![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
DVD logging
Several of these are things that I (or we) didn't chose to finish watching.
The entry on Condor Hero does contain spoilers for the first DVD of the series as I did some stream of consciousness commentary. I'm pretty casual about spoilers, I'm afraid.
Afro Samurai - We lasted about fifteen minutes before shutting this one off. It was a combination of gore/violence and utter boredom. Simply not our sort of thing. Of course, I kind of suspected that, but the list of things the library has that might interest both me and Scott is a lot shorter than the list of things Netflix has that might.
Alice in Wonderland - This is the 1966 black and white BBC version. By five minutes in, I could tell that it was too self-consciously arty for my taste (which, you know, the being in black and white should have been a big clue), and I was very glad that I'd decided to preview it rather than let Delia see it. I'd thought that Alice had too much potential for being freaky and scary for me to let Delia at any version without my having seen it first. Surreal, creepy and dull with no silliness or charm and a lot of Importance. I suspect that it has a lot to offer for people who have a particular sort of taste, but it doesn't happen to be mine.
And, yes, I gave up after about fifteen minutes. I have better things to do, and it wasn't going to be good background for writing. Too many proto-horror movie vibes.
All Star Bluegrass Celebration - I've got few comments. I enjoyed the music as I expected to (and in spite of Delia's interruptions), but little of it is sticking in my memory. If I watched it again, more might stick, but otherwise I'm labeling this as relatively generic bluegrass, pleasant but replaceable.
Argento Soma 1-4 - The DVD had five episodes. I gave up when I realized that I'd missed most of episode four due to simply not paying attention. If it weren't due tomorrow, I'd probably finish it, but I'm not going to stay up to do that.
As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the first episode that couldn't have been covered very easily by flashbacks and incluing. In fact, there were a lot of flashbacks in the following episodes. They got tedious. I'd actually have preferred an infodump.
As You Like It - This is Branagh's version. It bored me. I watched all of it, but it bored me. Scott gave up after the first thirty minutes. He came back occasionally but never really got into it. I think that part of the problem is that the play moves slowly. It's sprawling, both in time and space. I suspect, also, that chunks of it don't work for a modern audience that isn't used to the conventions that have people not recognizing each other through quite unconvincing disguises.
I also question the decision to set the story in Japan. There's stuff that makes no sense in that context, and I spent a lot of time feeling disoriented because the sets looked Japanese, a few of the costumes did, and occasional other things did, but almost none of the actors did, and they were mostly spearcarriers.
Bride and Prejudice - This was a rewatch. I spotted the DVD at the library and grabbed it on the theory that it would be something light, amusing and in English. I was right. I really like this movie. There are a few moments of utter embarrassment that I can't watch, but I like the songs and the big dance numbers. This is a very good adaptation of the Austen.
Le Chevalier D'Eon 13-16 - This DVD picks up a bit after the slow third DVD. There were a few reveals (and a few things I probably missed when I let myself get distracted). The Poets have a use for Lia. I think they want to separate her soul from her brother's, but I'm not entirely clear there. I'm still not sure what the Poets are trying to do overall (and I'm not sure they all want the same thing). Two more DVDs to tie up all the plots. I wonder if I'm going to be scouring the internet after I finish to see if somebody can explain the plot to me?
Le Chevalier D'Eon 17-20 - ::blinks:: Lots happened, but I'm not sure I understood much of it. I'm not sure if the story's incoherent or if I'm simply distracted. I hope the final DVD explains things. I have the impression of complicated motivations, but I'm not sure if it's an impression based on hope or on the story.
Condor Hero 1-5 - This is getting mixed reviews on Netflix with some people utterly incensed at the existence of it as remake (I can't make out for sure whether it's a remake of The Condor Heroes or of Return of the Condor Heroes or if it's a new adaptation of the novels on which the earlier series were based) and other people loving it. My impression is that it goes over better among those who haven't seen the earlier version. I haven't, so I'm not going to worry about it since I'm enjoying it.
