Culture update

[serene]

Because I've had little or no energy to do actual stuff lately, I've been watching a lot of videos and reading a lot, so I thought I'd share. It gets quite long, and in reading it over, I realize I mostly review stuff based on how much fun I found it. Fortunately, I'm okay with being that shallow.

Things I've been reading, with mild spoilers:

The Second Book of Fritz Lieber (1975)

This collection of short stories gets off to a slow start, and that's how far I've gotten. I'll let you know how it goes. So far, there's something creepy out in deep space, but what it is, we don't know, after many pages of being convinced there's something creepy out there in deep space.

Scarpetta

I started reading this book (I tend to follow the Scarpetta series) and realized, Oh, shit, I missed one, clearly. Pete did WHAT?? I need to go read Book of the Dead, post haste! But I read the thing anyway. I'm not entirely happy with the disability stuff in there, but I guess I'm so rarely happy with the disability stuff in books that it didn't make the whole thing unreadable or anything.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

One day, I decided to go to Gutenberg and read the top download that day. On the day in question, it was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and I will talk about that below. Right now, though, it's Alice, and I'm loving it. I think I either didn't really read it as a child, or it didn't really sink in, but either way, I really like it. I especially like reading it with the internet handy, so that when he makes a poem that's clearly a parody (or some such thing), I can quickly go online and figure out the reference, etc. Book geeking, powered by Google. Rawr!

Plus, I kind of like that it's etext #11 in their catalog. (For the curious, #1 is United States Declaration of Independence.)

The Outline of Science, Volume 1

Oh, my gosh, you guys, check out this totally cool book. It's copyright 1922, and because I can, I'm going to quote some of the marvelous introduction. I can't wait to read further. I also wish to find a woodpulp edition so I can see the many, many illustrations.

There is abundant evidence of a widened and deepened interest in modern
science. How could it be otherwise when we think of the magnitude and
the eventfulness of recent advances?

But the interest of the general public would be even greater than it is
if the makers of new knowledge were more willing to expound their
discoveries in ways that could be "understanded of the people." No one
objects very much to technicalities in a game or on board a yacht, and
they are clearly necessary for terse and precise scientific description.
It is certain, however, that they can be reduced to a minimum without
sacrificing accuracy, when the object in view is to explain "the gist of
the matter." So this OUTLINE OF SCIENCE is meant for the general reader,
who lacks both time and opportunity for special study, and yet would
take an intelligent interest in the progress of science which is making
the world always new.

The story of the triumphs of modern science is one of which Man may well
be proud. Science reads the secret of the distant star and anatomises
the atom; foretells the date of the comet's return and predicts the
kinds of chickens that will hatch from a dozen eggs; discovers the laws
of the wind that bloweth where it listeth and reduces to order the
disorder of disease. Science is always setting forth on Columbus
voyages, discovering new worlds and conquering them by understanding.
For Knowledge means Foresight and Foresight means Power.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I have read several Holmes books, but several of these stories were completely new to me, including the one that includes Irene Adler, who got a much bigger part in the movie than she did in the books themselves. I liked it a lot, and I can sure see why there's Holmes/Watson fic, but then I'm a big pervert.


Things I've been watching, with spoilers

Robin Hood (BBC)

I like this series. It's totally cheesy in a lot of ways, totally NOT historically accurate in any way, and a ton of fun. Fun villain, fun adventures, just fun. I like that they've bothered trying to write strong women, even if there aren't enough of them. I like that they cast a guy in the lead role who was sure he wouldn't get the part because he's not all buff like an action hero. And I like that people actually experience death and loss, in a very Un-Disney-like fashion.

MI-5 (Spooks) (BBC)

And speaking of death and loss, that's also one of the things that keeps me coming back to MI-5. I am on season 7 right now, and I love that they're not afraid to portray being a spy as, oh, I don't know, dangerous. People die. Even major characters die. All. The. Time. And people CARE when other people die. The spies are not 007-cold as their fellow spies get blown away or blown up. They give a shit, and they're moved, and sometimes they even go mad from grief. This thing does not sugar-coat what they do, while at the same time being quite the cheering squad for the idea of a secret service. I really like it, though it can be hard to watch sometimes. (I don't have a violence squick, though I do prefer violence that seems not-superfluous to me.) In most spy movies/shows, the LACK of violence is weird to me. Like, how the hell does everyone live in the end in, say, Mission Impossible or Charlie's Angels? I know it's fluff, and I just don't worry about it, but it certainly seems to trivialize the danger, to me, in a way that addressing it, even harshly, doesn't.

