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Watching Mon- Tuesday
Apr. 22nd, 2014 03:13 pmYesterday, right around the time when I usually stop doing household chores and reading ffa and start doing actual work, my computer crashed and then would not turn back on. Well, it sort of turned on: it made the "turning on!" chime and the screen lit up, but it was a blank grey screen with only a flashing question mark, without even a cursor to move. Attempting to boot up with various commands– safe mode, recovery mode, disk utility– also all failed. Frantic googling on a borrowed computer informed me that these were indications of the fact that, as far as my computer was concerned, it had no hard drive. This could mean two things:
1) the hard drive had entirely failed, taking with it all of my data (as of course I had not backed it up any time recently) and meaning I'd need a new computer,
or 2) the cable to the hard drive was wonky, meaning I'd need a cheap part and a five-minute repair.
A trip to the Apple Store and much frantic prayer revealed it to be option 2, thank all the gods and little fishes, and now everything is fine and as it was. So! A day late:
Game of Thrones
Poor Sansa. I'm looking forward to her storyline from this point on, though; tragic as it is, I really like it. And Littlefinger's back! And creepy as ever.
The Tywin/Tommen scene was fantastic (even though I feel like this Tommen is WAY too old. Isn't he supposed to be, like, six? Though a suppose six-year-old actors introduce all sorts of problems into filming.), and the image of Tywin giving the sex talk is hilarious.
And then. Okay. The scene everyone is talking about, the Jaime/Cersei rape scene. And, yup, I didn't like it either. The scene in the book is really not the best example of consent ever written (to put it mildly), but I still felt that it was significantly different from the show, which was unarguably a rape scene. It just... didn't feel right to the characters to me. Jaime seems to idealize Cersei and their relationship, and to follow her lead; he also– unlike many of the characters– seems to have a much clearer sense of what rape is and why it's terrible. I'm not trying to argue "nice guys can't rape" or anything ridiculous like that, but this scene felt OOC and like it came out of nowhere.
I also don't know where they're going to go from this point. I feel like Jaime having raped Cersei here will of a necessity change their dynamics and plot from what it was in the book; I hate the idea of Cersei needing to send the "I love you I love you I love you" letter to her rapist who refuses to acknowledge her, for instance. That's just gross.
I did really like the Arya/Hound scene! I like to see Arya already learning to lie and be very convincing at it.
And then scenes with Sam and Gilly, Stannis and Davos. None of them are my favorites, really, and none of these scenes had much plot. I'm totally convinced that the Iron Bank of Braavos is going to play a major part in the climax, though, so I'm glad it's beginning to show up on GoT!
Okay, I totally love this Oberyn. I liked this brothel scene way more than any of the previous ones. In my opinion, Tywin is telling the truth when he says he didn't give the order for the Mountain to do what he did to Oberyn's sister and her children– Tywin tends not to indulge in violence, particularly when I'm sure there is some sort of political purpose he could have used them for if they were living hostages. On the other hand, I don't particularly think he cares about what happened to them, and probably has never felt a moment's guilt for not actively preventing their deaths. He probably sees them as minor collateral damage, and of course would never give up a current ally (the Mountain) for something irreversible that happened decades ago.
Tyrion isn't doing much (THOUGH I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO THE TYRION/JAIME SCENE SO HARD), Wildlings being wild, the Wall being wall-ish. And then Dany! She doesn't do much either, but I do think the show is doing a better job in casting some of the slaves as white and some of the masters as people of color, and thus avoiding some of the terrible implications of the final scene of last season. (Not that Dany's not still totally a white savior, but yo, she's supposed to be.)
Red Velvet
This is a play I saw at St Anne's Warehouse; I'd first heard of it, actually, when it was performed last year in London, and had wanted to see it then, and so was incredibly excited when it came here. (And to Brooklyn even! I didn't even have to go to Manhattan.) Adrian Lester is the star, which reminds me that I need to watch his show Hustle, as apparently it's sort of the British Leverage.
Red Velvet (the title refers to the curtain in front of a stage) is based on the true story of Ira Aldridge, a black American who became a Shakespearean actor, performed in London in the early 1830s in the midst of Britain debating abolishing slavery in its colonies, and then spent most of the rest of his life touring and performing in continental Europe, becoming particularly popular in Poland and Russia. The play focuses on the two nights he performed as the lead of Othello at Convent Garden in 1831 (a sort of lucky break due to Edmund Kean– who had been performing the role– suddenly falling ill), framed by short scenes of the night he died, thirty years later, in Poland. It's an interesting play; it felt in a lot of ways more like a drabble than a novel, if that makes sense. It hints at a million topics but doesn't have the time to go in-depth into any of them (it's a short play too, only about two hours): racism, slavery, sugar boycotts, art as escape vs art as political engagement, art as passion vs art as a job, stylized acting vs naturalistic acting, acting as transformation vs acting as representation, Aldridge's relationship with his (white) wife, their childlessness, his friendship with Convent Garden's manager– a French man under suspicion because of his own radical politics, Aldridge's relationship with his parents who disapprove of acting as a career, sexism, choices as political vs individual, and probably about a hundred other things I didn't even catch.
Ultimately, I suppose, it's a story of betrayal, about a man who thinks he has achieved the beginning of his fame (he talks with his wife about how this job at Convent Garden means they'll finally be able to buy a house) but has it taken away from him after only two performances, for no reason other than that he's black. They read several reviews out during the play, which I assume are from the historical record, and they are– well. The nicest of them describe Aldridge's "wooly hair" and how "remarkably well" he pronounces the English; most are worse, and none of them have anything to say about the actual acting. In the last scene, an elderly Aldridge is performing King Lear in– well, I suppose you'd have to call it "white face"– and recites the lines "You think I’ll weep? No, I’ll not weep." and "They are not men o' their words. They told me I was everything." and it's clearly as much about himself as the character.