Some of the fight sequences are a lot of fun to watch. I've gotten lost in the plot complications but like the fact that many things happen simply because people are people rather than because Important Events require it. The subtitles are uneven and often confusing. I'm also a little frustrated because there aren't episode breaks. I kept waiting for an episode break, the first night I was watching this, so that I could go to bed. It never came. I finally had to pause the DVD and save my place. I don't like doing that because other people in the household (who shall remain nameless but who don't include the person too short to reach the DVD player) often mess those up.
I'm not entirely sure that I'm following the plot. I can't remember most of the characters' names. The monks blur together, and I'm not sure who's done what to who or why or why they shouldn't have (or should have done something different).
Here's a little stream of consciousness commentary--
I'd say that the kid-- I think his name is Yang Gor-- needs to be smacked, but that's happened repeatedly and has made things worse. Having someone be nice to him with some consistent rules seems a better approach. I keep wondering if we're due for a time skip so that he can be played as an adult. Him being a kid limits a lot of possible subplots.
Oh, okay. We just time skipped in the middle of a training exercise. He's definitely older but doesn't seem any more mature. That could get annoying. A kid acting like a kid is very different from an adult acting like a kid. Lack of socialization maybe? How old is he supposed to be? I don't get the impression that Gu Gu understands raising a child.
::snickers:: Something called the Virgin Mantra that has to be practiced naked and in pairs. Except that I can see clothes. And floating swords made out of flower petals.
Wow. Extremely protracted 'death scene' for the very young and attractive Gu Gu. Yang Gor is feeding her his blood. This is after, realizing that she was dying and wouldn't be able to keep her promise to look after him forever, she tried to kill him because, if he died before her, she wouldn't be foresworn. And-- And-- All that and she doesn't die?
Are there really eight more DVDs? Not that I won't be watching them. I'm just... overwhelmed. (Scott may or may not watch more. He enjoyed making snarky comments during the bits he did watch.)
Enchanted - Very sweet. Delia liked it when we reached the end, but she kept complaining that it was scary before that. Scott and I didn't quite believe her because that was during the big song and dance number in the park. It's possible that she finds elaborate choreography and smiling faces scary, but I think it's more likely that she doesn't like unfamiliar stories and couldn't see how that fit with a standard princess story.
House of Eliott 4-5 - I give up. I still love the acting and the characters, but I don't seem to be able to pay attention to the story. Each episode feels a lot longer than the not quite an hour it actually runs, and I didn't get the impression that any plot threads were going to wind up. Too much stress. Maybe I'll try the series again later.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - I sort of thought that I ought to watch this one so that I'd have seen it. That never ends well. At least in this case it wasn't a really painful experience. It just wasn't much to my taste, too gaudy, and I got annoyed early by Benjamin being in on betraying Joseph. As I recall the biblical story, Benjamin was too young to be a part of that (plus the whole thing of them being Rachel's only sons).
KakuRenBo - Somehow, I'd missed noting how short this is-- only about thirty minutes. This movie is basically a fireside ghost story, an urban legend for kids to tell at sleepovers. It doesn't have real complications or character arcs or underlying complexity. It comes down to-- Playing hide-and-seek in the wrong place is dangerous, and if the whispered stories say that *all* kids who play get snatched by demons, playing might not be a good survival strategy. The demons were fascinating, well drawn and animated, but I wanted more depth of story. We even watched the commentary, hoping for a little insight into what on earth the creators were thinking, but didn't get the answers we wanted.
Kurau Phantom Memory 13-16 - (I was tired enough last night to type "Kurau Phantom Menance." That would be a weird, weird crossover...) I like the fact that Kurau's uncle is disabled. It wasn't a plot point so far as I could tell, just something that was true about the character. It also showed as something progressive. He used a chair in the present day sequences and a crutch in the past sequences.
Episode 15 was marred by the fact that I watched it on my laptop and ended up having to look away a lot. Even with the screen three feet away, the action on the screen was too much for me to follow half the time. I was okay if the backgrounds were static or if the focus was close, but any panning shots or rapid action sequences hurt. The blond guy who turned up in that episode is obviously supposed to show us both why humans are so afraid of the Ryna Sapiens (because Kurau and Christmas are really not all that scary) and why the Ryna Sapiens are so desperate when dealing with humans and the human world.
