Watching Monday
Jan. 5th, 2015 02:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhoa, I am way behind on this. Let me attempt to catch up!
Sleepy Hollow
2.11
Siiiiiiiiiiiigh. Okay. Things I liked: Crane wanting a motorcycle! Fight scene with zombies in Revolutionary War uniforms!
I'm indifferent on Henry's turn. It wasn't particularly surprising (clearly someone was going to switch sides, though I think I might have preferred Headless to Henry), but I suppose it could lead to interesting things. I'll wait and see.
Things I didn't like: basically everything else. But specifically, I didn't like the repeated focus on Crane's jealousy and lack of trust in Katrina. I'd support their break-up if I thought this meant they were actually going to be adults now (or if it was going to lead to Crane/Abbie), but I suspect it's just in the service of melodramatically getting back together in the season finale, which is not what I want. It's not even that I don't ship Ichabod/Katrina; I'd be perfectly happy with them as a couple if they could have a functional or interesting relationship, but instead the show just keeps repeatedly telling us how much in love they are while showing boring anti-chemistry.
I'm also not 100% opposed to Irving dying, since presumably his soul being owned by Henry means Irving will still be around as an undead ghost or something and that could be a really cool plot, but this whole season has already wasted his character so much that I have little faith. Also, if he had to die, why not just have their guess about him being able to use the magic sword be wrong? That would have been a much better plot than "death from random shallow cut". It could have led to interesting drama about the characters' willingness to risk people's lives on unfounded guesses! But no, dumb pointless death instead, why not.
Of all the things this show needed, the sudden introduction at this late point of the old "white=good; black=bad" metaphor for the trees was definitely not one of them.
At least Jenny was in this episode, even if only to stand around in the background and do nothing. And of course we had to bring in Hawley too. My theory is that someone on the show thinks Hawley fills the "snarky badass" role, and so they've given him a lot of what would have been Jenny's lines or actions.
The second half of the season starts tonight, and I'm really hoping things have improved over the break.
As is traditional, I saw a lot of movies over the holidays. When my parents pay for the tickets, I become much more into going to the movies! :D
Top Five
Really great. Chris Rock plays not-quite-himself, a famous comedian trying to promote his new, more serious movie. I was very impressed by how it managed to be both incredibly funny and also deeply sincere on various topics (alcoholism, fame, family, etc). Not every moment worked (personally, I was disconcerted by the running joke about how terrible his movie, on the Haitian rebellion, was, particularly given that I had just reread Crimson Angel a week or two before), but overall it was really wonderful. I particularly liked Rock's fiancee, a reality star who could have been a shallow caricature, but was sympathetic and insightful.
Into the Woods
Disappointing. I don't quite know why; I liked all the actors well enough, and I'm not hugely offended by any of the cuts or rearrangements, but it just didn't work for me. "Hello, Little Girl" and "I Know Things Now" were even more distressing than usual, because of how young the actress was (I mean, I guess she's actually 16? But she looked so little!), and while I understand the reasons behind trying to break up the two-act structure, I think it was ultimately a bad idea. The end of the movie just seemed to drag on without point or plot, and a lot of what should have been big revelations (witches can be right! giants can be good!) didn't even seem to make sense (what was she right about?).
Ah, well. There were some good parts! "Agony" was just perfect, absolutely fantastic, and "Last Midnight" was dramatic and awesome.
The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies
Also disappointing. The whole trilogy has been, for me, but at least the first two movies had great scenes here and there (especially the riddle scene in the first one, and the Smaug/Bilbo scene in the second), but this one lacked even that. Ultimately I think it would have been better as two movies, or in particular Smaug's death should have gone at the end of the second one instead of the beginning of this one. The battle scenes were mostly too video-game or bad slasher movie for me, and there wasn't much to this movie other than battle scenes. Oh, and a lot of Bilbo/Thorin, which would be more awesome if I shipped it.
The very ending, repeating the beginning of the first LotR movie, was sweet though!
The Imitation Game
Surprisingly not disappointing! Despite my total disinterest in WWII movies and biopics about tortured geniuses, as well as some negative reviews I'd read, I ended up liking this. It's still not the movie you have to see to make your life complete, but it was a perfectly pleasant and enjoyable two hours. I even liked Benedict Cumberbatch!
Sleepy Hollow
2.11
I'm indifferent on Henry's turn. It wasn't particularly surprising (clearly someone was going to switch sides, though I think I might have preferred Headless to Henry), but I suppose it could lead to interesting things. I'll wait and see.
Things I didn't like: basically everything else. But specifically, I didn't like the repeated focus on Crane's jealousy and lack of trust in Katrina. I'd support their break-up if I thought this meant they were actually going to be adults now (or if it was going to lead to Crane/Abbie), but I suspect it's just in the service of melodramatically getting back together in the season finale, which is not what I want. It's not even that I don't ship Ichabod/Katrina; I'd be perfectly happy with them as a couple if they could have a functional or interesting relationship, but instead the show just keeps repeatedly telling us how much in love they are while showing boring anti-chemistry.
