sapphire and Steel DVD 2-5 - This makes a decent background thing to have on while I do other things. I suspect that, if I were focusing on it, the ponderous pace would irritate me. The acting is pretty flat; I think that that’s deliberate— as an atmospheric thing. I accidentally got the fifth DVD before the fourth. Those are, sadly, the only ones where getting the order wrong matters because the fourth DVD starts a story that finishes on the fifth. I was fairly confused by how abruptly the story started on the fifth DVD. There being three preceding episodes on the fourth DVD explained a lot.
Shaun the Sheep - This was reasonably amusing but not hugely memorable. I showered in the middle of it, taking fifteen minutes out while Scott and Cordelia kept watching, and I don’t think I missed anything plot crucial. Which shouldn’t surprise me given that the plot really wasn’t the point.
Spy - I absolutely loved this, and I do not say that lightly. So many female characters and all of them different from each other! There was a point, late in the movie, when Scott was worried that focus was going to shift to a male character, but it didn’t. It stayed on Susan and on her competence. I haven’t dug into the fic on AO3, but I saw one rec’d, and it is marvelous. It’s called Would You Hold It Against Me by Toft, and I think it’s got the character voices down perfectly. It’s set post-canon, but I think it’s only spoilery if you have doubts that Susan is going to pull off her mission successfully.
Stage Fright - I watched most of this movie before I gave up on it. I had high hopes because I’ve liked other Hitchcock movies. This one, though, seemed to meander. I didn’t feel the urgency that the characters claimed to feel. I wasn’t amused, I wasn’t wondering how the plot would turn out, and I couldn’t tell the various younger male characters apart. I think that it didn’t help that the female lead’s involvement in the story depended on her having a strong attachment to another character who barely appeared on screen at all and who was very clearly in love with someone else.
Star Wars: Droid Tales - This is a collection of Lego Star Wars episodes that revisit the first six movies from Threepio’s point of view (and with his biases) as he tells his story to other people. They were actually very, very funny and light.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens - I quite enjoyed this. I’m not head over heels or anything, but I almost never am for any movie— Of what I’ve listed here, Spy and Baahubali are the only ones that I feel I must own (And Cordelia gave me Spy for Mother’s Day). At any rate, I was sad about the terrible things that happened to the characters from the original trilogy. It’s not that I didn’t believe what happened with Han and Leia. It’s just hard to give up on decades of hoping they had a HEA. I’m withholding judgment on Luke right now. I very much liked the new characters and want to see their stories unfold. It’s just that Han, Luke, and Leia were Star Wars for me when I was a kid in the 1970s.
Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence: Partners in Crime, set 2, vol. 1-2 Netflix delivered promptly. I was less taken with these. I didn’t hate them, and I watched them quickly, but I had trouble paying attention (that may be more down to what’s been going on in my life than to the episodes. I can’t tell).
Arrow season 1 DVD 3? - I was surprised to get this because I thought I’d taken Arrow out of my Netflix queue. I decided that, since it was here, I should watch it, so I put it in and watched about fifteen minutes. Then I left it for two weeks. At which point, I decided I’d better just send it back because, obviously, I wasn’t interested enough to watch more.
Avengers ’63 DVD 1 - I had trouble following this. The image quality was bad enough that I noticed it as a problem. The three episodes I watched focused heavily on one off characters, and I felt like I was missing a lot of context. This is the earliest DVD that our library has, but the IMDb says that it’s not the first season. Maybe things would have made more sense with more context. It looks like Diana Rigg comes in in 1965, and she’s a big reason I was interested. Unfortunately, the library only has DVDs from the 1963 season. Netflix didn’t have a complete run the last time I checked, either.
Baahubali - I really enjoyed this a lot, and I think Scott did, too. I wasn’t entirely sure that what I put a hold on at the library was the movie I’d seen recommended because the library titled it 'Bahubali' without the appropriate diacritic over the first 'a.' The plot contains no real surprises, but the acting is good. There are songs and dances and epic battles. I was a little surprised that, right when I expected the movie to end (I’d been warned that it ends with the story unresolved), it went into a forty minute or so flashback to the life of the hero’s father. The hero’s father is played by the same actor who plays the hero (thus explaining why everyone recognizes the hero when he arrives in the kingdom of his birth). I want the second movie now. Sadly, I’ll have to wait a while.
