Short Reviews of Stuff You've Seen Recently

Mad Max: Fury Road - Oh what a film! What a lovely film!

I felt the same way, Rachel. And the aliens were so damn annoying.

edited 28th May '15 4:34:54 PM by Quag15

Yuuup. Like the constant part of how they can fly, which seems to have very incoherent rules about it.

Just... ugh.

There's other E.T rip-offs, but most are at least enjoyable.

And speaking of reviews:

Persona 3 Portable - quite enjoyable and easy to get a hand off, and pretty good for some blow-off time. For something with a little more challenge, try this.

Azumanga Daioh - The Trope Codifier for Schoolgirl Series, and for good reason. It's funny, it's heartwarming and really very enjoyable. Now I really want to get my hands on the Yen Press omnibus (they still haven't translated the Supplementary Lessons and the redrawn chapters, have they?).

...being able to be a fly on the wall when you've been an outsider for most of your life and still feel that you aren't being intrusive feels good. Really good.

The Long Song by Andrea Levy.

A good look at slavery, the sociology and mentality that it creates on both sides, and the enduring divisions left after emancipation. There's a real sense of horror early on. The protagonist suffers constantly from the racist system yet also buys into it. However the second half depends on someone who I'm sure is true to history but his mindset was not properly explained. And towards the end it cuts off most threads for an ending that pops out of a sudden tangent. And the narration keeps flipping from objective to deeply in-character. Good, but could have been much better.

The audiobook recording is partly by the author, and the actors do a very good job of sounding Jamaican while being intelligible for Standard English.

Avengers 2.

Hey, I finally developed a suspension of disbelief and can see movies as stories, not just actors who do things only because the script says so. I am still too new to the superhero and action genres to know what I liked, just that I liked something. A lot of somethings.

I like putting together "theme weeks" where I only watch movies/shows/etc that are in a certain genre, or even just have some pretty loose common element to them ^note I think I mentioned here how, during a cold snap this year, I once decided I was only going to watch movies set in warm climates, which ranged from Lilo And Stitch to Cast Away. Somehow this week became "Stand Up Comedy Week":

Aziz Ansari - Live At Madison Square Garden. Even though this was kind of what started me on the stand up comedy theme, it's the most "just okay" thing I've watched so far this week. But it was pretty entertaining.

Bo Burnham - What.. A long time ago, I saw one of his old youtube videos and wasn't too impressed, though I have no idea which one it even was by now. But here the "shock humor" element I remember is generally more clearly rooted in social commentary, and the more theatrical elements made it more interesting to watch than something in the more typical "person on a stage telling jokes / singing humorous songs" format.

Maria Bamford - The Special Special Special!. The gimmick to this is that instead of performing in a typical comedy venue to a large audience, she's performing in her own house for her parents. This format meshes well with some of her more personal, Cringe Comedy-like bits, some of which are about her family... But at the same time it's kind of heartwarming because it becomes obvious she has a loving relationship with her parents, who are clearly supportive of her career.

Magic Boy Kitchener - the show has gotten so depressing that I am debating if I should continue past episode 9, and it's a 132 episode show. For kids. Let's start: it is not a show about cooking. It's a satire about dynastic Chinese society. The protagonist is a kid that gets tortured by the Empress just because. The royals have their whim just because. The situation will never gets better. And then it is also a jab at Western effort to fantasize China. You think the emperor is glamorous? Actually he's a poor fellow that never saw freedom and led a sad life. You think most people in China are highly educated unlike the dirty industrialization in the West? Actually most are illiterate, including the protagonist.

This is why you never let a contemporary author that is famous for DownerEndings write a kid's show. If I am at the age of the target audience then I would never understood all of that.

I Seem Fun: The Diary of Jen Kirkman Podcast - "In Pieces, Not In A Bad Way". I watched her comedy special, I'm Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine), and that led me to her facebook page and podcast. I somewhat arbitrarily picked the second-to-latest edition of this podcast because it happened to be one of the shorter ones - 56 minutes is apparently just right for my commute time. I enjoy it, but the whole format is maybe off-the-cuff and rambling to give a new listener a good feel for her material. All of which is to say if you've never heard of her, or even have just seen her on @Midnight, you should probably check out that Netflix special first.

Watamote: (I should note, this is only the second anime I have willingly sought out and watched.) A show I wish had existed and that I had discovered back when I was in high school. Even despite its comedic edge with regards to the subject, it's probably the best portrayal I've ever seen of a character with a) extreme social anxiety, b) the status of being on the fringe of society and alienated from one's peers, and c) desperate loneliness and a desire for others' companionship.

I kinda felt like I related to the protagonist in more ways than I'd like to admit, having been in high school an incredibly insecure, lonely person who wanted the attention and companionship of others while simultaneously isolating myself to an extreme degree and secretly harboring feelings of resentment and (quite frankly) dickish and opinionated attitudes about most of my classmates despite never actually really getting to know them. Oh, and the desperate longing for a romantic relationship and constant masturbation in private.

