Catching Ducks

The original, a 2003 dance-pop song from Britney Spears:




The cool, trippy 2008 cover by Yael Naim:

Labels: music: covers

Doctor Who "Dreamland" is a CGI-animated Doctor Who adventure starring the tenth doctor, David Tennant.

The story is good (The Doctor visits Area 51), and Tennant is his usual charming self, but the animation is dreadful.


Spoilers:

Gur ebznapr orgjrra gur jnvgerff naq gur Angvir Nzrevpna qhqr frrzrq gnpxrq ba ng gur raq -- ernyyl enaqbz.

Nyfb, V gubhtug gung, sbe n fubeg srngher, gurer jrer gbb znal tebhcf ehaavat nebhaq: gur ZVO, gur tvnag oht nyvraf, gur yvggyr terl nyvraf, gur ebobgf... vg sryg njshyyl ohfl.

Labels: Doctor Who, review: TV

Original Sin is about a man (Antonio Banderas) circa 1900, who brings a bride from Delaware -- that he's never met -- to his home in Cuba. Angelina Jolie plays the bride, in one of her earlier roles.

The movie didn't look as expensive as I would like from a costume drama, and the plot and style of the movie were more noir than Merchant-Ivory. To a certain extent, it felt like the point of the movie was to watch Angelina Jolie have sex with men. Look, it's Angelina Jolie having sex with Antonio Banderas. Look, it's Angelina Jolie having creepy sex with her foster brother (played by Thomas Jane). Look, it's Angelina Jolie getting raped. (Thankfully that last one took place mostly off screen.)

I'm not sure why I even kept watching; I guess I wanted to see what happened. This sort of movie is about plot and atmosphere. The plot was interesting enough, I guess, but the atmosphere tried to be steamy but came off as cheap.

Labels: review: movie

Darcy is the best part of the movie.

I mean, really, she is. "I'm not going to die for six college credits!" She's just the best.

(Runner-up is Hawkeye's brief appearance: "I think I'm starting to root for this guy.")


But more seriously:

The first time I watched it, I enjoyed the parts of the movie that took place on Earth, with the Jane/Darcy/Erik story, and the Thor-stuck-on-Earth adventures. Everything taking place on Asgard was just a bunch of CGI boredom.

The second time through, it was slightly more interesting, because I knew gb jngpu Ybxv. Xabjvat gung ur jbhyq orgenl Gube znqr uvf rneyl fprarf zhpu zber jngpunoyr.

The details of the plot are a little murky, but the motivations of Thor and Loki are clear, so the details don't seem as important. Thor has some nice character development. Jane is much more interested in her research than a romance, which is a refreshing change of pace. Also, there's Darcy. Did I mention she's awesome? Because she is.

Two items of note: 1) None of the female characters are ever undressed or even half-dressed. Even Sif's armor is cleavage-free. There is, however, a long shot of shirtless Thor. 2) This movie -- unlike The Avengers (which I love) -- passes the Bechdel Test. Jane and Darcy have several conversations that have nothing to do with a man. (See the aforementioned "I'm not going to die for six college credits!")

Overall, I think this is the second-best Avengers movie. (The Avengers is the best, of course.)

Labels: Avengers, review: movie

I don't read a lot of comic books/graphic novels, but I'd heard of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. It's considered a classic of the genre. I loved Gaiman's (regular) book Good Omens (that he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett), but didn't care for his solo novel Neverwhere. Given my ambivalence towards comic books, I wasn't sure I'd like Sandman.

The Volume 1 collection contains the first twenty issues of the series. It took a while to catch my interest, especially since the main character doesn't appear to be the main character until late in the first issue. But once we're properly introduced to him, the story begins to gain traction. It really takes off in Issue 8 ("The Sound of Her Wings") when you meet the main character's sister.

Sandman draws on mythology in some interesting ways. In the course of the book you meet the Fates, Lucifer, a Muse, the Faerie Queen, goblins, and more.

Some issues are "one shots" that tell a single story. Other stories take several issues to tell. The one-shots were nice breathers between the longer stories.

As with most graphic novels, there was more gore than I'd have liked, but the stories and characters were compelling.

Labels: comics, review: book

I think this is one of the best book-to-movie adaptations I've seen. The book is solely from Katniss's point of view, with a lot of introspection. The movie does a nice job of focusing on Katniss her journey, while at the same time expanding the scope to see conversations between President Snow and the Gamemaker, the behind-the-scenes of the Gamemaker's crew, the reactions from the districts, etc.

Visually the movie is stunning. They did a wonderful job contrasting the drabness of District 12 with the opulence of the Capital. The clothes of the residents of the Capital are just as ridiculous as described in the book.

There are some wonderful touches created by the movie makers, like the reaping area of District 12 being hosed down to clean it before the reaping ceremony.

The casting is great, especially Elizabeth Banks as Effie. She really nails Effie's well-meaning cluelessness. Stanley Tucci is also wonderful as Caesar Flickerman.


Spoiler:

Zl snibevgr bayl-va-gur-zbivr zbzrag vf jura Xngavff naq Crrgn qrpvqr gb uhag sbe sbbq, naq Crrgn fnlf fbzrguvat yvxr, "V'yy gnxr gur obj". Fur tvirf uvz n "Jung gur uryy?!?!" ybbx, naq gura ur tevaf naq fnlf, "V'z whfg xvqqvat".

