Media weekend in review
Jul. 11th, 2005 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperThis was a weekend of exercising and media and a dabbling of writing. I saw a lot of movies this weekend; be warned, there are spoilers behind the cut tags.
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solarbird found a new nifty web page that lets her do calculations of miles between point A and point B, and because of this, she's figured out that the biking distance from MurkNorth to MurkSouth is more like 20 miles rather than 16. Which is cool, because this means I can give myself four extra miles for my bike ride down to see Cinderella Man with Meems! And with all the other exercise I got in this weekend, I've finally gone over the halfway mark to Rivendell. Looking good to start on the Lothlorien leg of the journey before the year is out.
I am however somewhat cranky about my weight having hit a recent plateau, now that I'm carpooling. I've been fluctuating harder than usual, and there are more upward fluctuations than there have been. There have also still been downward fluctuations, but at least over the last few weeks I've been in a tight little range of a few pounds and have stopped making overall downward progress. I'm hoping this is just a symptom of me having to adjust my exercise habits to account for the carpooling--and that things'll get back on track once my body readjusts. I think I may need to start working harder on getting weights workouts into the routine, if I'm not walking in the morning. If I start playing more with the weights, I know I can kick my metabolism up higher and start burning calories more efficiently.
spazzkat knocked another movie off the Netflix queue on Friday night: Amadeus, which I'd actually never seen before and which I rather liked, though I missed bits and pieces of it as I dealt with the post-dinner dishes. Paul and solarbird both assured me that the plot threads involving Antonio Salieri were completely fabricated for the movie, and from what I gleaned from reading the Wikipedia page on Mozart, the movie's portrayal of him as an immature dilettante wasn't all that accurate either. That said, I really liked the bits where Mozart was caught up in composing, and the soundtrack had bits of symphony just playing, very effectively conveying a sense of all this music just being right there in his head.
Later on that night we (well, Dara and me, more specifically) wound up watching The Day the Earth Stood Still, just because we found it channel-surfing and it happened to be on. This was the first time I'd seen this movie as well--and it was kind of a cool watch. Very slow by modern SF movie standards, hardly any special effects, and most of the plot was fairly low-key--just a manhunt around D.C. for the hiding Klaatu. It was a refreshing switch from big splody movies where the first aliens to come to the planet are here to blow us up without actually talking to us first. But on the other hand, once Klaatu gives his big speech at the end about how Earth has to get its shit together, it rang weirdly for me. He goes on and on about how the civilization he represents has brought about peace and such--but they've done it by appointing these huge robots with the power to destroy planets as their enforcers, with power that cannot be revoked. They're not peaceful because they have found it in themselves to be peaceful on their own strength of character--they're peaceful because they have HUGE EFFING ROBOTS WHO WILL KILL THEM if they aren't. Somehow, I do not see this as a desirable civilization to join. ;)
Saturday night, we knocked off another Netflix movie: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Very strange film. Took me a bit to realize that Cate Blanchett was in it, but once I did, I got a bit more interested. I've decided I definitely like Ms. Blanchett, and she may well be my current favorite actress. Aside from her presence in the flick, though, the film was interesting to watch just on its own weird merits. Cate's character was the only one I halfway liked; Bill Murray's Steve Zissou was certainly a reprehensible old lech, though he showed some glimmers of potential to be a better person somewhere in there towards the end. It was just such a weird and quirky film that I admired it on that basis alone. Also, it had catchy music.
Sunday I biked down to MurkSouth to meetmamishka to go see Revenge of the Sith, finally. About it, I shall say this--it was worth paying 40 cents, at least.
I was more lenient to it than Meems was. I liked most of the action sequences, for example. And I spotted kernels of good ideas in there, enough to give me at least an idea of Lucas' intentions. But it was not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination. Pretty much all of the complaints I've seen others issue about this movie are things I now support, having seen it myself. The acting is almost universally bad, with the exception of some goodness out of Mr. MacGregor. I don't buy Anakin's conversion to the Dark Side. I don't buy him and Padme as a couple. I don't buy that they could have so effectively hidden the fact that they're supposed to be married in secret--especially since they're frequently hanging out in the same quarters and sleeping together. And I don't buy that nobody blinked once at her being so clearly pregnant, especially given that Padme has lines early on about how the Queen (presumably the Queen of Naboo) will probably pull her off the Senate if she's found to be with child.
