Yesterday my friend Miss Fairchild and I went too see Strictly Ballroom: The Musical.
The show was glaringly flawed in many ways but I'm pretty sure I've never enjoyed a live show so much in my life (disclaimer: I've never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show so ymmv)
It was visually ... all the words I can think of to fit here seem too small. It was SO sparkly. SO colourful. Sparkly curtains, sparkly seats. The costumes were, I think, my favourite part.
The flow of the story seemed off too things seemed to happen in an order because they were following the movie, rather than creating a show that flowed smoothly.
The songs, apart from Time After Time (even Love is in the Air was disappointingly underused, only popping out for the bows, basically)... sucked. Unmemorable and/or incomprehensible there is no way I would buy or listen to the soundtrack. I kind of felt like... they should have just used pop songs instead of trying to write their own. Or just not made it a musical at all. That would have been way better.
And yet I loved it. I had so much fun! It's easy for me to sit here and think "oh it would have been so much better if..." but I wasn't involved in making it so... yeah. But even though parts of it sucked I am super glad it exists and that we saw it and I will probably be thinking about how much I enjoyed it and all the amazing costumes and sets for a really long time.
And this morning I've been looking at my list of barely started fan fiction projects in Google Docs, my Veronica Mars essay, my abandoned Read Along project here on this blog, my short lived "... and remembering that something doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile. It can be flawed and also enjoyable. Times approximately infinity if I am doing it for fun, on the internet, for free.
On the other hand for a long time I wasn't really starting anything and I think failing to finish things is a way better problem to have than not being able to start anything at all.
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Review: Nerd All Star Comedy Gala @ Sydney Comedy Festival
On Tuesday night I attended the Nerd All Star Comedy Gala in Marrickville. Four academics and three comedian's took to the stage and entertained us for the evening.
They alternated between comedian and academic which made for frequent refreshing changes of pace. I think I enjoyed the academics more than the comedians (there was slightly too much anti-hipsterism and haha-men-and-women-are-different-isn't-that-hilarious (nope) for my taste. But much less of that than I expected, which was nice.)
One of my favourite talks was from Nalini Joshi (Mathematician), we watched a short documentary all about how how she got into maths and then she solved the Tower of Hanoi puzzle for us. I failed second year maths at uni and I felt like I only just followed her equations on the board. But I did and it all made sense and was interesting! Hurrah.
But I think my actual favourite was Tom Denson talking about aggressive tendencies and self-control. It turns out that you can make people nicer by getting them to use their non-dominant hand for stuff. It turns out that by increasing people's self-control they become less aggressive. I found that pretty interesting, anyway.
Anyway the other talks were good but I'm embarassed by the fact that I don't remember which white male comedian was which so I am not going to tell you about all of them.
For less than $30 I thought it was a pretty good value evening and I recommend it if it shows up elsewhere or becomes an annual event at the Sydney Comedy Festival.
They alternated between comedian and academic which made for frequent refreshing changes of pace. I think I enjoyed the academics more than the comedians (there was slightly too much anti-hipsterism and haha-men-and-women-are-different-isn't-that-hilarious (nope) for my taste. But much less of that than I expected, which was nice.)
One of my favourite talks was from Nalini Joshi (Mathematician), we watched a short documentary all about how how she got into maths and then she solved the Tower of Hanoi puzzle for us. I failed second year maths at uni and I felt like I only just followed her equations on the board. But I did and it all made sense and was interesting! Hurrah.
But I think my actual favourite was Tom Denson talking about aggressive tendencies and self-control. It turns out that you can make people nicer by getting them to use their non-dominant hand for stuff. It turns out that by increasing people's self-control they become less aggressive. I found that pretty interesting, anyway.
Anyway the other talks were good but I'm embarassed by the fact that I don't remember which white male comedian was which so I am not going to tell you about all of them.
For less than $30 I thought it was a pretty good value evening and I recommend it if it shows up elsewhere or becomes an annual event at the Sydney Comedy Festival.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Stories in the future - The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
I'm not sure why it took me so long to discover The Lizzie Bennet Diaries but... oh my gosh.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is an online modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice. Lizzie Bennet has a video blog... and then the characters have twitter and tumblr and... it's a thing that could only be done now. It's not just P&P set in the modern world, it is told in the modern world. The characters comment on the earlier videos after they watch them later. I am only beginning to see what's going on on twitter. The future, it is here.
I never thought that a modern adaption of Pride and Prejudice could be this faithful to the book. It's really amazing. The characters are all really well done and the changes made to fit the story into the modern world are all really great as well.
But mostly everything about this adaption screams out that the creators really REALLY REALLY LOVE the novel. There are so many in-jokes and throwaway lines and references and yes.