Case Closed season 5 DVD 4 - I’m not sure there’s much to say. It’s been long enough since I watched this that I don’t remember any of the specific cases. This series is pretty even in terms of quality. I like both the Japanese voice actors and the English dub, so this is something I can watch either way.
Continuum season 1 DVD 2 - It took us more than a month to get through this DVD because we kept forgetting we had it and because we don’t get that much time to watch TV when Cordelia’s not around. We wouldn’t object to her watching this; she’s the one who’s against it. I really like time travel stories, and this one is just twisty enough to fascinate me. I like the fact that the future, from the glimpses we see, is pretty dystopic. It creates a tension I like— The protagonist is trying to defend that future, and she’s likable and compassionate. The antagonists are trying to change it, but they’re willing to kill people. And then, the last episode gives us just enough information to call all sorts of things into question without offering any answers. We want season two immediately.
Danny Phantom season 1 - I think I had seen some of these episodes before. I know I watched some of this show when Netflix had it streaming (I’m not sure if they do any more, but I almost never finish anything that I start watching streaming because it’s somehow more trouble than watching a DVD), but I don’t remember where exactly I stopped, so I thought I’d better start over. I originally got interested in the show when I read some fic for it by authors who’d written stuff I liked in other fandoms. At any rate, this is somewhere between SF and fantasy, a cartoon series about a kid who can turn into a ghost in order to fight ghostly invaders from another dimension. It’s heavy on the comedy.
Drunk History season 1 first ten minutes - I know I’ve got a friend or two with emetophobia, and just, really, don’t watch this. Scott and I tried to watch, but we couldn’t. I’m told that it actually gets to be funny later on, but I didn’t feel like slogging through stuff that was actively repelling me in order to get to humor that might or might not appeal to me.
Far from the Madding Crowd - I was sick when I tried to watch this and wasn’t able to focus enough to read. Sadly, that meant I wasn’t able to focus enough to watch this movie. I only managed about fifteen minutes, and I don’t have a clear idea of who the characters were or of what happened.
Liberty’s Kids episode 1 - I just bounced off this one completely. I’m not sure how much was me not feeling well and how much was this just not being my sort of thing. The friend who recommended this to me is passionate about the American Revolution.
The Martian - Scott adores this movie. He saw it in the theater and couldn’t wait to buy it and show it to me (Cordelia insists that she wants to read the book first but isn’t in any hurry to pick up the book). I thought the movie was well done and that the story was solid. I enjoyed it. It just wasn’t the sort of thing that catches me hard the way that it’s caught Scott. I wouldn’t mind watching it again, but I don’t know that I’ll bother with the book.
Mirror, Mirror - I must confess that I missed a lot of this one. Cordelia and I watched it together, and I was stressed out and tired. I’m not sure, though, that I would have finished it on my own. I wasn’t actually very interested.
Mr Holmes - This is another one I started and then stalled out on. I may try it again later as I was sick when I tried it, but the waitlist at the library is still pretty long, and I don’t feel particularly motivated, so I don’t know.
Red 2 - I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as I did the first movie, but I liked it quite a lot anyway. It had just the right mix of the ridiculous with action. I liked the fact that they kept the love interest from the previous movie— So many series dump those characters and never mention them again that I was worried. But she was still very central to what was going on, and she got character development.
Reilly, Ace of Spies episode 1 - I gave up in the middle of the first episode because I really wanted to throw something at the TV. I wasn’t at all enthusiastic about the way the title character was acting. It was all very reasonable for what he was doing and for the time and place, but I didn’t want to spend hours more with the character. The IMDb assures me that the female character survives, but I didn’t like the way he was manipulating her. I’m pretty sure that he knew exactly what the real risks were and that she didn’t. She was afraid things would go badly, but she didn’t seem to have a grasp on just how bad it could get.
Rick and Morty episode 1 - The things I’ve heard about this series lead me to believe that the story might interest me long term, but I couldn’t tolerate anything about the show in the short term.
Sapphire and Steel DVD 2-5 - This makes a decent background thing to have on while I do other things. I suspect that, if I were focusing on it, the ponderous pace would irritate me. The acting is pretty flat; I think that that’s deliberate— as an atmospheric thing. I accidentally got the fifth DVD before the fourth. Those are, sadly, the only ones where getting the order wrong matters because the fourth DVD starts a story that finishes on the fifth. I was fairly confused by how abruptly the story started on the fifth DVD. There being three preceding episodes on the fourth DVD explained a lot.
