skywaterblue

Handlebars by chaila.

I debated whether I wanted to make a West Wing vid to this song for a while and ultimately dismissed it because I decided it was a. overplayed in fandom and b. pretty dark.

Now I wish I had. chaila has focused it strictly on Bartlet and it's an absolutely chilling look at the character. Go watch.

Which reminds, me, I saw "The Social Network" Thursday on screener passes. I tweeted about it but I never got around to writing an entry on it. Let's do that now, shall we?

Non-spoilery: While maybe not the 'greatest movie of the year', the glowing reviews have been fairly on the money. Easily the best thing Sorkin's written since 'The West Wing' and in many ways the apogee of a lot of things he's been working through. Thus I recommend highly that you see it, especially if you are a fan of his and on the fence - it's always good to see an artist finally LAND the theme they were circling around for ages.

( Spoilery )

Also, any film where part of the plot involves drunken emo break up Livejournaling? You guys should all be lining up for it.

First, Mad Men 4.1: ( Some thoughts. )

Interesting start to the season. Not entirely clear what the season's themes are, but I only watched it once.

Rubicon

This is the new show that AMC is pushing hard to air after Mad Men. It's your basic LeCarre-esque espionage saga with a heavy dose of 'this has a series mystery'.

The problem is that the pilot episode deals so heavily in tropes - there's a message hidden in the crossword which starts a chain of assassinations, the head boss is clearly a double spy, and the main character is supposed to be a genius analyst. Yet when his boss gets killed despite leaving him a not at all cryptic message about what train he was going to be on and a motorcycle encouraging him to leave, and then creepy boss offers him old boss's job at the funeral, main character suspects nothing.

I'm spoiled by Garak. If anyone had killed one of Garak's associates in a 'train accident' after they left him keys to a shuttlecraft and a cryptic message, he would have been on to it like scales on Cardassians.

What I'm saying is this: Spy Dramas? The ONE PLACE it's okay for your character to have 'genre savvyness' as a trait. Because that's THEIR FUCKING JOB.

Also, the writers maxed out the main character's manpain attribute: his wife and kids DIED IN 9/11.

Skip skip skip.

Inception: Too complex to really review after only seeing it once. At a certain point in the movie there are at least five layers of story you have to be keeping track of, and while I'm pretty sure I know what happened, jeez.

I actually don't think it was as meaningful a meditation on the act of filmmaking as the Prestige is, but I'd have to see it a second time.

The special effects are really astonishing, though, and I didn't even hate Leo DiCaprio that much... even though I never am able to watch a film with him in it without thinking 'that's Leo DiCaprio'. I understand why people think this indicates he's Old Hollywood Like That, I just find it fucking annoying in 2010.

OH: The real astonishing bit is how good Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in this film. I bought him completely as an action hero. I would love to see some more movies with him as the lead. The end.

Sherlock 1.1: WHOA THERE. It's awesome and hella slashy. I love the way they use mobile phones in this - probably the most natural use of phones I've seen in anything in some time.

Mainly I want to say this:

BENEDICT CUMBERPATCH IS THE PERFECT CASTING FOR DREAM OF THE ENDLESS

MOFF, GAIMAN: STICK SOME BLACK CONTACTS ON IT AND GETTER DONE BEFORE HE'S TOO OLD.

Girl Comics!

The Beat had the exclusive this morning.

I think this is a really cool project. In an industry that has frequently had sexism issues, it's nice that Marvel decided to celebrate the women who are currently making comics with these one shots. I'm looking forward to buying this. Shame about the title, though.

The ONTD_P comment thread on this made me want to tear my hair out, however.

Merlin: Meh. I guess the recent events were supposed to feel epic and groundchanging, but they don't for me, partially because I suspect this season will end with some sort of reboot. Show is far, far too attracted to its monster-of-the-week format. Also, I increasingly dislike the choices Merlin is making. Major Kira would call him a collaborator.

Princess and the Frog: Enjoyed this a lot! Lovely animation, especially in Tiana's dream sequences and surrounding the baddie. I did feel it was a tad long for the material - the frog adventures in the bayou seemed to stretch on FOREEEVER. I desperately wanted them to get back to New Orleans and to be human because it seemed as though those earlier sequences were far more interesting to me. And the songs are very slight.

( Hai spoilers! )

In conclusion: there was no real race or genderfail in this that I saw, and I enjoyed it, but it is a slighter work than their previous offerings. I hope that Disney continues its newfound commitment to 2D animation, though, as this is a promising start.

I didn't like this movie, but that's no surprise. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a Tarantino that I DID like, due to his glorification of ultraviolence.

( There was, however, one brilliant moment in the end scene. )

I started watching 'Merlin' the other night with Cooper. We watched about seven straight episodes. Unfortunately I failed at DVD making and we watched some of them out of order, including the second episode as the first episode. Doubly unfortunate as that second episode is literally one of the worst hours of television I've ever seen.

Anyway, it's okay, I'll probably watch the rest of the season tonight. Cooper and I almost invented a drinking game which was 'every time Anthony Stewart Head gets to have range, take a drink', because most of the show involves his character being a complete douche to create third act drama. Strangely, they just gave interesting backstory to Gaius, which makes it two Gaiuses in a row who are interesting characters.

Mainly the whole thing makes me wonder why the BBC never made a good version of "The Once and Future King". And also why I can't find my copy for a reread.



Here's a video of a historian who made a working reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism.

There's a movie coming out called Nothing But The Truth which is a thinly veiled version of the Valarie Plame scandal. It's written by Rob Lurie, who did 'Commander-in-Chief', that shit West Wing knockoff, and the much better film "The Contender". Interestingly, it not only has Alan Alda, but some guy named President Lyman who gets shot.