I know this is kind of weird and incoherent but I am so happy and excited that I found this thing and yay. It's super.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries website has links to all the other stuff. Or just start with Lizzie's vlog.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is an online modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice. Lizzie Bennet has a video blog... and then the characters have twitter and tumblr and... it's a thing that could only be done now. It's not just P&P set in the modern world, it is told in the modern world. The characters comment on the earlier videos after they watch them later. I am only beginning to see what's going on on twitter. The future, it is here.
I never thought that a modern adaption of Pride and Prejudice could be this faithful to the book. It's really amazing. The characters are all really well done and the changes made to fit the story into the modern world are all really great as well.
But mostly everything about this adaption screams out that the creators really REALLY REALLY LOVE the novel. There are so many in-jokes and throwaway lines and references and yes.
I know this is kind of weird and incoherent but I am so happy and excited that I found this thing and yay. It's super.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries website has links to all the other stuff. Or just start with Lizzie's vlog.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
The Fellowship of The Hobbit
I remember the first time I read The Hobbit I was thrilled to discover that there was even more of the story than I'd heard numerous times on the book-on-tape version I had. I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep as a child (and as an adult) and I'd listen to my The Hobbit cassette while trying to get to sleep. And in the car on long drives. And sometimes just because I was bored.
So eventually I borrowed a copy of the book from the library and suddenly I realised that my cassette tape had left bits out. There were new bits I hadn't heard before and I felt both betrayed (my cassette tape was wrong) and excited.
But mostly I was disappointed because those new (to me) bits of The Hobbit? They... kind of sucked. I found myself skimming over them to get back to the actual story because elves are boring.
So I think part of my enduring love of The Hobbit (compared with The Lord of The Rings which I don't care for at all) may be partly an enduring love of a clearly and soothingly voiced abridged version. I haven't read it in a while and I am pretty sure that I still like the book a lot.
This afternoon my husband and I went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It's part one of a three film epic and I'm disappointed because I still think The Hobbit is a story which is improved by removing things, rather than adding them.
As Leonard Nimoy says: perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. (Actually Antoine de Saint-Exupery might have said it, but I can only hear it in Leonard Nimoy's voice). The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey could have had quite a lot of stuff taken away.
I met a guy at a meetup event once who was studying filmmaking and so we got to talking about movies when discussing films that I thought were great I often commented on the pacing. He laughed (but in kind of a delighted way, I think) and told me that he'd only ever really talked about the pacing of movies with his fellow students. I don't know, I think that if you can watch a movie without being bored or confused then someone in editing has done a pretty good job. Pacing killed The Hobbit for me, I was bored through most of it. So that was pretty disappointing. I really enjoyed my favourite scenes from the book ("Good Morning!" and the riddle scene) but... pretty much everything was too long and it felt like Jackson was just showing off for the sake of it. Huge fancy scenes devoted to something that could have been a quick cut-away during dialogue, fight scenes that just went on for way too long. Ugh, oh well.
I have pretty high hopes for an amateur re-cut 120min version of all three films once they're all out on DVD though. That could be really amazing.
Suresh's comment was that he wasn't sure whether the film was LotR: Episode 1 or LotR Fan Fiction. What do you think?
So eventually I borrowed a copy of the book from the library and suddenly I realised that my cassette tape had left bits out. There were new bits I hadn't heard before and I felt both betrayed (my cassette tape was wrong) and excited.
But mostly I was disappointed because those new (to me) bits of The Hobbit? They... kind of sucked. I found myself skimming over them to get back to the actual story because elves are boring.
So I think part of my enduring love of The Hobbit (compared with The Lord of The Rings which I don't care for at all) may be partly an enduring love of a clearly and soothingly voiced abridged version. I haven't read it in a while and I am pretty sure that I still like the book a lot.
This afternoon my husband and I went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It's part one of a three film epic and I'm disappointed because I still think The Hobbit is a story which is improved by removing things, rather than adding them.
As Leonard Nimoy says: perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. (Actually Antoine de Saint-Exupery might have said it, but I can only hear it in Leonard Nimoy's voice). The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey could have had quite a lot of stuff taken away.
I met a guy at a meetup event once who was studying filmmaking and so we got to talking about movies when discussing films that I thought were great I often commented on the pacing. He laughed (but in kind of a delighted way, I think) and told me that he'd only ever really talked about the pacing of movies with his fellow students. I don't know, I think that if you can watch a movie without being bored or confused then someone in editing has done a pretty good job. Pacing killed The Hobbit for me, I was bored through most of it. So that was pretty disappointing. I really enjoyed my favourite scenes from the book ("Good Morning!" and the riddle scene) but... pretty much everything was too long and it felt like Jackson was just showing off for the sake of it. Huge fancy scenes devoted to something that could have been a quick cut-away during dialogue, fight scenes that just went on for way too long. Ugh, oh well.
I have pretty high hopes for an amateur re-cut 120min version of all three films once they're all out on DVD though. That could be really amazing.
