DVD and TV Logging
Jun. 5th, 2016 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckBy the Pricking of My Thumbs - This Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwan) DVD came up when I was looking to see if the library had the second set of the Tommy & Tuppence series I’d been watching, and I thought I’d try it based on them being in it. I couldn’t finish the movie. Tommy was on screen for about ten minutes and then vanished. Tuppence was an alcoholic and obviously quite depressed. From what I could tell, now that her children were grown, she was regretting the things— specifically the possibility of a career in intelligence work— she gave up in order to have them. McEwan as Miss Marple simply faded into the background which— Yes, that’s something Miss Marple is supposed to do, but it’s a terrible choice for a movie where she’s the star.
Deadpool - I’m the wrong audience for this movie. I was kind of bored through most of it, and I didn’t actually like the main character. I don’t know if Cordelia is interested in trying this movie, but I’m quite sure she’d be horrified if she watched it with us. I’m not worried about the sex or the swearing because she might find them too much but that would only be embarrassment. The violence might be more than she’s willing to deal with.
Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace - This is a Second Doctor story. Episodes 2 and 3 still exist with video and audio. Episodes 1 and 4 are audio only with some stills. I had trouble following the audio only bits. I was more than a bit annoyed by Polly in general because she seemed to be there only to scream. The mad scientist was way, way over the top ridiculous. I couldn’t figure out what he thought he’d get out of destroying the planet.
5000 Years of Magnificent Wonders: Disc 1, Ancient Egypt - The main bit on this DVD was actually extremely superficial, skipping over centuries and only hitting highlights. It only ran about forty minutes, so it had to be superficial. It just would have been a lot more worthwhile if it had focused more. The extras were actually more interesting. One was about Cleopatra and the other about the treasures of Tutankhamen. I saw the King Tut exhibit when it toured the US in the mid 1970s. I don’t remember it very well. The detail that sticks most strongly is that they tried to cut off the group going into the exhibit between me and my mother. I was eight or nine, so that scared me pretty badly. I have much vaguer memories of being really awed by the treasures. The famous mask was actually not that big a deal for me. It was pretty, but it was far less interesting than the other things— toys, boats, chairs, canopic jars.
The Last Starfighter - I read the novelization of this back in the early 1980s. I don’t think the movie actually came to Paw Paw, so I never saw it. I’ve been meaning to check it out from the library ever since I noticed they had it. I didn’t remember much from the book, but I didn’t expect any plot twists or anything. And there weren’t. It was a fun movie, and I don’t regret the time spent, but I don’t think I’m going to remember the details for long.
The Moving Finger - I watched all of this Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwen) movie, but I never did figure out who the characters were or how they related to each other. That was partly me not paying attention and partly the whole thing not being very interesting at all. This one was the third one out of the set of four that I tried, and I don’t think that I’m going to bother putting in the fourth, given how I’ve felt about the first three.
Mysteries at the Museum season 1 DVD 1 - I wasn’t really happy with this. The voiceover was kind of over-the-top and sounded as if the narrator was trying to make everything horribly melodramatic. I’d have liked something more matter-of-fact better. The artifacts are definitely interesting, but… I feel like the show was trying to make me feel like I was watching some sort of action/suspense show instead of what’s pretty much a documentary. The story of the Enigma Machine, for example, ought to be interesting, but it really wasn’t.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind - I’d seen this before, fifteen or twenty years ago, and I had a vague memory of it being very pretty and very sad. Rewatching it, I found it much less sad than I expected. People still did terrible things to each other and to the world, but there was some hope, too. I’d thought that Cordelia might want to watch this because she’s been chasing down other Miyazaki titles, but apparently she wants to avoid being in the living room with us more than she wants to see this movie. Ah, well. She can get it from Netflix or from the library herself and watch it in her room. The copy I got from the library is Blu-ray, so she can’t watch it anywhere but the living room, but the library has the movie on DVD, too.