And I really didn't like the Frankenvader bit at the end, where he breaks out of the table restraints and bellows "nooooooooo!" And as for Padme just dying because she "lost the will to live", gak. Gak. Gak. Just... bad. The particularly vexing thing about that is that we see Anakin choking her right there on the screen, and we see Palpatine slyly telling Anakin that he killed her. He should have damn well killed her in earnest. He should have crushed her windpipe or otherwise done enough damage that they were able to save the babies but not her. I'm also vexed that this goes against Luke and Leia's exchange about their mother in Return of the Jedi, sure, but if Lucas is going to break his own canon like this I could have at least bought it more if he'd just had Anakin's own rage destroy Padme.
Sam Jackson was completely wasted as Mace Windu, and his death scene was totally botched. Palpatine lost the moral high ground of pretending to be weak and helpless to make Anakin think Windu was the attacker when he went HAH HAH and whipped out the lightning again anyway. That was just too "evil for the sake of being over the top evil". So was Anakin killing the Jedi children, for that matter. And "younglings"? If you're going to try to show us how Anakin's all evil now and how he'll kill children because his master told him to, CALL THEM CHILDREN. Don't rob the deed of its impact by giving them a neutral label like "younglings". And while we're on the topic, some angsting out of Anakin about being ordered to kill children in the first place would have been nice. His entire motive for turning to the Dark Side is supposed to have been to gain the power to protect Padme, and one also presumes their child. So why is he so willing to go kill other children? It just does not track.
Also, what the HELL was up with General Grievous coughing? What's the story with the clearly organic material that made up part of his body? Is this something that gets explained in the Clone Wars cartoons? And 'Grievous' as a character name in general? Gak.
I did, however, like the action sequences as I said. I liked seeing Yoda trying to whup it up on the Emperor. I liked the duality of the Yoda-Emperor duel and the Ben-Anakin duel (even though I was confused as to why the hell they'd have built a mining station on that moon if conditions there were unstable enough to destroy it as we saw happening during the duel). I really liked that Anakin was actually finally acting in that critical moment where Padme sees that oh yeah, he's gone batshit and is thoroughly in the grip of the Dark Side now. He had this utterly convincing light of manic conviction in his face, and that little smile he had made it extra creepy. Padme taking that single step back from him in horror worked too. So did the line he gives her about "together we can rule the galaxy!"--very cool little callback to the line Vader gives Luke in Empire, a sort of a tie to tell you that that mania still grips him by then, too.
I liked Ewan MacGregor's presence through most of the movie, and I liked that little toss-off line he has about blasters being "uncivilized", when he throws the gun he uses to shoot Grievous aside.
I'd told Meems it wasn't "half bad" when the credits started rolling... and at least in part I do still stand by that, since I did actually more or less enjoy myself as I watched it. But it wasn't "half bad" on the scale of "movies that suck", I should say. It was certainly better than oh, say, Event Horizon or Species or Dungeons and Dragons.
As a Star Wars movie, though... I wish I could have gotten something more. I've got the closure now of knowing how the story ends, but it would have been nice to go out on a movie that didn't suck. Sigh.