Suresh's comment was that he wasn't sure whether the film was LotR: Episode 1 or LotR Fan Fiction. What do you think?
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Review: My Ex Boyfriend The Space Tyrant
About 10 years ago on of my uni friends told me he was writing and making a gay-themed adventure game called 'My Ex-Boyfriend the Space Tyrant' and I was super excited because I loved adventure games when I was a kid.
And finally after many years the game is here! I haven't played a lot of it yet but it's making me laugh a lot so far!
I'm not a gay man, but like gay men I have way more interest in looking at scantily clad men than I have interest in looking at scantily clad women which makes this game... enjoyable to look at. But I read on the internet all the time that scantily clad women in games and comics are "empowered" or something so... yeah, whatever.
The graphics of the game itself look quite polished, but if I had one criticism it would be the peripherals - menus and extra bits. The way the labels for things you're looking at come up doesn't quite fit with the polish of the characters, and I did accidentally exit once without saving when I didn't realise that the 'exit' in the menu would exit the game, rather than just the menu I was in.
I haven't got too far into it so far (see accidentally exiting without saving) but so far I'm finding the game very fun and very very funny!
It weirds me out when people think that anything game-themed must also be "adults only". I would say this game is not suitable for children who are uncomfortable with frequent mentions of sex (and lots of sexual innuendo) and porn though. I remember when I was about 12 my stepdad let me play Leisure Suit Larry which mostly made me feel uncomfortable, embarassed and slightly unwell so, you know. I don't really want to draw general comparisons though because LSL was super gross.
So anyway if you like indie games, games which aren't targeted exclusively at hetero-males, doctor who jokes and adventure games, then I recommend My Ex Boyfriend The Space Pirate.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Review: Gelato Messina
Unless you want ice-cream to be ruined forever, I don't suggest you visit Gelato Messina. No, let me rephrase that, You do want ice-cream to be ruined forever and you should visit Gelato Messina because it will be totally worth it.
Gelato Messina is the best ice-cream* I have ever eaten. Lured in by my friend Lap's Internet Research we headed up to Gelato Messina one Tuesday evening and life (at least the ice-cream eating portion of it) has not been the same since. My husband and I ate there three times in four days and four times in less than a week. We're limiting ourselves to once a week from now on. On our way we were told that Gelato Messina had been declared the best ice-cream in Sydney, we've told all our friends that it's the best ice-cream we've ever eaten and so far nobody has been disappointed.
I have to admit that even in four visits I haven't sampled many of their flavours; that's because the Whitehaven (caramelised white chocolate and sea salt) was so incredible that it caused pleasure-flashbacks for days and I'm not game to try a visit without it in case I'm disappointed. You might point out that I could find a flavour that is even better than Whitehaven but I am sort of afraid of that possibility because I'm not sure that I would survive.
I generally sort of see food as a vehicle for salt so it's not surprising that the salty flavour is my favourite. Your milage, and interest in salty sweets, may vary.
Every other flavour I've sampled or eaten has been absolutely phenomenal as well and the people I've been with who have not ordered whitehaven (ie: nearly all of them, apparently my desire for salty deserts is not widely shared) have still appeared almost paralytic with pleasure so basically you can't go wrong.
The apple pie and cheesecake flavours are particularly amazing. I can't even imagine an apple pie as delicious as the apple pie ice-cream, for example. So there's that.
Their sorbets are dairy free, so non-dairy eaters can be catered for. YAY!
I'm kind of getting goosebumps right now and my mouth is watering... do you think it's too late to go out for ice-cream?
* Gelato is totally a type of ice-cream, I have no interest in being a nitpicker here because I am too overwhelmed by the memories of this delicious creamy icy goodness.
Gelato Messina is the best ice-cream* I have ever eaten. Lured in by my friend Lap's Internet Research we headed up to Gelato Messina one Tuesday evening and life (at least the ice-cream eating portion of it) has not been the same since. My husband and I ate there three times in four days and four times in less than a week. We're limiting ourselves to once a week from now on. On our way we were told that Gelato Messina had been declared the best ice-cream in Sydney, we've told all our friends that it's the best ice-cream we've ever eaten and so far nobody has been disappointed.
I have to admit that even in four visits I haven't sampled many of their flavours; that's because the Whitehaven (caramelised white chocolate and sea salt) was so incredible that it caused pleasure-flashbacks for days and I'm not game to try a visit without it in case I'm disappointed. You might point out that I could find a flavour that is even better than Whitehaven but I am sort of afraid of that possibility because I'm not sure that I would survive.
I generally sort of see food as a vehicle for salt so it's not surprising that the salty flavour is my favourite. Your milage, and interest in salty sweets, may vary.
Every other flavour I've sampled or eaten has been absolutely phenomenal as well and the people I've been with who have not ordered whitehaven (ie: nearly all of them, apparently my desire for salty deserts is not widely shared) have still appeared almost paralytic with pleasure so basically you can't go wrong.