Episode 16 had tragedy written all over it from the opening scene. I kept hoping that I was wrong because characters introduced just to be killed off tragically really, really annoy me. The more time they get, the more annoyed I am. One episode is just enough for me to be cranky. Three is sometimes enough for me to drop a series. (I apologize to anyone who considers this paragraph spoilery. It's hard for me to see it that way since the whole thing was telegraphed enough to make me complain to Scott about it at the beginning of the episode.)
Lupin the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus - I'd seen this before, fansubbed several years ago. I got it from Netflix because I knew Scott hadn't seen it. There's not really that much to say about it except that it's a typical Lupin the 3rd movie with chases, explosions, nudity and utter insanity. The big conspiracy of bad guys makes very little sense to me (I kept thinking that there must be cheaper and easier ways to achieve their ends). The various double crosses made more sense.
We've got more of these in our queue. I'm trying to space them out because, while they're fun, they're all very much the same. The characters don't change. The plots vary but are all wild.
National Treasure - I winced a lot during this movie. The action sequences were fun, but I worried more about the Declaration of Independence than I did about any of the characters. This proved a good movie to have on in the background while I wrote and while we were still having to respond to Delia every ten minutes. (She likes to ask for water, announce that she's having a bad dream, demand that her CD be changed and so on. We refuse to deal with anything that she could do herself, so the water requests and CD changing requests are referred back to her. The bad dream stuff only gets taken seriously if she's actually sounding genuinely distressed and is likely actually to have been asleep.)
Shura no Toki: Age of Chaos 1-5 - This anime, so far, gets a resound 'Meh' from me. There's nothing I hate about it, but I also haven't found anything to love. I do get the impression that it might be more interesting to me if I knew more Japanese history. From what I've gathered, poking around online, this anime has three arcs, each with entirely different characters and a different time setting. These episodes are all part of the same arc, but knowing that the entire arc has to be relatively short, I'm finding it difficult to deal with how shallow the characters seem to be.
Most of the characters actually look like adults, barring the kid sidekick and the female love interest (who might look older if she weren't disguised as a boy, but I'm not sure of it). There's a lot of fighting, mostly with swords, fists and improvised weapons but occasionally with more specialized weapons. There are lots of deaths but little gore (no blood), and most of the male characters, apart from the lead, have an obsession with proving strength through combat. The lead may simply not be obsessed with that because he's the best there is and knows it. I can't tell for sure.
I think this is another that will go on the list of things I'll finish after I've tried everything else and finished everything I like better. I'll put the next DVD in my Netflix queue and not move it up, just let it come up on its own if it ever does.
Teen Titans 7-13 - If we were looking for serious plot arc or character development, this series might disappoint us. Fortunately, we're just looking for something fun that doesn't require close attention. We had a few complaints about times when the characters were stupid for plot reasons. I'm hoping that we'll find out more about Slade in future seasons, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Torchwood - I think we're giving up on Torchwood. Scott's almost completely lost interest. Last night, he said, "This is becoming one of those shows that I don't want to watch but do want to know what happens. I wonder if Wikipedia has summaries?" We reached somewhere in the middle of season 1 (third DVD, with "Countrycide" and "Greeks Bearing Gifts") and watched about three season 3 (I think. Our impression is that these were very, very recent) episodes on demand from BBC America (one of the pluses of digital cable is having on demand for BBC America available even though our local company doesn't provide the channel for normal viewing).
For me, Torchwood was something that wasn't necessarily lots of fun but that I could watch with Scott. I think it too consistently tilts into horror and into Bad Things happening to everybody to be to my taste. I want humor, and I want to feel like the crap that happens to the characters and to the folks in the vicinity buys something other than just having to deal with the next terrible thing coming at them. Of course, I've also found that I like the new Doctor Who rather less than I liked the stuff I liked from the old Doctor Who (and I didn't like all of that).
