DVD Logging
Jun. 24th, 2016 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAncient China: Lost Treasures of the Ancient World - This covered the history of China in under an hour, so it was seriously skimming. I'm not sure that I'd recommend it to anyone who already knew something about Chinese history. It did what I wanted it to do, though, which was to give me something to play in the background that would not increase my stress levels. Learning something would have been a bonus, but that wasn't what I was looking for, so.
The Body in the Library - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. I like Hickson's Marple better than I did McEwan's. Hickson manages the balance between having screen presence enough to make sure that viewers pay attention to her while making it clear why many of the people around her don't. The idea that Miss Marple is more or less invisible to most people is pretty central in terms of making the stories work. This particular story was okay. I liked the cast of characters. I'm less sure about the flashbacks and about the resolution of the mystery. I'm generally bad at mysteries because I don't pay enough attention to catch clues; if I do solve the mystery, it's generally because of narrative inevitability.
5000 Years of Magnificent Wonders. Disc 2, Ancient Rome - I'm not sure there's much to say about this. It's pretty much what it says on the tin. There's a fairly heavy focus on which emperors built which things more than on the wars and such. I suspect it's because many of the construction projects left behind remnants that can be filmed.
A Heart Set Free - This was a biography of Charles Wesley and seemed very bent on making him and his brother more than human. I didn't check, but I expect that the production was funded by some Methodist organization or another. I got it from the library because Scott's family is Methodist and I have only the vaguest idea of where that sect comes from. I didn't get much here. I suppose there's always Wikipedia… Oh, and this is the DVD that put me off with the assertion that the high infant mortality of the era was due to neglect (with a strong hint that the neglect was due to alcohol).
Jailhouse Rock - I gave up on this after about twenty minutes. I had no idea what the movie was about when I checked it out. I was just curious to try an Elvis Presley movie. If I'd known more, I likely wouldn't have bothered because it's the sort of story that really doesn't work for me.
Lemonade - I'm very obviously ignorant of the idioms at play here. This is not my type of music or a type that I know how to parse. Also, this DVD doesn't have captioning which makes everything hugely more difficult. I did think that some bits were very, very pretty.
The Moving Finger - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. This is a different version of one of the McEwen movies I watched, and I much, much preferred this one. I could actually track the events and characters in this one. This one was clearer about the poison pen letters, too, which helped immensely. A question for those who've read Christie’s novels— Is there quite so much of having someone act as a stalking goat for the murderer by pretending to know something? At least three of the four movies in this set had that (and I don't remember for sure about the fourth).
The Murder at the Vicarage - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. I've actually mostly forgotten this one by now. It's been two or three weeks, and it's all just gone.
A Murder Is Announced - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. I liked the interactions between the investigating detective and Miss Marple in this one because he clearly trusts her and respects her judgment but he also goes out of his way not to let any possible suspects realize that. When the detective came on the scene, I knew I recognized the actor but couldn't think where from. The actor in question is John Castle who played Geoffrey in the movie version of The Lion in Winter with Katherine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. He's a couple of decades older here. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, I was searching for photographs of him online because the players in the Amber game I was running had asked me to pick actors who I thought the npcs looked like. I couldn't find this guy because of the genericness of his name. That was before the IMDb.
A 19th Century Ball: The Charm of Group Dances - I was sort of vaguely curious because the record in the library catalog for the DVD specifically mentioned a quadrille and a cotillion. I hadn't ever had any sort of image in mind for what those were. I also figured that there was no way on earth that this particular DVD could stress me out. Apparently, the square dances that we learned in gym and music in elementary school were variations of quadrilles. I suppose that was too fancy to use with seven year olds.
The Silk Road - I was expecting history for some reason, but this is basically a guy going from city to city along the Silk Road and seeing what those cities are like now. So it’s more of a travelogue.
They Do It With Mirrors - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. I think the part that will stick with me on this is Miss Marple and another woman her age sitting in the audience during a dance performance that was, ah, not quite what they were expecting. There was a guy with one side of his face done in red and the other in white with a belt hanging down from his forehead to divide the two. There were people dressed in skin tight, zebra striped outfits rolling around on the stage in feigned sex. The scene kept cutting between the two women and the stage.