Farscape

What a goofy show. I keep watching it because it's the mental equivalent of candy. I don't really care much about the characters, and I am actively (though VERY mildly) annoyed by the science, but it's fun, gosh darn it, so I keep watching it.

Heroes

Finally got caught up on Heroes. Samuel -- what a very fun villain he's been! SO much more fun than fucking mopey will-I-be-bad-or-good-this-week fucking Sylar.

Lost (oops!)

My bad -- I haven't watched Lost since the first episode of this season. I totally need to get caught up, especially since stonebender says they're getting around to explaining stuff. Now, I was never one of those Lost fans who minded all the mystery (and if you've hung out on a Lost newsgroup or board, you know the fans can be UBER-whiny about that), but it'll be nice if most things wrap up before the series is over.


The Oscar-nominated animated shorts

stonebender took me and the kid to see the animated shorts. It appears they're all available on iTunes, but I'm not certain of that. They were, roughly in order of showing:

French Roast: Forgettable but pretty
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte): I liked this one, because it was a good mix of touching and silly, and it was visually striking. I didn't *love* it, but I thought it was good.
Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty: Fun. I don't want to say much about it. You should check it out if you can.
A Matter of Loaf and Death: This is a new Wallace and Gromit, which I thought was pretty good, until the fat stuff started, and then I just wanted to shake someone. Bleah. It left a bad taste in my mouth, no pun intended.
Logorama: I am crushed that there's no full version of this available online just yet (just a 45-second trailer), but Oh. My. Gosh. Such a clever thing this is. The story will not go down in history as one of the greats, especially since it's basically a sendoff of a few scenes in Pulp Fiction, but the concept and are are super-duper-cool, and I want to watch it a few more times to catch all the logo-riffic goodness.

They also showed several films that were runner-up-ish (did they call them "highly commended" or something?) and I wish I could find a list of those, because I liked a couple of them and cannot for the life of me bring them to my mind.
 

The Hurt Locker

Meh. It was okay. Not fabulous, not terrible. Slow at times, intense at times. One major character is, to my mind, an attempt at complexity without a payoff. Another major character, who would be the most interesting to me, often gets caught in the whiny trap. And the ending: let's just say I know she (the director) *thinks* she's being all deep and complex, but really, she doesn't tell us anything she hasn't hammered into us for two hours. I can see why this got nominated, but meh.

Of the other nominees, I saw Up a while back (I liked it fine; nothing special) and District 9 in the theater (I disliked it). I also got A Serious Man and Inglourious Basterds from Netflix and will do my best to see them before the Oscars this weekend. Doesn't look like I'll get around to seeing the live-action shorts.

This year, we're just going to have a quiet Oscar viewing at stonebender's. We haven't invited anyone who's bored by the whole Oscar thing (which includes everyone I live with), because they tend to harsh on our mellow. So popcorn and soda and Oscars with my boy and a movie-loving friend, pure and simple, is the plan.

Comments

[jae]

This is SUCH a fun post!

I feel very similarly to you about violence, by the way, but I put it differently. When there is violence in something I'm reading or watching, I want there to be psychological ramifications from it. It's why I can't stand action movies, even though the violence itself doesn't bother me--people just blow things up and have a car chase that ends in the killing of the bad guy, and then in the end stalk coolly up to the girl as if nothing has happened and kiss here. In conventional action movies, here's no evidence of a sense of: "oh my god, I just killed somebody!", or even "man, that was scary! my heart is still racing!" and there's no examination of the inevitable repercussions of those things. Whereas in shows like Spooks, there are psychological repercussions, and I appreciate that.

-J

[serene]

Right, exactly. I can't buy into characters who are so cavalier about killing that it barely affects how their next five minutes go, much less the rest of their lives.

[jae]

That's exactly it. I don't find it distressing, I find it unbelievable. (And boring, ironically enough. When there's a car chase on my screen, I start to fall asleep.)

-J

[serene]

Yeah, I zone out when the violence gets cartoonish, or the cars start chasing, etc.

One thing I've said often about "Pulp Fiction" is that one reason I think it's genius is that I actually think it simultaneously sent up the mindless violence of modern cinema by making the violence OVER THE TOP, and underscored the emotional complexity of the agents of the violence.