The entry on Condor Hero does contain spoilers for the first DVD of the series as I did some stream of consciousness commentary. I'm pretty casual about spoilers, I'm afraid.
Afro Samurai - We lasted about fifteen minutes before shutting this one off. It was a combination of gore/violence and utter boredom. Simply not our sort of thing. Of course, I kind of suspected that, but the list of things the library has that might interest both me and Scott is a lot shorter than the list of things Netflix has that might.
Alice in Wonderland - This is the 1966 black and white BBC version. By five minutes in, I could tell that it was too self-consciously arty for my taste (which, you know, the being in black and white should have been a big clue), and I was very glad that I'd decided to preview it rather than let Delia see it. I'd thought that Alice had too much potential for being freaky and scary for me to let Delia at any version without my having seen it first. Surreal, creepy and dull with no silliness or charm and a lot of Importance. I suspect that it has a lot to offer for people who have a particular sort of taste, but it doesn't happen to be mine.
And, yes, I gave up after about fifteen minutes. I have better things to do, and it wasn't going to be good background for writing. Too many proto-horror movie vibes.
All Star Bluegrass Celebration - I've got few comments. I enjoyed the music as I expected to (and in spite of Delia's interruptions), but little of it is sticking in my memory. If I watched it again, more might stick, but otherwise I'm labeling this as relatively generic bluegrass, pleasant but replaceable.
Argento Soma 1-4 - The DVD had five episodes. I gave up when I realized that I'd missed most of episode four due to simply not paying attention. If it weren't due tomorrow, I'd probably finish it, but I'm not going to stay up to do that.
As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the first episode that couldn't have been covered very easily by flashbacks and incluing. In fact, there were a lot of flashbacks in the following episodes. They got tedious. I'd actually have preferred an infodump.
As You Like It - This is Branagh's version. It bored me. I watched all of it, but it bored me. Scott gave up after the first thirty minutes. He came back occasionally but never really got into it. I think that part of the problem is that the play moves slowly. It's sprawling, both in time and space. I suspect, also, that chunks of it don't work for a modern audience that isn't used to the conventions that have people not recognizing each other through quite unconvincing disguises.
I also question the decision to set the story in Japan. There's stuff that makes no sense in that context, and I spent a lot of time feeling disoriented because the sets looked Japanese, a few of the costumes did, and occasional other things did, but almost none of the actors did, and they were mostly spearcarriers.
Bride and Prejudice - This was a rewatch. I spotted the DVD at the library and grabbed it on the theory that it would be something light, amusing and in English. I was right. I really like this movie. There are a few moments of utter embarrassment that I can't watch, but I like the songs and the big dance numbers. This is a very good adaptation of the Austen.
Le Chevalier D'Eon 13-16 - This DVD picks up a bit after the slow third DVD. There were a few reveals (and a few things I probably missed when I let myself get distracted). The Poets have a use for Lia. I think they want to separate her soul from her brother's, but I'm not entirely clear there. I'm still not sure what the Poets are trying to do overall (and I'm not sure they all want the same thing). Two more DVDs to tie up all the plots. I wonder if I'm going to be scouring the internet after I finish to see if somebody can explain the plot to me?
Le Chevalier D'Eon 17-20 - ::blinks:: Lots happened, but I'm not sure I understood much of it. I'm not sure if the story's incoherent or if I'm simply distracted. I hope the final DVD explains things. I have the impression of complicated motivations, but I'm not sure if it's an impression based on hope or on the story.
Condor Hero 1-5 - This is getting mixed reviews on Netflix with some people utterly incensed at the existence of it as remake (I can't make out for sure whether it's a remake of The Condor Heroes or of Return of the Condor Heroes or if it's a new adaptation of the novels on which the earlier series were based) and other people loving it. My impression is that it goes over better among those who haven't seen the earlier version. I haven't, so I'm not going to worry about it since I'm enjoying it.