The apple pie and cheesecake flavours are particularly amazing. I can't even imagine an apple pie as delicious as the apple pie ice-cream, for example. So there's that.
Their sorbets are dairy free, so non-dairy eaters can be catered for. YAY!
| DARLINGHURST STORE Shop 1/241 Victoria St, Darlinghurst NSW 2010 Opening times Sunday to Thursday: 12pm to 11pm Friday and Saturday: 12pm to 11.30pm THE CREATIVE DEPARTMENT- Laboratorio and Patisserie243 Victoria St, Darlinghurst NSW 2010 Opening timesMonday to Saturday: 12pm to 10pm Sunday: 12pm to 7pm | |
THE STAR STORE Cafe Court, Level G, 80 Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont NSW 2009 Opening times Monday to Thursday: 11am to 11pm Friday and Saturday: 11am to 11.30pm Sunday: 11am-11pm | |
SURRY HILLS STORE 389 Crown St, Surry Hills NSW 2010 Opening times Sunday to Thursday: 12pm to 10.30pm Friday and Saturday: 12pm to 11.30pm | |
I'm kind of getting goosebumps right now and my mouth is watering... do you think it's too late to go out for ice-cream?
* Gelato is totally a type of ice-cream, I have no interest in being a nitpicker here because I am too overwhelmed by the memories of this delicious creamy icy goodness.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Review: Elementary
There's been a fair amount of wank/controversy/silliness over the new Sherlock Holmes adaption, Elementary.
I really enjoy the BBC series Sherlock and given that Elementary and Sherlock are both modern adaptions of Sherlock Holmes comparisons are inevitable. After watching six episodes of Elementary so far I think Elementary is edging out as my favourite Sherlock Holmes adaption where they aren't mice.
I really enjoy Lucy Liu's Joan Watson - I'm disappointed that with the gender swap they felt like they also had to alter the military background, but having more ladies in important, non-sexualised roles is rarely something I'll object to. She's clever! She's sassy! She tells Sherlock off when he's crossing her boundaries, and calls him out when he tries to take credit for everything. She's single, it doesn't seem like she's super thrilled about that but she's not in a rush to change it either.
She is not (and OH I REALLY HOPE THIS NEVER CHANGES PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE) in love with Sherlock and he is not in love with her. They, due to Watson's position as his Sober Companion, spend more than 2 hrs apart at any time and yet six episodes in neither of them appear to have any interest in undressing the other and watching a man and a woman grow a friendship that doesn't involve any angst is really quite awesome and I didn't know how much I wanted this until I saw it. Don't get me wrong - I really love me some UST, but sometimes people of different genders can just be pals, you know?
I've recently finished A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I'm part-way through A Sign of Four and even though I've been watching Elementary recently and it's been a while since I've seen Sherlock I definitely see Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes in my head while reading the novels. That said, I think I like Johnny Lee Miller's Holmes better. People have said that Miller's Holmes is more 'human' and then other people have said that saying so is ableist because they read Cumberbatch's Holmes as being on the autism spectrum: I don't particularly want to get into that debate, but if I had to use small words 'More Human' seems like a good way to explain the difference.
Cumberbatch's Holmes intellect and skills seem superhuman. He's like a superhero (or supervillain, perhaps) and I think that's pretty faithful to the novels. I think Watson is the character we're supposed to identify with and we, with Watson, stand around in awe of Holmes' incredible brilliance. Elementary brings Holmes down to earth a bit more: he's clever, certainly. Incredibly observant but he's... just a guy. An insufferable, jerky, drug addicted, lonely guy.
My favourite part of these kinds of shows is the mystery/whodunnit aspect, and Elementary does that well. Sherlock does too... for two episodes out of every three. It seems to spend the third episode of each series in some kind of boring Moriarty story which basically does nothing for me (I don't particularly care for the "Chaotic Evil" flavour of villain. Give me some better motivation than "he's insane and evil", please!). Elementary, so far, has stuck to the whodunnit formula and while it may very well have less formulaic episodes later in the series right now I'm really enjoying the formula.
Sherlock's wrong about things. It's a Sherlock Holmes show basically there's a crime and then Sherlock has a theory that everything thinks is ridiculous and then he turns out to be... right about some things but completely wrong about others. He's just this guy, you know?
Anyway if you like Sherlock Holmes adaptions and CSI hasn't put you off crime shows forever I really recommend Elementary. Also the music (by Zoe Keating! Yay!) is rad.
I really enjoy the BBC series Sherlock and given that Elementary and Sherlock are both modern adaptions of Sherlock Holmes comparisons are inevitable. After watching six episodes of Elementary so far I think Elementary is edging out as my favourite Sherlock Holmes adaption where they aren't mice.
