Rebcake-o-rama

1. Finished watching a sweet Japanese film entitled Rental Family - starring Brendan Fraiser as a struggling American actor in Japan, who lands a gig with an organization that hires actors to play roles in real family dramas. The film is directed and produced by Hikari.

Here's the synopsis: ( mild spoilers )

I went in blind? But found it to be interesting and moving, dealing with the complexities of human nature/connection and cultural differences. I fell in love with the characters, cried at the end, and found it a moving antidote to the aggravated misanthropy I'd been feeling off and on lately.

It's playing for free on Hulu, if you want to give it a shot.


2. Also watched, much earlier in the week while ill, Ghostbusters: AfterLife - which is directed by Jason Reitman, and stars Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, the kid who played Mike in Stranger Things, and two young kids who are actually pretty good in it (possibly the best things in it), and the remaining stars from the original making cameos.

It's okay? Coon and Rudd are underused. They did more with Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis in the original. The focus is of course on the kids, so think...Goonies meets Ghostbusters? I miss the 1980s films, where kids were utilized better, and there were better scripts, and far less focus on bad CJI. The effects were even better in the original flick. This felt kind of cheap in places (Muncher was definitely showing his age), and not quite as many ghosts. It also references the original a lot, without explaining it - so it kind of assumes you've seen the original Ghostbusters and remember it vividly? (I don't, so it took me a little while to figure a few things out, which I did - relatively quickly. So it's possible?)

It's also on Hulu.

3. Finished Bridgerton S4 - which had dropped the final episodes today. I didn't enjoy this season and used Rental Family as an antidote to my feelings of general misanthropic annoyance. It was aggravating to say the least and no, did not, provide the promised satisfying ending. If anything it wrapped it up a bit too quickly and neatly, and let the villainous step-mother off with barely a scratch.

It's the Cinderella trope or a reworking of it, which doesn't quite work for me. ( Read more... )

This season admittedly adapted the most controversial of the Julie Quinn Bridgerton romance novels, entitled "An Offer from a Gentleman". I'd hoped they'd change the novel, do to the controversy surrounding it, and make it a gay romance, since Benedict has been portrayed as bisexual. A m/m Cinderella trope would be have at least been different, and far more interesting. But alas, no. (I can see why - that's very hard to do in this sort of series and remain true to the historical romance genre. Also that's a lot for a writer to take on? A Cinderella class problem and a gay romance at the same time.). But in the end, the only thing they really changed was the ethnicity of the heroine, from what I know of the books (which is very little - I've not read them, nor plan to).

Bridgerton is actually a good example of the difficulty of book to television adaptations, and how they aren't always faithfully adapted, and sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes not, depending on your perspective? The series is adapted from a popular 21st Century group of romance novels by Julie Quinn, surrounding a titled and wealthy family and their friends in Mayfair London. While it doesn't change a lot of the plots (outside of S3, which did veer away from the books a bit along with the whole Lady Whistledown thread), it does change a lot of bits and pieces of the world and historical period (dicey that - considering it's a regency romance series - albeit not necessarily a faithful one), also changes the genders, ethnicity, and sexual orientation of various characters in order to be inclusive, and for sly social commentary. I wouldn't say it is a biting social satire (Austen, it's not - few romances are), but it is a satire of manners. More politically correct Georgette Heyer, than Austen.
( spoilers )


Oh, Netflix has grabbed a few series - it has all four seasons of Veronica Mars now, also West Wing, Grantchester, and various others.

1. FB, Instagram, and Youtube want me to buy a Mellow Cloud Pillow for some absurd reason. I've been pummeled with ads on it on all three. The evil marketing people have figured out how to manipulate us into buying things via social media platforms. Must resist. Otherwise they win. I do not need a Mellow ergonomic pillow - also been there done that, and they never work for me.

2. After re-watching all of Buffy and up to Angel S5 Episode 17, I've picked up on a few things that I feel compelled to share...