Some of the fight sequences are a lot of fun to watch. I've gotten lost in the plot complications but like the fact that many things happen simply because people are people rather than because Important Events require it. The subtitles are uneven and often confusing. I'm also a little frustrated because there aren't episode breaks. I kept waiting for an episode break, the first night I was watching this, so that I could go to bed. It never came. I finally had to pause the DVD and save my place. I don't like doing that because other people in the household (who shall remain nameless but who don't include the person too short to reach the DVD player) often mess those up.
I'm not entirely sure that I'm following the plot. I can't remember most of the characters' names. The monks blur together, and I'm not sure who's done what to who or why or why they shouldn't have (or should have done something different).
Here's a little stream of consciousness commentary--
I'd say that the kid-- I think his name is Yang Gor-- needs to be smacked, but that's happened repeatedly and has made things worse. Having someone be nice to him with some consistent rules seems a better approach. I keep wondering if we're due for a time skip so that he can be played as an adult. Him being a kid limits a lot of possible subplots.
Oh, okay. We just time skipped in the middle of a training exercise. He's definitely older but doesn't seem any more mature. That could get annoying. A kid acting like a kid is very different from an adult acting like a kid. Lack of socialization maybe? How old is he supposed to be? I don't get the impression that Gu Gu understands raising a child.
::snickers:: Something called the Virgin Mantra that has to be practiced naked and in pairs. Except that I can see clothes. And floating swords made out of flower petals.
Wow. Extremely protracted 'death scene' for the very young and attractive Gu Gu. Yang Gor is feeding her his blood. This is after, realizing that she was dying and wouldn't be able to keep her promise to look after him forever, she tried to kill him because, if he died before her, she wouldn't be foresworn. And-- And-- All that and she doesn't die?
Are there really eight more DVDs? Not that I won't be watching them. I'm just... overwhelmed. (Scott may or may not watch more. He enjoyed making snarky comments during the bits he did watch.)
Enchanted - Very sweet. Delia liked it when we reached the end, but she kept complaining that it was scary before that. Scott and I didn't quite believe her because that was during the big song and dance number in the park. It's possible that she finds elaborate choreography and smiling faces scary, but I think it's more likely that she doesn't like unfamiliar stories and couldn't see how that fit with a standard princess story.
House of Eliott 4-5 - I give up. I still love the acting and the characters, but I don't seem to be able to pay attention to the story. Each episode feels a lot longer than the not quite an hour it actually runs, and I didn't get the impression that any plot threads were going to wind up. Too much stress. Maybe I'll try the series again later.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - I sort of thought that I ought to watch this one so that I'd have seen it. That never ends well. At least in this case it wasn't a really painful experience. It just wasn't much to my taste, too gaudy, and I got annoyed early by Benjamin being in on betraying Joseph. As I recall the biblical story, Benjamin was too young to be a part of that (plus the whole thing of them being Rachel's only sons).
KakuRenBo - Somehow, I'd missed noting how short this is-- only about thirty minutes. This movie is basically a fireside ghost story, an urban legend for kids to tell at sleepovers. It doesn't have real complications or character arcs or underlying complexity. It comes down to-- Playing hide-and-seek in the wrong place is dangerous, and if the whispered stories say that *all* kids who play get snatched by demons, playing might not be a good survival strategy. The demons were fascinating, well drawn and animated, but I wanted more depth of story. We even watched the commentary, hoping for a little insight into what on earth the creators were thinking, but didn't get the answers we wanted.
Kurau Phantom Memory 13-16 - (I was tired enough last night to type "Kurau Phantom Menance." That would be a weird, weird crossover...) I like the fact that Kurau's uncle is disabled. It wasn't a plot point so far as I could tell, just something that was true about the character. It also showed as something progressive. He used a chair in the present day sequences and a crutch in the past sequences.
Episode 15 was marred by the fact that I watched it on my laptop and ended up having to look away a lot. Even with the screen three feet away, the action on the screen was too much for me to follow half the time. I was okay if the backgrounds were static or if the focus was close, but any panning shots or rapid action sequences hurt. The blond guy who turned up in that episode is obviously supposed to show us both why humans are so afraid of the Ryna Sapiens (because Kurau and Christmas are really not all that scary) and why the Ryna Sapiens are so desperate when dealing with humans and the human world.