Sleeping Murder (Geraldine McEwan) - I got this set of Miss Marple movies because they came up when I searched 'Tommy Tuppence' in the library catalog. Those two aren’t in this movie. This made decent background while I worked on other things, but I kept having to stop because I could see two characters falling in love and I wasn’t ready to have things go there (she has a fiance in India, and he works for the fiance and has been tasked with helping her set up in England). McEwen did a decent Miss Marple, but I don’t have a lot of basis for comparison, so I can’t judge how she stacks up against other Marples. It’s very frustrating that these aren’t close captioned. I could follow everything, but captions make things much, much easier.
Deadpool - I’m the wrong audience for this movie. I was kind of bored through most of it, and I didn’t actually like the main character. I don’t know if Cordelia is interested in trying this movie, but I’m quite sure she’d be horrified if she watched it with us. I’m not worried about the sex or the swearing because she might find them too much but that would only be embarrassment. The violence might be more than she’s willing to deal with.
Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace - This is a Second Doctor story. Episodes 2 and 3 still exist with video and audio. Episodes 1 and 4 are audio only with some stills. I had trouble following the audio only bits. I was more than a bit annoyed by Polly in general because she seemed to be there only to scream. The mad scientist was way, way over the top ridiculous. I couldn’t figure out what he thought he’d get out of destroying the planet.
5000 Years of Magnificent Wonders: Disc 1, Ancient Egypt - The main bit on this DVD was actually extremely superficial, skipping over centuries and only hitting highlights. It only ran about forty minutes, so it had to be superficial. It just would have been a lot more worthwhile if it had focused more. The extras were actually more interesting. One was about Cleopatra and the other about the treasures of Tutankhamen. I saw the King Tut exhibit when it toured the US in the mid 1970s. I don’t remember it very well. The detail that sticks most strongly is that they tried to cut off the group going into the exhibit between me and my mother. I was eight or nine, so that scared me pretty badly. I have much vaguer memories of being really awed by the treasures. The famous mask was actually not that big a deal for me. It was pretty, but it was far less interesting than the other things— toys, boats, chairs, canopic jars.
The Last Starfighter - I read the novelization of this back in the early 1980s. I don’t think the movie actually came to Paw Paw, so I never saw it. I’ve been meaning to check it out from the library ever since I noticed they had it. I didn’t remember much from the book, but I didn’t expect any plot twists or anything. And there weren’t. It was a fun movie, and I don’t regret the time spent, but I don’t think I’m going to remember the details for long.
The Moving Finger - I watched all of this Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwen) movie, but I never did figure out who the characters were or how they related to each other. That was partly me not paying attention and partly the whole thing not being very interesting at all. This one was the third one out of the set of four that I tried, and I don’t think that I’m going to bother putting in the fourth, given how I’ve felt about the first three.
Mysteries at the Museum season 1 DVD 1 - I wasn’t really happy with this. The voiceover was kind of over-the-top and sounded as if the narrator was trying to make everything horribly melodramatic. I’d have liked something more matter-of-fact better. The artifacts are definitely interesting, but… I feel like the show was trying to make me feel like I was watching some sort of action/suspense show instead of what’s pretty much a documentary. The story of the Enigma Machine, for example, ought to be interesting, but it really wasn’t.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind - I’d seen this before, fifteen or twenty years ago, and I had a vague memory of it being very pretty and very sad. Rewatching it, I found it much less sad than I expected. People still did terrible things to each other and to the world, but there was some hope, too. I’d thought that Cordelia might want to watch this because she’s been chasing down other Miyazaki titles, but apparently she wants to avoid being in the living room with us more than she wants to see this movie. Ah, well. She can get it from Netflix or from the library herself and watch it in her room. The copy I got from the library is Blu-ray, so she can’t watch it anywhere but the living room, but the library has the movie on DVD, too.
Sleeping Murder (Geraldine McEwan) - I got this set of Miss Marple movies because they came up when I searched 'Tommy Tuppence' in the library catalog. Those two aren’t in this movie. This made decent background while I worked on other things, but I kept having to stop because I could see two characters falling in love and I wasn’t ready to have things go there (she has a fiance in India, and he works for the fiance and has been tasked with helping her set up in England). McEwen did a decent Miss Marple, but I don’t have a lot of basis for comparison, so I can’t judge how she stacks up against other Marples. It’s very frustrating that these aren’t close captioned. I could follow everything, but captions make things much, much easier.