It's a really fantastic show that I feel like would be especially good for people who have ever gone through a period in their life when they felt alienated from their peers. Very funny, albeit very cringeworthy, and, at times, very sad, but very worth a watch.

edited 16th Jun '15 9:34:14 PM by Odd1

I Am Divine. A documentary about the drag performer/ actor, best known for being part of John Waters' Production Posse (or, if you're into Disney trivia, the inspiration behind the design of Ursula from The Little Mermaid, though this movie doesn't get into the latter). It's kind of sad in the end, though at least he got to 1) do at least a little acting out of drag (since he wanted to be known as a character actor, not just as his drag persona), and 2) reconcile with his parents, who had previously ceased contact with him when they first learned he was gay and using marijuana.

The X-Files - Duane Barry / Ascension. I'm just now getting to watch the series as a whole (I'd seen a couple of standalone Monster of the Week episodes in reruns). I really liked this two-parter, though part of that is influenced by the fact that I owned the Songs In The Key Of X album years ago (at the time it was because I liked a bunch of the contributing artists), and therefor I've been waiting for the past two seasons to finally hear "Red Right Hand". It strikes me that, especially in the second half, the science fiction element is maybe more in the backdrop than usual this time - it's definitely there, but the centers of suspense are mainly espionage within the FBI and Scully's kidnapping/abduction. Oh yeah, thanks to the X-Files work page, I've been following Shaenon K. Garrity's webcomic recaps as I've been going along. Favorite bit from the comics for these two episodes: "So what happens if I run [Duane Barry's alien-implanted barcode tracking device] under a scanner? Do I buy my own crazy guy?".

edited 19th Jun '15 4:46:16 PM by MikeK

Jurassic World

Ugh. It rehashed the same themes as all the other movies in the series, with the same stock characters and situations, but more over-the-top. And where the original just told you its moral, this one ties it to a beatstick and goes to town on the audience. Where the original took time to ramp up suspense and made you care about most of the characters, this one was just a mindless death and destruction festival. There was no awesome Monster Delay like the T-Rex's or the Velociraptors' in the original, they just shove the dinosaurs in your face as soon as possible.

On top of that, the two leads were paper-thin "badass" and "businessperson who learns to take a level in badass" archetypes, the dialog was bloated, and I could see every "twist" and character death coming a mile away. ...But they sure put some money into the effects, right?

I didn't like it at all, to be honest, it exemplified a lot of what I don't like about Hollywood movies now, and I left the theater feeling a little sick.

edited 23rd Jun '15 9:05:01 PM by Wheezy

Thought of posting this in the "last album you listened to" thread, then realized it's not an "album":

Party Bois / Petty Morals - Split 7". A split single from two Massachusetts-based, New Wave influenced bands. Side A is Party Bois' "Loving Arms": Party Bois are pretty close to straight up Synth-Pop, but one of the things I like about them is that the vocals kind of have a raw, rock-ish flavor, which contrasts pleasingly with the smooth synth pop arrangements: Their vocalist used to be in a hard rock band called Mellow Bravo, and despite performing in a totally different genre now, he hasn't changed his vocal style much ^note Other than using some slightly British inflections, which if anything, kind of make him sound like Ozzy Osbourne rather than, say Neil Tennant. Petty Morals' "Go For Broke" is a good pairing with this because it's one of their more overtly The Go-Go's-ish melodies. I grabbed this at this show, so you can see more of my thoughts about Petty Morals there I guess. One final thought: Both of these tracks have a certain 80's teen movie vibe to me for some reason - As an experiment I'd like to slot them both into a playlist of less-remembered cuts from John Hughes film soundtracks and see how well they blend in.

edited 26th Jun '15 11:50:14 AM by MikeK

Invader Zim #1: I stopped by a nearby comic book store and there I happened to see they've just started making a comic book series of Invader Zim. As a first issue, it spends most of its time setting things up, but it does a pretty good job of capturing the feel and humor of the show. A couple of the funnier moments include a Training Montage parody for Dib and the reveal of what Zim has been doing since the show's been off the air: hiding in the toilet.

The Poisonwood Bible: I am reading this for my summer assignment. It's a normal case of high school English book, meaning lots of death, depressing things, and tragic deaths of tragedy.

Shameless Season 4. I give it an 8/10. That Emily episode was the crowning episode of the whole series.

Snowpiercer (The Comic), Volume 1:

Flat Characters drop Cluster F Bombs and shoot at each other for a while, then everyone except the main dies. As we knew they would. Not much point to it, really.

edited 29th Jul '15 11:10:27 AM by Wheezy

Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's first season:

it's ok.

I came into this series mostly just because I wanted to see more YGO and I didn't particularly feel like watching GX or going to watch Zexal or Arc-V.