I'm also not 100% opposed to Irving dying, since presumably his soul being owned by Henry means Irving will still be around as an undead ghost or something and that could be a really cool plot, but this whole season has already wasted his character so much that I have little faith. Also, if he had to die, why not just have their guess about him being able to use the magic sword be wrong? That would have been a much better plot than "death from random shallow cut". It could have led to interesting drama about the characters' willingness to risk people's lives on unfounded guesses! But no, dumb pointless death instead, why not.
Of all the things this show needed, the sudden introduction at this late point of the old "white=good; black=bad" metaphor for the trees was definitely not one of them.
At least Jenny was in this episode, even if only to stand around in the background and do nothing. And of course we had to bring in Hawley too. My theory is that someone on the show thinks Hawley fills the "snarky badass" role, and so they've given him a lot of what would have been Jenny's lines or actions.
The second half of the season starts tonight, and I'm really hoping things have improved over the break.
As is traditional, I saw a lot of movies over the holidays. When my parents pay for the tickets, I become much more into going to the movies! :D
Top Five
Really great. Chris Rock plays not-quite-himself, a famous comedian trying to promote his new, more serious movie. I was very impressed by how it managed to be both incredibly funny and also deeply sincere on various topics (alcoholism, fame, family, etc). Not every moment worked (personally, I was disconcerted by the running joke about how terrible his movie, on the Haitian rebellion, was, particularly given that I had just reread Crimson Angel a week or two before), but overall it was really wonderful. I particularly liked Rock's fiancee, a reality star who could have been a shallow caricature, but was sympathetic and insightful.
Into the Woods
Disappointing. I don't quite know why; I liked all the actors well enough, and I'm not hugely offended by any of the cuts or rearrangements, but it just didn't work for me. "Hello, Little Girl" and "I Know Things Now" were even more distressing than usual, because of how young the actress was (I mean, I guess she's actually 16? But she looked so little!), and while I understand the reasons behind trying to break up the two-act structure, I think it was ultimately a bad idea. The end of the movie just seemed to drag on without point or plot, and a lot of what should have been big revelations (witches can be right! giants can be good!) didn't even seem to make sense (what was she right about?).
Ah, well. There were some good parts! "Agony" was just perfect, absolutely fantastic, and "Last Midnight" was dramatic and awesome.
The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies
The very ending, repeating the beginning of the first LotR movie, was sweet though!
The Imitation Game
Surprisingly not disappointing! Despite my total disinterest in WWII movies and biopics about tortured geniuses, as well as some negative reviews I'd read, I ended up liking this. It's still not the movie you have to see to make your life complete, but it was a perfectly pleasant and enjoyable two hours. I even liked Benedict Cumberbatch!
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no subject
Date: 2015-01-05 09:07 pm (UTC)I thought all of the cuts and changes made sense, given how they chose to tell the story, but I preferred the two act structure too. I also missed everyone feeding the narrator to the giant because they didn't like how he was telling the story. And the Agony reprise. But I think that was true of everyone familiar with the original. :)
no subject
Date: 2015-01-06 04:59 am (UTC)I read an interview with the director where he said that he cut the narrator and made a lot of the other changes because he felt that breaking the fourth wall wouldn't work in a movie compared to a theater. Which – it's totally fair to decide to make a less meta version if that's what he wanted to do, but I don't think there's any reason why movies can't break the fourth wall. Or have an intermission, I suppose, though that would have been very unusual for a modern US movie.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-06 02:28 pm (UTC)Movie musicals used to have "intermission" while the overture for the second act played too; there wasn't even a real break, just fake curtain to mimic sitting in a theater. True that it's unusual for movies today, but I don't see why we can't do something that's different. (My brother works in advertising and complains that the client always picks the most boring and least different from what they always do idea instead of going for something new and interesting because they don't want to take the risk of going away from what they know works. Which I can see, but I don't know who they think the primary audience of a show like Into the Woods is, if not fans of the original.)
no subject
Date: 2015-01-10 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-05 10:14 pm (UTC)I have zero interest in shipping anyone in any Hobbit movie, but I enjoyed Battle of the Five Armies a little better than the previous one because my expectations were so low and it had some visual things that I liked. They totally ruined the arrival of the eagles by moving all the major characters onto that ice chunk or whatever it was, though.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-06 05:02 am (UTC)I was a big fan of Frodo/Sam in LotR, but I don't particularly ship anyone in the Hobbit movies. I did like some of the visuals of the ice, but it was weirdly isolated from the rest of the battle, and parts of it didn't seem to work like normal physics.