I really enjoy Lucy Liu's Joan Watson - I'm disappointed that with the gender swap they felt like they also had to alter the military background, but having more ladies in important, non-sexualised roles is rarely something I'll object to. She's clever! She's sassy! She tells Sherlock off when he's crossing her boundaries, and calls him out when he tries to take credit for everything. She's single, it doesn't seem like she's super thrilled about that but she's not in a rush to change it either.
She is not (and OH I REALLY HOPE THIS NEVER CHANGES PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE) in love with Sherlock and he is not in love with her. They, due to Watson's position as his Sober Companion, spend more than 2 hrs apart at any time and yet six episodes in neither of them appear to have any interest in undressing the other and watching a man and a woman grow a friendship that doesn't involve any angst is really quite awesome and I didn't know how much I wanted this until I saw it. Don't get me wrong - I really love me some UST, but sometimes people of different genders can just be pals, you know?
I've recently finished A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I'm part-way through A Sign of Four and even though I've been watching Elementary recently and it's been a while since I've seen Sherlock I definitely see Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes in my head while reading the novels. That said, I think I like Johnny Lee Miller's Holmes better. People have said that Miller's Holmes is more 'human' and then other people have said that saying so is ableist because they read Cumberbatch's Holmes as being on the autism spectrum: I don't particularly want to get into that debate, but if I had to use small words 'More Human' seems like a good way to explain the difference.
Cumberbatch's Holmes intellect and skills seem superhuman. He's like a superhero (or supervillain, perhaps) and I think that's pretty faithful to the novels. I think Watson is the character we're supposed to identify with and we, with Watson, stand around in awe of Holmes' incredible brilliance. Elementary brings Holmes down to earth a bit more: he's clever, certainly. Incredibly observant but he's... just a guy. An insufferable, jerky, drug addicted, lonely guy.
My favourite part of these kinds of shows is the mystery/whodunnit aspect, and Elementary does that well. Sherlock does too... for two episodes out of every three. It seems to spend the third episode of each series in some kind of boring Moriarty story which basically does nothing for me (I don't particularly care for the "Chaotic Evil" flavour of villain. Give me some better motivation than "he's insane and evil", please!). Elementary, so far, has stuck to the whodunnit formula and while it may very well have less formulaic episodes later in the series right now I'm really enjoying the formula.
Sherlock's wrong about things. It's a Sherlock Holmes show basically there's a crime and then Sherlock has a theory that everything thinks is ridiculous and then he turns out to be... right about some things but completely wrong about others. He's just this guy, you know?
Anyway if you like Sherlock Holmes adaptions and CSI hasn't put you off crime shows forever I really recommend Elementary. Also the music (by Zoe Keating! Yay!) is rad.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Review: Myer's Bridal/Gift Registry
So I totally got married in September and it was awesome. In the lead up to the wedding my Husband and I decided to set up a Gift Registry with Myer because it seemed like the easiest way to avoid having 100 people ask us what they should give us as a present.
Myer delivered all the presents to us at our new Sydney address after the wedding! Given that we moved interstate it was super handy to have all the gifts delivered to the new address rather than having to move them up with us after the honeymoon.
They allowed multiple guests to purchase the same gift. So I kind of thought that was the WHOLE POINT of having a registry but yeah we ended up with duplicates. It wasn't the worst thing ever because we just exchanged them and bought 3 huge boxes of Lego. Yessssss
But it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth because HELLO THAT IS WHY WE HAD A REGISTRY. Ugh.
So when the guests bought the stuff they wrote down a message for us to go on the card... but we didn't get any of those messages: we just got a generic congratulations from X (and Y) on the card. ALSO they misspelled a bunch of people's names. It just made me feel like the registry was an excellent idea but that Myer was just really rubbish at it which surprised me because I would have thought they'd have got the hang of it by now?
Stuff I liked:
It was super fun to set up! They gave us these little scanner things and we ran around the store scanning things and whatever we scanned went on the list. It was ace! We could have gone back and added more stuff later but we didn't actually spend a lot of time together in the 12 months before the wedding so we never bothered.Myer delivered all the presents to us at our new Sydney address after the wedding! Given that we moved interstate it was super handy to have all the gifts delivered to the new address rather than having to move them up with us after the honeymoon.
Stuff I didn't like:
They charged each of our guests (well apparently some but not others) $12 each for delivery. Which seemed a bit steep IMO and apparently I just didn't read that in the fine print when I set it up. Of course some people decided not to pay the delivery fee and they took the present and wrapped it and brought it to the reception: which meant that we had to pack a bunch of gifts up and get the removalist to bring them up to our new house which was kind of annoying.They allowed multiple guests to purchase the same gift. So I kind of thought that was the WHOLE POINT of having a registry but yeah we ended up with duplicates. It wasn't the worst thing ever because we just exchanged them and bought 3 huge boxes of Lego. Yessssss
But it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth because HELLO THAT IS WHY WE HAD A REGISTRY. Ugh.
