Buys
It's the annual April Splurge. Always happens. Got a few books: A 2-volume Three Kingdoms that's a lot more scholarly than I was expecting and Write More Good (of course). As far as DVDs go, there's Eureka Season 1 and 2, the complete Coupling (because Moffat can do no wrong), a bargain bin copy of David Fincher's The Game, from Korea the Man from Nowhere, Discovering Hamlet, the complete Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and the two classic Who stories featuring the Mara.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: This week, I flipped Blackadder (the Ultimate Edition), presenting all four series, plus three specials of various lengths and documentary features. The concept is brilliant: Rowan Atkinson is the Black Adder and his descendants who (aside from the original) are all plagued by being the "smartest man in the room" (and largely bad as a result). Through the various incarnations, the show takes the piss out of England's history and class system with a plentiful helping of "nob jokes". If Blackadder stands up today (while many things from the 80s don't) can be explained by many factors: The period settings, star power (Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed and Hugh Laurie, for example), and the lush, intricate language. I liked the medieval Black Adder a lot more than than the cast and crew, fitting into a sort of Monty Python and the Holy Grail type of world. From the Elizabethan Black Adder II, the show becomes a true sitcom, and while Atkinson's character finally gels, some guest actors tend to play to the camera much too much. Blackadder the Third, set during the Regency era, is probably the best of the four series, with fewer "nob jokes" and excellent turns of language. The WWI-set Blackadder Goes Forth actually ends on a moving note, worth the effort in and of itself. The set also includes Blackadder's Christmas Carol, a fun if insubstantial Dickens spoof, The Cavalier Years, a 15-minute bit that works quite well, and the 10-year reunion Blackadder Back in Forth, a time travel epic that takes rather long to get to some laughs - it is the weakest thing on here. The documentary made for that last effort is pretty standard and includes many deleted scenes. Much better is the 6th Disc's retrospective, made only a couple years ago. Better yet, the bits of interview made for it, but cut, are included. That's an hour and half more with the cast and crew, and it's well edited, relevant and just as entertaining as the doc itself. As for the commentary tracks, there are 2 or 3 per series from the second on, and they vary in quality. The writers, producer and Atkinson are good, but other actors, especially Fry, just chuckle through their episodes and have very little to say. Despite its weaknesses, the boxed set is a highly entertaining package.
Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love made for a quiet alternative to every Friday's usual Kung Fu, but as it's the masterwork of my favorite director, and stars two of my favorite actors - Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung - that hardly matters. It's the kind of film that begs to have every frame analyzed, but I won't do that here. The almost-affair between the two leads in the repressed Hong Kong of 1960s captures an era I know nothing about, but is also full of inventive directorial touches. It's an amazing film if you're into art house. The extras on the double disc include long deleted sequences (with extremely sparse commentary - it certainly never steps on dialog), a short visual tribute to the female Chinese stars of the era by the director, a number of interactive essays (that is, they sometimes cut to short filmed sequences or photos), a making of, interviews with the director and cast, the electronic press kit, and a press conference with the stars at the Toronto Film Festival on Rogers Television (that Rogers produced something on a Criterion disc is surreal). Much of the extra material is in English. The Criterion booklet this time publishes a short story the film was inspired by.
Audios: The Doomwood Curse by Jacqueline Rayner continues her long streak of fun, clever audios (as opposed to her abominably silly novels). In this one, the 6th Doctor and Charley (still a quite interesting relationship as Charlotte avoids telling the Doctor about his future) find themselves inside a gothic dime novel full of curses and romance and highwaymen. It's lovely how the tropes of the genre, and of fiction in general, are used, bringing meta-text up close to be examined and utilized by the characters. And it gives the actors room to act atypically as well. Good fun.
I can't really say the same of James Swallow's Kingdom of Silver however, which feels like a really standard Cybermen story to me. The 7th Doctor is once again alone (making me long for Ace and Hex), and he does have some very good lines, but the whole science fictionny world with its science fictionny people and their science fictionny names are all a blur. I found my attention drifting and often not knowing who was speaking (not that it made the story confusing or anything). Keepsake, the fourth episode's short story, provides an unusual epilogue, but while more interesting than the main story, it's still a bog standard SF story. It wins me over by virtue of its structure.
New Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG cards: 9 from Torchwood's "Adam", and 11 from The Big Bang
Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Hamlet 2000
II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Fodor (2007)
II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Tennant (2009)
It's the annual April Splurge. Always happens. Got a few books: A 2-volume Three Kingdoms that's a lot more scholarly than I was expecting and Write More Good (of course). As far as DVDs go, there's Eureka Season 1 and 2, the complete Coupling (because Moffat can do no wrong), a bargain bin copy of David Fincher's The Game, from Korea the Man from Nowhere, Discovering Hamlet, the complete Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and the two classic Who stories featuring the Mara.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: This week, I flipped Blackadder (the Ultimate Edition), presenting all four series, plus three specials of various lengths and documentary features. The concept is brilliant: Rowan Atkinson is the Black Adder and his descendants who (aside from the original) are all plagued by being the "smartest man in the room" (and largely bad as a result). Through the various incarnations, the show takes the piss out of England's history and class system with a plentiful helping of "nob jokes". If Blackadder stands up today (while many things from the 80s don't) can be explained by many factors: The period settings, star power (Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed and Hugh Laurie, for example), and the lush, intricate language. I liked the medieval Black Adder a lot more than than the cast and crew, fitting into a sort of Monty Python and the Holy Grail type of world. From the Elizabethan Black Adder II, the show becomes a true sitcom, and while Atkinson's character finally gels, some guest actors tend to play to the camera much too much. Blackadder the Third, set during the Regency era, is probably the best of the four series, with fewer "nob jokes" and excellent turns of language. The WWI-set Blackadder Goes Forth actually ends on a moving note, worth the effort in and of itself. The set also includes Blackadder's Christmas Carol, a fun if insubstantial Dickens spoof, The Cavalier Years, a 15-minute bit that works quite well, and the 10-year reunion Blackadder Back in Forth, a time travel epic that takes rather long to get to some laughs - it is the weakest thing on here. The documentary made for that last effort is pretty standard and includes many deleted scenes. Much better is the 6th Disc's retrospective, made only a couple years ago. Better yet, the bits of interview made for it, but cut, are included. That's an hour and half more with the cast and crew, and it's well edited, relevant and just as entertaining as the doc itself. As for the commentary tracks, there are 2 or 3 per series from the second on, and they vary in quality. The writers, producer and Atkinson are good, but other actors, especially Fry, just chuckle through their episodes and have very little to say. Despite its weaknesses, the boxed set is a highly entertaining package.
Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love made for a quiet alternative to every Friday's usual Kung Fu, but as it's the masterwork of my favorite director, and stars two of my favorite actors - Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung - that hardly matters. It's the kind of film that begs to have every frame analyzed, but I won't do that here. The almost-affair between the two leads in the repressed Hong Kong of 1960s captures an era I know nothing about, but is also full of inventive directorial touches. It's an amazing film if you're into art house. The extras on the double disc include long deleted sequences (with extremely sparse commentary - it certainly never steps on dialog), a short visual tribute to the female Chinese stars of the era by the director, a number of interactive essays (that is, they sometimes cut to short filmed sequences or photos), a making of, interviews with the director and cast, the electronic press kit, and a press conference with the stars at the Toronto Film Festival on Rogers Television (that Rogers produced something on a Criterion disc is surreal). Much of the extra material is in English. The Criterion booklet this time publishes a short story the film was inspired by.
Audios: The Doomwood Curse by Jacqueline Rayner continues her long streak of fun, clever audios (as opposed to her abominably silly novels). In this one, the 6th Doctor and Charley (still a quite interesting relationship as Charlotte avoids telling the Doctor about his future) find themselves inside a gothic dime novel full of curses and romance and highwaymen. It's lovely how the tropes of the genre, and of fiction in general, are used, bringing meta-text up close to be examined and utilized by the characters. And it gives the actors room to act atypically as well. Good fun.
I can't really say the same of James Swallow's Kingdom of Silver however, which feels like a really standard Cybermen story to me. The 7th Doctor is once again alone (making me long for Ace and Hex), and he does have some very good lines, but the whole science fictionny world with its science fictionny people and their science fictionny names are all a blur. I found my attention drifting and often not knowing who was speaking (not that it made the story confusing or anything). Keepsake, the fourth episode's short story, provides an unusual epilogue, but while more interesting than the main story, it's still a bog standard SF story. It wins me over by virtue of its structure.New Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG cards: 9 from Torchwood's "Adam", and 11 from The Big Bang
Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Hamlet 2000
II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Fodor (2007)
II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Tennant (2009)
Comments
I think "Heads" in the second season, is the best episode.
Roger