Judging it by the standards I'd use with any other anime it's just average. It does a couple of new things for the YGO franchise in the whole dystopian cyberpunk setting, which is kinda cool, but those themes are understandably not really the focus of the series and mostly just a backdrop for the card games. the characters are enjoyable to a degree but not really exceptional, with the best ones understandably being the main characters (yusei, jack, and aki). ruka and rua on the other hand are pretty boring Kid Appeal characters who are tolerable at best. everyone else (like the old man and homuro) is usually cool for like one episode and then don't really do anything notable afterwards.

overall, i enjoyed it (and the current arc i'm on rn is relatively promising), but one kind of big hurdle i had to get over was the whole CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES thing and the fact that Duel Monsters now seems to run every aspect of society (to the point where law enforcement officers seem to duel crooks and just aren't able to catch up to them if they're beat which is like all kinds of lol). it's honestly pretty ridiculous and something that only really gets a pass because it's a Merchandise-Driven shounen series. with that said if you can get over that it's a perfectly serviceable yugioh series with a decent atmospheric soundtrack and a cool setting.

since this is the first season, a lot of my more sweeping statements could be pretty inaccurate for the rest of the show, so i might do a post rounding off my overall impressions on this series once i'm finished with it.

edited 30th Jul '15 4:44:13 AM by wehrmacht

The X-Files - "Home". I'd heard a little bit about this beforehand, and it is as gory and disturbing as I'd heard. Well, let me qualify that a little: It's of course slightly tame compared to some r-rated horror films, but pretty intense for mid-90's network TV. Oh, and really good use of Johnny Mathis' "Wonderful Wonderful" as Soundtrack Dissonance - Somehow it helps that I was more familiar with Sebadoh's weird, lo-fi deconstruction than the original.

The King in Yellow. I can definitely see where the first four stories were influential to HP Lovecraft and other horror writers since. The other half of the book is perfectly good, but a little disappointing if you're anticipating anything even remotely in the same genre of those stories. I also happen to notice that almost all the tropes on this book's work page concern the stories from early in the book.

Dark Matter episode 9: things get stupid, One is petty, Four goes mental. A particularly bad episode, but it at least establishes (again) Two as the Team Mom.

Killjoys episode 8: Exposition Bombing! Throwaway lore element makes the plot! Johnny the Idiot Boy almost kills the rest of the team in a particularly contrived and dumbass way! And Vagueness Is Still Coming!

Shadow Of Mordor: stealth gameplay is cool. Arkham Knighting through a horde of mooks in a stronghold under alert when no less than three captains show up - less so.

Misfits: episodes 1-3 I wasn't into British tv shows before, but this show turned that around after the first three episodes of it. It's a rather interesting take on your typical superpowered group of protagonists. It's pretty good so far.

edited 19th Aug '15 1:00:37 PM by there_will_be_cake

My Bionic Pet. This was originally on PBS, but I watched it on Netflix because it happened to show up among my recommendations. It's a short documentary profiling animals with prosthetics, from dogs with prosthetic legs to an alligator with a prosthetic tail to the internet famous "pig on wheels" Chris P. Bacon. It's less sad than I anticipated because these animals all seem happy and well-loved, and the whole message is that these animals just needed a little help to live a full life.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. I keep wanting to call it Are You Afraid Of the Dark, when that is obviously a completely different work. Positives: I think it portrayed the point of view of the withdrawn little girl main character very well, there's some good use of atmosphere and Nothing Is Scarier. Negatives: there's a fair amount of Idiot Plot going, and the homunculi are ultimately much more effectively scary when all we get is small, shadowy figures and hoarse whispers.

edited 29th Aug '15 11:46:08 AM by MikeK

Umm....

Go Set a Watchman is definitely crappy. Which is why people should read it to see how much it changed in TKAM. It's a work to be analysed. I can see that Harper Lee could have become a good YA author but never did. She has that writing style that can draw their attention. Shame.

Terminator Genisys: Not that great. Aside from how I was massively surprised to find Emilia Clarke in there. I knew she was brunette, but her perfect American accent completely threw me off. Also, she looks so much tinier there than in Game of Thrones and I don't know why.

Sense8: 80/10 (10 points for each sensate). I keep rewatching my favorite parts, not only because of quality (I am a big sucker for wordless montages and long stretches of silence), but also because of HOW FUCKING ACCESSIBLE IT IS. I DON'T NEED A TV OR EVEN CABLE.

Mad Max Fury Road: So shiny! So chrome!

Defiance: it's okay, although I couldn't shake off the thought that gameplay is very GTA 3/Saints Row. But players swarming event areas? So Bad, It's Good: traveling from one event incident to another makes them look like Mad Max: Fury Road's War Party. Just a horde of quads and buggies driving across whatever's left of the Bay Area roads.

edited 19th Sep '15 2:35:13 PM by NotSoBadassLongcoat