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Watching Monday
Feb. 23rd, 2015 04:29 pmSleepy Hollow
2.17
I mostly enjoyed this episode, though I do feel like there was a lot of unexplained stuff happening. I mean... witches aren't human? When did that happen? I'd assumed witchery was just something you learned, maybe connected to an inborn talent, but not all of this "us vs them" and "I could never be happy with a mere mortal" stuff. So, okay, whatever, witches are a different species.
I'm also theoretically okay with Katrina turning evil, I just wish there'd been more build-up to it. "Our relationship isn't working, this must be because of fundamental differences between us" is a totally plausible motive, but it should have been mentioned before this episode. Same for George Washington's broken promises.
Stuff I did like: Frank is back! I'm very happy, I figured that he would have stayed evil for much longer. I'm not really happy about Henry dying, since I liked the character, but since Katrina as the Big Bad could be very cool, I don't mind too much. Plus, with this show, I wouldn't be surprised if Henry showed up again somehow. I'm also excited by the possibilities of Abbie in the past! I thought the parallels between her arrival and Crane's back in the first episode were cute and well-done, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she and 1780!Crane get along.
Book of Negroes
This was a miniseries that aired on BET last week, but I can hardly find anyone talking about it. Did anyone else watch it? I found it really enjoyable, though it did have some problems. It's the story of Aminata Diallo, a young woman in the middle of the 1700s, who gets captured as a slave and then spends her life traveling all over the place (South Carolina, New York City, Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone, London) and doing all sorts of things (getting married, having children, being a midwife, being a nurse, working for the British in the American Revolution, farming, starting a colony, writing her autobiography, etc). The production values were obviously very high – I especially loved the costumes, which were all gorgeous, but the various locations it was filmed in were also well done - and the acting was great. I particularly liked Cuba Gooding Jr as a helpful but sort of sleazy tavern owner in NYC. It did have the problem that often shows up in biopics (this wasn't really a biopic, but eh, close enough): by trying to show someone's entire life, from childhood to old age, there's necessarily a lot of summarizing and time skips, a constant changing of locations and secondary characters, and it's hard to feel invested in any particular moment. But overall I liked it, and I hope it got good ratings and reviews so that they'll make more shows like it.
Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights
I dunno, I watched this randomly on Saturday night when I had nothing else to do. I have no explanation for how I ended up with this movie. But! Despite what you might assume, it was actually fairly enjoyable. I mean, okay, yes, it's a dance movie, it's a shallow romcom, and it leans a little too heavily on ~Cuban people just feel the music, like, in their musical souls~ to be entirely comfortable. But for all that, it's a cross-class romance set during the Cuban Revolution with a deeply ambiguous (maybe even unhappy!) ending, and it is inexplicable that this movie even exists. You sort of have to watch it just for that.
Oh, and I watched the Oscars! That was... pretty boring, actually.
2.17
I'm also theoretically okay with Katrina turning evil, I just wish there'd been more build-up to it. "Our relationship isn't working, this must be because of fundamental differences between us" is a totally plausible motive, but it should have been mentioned before this episode. Same for George Washington's broken promises.
Stuff I did like: Frank is back! I'm very happy, I figured that he would have stayed evil for much longer. I'm not really happy about Henry dying, since I liked the character, but since Katrina as the Big Bad could be very cool, I don't mind too much. Plus, with this show, I wouldn't be surprised if Henry showed up again somehow. I'm also excited by the possibilities of Abbie in the past! I thought the parallels between her arrival and Crane's back in the first episode were cute and well-done, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she and 1780!Crane get along.
Book of Negroes
This was a miniseries that aired on BET last week, but I can hardly find anyone talking about it. Did anyone else watch it? I found it really enjoyable, though it did have some problems. It's the story of Aminata Diallo, a young woman in the middle of the 1700s, who gets captured as a slave and then spends her life traveling all over the place (South Carolina, New York City, Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone, London) and doing all sorts of things (getting married, having children, being a midwife, being a nurse, working for the British in the American Revolution, farming, starting a colony, writing her autobiography, etc). The production values were obviously very high – I especially loved the costumes, which were all gorgeous, but the various locations it was filmed in were also well done - and the acting was great. I particularly liked Cuba Gooding Jr as a helpful but sort of sleazy tavern owner in NYC. It did have the problem that often shows up in biopics (this wasn't really a biopic, but eh, close enough): by trying to show someone's entire life, from childhood to old age, there's necessarily a lot of summarizing and time skips, a constant changing of locations and secondary characters, and it's hard to feel invested in any particular moment. But overall I liked it, and I hope it got good ratings and reviews so that they'll make more shows like it.
Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights
I dunno, I watched this randomly on Saturday night when I had nothing else to do. I have no explanation for how I ended up with this movie. But! Despite what you might assume, it was actually fairly enjoyable. I mean, okay, yes, it's a dance movie, it's a shallow romcom, and it leans a little too heavily on ~Cuban people just feel the music, like, in their musical souls~ to be entirely comfortable. But for all that, it's a cross-class romance set during the Cuban Revolution with a deeply ambiguous (maybe even unhappy!) ending, and it is inexplicable that this movie even exists. You sort of have to watch it just for that.
Oh, and I watched the Oscars! That was... pretty boring, actually.