* For a low-budget television series done in the 1990s-early 00s, and at a fast pace, with 22 episodes per season, not to mention being on the brink of cancellation? These series are brilliant in many ways - almost flawless in acting, stunts, special effects, and dialogue. ( Read more... )

* The best character arcs are - Spike on Buffy and Wes on Angel. And they both have one thing in common - outside of the fact that they are both in the Buffyverse - Whedon had no idea what he was going to do with either character, how they fit into the story, or plot. Interestingly enough? Whedon did carefully plot out all the others - specifically Cordelia and Willow, and was proud of it. But, ironically, Cordelia and Willow have the worst character arcs - neither quite works, both are clumsy, and both rely way too much on possession by an outside source and comic book gimmickry. (ie. Whedon spent too much time obsessing over Dark Phoenix for his own good.)
( Read more... )
* Angel can't be redeemed because he's too busy fighting with himself to get anywhere. ( Read more... )

3. My soap opera is aggravating me, which is par for the course with soap operas, they tend to be that way by nature? I watch them because I get invested in various characters.

The Pitt, on the other hand, is excellent and my favorite television show at the moment. It's very comforting. Also it looks exactly like the ER's that I've been inside of in NYC. Certainly looks a lot like the one in NYU Langone. It's about problem solving in crisis mode. And shows a lot of kindness. Very nice antidote to my rising misanthropy - caused by a combination of factors, public transportation, crazy org, national news (the small scraps I get), and the soap opera. Also social media platforms (not this one - Dreamwidth is kind of an oasis in a sea of negativity and ads.).

4. A co-worker (Moscow Co-worker) sent the following article link to myself, Breaking Bad, and various other co-workers for our reading pleasure.

"For you reading pleasure (long article that spooked some people yesterday):"2028 Global Intelligence Crisis

To which Breaking Bad replied: "Way too long and technical for me."

Sigh. It is. It's also about how AI is taking away our jobs and evil tech revolution is taking away jobs ....reminds me of the industrial revolution.
No wonder it scared folks.

Actually, if you've studied history (specifically between 1870s-1980s) and have a mind for pattern recognition, you may realize how incredibly similar the two trajectories are. I'm not sure if that's comforting or not? Does kind of promote a feeling of general misanthropy and malaise. But hey, at least we know if things get worse than the height of the industrial revolution (that was the atomic bomb and WWI and II), we're all dead.

And on that happy note - I'm off to bed, hopefully to sleep and not dream overly much.

1. Does anyone know of a really good tearjerker (preferably something I've not seen and doesn't cost anything). ie. A movie or television series that makes you sob or cry really hard? I'm trying to clear my sinuses, and a really good cry would aid in that tremendously.

I tried the Angel S5 Episodes A Hole in the World and Shells, but alas didn't help. Possibly because I'd seen them before, and I prefer Illyria and Illyria/Wes to Fred and Fred/Wes. I guess I could watch The Body again? But I re-watched recently, so not sure that would work.

2. Oh, weird take away from A Hole in the World (Whedon) and Shells (DeNight)? I preferred Shells, which was written and directed by Stephen DeKnight - that writer has the best written episodes overall, making me think I should try Spartacus at some point. ( Read more... )

3. Another weird tidbit -in response to a question about what he remembers most from filming the episode Smashed, in a recent Youtube Con Q&A, Marsters highlights the chandelier stunt (where Spike jumps onto the Chandelier and flies into Buffy?) - he wanted to do the stunt himself (because it would be a better take), but Jeff (the stunt coordinator) said no, no, that stunt is mine, I'm taking that one - and explained why. ( why actors do not do their own stunts unless they are insane )
The reason I love Marsters Q&A's and interviews - is he doesn't really talk about personal crap or himself all that much, he talks about the process of filming television series, theater, acting in various mediums, and the backstage or all the stuff that goes into creating a television series. I find what people do for a living fascinating - or the process of creating a work of art really interesting. (I'm not sure that's nerdy so much as geeky? Since I could care less about the minutia.)

4. I'm obviously feeling much better today. Even made it into work, which is a good thing - since my doctor's note stated I could come back today. ( the crazy ass process of getting sick time via Crazy Org or why I try to avoid it like the plague and considered using vacation time )

Still have it though. ( Read more... )