Shaun the Sheep - This was reasonably amusing but not hugely memorable. I showered in the middle of it, taking fifteen minutes out while Scott and Cordelia kept watching, and I don’t think I missed anything plot crucial. Which shouldn’t surprise me given that the plot really wasn’t the point.
Spy - I absolutely loved this, and I do not say that lightly. So many female characters and all of them different from each other! There was a point, late in the movie, when Scott was worried that focus was going to shift to a male character, but it didn’t. It stayed on Susan and on her competence. I haven’t dug into the fic on AO3, but I saw one rec’d, and it is marvelous. It’s called Would You Hold It Against Me by Toft, and I think it’s got the character voices down perfectly. It’s set post-canon, but I think it’s only spoilery if you have doubts that Susan is going to pull off her mission successfully.
Stage Fright - I watched most of this movie before I gave up on it. I had high hopes because I’ve liked other Hitchcock movies. This one, though, seemed to meander. I didn’t feel the urgency that the characters claimed to feel. I wasn’t amused, I wasn’t wondering how the plot would turn out, and I couldn’t tell the various younger male characters apart. I think that it didn’t help that the female lead’s involvement in the story depended on her having a strong attachment to another character who barely appeared on screen at all and who was very clearly in love with someone else.
Star Wars: Droid Tales - This is a collection of Lego Star Wars episodes that revisit the first six movies from Threepio’s point of view (and with his biases) as he tells his story to other people. They were actually very, very funny and light.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens - I quite enjoyed this. I’m not head over heels or anything, but I almost never am for any movie— Of what I’ve listed here, Spy and Baahubali are the only ones that I feel I must own (And Cordelia gave me Spy for Mother’s Day). At any rate, I was sad about the terrible things that happened to the characters from the original trilogy. It’s not that I didn’t believe what happened with Han and Leia. It’s just hard to give up on decades of hoping they had a HEA. I’m withholding judgment on Luke right now. I very much liked the new characters and want to see their stories unfold. It’s just that Han, Luke, and Leia were Star Wars for me when I was a kid in the 1970s.
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Date: 2016-05-20 02:58 pm (UTC)RED 2! Yeah, the first movie was better but this was still pretty good. I kinda miss Karl Urban's character, though, but that's probably just because I like Karl Urban.
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Date: 2016-05-20 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-20 07:02 pm (UTC)I enjoyed Danny Phantom, especially in the earlier seasons.
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Date: 2016-05-20 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-21 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-21 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-20 08:46 pm (UTC)I'm going to see what other Hitchcock movies the library has.
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Date: 2016-05-21 04:29 am (UTC)My favorite Hitchcock hands-down is Shadow of a Doubt, with Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. This is one of his earlier black & whites from the 1940s.
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Date: 2016-05-21 06:52 pm (UTC)I haven't seen Rear Window, but I've seen a lot of stuff that riffs on it. The library has several different editions, so I should be able to get one.
I'm pretty sure I saw Shadow of a Doubt in a showing at college. That would have been 1986 and before video rental options drove the campus cinema clubs out of business. Those clubs used to get films and show them, charging a couple of dollars a person. We watched a lot of movies that way when I was in elementary school, and I went to a few when I came back here for college.
Shadow of a Doubt is the one with the uncle who might actually be a bad guy and only his niece suspects, yes? I think I liked it.
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Date: 2016-05-21 08:10 pm (UTC)Yep!
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Date: 2016-05-19 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-19 10:49 pm (UTC)And I knew that about Diana Rigg once I checked the IMDb. Sadly, the library only has the 1963 season and nothing else, so I'd likely have tried that anyway even though I wanted to see her.
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Date: 2016-05-19 11:24 pm (UTC)And I think Cordelia is right about wanting to read The Martian before watching it (although she should probably feel free to skim the sciencier bits in the book; that's what my son did when he read it, and he really liked it).
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Date: 2016-05-20 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-20 03:43 pm (UTC)The library came through with the e-book of The Magicians and Mrs. Quent a few days ago, and I started reading that. I'm mostly enjoying it so far, though it's kind of slow.
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Date: 2016-05-22 04:15 am (UTC)There is a lot of swearing if that makes a difference. I felt it was in character.
I get embarrassed by comedies easily, and there were bits I skipped over on rewatching, but I'm certainly going to watch it again.