Labels: review: movie, The Hunger Games

Is the plot of this movie predictable? Yes.

Is the humor hit or miss? Yes.

Do I care? No.


Weird Al's movie UHF is just so earnest and fun and weird that I can't help but enjoy it.


[It's also fun to play spot the future (and one almost unrecognizable former) TV star.]

Labels: music, review: movie

There is a sub-genre of sci-fi called "alternate history". It's usually stories based on ideas like "What if the Roman Empire never fell?" or "What if the south didn't lose the Civil War?". I've seen many alternate history books, but I don't know that I've ever seen a movie or TV show.

"The Great Martian War" is a TV-movie that aired on BBC-America. (It aired on the History channel in the UK & Canada.) It re-imagined the World War I as a war of humans against invading aliens.

It was done in the style of a documentary. It appeared as if they used a mixture of archival footage from the real war, archival footage with aliens CGI-ed in, and CGI footage. They also has "interviews" with "survivors" that were processed to look like they were shot in 50's, 70's, or 90's, depending on the age of the survivor.

All in all, it was quite well done, and much more entertaining than the scifi movies that SyFy airs. Which reinforces my opinion that the best channel for scifi/fantasy is BBC-America.

Labels: history, review: TV, scifi/fantasy

Small Island is a two-part mini-series about Jamaican immigrants in post-WWII Britain. The two main characters are Queenie, a white British woman, and Hortense, a black Jamaican woman. The series has some good moments, but I had three major problems with it.

The first is the time jumps. The story jumped back in forth in time, but only sometimes had title cards to tell you when you were. This led to me being confused about when things were happening. They either needed to tell the story in a more coherent way (so that the title cards weren't necessary) or use them every time they jumped to a different time period.

Secondly: the narration. In general, I understand why narration might be necessary, especially for an adaptation of a novel. But this was one of the strangest and most frustrating uses I have ever encountered. For example: Character-A would say to Character-B, "Tell me about Character-C" and B would speak just a couple words before the narrator would take over and say, "And so, B told A all about C, how C would blah-blah, and how they met at that-place, and how they dreamed of whatever". Basically, the narration took just as long as the actual conversation would have. The narration sucks the personality out of the interaction and was almost completely unnecessary.

My final problem was one of the lead characters, Queenie. Queenie was more of a caricature than a person. The only time she seemed like a real person was in her scenes with her father-in-law. The rest of the time she seemed like some idealized version of what a modern white person would want to be if they were living in that time period. It's very annoying. (And, considering person who wrote the book the series is based on is black, it's very strange. But, to be fair, it's possible the book-version of Queenie wasn't so jarringly martyr-like.)

The other lead, Hortense, is much better. Her character seems more real and more interesting. I think one of the big differences might be that she's much more specific, where as Queenie is vague and ill-defined. I never quite understood why Queenie did the things she did. Hortense's motives, on the other hand, were very clear. Even when she did things that were petty, or made bad choices, I understood why she did them.


Spoilers:

Gur zbzrag jura gur gvzr-whzcf ernyyl pbashfrq zr jnf jura vg jnf erirnyrq gung Dhrravr jnf certanag. Vg jnf boivbhf gung Zvpunry jnf gur sngure, ohg fur unqa'g frra uvz fvapr gur jne, naq V gubhtug vg jnf fhccbfrq gb or 1948. Fb gura V gubhtug V jnf pbashfrq nobhg jung lrne vg jnf, jura npghnyyl Zvpunry unq ivfvgrq ure cbfg-jne. Juvpu jnf rkgen pbashfvat orpnhfr Ubegrafr unq orra gbyq gung ur qvrq va gur jne. Vg jnf riraghnyyl rkcynvarq (fbeg bs), ohg vg ernyyl gbbx zr bhg bs gur zbzrag. Vs gur gvzrf unq orra zber pyrneyl ynoryrq, gura V jbhyq unir gehfgrq gung vg jbhyq or rkcynvarq.

Fcrnxvat bs gur zrasbyx: Tvyoreg terj ba zr. (N ybg.) Oreaneq jnf hayvxrnoyr ohg vagrerfgvat. Zvpunry... jung ba rnegu jnf uvf nccrny? Obgu Dhrravr & Ubegrafr jrer tntn sbe uvz, ohg V pbhyqa'g haqrefgnaq vg ng nyy.

Bar bs gur guvatf V ernyyl qvq yvxr nobhg guvf jnf vg fubjrq ubj yvzvgrq jbzra'f bcgvbaf jrer ng gung gvzr. Obgu Dhrravr naq Ubegrafr zneel zra gurl qba'g xabj (naq qba'g cnegvphyneyl yvxr) orpnhfr vg jnf tbvat gb trg gurz fbzrjurer gurl jnagrq gb or. Ubegrafr rira fnlf gung fur, nf n fvatyr jbzna, pbhyq arire geniry sebz Wnznvpn gb Ratynaq. Ohg vs fur jrer zneevrq, naq jrer geniryvat gb zrrg hc jvgu ure uhfonaq va Ratynaq, gung jbhyq or nyybjrq. Penml gb guvax nobhg!

Labels: review: TV