Episode 16 had tragedy written all over it from the opening scene. I kept hoping that I was wrong because characters introduced just to be killed off tragically really, really annoy me. The more time they get, the more annoyed I am. One episode is just enough for me to be cranky. Three is sometimes enough for me to drop a series. (I apologize to anyone who considers this paragraph spoilery. It's hard for me to see it that way since the whole thing was telegraphed enough to make me complain to Scott about it at the beginning of the episode.)
Lupin the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus - I'd seen this before, fansubbed several years ago. I got it from Netflix because I knew Scott hadn't seen it. There's not really that much to say about it except that it's a typical Lupin the 3rd movie with chases, explosions, nudity and utter insanity. The big conspiracy of bad guys makes very little sense to me (I kept thinking that there must be cheaper and easier ways to achieve their ends). The various double crosses made more sense.
We've got more of these in our queue. I'm trying to space them out because, while they're fun, they're all very much the same. The characters don't change. The plots vary but are all wild.
National Treasure - I winced a lot during this movie. The action sequences were fun, but I worried more about the Declaration of Independence than I did about any of the characters. This proved a good movie to have on in the background while I wrote and while we were still having to respond to Delia every ten minutes. (She likes to ask for water, announce that she's having a bad dream, demand that her CD be changed and so on. We refuse to deal with anything that she could do herself, so the water requests and CD changing requests are referred back to her. The bad dream stuff only gets taken seriously if she's actually sounding genuinely distressed and is likely actually to have been asleep.)
Shura no Toki: Age of Chaos 1-5 - This anime, so far, gets a resound 'Meh' from me. There's nothing I hate about it, but I also haven't found anything to love. I do get the impression that it might be more interesting to me if I knew more Japanese history. From what I've gathered, poking around online, this anime has three arcs, each with entirely different characters and a different time setting. These episodes are all part of the same arc, but knowing that the entire arc has to be relatively short, I'm finding it difficult to deal with how shallow the characters seem to be.
Most of the characters actually look like adults, barring the kid sidekick and the female love interest (who might look older if she weren't disguised as a boy, but I'm not sure of it). There's a lot of fighting, mostly with swords, fists and improvised weapons but occasionally with more specialized weapons. There are lots of deaths but little gore (no blood), and most of the male characters, apart from the lead, have an obsession with proving strength through combat. The lead may simply not be obsessed with that because he's the best there is and knows it. I can't tell for sure.
I think this is another that will go on the list of things I'll finish after I've tried everything else and finished everything I like better. I'll put the next DVD in my Netflix queue and not move it up, just let it come up on its own if it ever does.
Teen Titans 7-13 - If we were looking for serious plot arc or character development, this series might disappoint us. Fortunately, we're just looking for something fun that doesn't require close attention. We had a few complaints about times when the characters were stupid for plot reasons. I'm hoping that we'll find out more about Slade in future seasons, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Torchwood - I think we're giving up on Torchwood. Scott's almost completely lost interest. Last night, he said, "This is becoming one of those shows that I don't want to watch but do want to know what happens. I wonder if Wikipedia has summaries?" We reached somewhere in the middle of season 1 (third DVD, with "Countrycide" and "Greeks Bearing Gifts") and watched about three season 3 (I think. Our impression is that these were very, very recent) episodes on demand from BBC America (one of the pluses of digital cable is having on demand for BBC America available even though our local company doesn't provide the channel for normal viewing).
For me, Torchwood was something that wasn't necessarily lots of fun but that I could watch with Scott. I think it too consistently tilts into horror and into Bad Things happening to everybody to be to my taste. I want humor, and I want to feel like the crap that happens to the characters and to the folks in the vicinity buys something other than just having to deal with the next terrible thing coming at them. Of course, I've also found that I like the new Doctor Who rather less than I liked the stuff I liked from the old Doctor Who (and I didn't like all of that).