So when the guests bought the stuff they wrote down a message for us to go on the card... but we didn't get any of those messages: we just got a generic congratulations from X (and Y) on the card. ALSO they misspelled a bunch of people's names. It just made me feel like the registry was an excellent idea but that Myer was just really rubbish at it which surprised me because I would have thought they'd have got the hang of it by now?
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Review: Ana Mardoll's Ramblings
I tried reading Twilight once but never got past the part where Bella lies to everyone she knows about where she is going and runs off deep into the woods with a guy that she suspect wants to kill her. Then he tells her that he wants to kill her and apparently this is supposed to be romantic? Ew. I stopped right there.
But the amazingly amazing Ana Mardoll has been "deconstructing" twilight for, uh, a while which means I never actually have to read it myself and reading Mardoll's commentary is around a million percent more enjoyable than the book itself! Thanks Ana!
I mentioned Ana's deconstructions briefly when I introduced my Read Along series. The first Chapter of Pride and Prejudice I posted on Friday. It was her series along with other ongoing reviews/deconstructions like Fred Clark's Left Behind series and Something Short and Snappy's one on Fifty Shades of Grey which really gave me the idea. Of course I may be cheating by doing a book that not only doesn't suck but that I actually love quite a lot, but never mind.
Mardoll also posts lighter deconstructions of other interesting things like Narnia, and she also wrote a rad book which I read and was awesome!
I enjoy pretty much everything she posts and I recommend her blog to pretty much anyone. Seriously, her blog is amazing!
But the amazingly amazing Ana Mardoll has been "deconstructing" twilight for, uh, a while which means I never actually have to read it myself and reading Mardoll's commentary is around a million percent more enjoyable than the book itself! Thanks Ana!
I mentioned Ana's deconstructions briefly when I introduced my Read Along series. The first Chapter of Pride and Prejudice I posted on Friday. It was her series along with other ongoing reviews/deconstructions like Fred Clark's Left Behind series and Something Short and Snappy's one on Fifty Shades of Grey which really gave me the idea. Of course I may be cheating by doing a book that not only doesn't suck but that I actually love quite a lot, but never mind.
Mardoll also posts lighter deconstructions of other interesting things like Narnia, and she also wrote a rad book which I read and was awesome!
I enjoy pretty much everything she posts and I recommend her blog to pretty much anyone. Seriously, her blog is amazing!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Review: Looper
Looper? I hardly know 'er.
So my husband and I went to see Looper recently and I thought it was pretty great!
(mild) Spoilers for film follow.
JGL as Young!Bruce Willis. So there was some very impressive makeup that contributed to this but a whole lot of it was Joseph Gordon-Levitt's acting. The way he stood, the way he held his mouth and the way he spoke made the scenes between Willis and Gordon-Levitt kind of freaky and super enjoyable.
Time-travel. What can I say? I basically love time travel movies so much I even voluntarily watched 'Hot-Tub Time Machine'. Looper is much better. I thought that the way it "worked" was very interesting and made much more sense than most time travel stories! I really enjoyed this rundown of the "rules" of timetravel in the Looper universe. I also liked the way they basically sidestepped explaining it all when Old Joe tells Young Joe they'll just get stuck playing with straws in the diner because, of course, it's not the point let's just get on with the movie!
So my husband and I went to see Looper recently and I thought it was pretty great!
(mild) Spoilers for film follow.
Things I liked:
The synopsis wasn't really much of a spoiler. Too frequently the synopsis of a film takes you up to like 3/4 of the way through the movie... but the synopsis I kept hearing about Looper was basically that the guy has to kill the older version of himself. And that's "revealed" very early on in the movie indeed because all the loopers have to kill their older selves: it's part of their contract. I felt like Joe having to fight Old Joe was really the setting for the film, rather than the actual plot.JGL as Young!Bruce Willis. So there was some very impressive makeup that contributed to this but a whole lot of it was Joseph Gordon-Levitt's acting. The way he stood, the way he held his mouth and the way he spoke made the scenes between Willis and Gordon-Levitt kind of freaky and super enjoyable.
Time-travel. What can I say? I basically love time travel movies so much I even voluntarily watched 'Hot-Tub Time Machine'. Looper is much better. I thought that the way it "worked" was very interesting and made much more sense than most time travel stories! I really enjoyed this rundown of the "rules" of timetravel in the Looper universe. I also liked the way they basically sidestepped explaining it all when Old Joe tells Young Joe they'll just get stuck playing with straws in the diner because, of course, it's not the point let's just get on with the movie!
Things I didn't like:
the film failed the Bechdel Test so hard that Old Joe's Wife didn't even have a name. I'm sure I saw her in the credits as "Old Joe's Wife". (There are three other female characters and they do actually have names. But none of the women ever meet each other).Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Review: Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy
So I kind of hated this series that I read recently and I was asked on twitter to explain why. It takes more than 140 characters, so here is a bit of a rant.