Zootopia - We bought this based on Cordelia's huge enthusiasm for the movie, and Scott and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a kids' movie, so certain bits are pretty simple. I'd expect most people to spot the actual villain by the mid-point, and it's pretty clear when the characters make (understandable and in character) mistakes. I found myself thinking a good bit about the webcomic, Kevin and Kell. That has different complications and themes, but it's a similar sort of world.
The Body in the Library - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. I like Hickson's Marple better than I did McEwan's. Hickson manages the balance between having screen presence enough to make sure that viewers pay attention to her while making it clear why many of the people around her don't. The idea that Miss Marple is more or less invisible to most people is pretty central in terms of making the stories work. This particular story was okay. I liked the cast of characters. I'm less sure about the flashbacks and about the resolution of the mystery. I'm generally bad at mysteries because I don't pay enough attention to catch clues; if I do solve the mystery, it's generally because of narrative inevitability.
5000 Years of Magnificent Wonders. Disc 2, Ancient Rome - I'm not sure there's much to say about this. It's pretty much what it says on the tin. There's a fairly heavy focus on which emperors built which things more than on the wars and such. I suspect it's because many of the construction projects left behind remnants that can be filmed.
A Heart Set Free - This was a biography of Charles Wesley and seemed very bent on making him and his brother more than human. I didn't check, but I expect that the production was funded by some Methodist organization or another. I got it from the library because Scott's family is Methodist and I have only the vaguest idea of where that sect comes from. I didn't get much here. I suppose there's always Wikipedia… Oh, and this is the DVD that put me off with the assertion that the high infant mortality of the era was due to neglect (with a strong hint that the neglect was due to alcohol).
Jailhouse Rock - I gave up on this after about twenty minutes. I had no idea what the movie was about when I checked it out. I was just curious to try an Elvis Presley movie. If I'd known more, I likely wouldn't have bothered because it's the sort of story that really doesn't work for me.
Lemonade - I'm very obviously ignorant of the idioms at play here. This is not my type of music or a type that I know how to parse. Also, this DVD doesn't have captioning which makes everything hugely more difficult. I did think that some bits were very, very pretty.
The Moving Finger - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. This is a different version of one of the McEwen movies I watched, and I much, much preferred this one. I could actually track the events and characters in this one. This one was clearer about the poison pen letters, too, which helped immensely. A question for those who've read Christie’s novels— Is there quite so much of having someone act as a stalking goat for the murderer by pretending to know something? At least three of the four movies in this set had that (and I don't remember for sure about the fourth).
The Murder at the Vicarage - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. I've actually mostly forgotten this one by now. It's been two or three weeks, and it's all just gone.
A Murder Is Announced - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. I liked the interactions between the investigating detective and Miss Marple in this one because he clearly trusts her and respects her judgment but he also goes out of his way not to let any possible suspects realize that. When the detective came on the scene, I knew I recognized the actor but couldn't think where from. The actor in question is John Castle who played Geoffrey in the movie version of The Lion in Winter with Katherine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. He's a couple of decades older here. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, I was searching for photographs of him online because the players in the Amber game I was running had asked me to pick actors who I thought the npcs looked like. I couldn't find this guy because of the genericness of his name. That was before the IMDb.
A 19th Century Ball: The Charm of Group Dances - I was sort of vaguely curious because the record in the library catalog for the DVD specifically mentioned a quadrille and a cotillion. I hadn't ever had any sort of image in mind for what those were. I also figured that there was no way on earth that this particular DVD could stress me out. Apparently, the square dances that we learned in gym and music in elementary school were variations of quadrilles. I suppose that was too fancy to use with seven year olds.
The Silk Road - I was expecting history for some reason, but this is basically a guy going from city to city along the Silk Road and seeing what those cities are like now. So it’s more of a travelogue.
They Do It With Mirrors - Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. I think the part that will stick with me on this is Miss Marple and another woman her age sitting in the audience during a dance performance that was, ah, not quite what they were expecting. There was a guy with one side of his face done in red and the other in white with a belt hanging down from his forehead to divide the two. There were people dressed in skin tight, zebra striped outfits rolling around on the stage in feigned sex. The scene kept cutting between the two women and the stage.
Zootopia - We bought this based on Cordelia's huge enthusiasm for the movie, and Scott and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a kids' movie, so certain bits are pretty simple. I'd expect most people to spot the actual villain by the mid-point, and it's pretty clear when the characters make (understandable and in character) mistakes. I found myself thinking a good bit about the webcomic, Kevin and Kell. That has different complications and themes, but it's a similar sort of world.