It's a great show! I would recommend it, except that the performance I saw was the last. Hopefully it will be on again somewhere soon.
1) the hard drive had entirely failed, taking with it all of my data (as of course I had not backed it up any time recently) and meaning I'd need a new computer,
or 2) the cable to the hard drive was wonky, meaning I'd need a cheap part and a five-minute repair.
A trip to the Apple Store and much frantic prayer revealed it to be option 2, thank all the gods and little fishes, and now everything is fine and as it was. So! A day late:
Game of Thrones
Poor Sansa. I'm looking forward to her storyline from this point on, though; tragic as it is, I really like it. And Littlefinger's back! And creepy as ever.
The Tywin/Tommen scene was fantastic (even though I feel like this Tommen is WAY too old. Isn't he supposed to be, like, six? Though a suppose six-year-old actors introduce all sorts of problems into filming.), and the image of Tywin giving the sex talk is hilarious.
And then. Okay. The scene everyone is talking about, the Jaime/Cersei rape scene. And, yup, I didn't like it either. The scene in the book is really not the best example of consent ever written (to put it mildly), but I still felt that it was significantly different from the show, which was unarguably a rape scene. It just... didn't feel right to the characters to me. Jaime seems to idealize Cersei and their relationship, and to follow her lead; he also– unlike many of the characters– seems to have a much clearer sense of what rape is and why it's terrible. I'm not trying to argue "nice guys can't rape" or anything ridiculous like that, but this scene felt OOC and like it came out of nowhere.
I also don't know where they're going to go from this point. I feel like Jaime having raped Cersei here will of a necessity change their dynamics and plot from what it was in the book; I hate the idea of Cersei needing to send the "I love you I love you I love you" letter to her rapist who refuses to acknowledge her, for instance. That's just gross.
I did really like the Arya/Hound scene! I like to see Arya already learning to lie and be very convincing at it.
And then scenes with Sam and Gilly, Stannis and Davos. None of them are my favorites, really, and none of these scenes had much plot. I'm totally convinced that the Iron Bank of Braavos is going to play a major part in the climax, though, so I'm glad it's beginning to show up on GoT!
Okay, I totally love this Oberyn. I liked this brothel scene way more than any of the previous ones. In my opinion, Tywin is telling the truth when he says he didn't give the order for the Mountain to do what he did to Oberyn's sister and her children– Tywin tends not to indulge in violence, particularly when I'm sure there is some sort of political purpose he could have used them for if they were living hostages. On the other hand, I don't particularly think he cares about what happened to them, and probably has never felt a moment's guilt for not actively preventing their deaths. He probably sees them as minor collateral damage, and of course would never give up a current ally (the Mountain) for something irreversible that happened decades ago.
Tyrion isn't doing much (THOUGH I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO THE TYRION/JAIME SCENE SO HARD), Wildlings being wild, the Wall being wall-ish. And then Dany! She doesn't do much either, but I do think the show is doing a better job in casting some of the slaves as white and some of the masters as people of color, and thus avoiding some of the terrible implications of the final scene of last season. (Not that Dany's not still totally a white savior, but yo, she's supposed to be.)
Red Velvet
This is a play I saw at St Anne's Warehouse; I'd first heard of it, actually, when it was performed last year in London, and had wanted to see it then, and so was incredibly excited when it came here. (And to Brooklyn even! I didn't even have to go to Manhattan.) Adrian Lester is the star, which reminds me that I need to watch his show Hustle, as apparently it's sort of the British Leverage.
Red Velvet (the title refers to the curtain in front of a stage) is based on the true story of Ira Aldridge, a black American who became a Shakespearean actor, performed in London in the early 1830s in the midst of Britain debating abolishing slavery in its colonies, and then spent most of the rest of his life touring and performing in continental Europe, becoming particularly popular in Poland and Russia. The play focuses on the two nights he performed as the lead of Othello at Convent Garden in 1831 (a sort of lucky break due to Edmund Kean– who had been performing the role– suddenly falling ill), framed by short scenes of the night he died, thirty years later, in Poland. It's an interesting play; it felt in a lot of ways more like a drabble than a novel, if that makes sense. It hints at a million topics but doesn't have the time to go in-depth into any of them (it's a short play too, only about two hours): racism, slavery, sugar boycotts, art as escape vs art as political engagement, art as passion vs art as a job, stylized acting vs naturalistic acting, acting as transformation vs acting as representation, Aldridge's relationship with his (white) wife, their childlessness, his friendship with Convent Garden's manager– a French man under suspicion because of his own radical politics, Aldridge's relationship with his parents who disapprove of acting as a career, sexism, choices as political vs individual, and probably about a hundred other things I didn't even catch.
Ultimately, I suppose, it's a story of betrayal, about a man who thinks he has achieved the beginning of his fame (he talks with his wife about how this job at Convent Garden means they'll finally be able to buy a house) but has it taken away from him after only two performances, for no reason other than that he's black. They read several reviews out during the play, which I assume are from the historical record, and they are– well. The nicest of them describe Aldridge's "wooly hair" and how "remarkably well" he pronounces the English; most are worse, and none of them have anything to say about the actual acting. In the last scene, an elderly Aldridge is performing King Lear in– well, I suppose you'd have to call it "white face"– and recites the lines "You think I’ll weep? No, I’ll not weep." and "They are not men o' their words. They told me I was everything." and it's clearly as much about himself as the character.
It's a great show! I would recommend it, except that the performance I saw was the last. Hopefully it will be on again somewhere soon.