Note: You might have liked this trilogy. That's okay! Maybe you didn't notice the things I hated, or didn't hate them. Or liked some other things much more than I did that made the whole thing worthwhile for you. That's fine, we can still be friends. Just don't recommend me any other Brandon Sanderson novels, basically.
Contains Spoilers for all 3 novels:
First I will start with some of the things I did like:
The magic system was certainly interesting. Basically people get their magical powers by eating bits of metal and "burning" them in their stomachs. They can telekenetially affect metal or affect people's emotions or whatever. It was certainly unlike most magic systems I have read about and I thought that was kind of neat!
So I actually liked the first novel in the series quite a lot. I was fairly annoyed by some of the following things but it was only when they kept happening and kept getting worse that the scales were tipped. Like, I actually recommended the first book to a few people but then had to go and take it back after I read the other two. And, to be fair, I did read the second two books in less than a day. So they were fairly readable and all that.
So anyway, I didn't think it was super well written and I didn't really care about any of the characters. Sanderson seemed to attempt to do this thing where every half-book or so there would be a big "EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW IS WRONG" moment which I didn't hate in theory but it felt really really clumsy. Also I got the impression he was going for lots of BIG REVEAL moments but reallyreally messing them up. Basically by making things really obvious (and in at least one case unambiguously spelling it out in text) and then making the characters take hundreds of pages to work it out. And that just kept happening. And I read the second two books in less than 24 hours total so I didn't have a lot of time to ponder things, I'm not super smart to work it out before the big reveal moment it's just that when I read in text that someone is writing something in metal because words that aren't etched into metal can't be trusted and then it takes hundreds of pages for the characters to finally work out that... words that aren't etched into metal are being mysteriously changed by the big baddie!! It's hard to really be impressed.
Also did we need that many monster races? Really?
So anyway, all of that would have just made it a series of books I didn't really enjoy. here are the things that made me want to throw the books at the wall:
Magical boob powers.
So this didn't actually affect the plot at all. It was just a throwaway line that was thrown away several times and ugh.
So some of the magic people can manipulate people's emotions by either suppressing some or all emotions, or intensifying them. Some people are, understandably, uncomfortable with the idea that someone can come and tinker with what they are feeling but because the people doing the tinkering are supposed to be the heroes, the author explains why this doesn't make them evil terrible people with an example.
Sanderson claims that tinkering with people's emotions is no more evil or underhand than what ladies do with their boobs (ie MANIPULATE THE FEELINGS OF MENS). Gross.
Well done, foreigner, you've learnt to talk like a normal person!
So there is a character, Lestbournes aka "Spook" who comes from a different area of the world and speaks in an "Eastern Dialect" which nobody else can understand. This is treated by the text like some kind of speech impediment and a lot of Spook's character development consists of him, basically, learning to talk "properly".
He's congratulated several times, in text, for learning to speak normally. Not congratulated for learning the dominant dialect in the area he now lives in because hifive bro now you can communicate your wants and needs to the people you're surrounded by. He can now talk "normally" and not in his nonsense street-speak.
Also people mock his dialect by speaking actual nonsense to each other. Gross.
Democracy is a nice idea in theory, but ACTUALLY what people REALLY NEED is a dictator.
One of the characters, Elend, is one of the nobles and at first he's really passionate about democracy and giving everyone a fair go and maybe the Skaa (peasants basically) aren't that different from real people! What a nice guy! Then he ends up in charge and gets a chance to put it all into practice...
And it all falls apart and they kick him out and nothing gets done right because really, deep down, those peasants just need someone to tell them what to do.
Because it turns out the Skaa REALLY ARE DIFFERENT to the nobles. The nobles are physiologically taller, better looking and smarter than the Skaa. They can interbreed but the Skaa were designed to be the workers and the Nobles are designed to rule over them because they are just, you know, more betterer or something.
Girl needs a real MAN who is MANLY enough for her
Female lead falls in love with sweet bookish noble dude. She beats people up and he reads books and it is AWESOME AND I LOVE IT apart from the bit where of course then he needs to get magical powers too and his have to be STRONGER than hers. Ugh!
A Real Man has a PENIS
So there's a dude in the books who is a eunuch so like every eunuch in a novel I have read he has to have a sad about not being a "real" man. Which is fine, obviously. Dudes (or ladies) with missing and/or excess parts is, I understand, often suicidally painful. But the text supports his assertion that he lacks the proper equipment to be called a man, or even use male pronouns. Okay so the book uses he/him/his for him. But it's basically the big reveal of the series that an in-text prophecy doesn't use the expected male pronouns for the "hero of the ages" so there's a red herring about it being the female lead. But then it turns out it's the eunuch and that's why they used those weird non-male pronouns. Because he's not really male! AAUUGHH
Note: You might have liked this trilogy. That's okay! Maybe you didn't notice the things I hated, or didn't hate them. Or liked some other things much more than I did that made the whole thing worthwhile for you. That's fine, we can still be friends. Just don't recommend me any other Brandon Sanderson novels, basically.
Contains Spoilers for all 3 novels:
First I will start with some of the things I did like:
The magic system was certainly interesting. Basically people get their magical powers by eating bits of metal and "burning" them in their stomachs. They can telekenetially affect metal or affect people's emotions or whatever. It was certainly unlike most magic systems I have read about and I thought that was kind of neat!
So I actually liked the first novel in the series quite a lot. I was fairly annoyed by some of the following things but it was only when they kept happening and kept getting worse that the scales were tipped. Like, I actually recommended the first book to a few people but then had to go and take it back after I read the other two. And, to be fair, I did read the second two books in less than a day. So they were fairly readable and all that.
So anyway, I didn't think it was super well written and I didn't really care about any of the characters. Sanderson seemed to attempt to do this thing where every half-book or so there would be a big "EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW IS WRONG" moment which I didn't hate in theory but it felt really really clumsy. Also I got the impression he was going for lots of BIG REVEAL moments but reallyreally messing them up. Basically by making things really obvious (and in at least one case unambiguously spelling it out in text) and then making the characters take hundreds of pages to work it out. And that just kept happening. And I read the second two books in less than 24 hours total so I didn't have a lot of time to ponder things, I'm not super smart to work it out before the big reveal moment it's just that when I read in text that someone is writing something in metal because words that aren't etched into metal can't be trusted and then it takes hundreds of pages for the characters to finally work out that... words that aren't etched into metal are being mysteriously changed by the big baddie!! It's hard to really be impressed.
Also did we need that many monster races? Really?
So anyway, all of that would have just made it a series of books I didn't really enjoy. here are the things that made me want to throw the books at the wall:
Magical boob powers.
So this didn't actually affect the plot at all. It was just a throwaway line that was thrown away several times and ugh.
So some of the magic people can manipulate people's emotions by either suppressing some or all emotions, or intensifying them. Some people are, understandably, uncomfortable with the idea that someone can come and tinker with what they are feeling but because the people doing the tinkering are supposed to be the heroes, the author explains why this doesn't make them evil terrible people with an example.
Sanderson claims that tinkering with people's emotions is no more evil or underhand than what ladies do with their boobs (ie MANIPULATE THE FEELINGS OF MENS). Gross.
Well done, foreigner, you've learnt to talk like a normal person!
So there is a character, Lestbournes aka "Spook" who comes from a different area of the world and speaks in an "Eastern Dialect" which nobody else can understand. This is treated by the text like some kind of speech impediment and a lot of Spook's character development consists of him, basically, learning to talk "properly".
He's congratulated several times, in text, for learning to speak normally. Not congratulated for learning the dominant dialect in the area he now lives in because hifive bro now you can communicate your wants and needs to the people you're surrounded by. He can now talk "normally" and not in his nonsense street-speak.
Also people mock his dialect by speaking actual nonsense to each other. Gross.
Democracy is a nice idea in theory, but ACTUALLY what people REALLY NEED is a dictator.
One of the characters, Elend, is one of the nobles and at first he's really passionate about democracy and giving everyone a fair go and maybe the Skaa (peasants basically) aren't that different from real people! What a nice guy! Then he ends up in charge and gets a chance to put it all into practice...
And it all falls apart and they kick him out and nothing gets done right because really, deep down, those peasants just need someone to tell them what to do.
Because it turns out the Skaa REALLY ARE DIFFERENT to the nobles. The nobles are physiologically taller, better looking and smarter than the Skaa. They can interbreed but the Skaa were designed to be the workers and the Nobles are designed to rule over them because they are just, you know, more betterer or something.
Girl needs a real MAN who is MANLY enough for her
Female lead falls in love with sweet bookish noble dude. She beats people up and he reads books and it is AWESOME AND I LOVE IT apart from the bit where of course then he needs to get magical powers too and his have to be STRONGER than hers. Ugh!
A Real Man has a PENIS
So there's a dude in the books who is a eunuch so like every eunuch in a novel I have read he has to have a sad about not being a "real" man. Which is fine, obviously. Dudes (or ladies) with missing and/or excess parts is, I understand, often suicidally painful. But the text supports his assertion that he lacks the proper equipment to be called a man, or even use male pronouns. Okay so the book uses he/him/his for him. But it's basically the big reveal of the series that an in-text prophecy doesn't use the expected male pronouns for the "hero of the ages" so there's a red herring about it being the female lead. But then it turns out it's the eunuch and that's why they used those weird non-male pronouns. Because he's not really male! AAUUGHH
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