Friday miles: 1.7
Saturday miles: 2.3
Sunday miles: 20.0
Miles adjustment from last bike ride: 4.0
Miles out of Hobbiton: 238
Miles to Rivendell: 220
solarbird found a new nifty web page that lets her do calculations of miles between point A and point B, and because of this, she's figured out that the biking distance from MurkNorth to MurkSouth is more like 20 miles rather than 16. Which is cool, because this means I can give myself four extra miles for my bike ride down to see Cinderella Man with Meems! And with all the other exercise I got in this weekend, I've finally gone over the halfway mark to Rivendell. Looking good to start on the Lothlorien leg of the journey before the year is out.I am however somewhat cranky about my weight having hit a recent plateau, now that I'm carpooling. I've been fluctuating harder than usual, and there are more upward fluctuations than there have been. There have also still been downward fluctuations, but at least over the last few weeks I've been in a tight little range of a few pounds and have stopped making overall downward progress. I'm hoping this is just a symptom of me having to adjust my exercise habits to account for the carpooling--and that things'll get back on track once my body readjusts. I think I may need to start working harder on getting weights workouts into the routine, if I'm not walking in the morning. If I start playing more with the weights, I know I can kick my metabolism up higher and start burning calories more efficiently.
spazzkat knocked another movie off the Netflix queue on Friday night: Amadeus, which I'd actually never seen before and which I rather liked, though I missed bits and pieces of it as I dealt with the post-dinner dishes. Paul and solarbird both assured me that the plot threads involving Antonio Salieri were completely fabricated for the movie, and from what I gleaned from reading the Wikipedia page on Mozart, the movie's portrayal of him as an immature dilettante wasn't all that accurate either. That said, I really liked the bits where Mozart was caught up in composing, and the soundtrack had bits of symphony just playing, very effectively conveying a sense of all this music just being right there in his head.Later on that night we (well, Dara and me, more specifically) wound up watching The Day the Earth Stood Still, just because we found it channel-surfing and it happened to be on. This was the first time I'd seen this movie as well--and it was kind of a cool watch. Very slow by modern SF movie standards, hardly any special effects, and most of the plot was fairly low-key--just a manhunt around D.C. for the hiding Klaatu. It was a refreshing switch from big splody movies where the first aliens to come to the planet are here to blow us up without actually talking to us first. But on the other hand, once Klaatu gives his big speech at the end about how Earth has to get its shit together, it rang weirdly for me. He goes on and on about how the civilization he represents has brought about peace and such--but they've done it by appointing these huge robots with the power to destroy planets as their enforcers, with power that cannot be revoked. They're not peaceful because they have found it in themselves to be peaceful on their own strength of character--they're peaceful because they have HUGE EFFING ROBOTS WHO WILL KILL THEM if they aren't. Somehow, I do not see this as a desirable civilization to join. ;)
Saturday night, we knocked off another Netflix movie: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Very strange film. Took me a bit to realize that Cate Blanchett was in it, but once I did, I got a bit more interested. I've decided I definitely like Ms. Blanchett, and she may well be my current favorite actress. Aside from her presence in the flick, though, the film was interesting to watch just on its own weird merits. Cate's character was the only one I halfway liked; Bill Murray's Steve Zissou was certainly a reprehensible old lech, though he showed some glimmers of potential to be a better person somewhere in there towards the end. It was just such a weird and quirky film that I admired it on that basis alone. Also, it had catchy music.
Sunday I biked down to MurkSouth to meet
mamishka to go see Revenge of the Sith, finally. About it, I shall say this--it was worth paying 40 cents, at least.I was more lenient to it than Meems was. I liked most of the action sequences, for example. And I spotted kernels of good ideas in there, enough to give me at least an idea of Lucas' intentions. But it was not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination. Pretty much all of the complaints I've seen others issue about this movie are things I now support, having seen it myself. The acting is almost universally bad, with the exception of some goodness out of Mr. MacGregor. I don't buy Anakin's conversion to the Dark Side. I don't buy him and Padme as a couple. I don't buy that they could have so effectively hidden the fact that they're supposed to be married in secret--especially since they're frequently hanging out in the same quarters and sleeping together. And I don't buy that nobody blinked once at her being so clearly pregnant, especially given that Padme has lines early on about how the Queen (presumably the Queen of Naboo) will probably pull her off the Senate if she's found to be with child.
And I really didn't like the Frankenvader bit at the end, where he breaks out of the table restraints and bellows "nooooooooo!" And as for Padme just dying because she "lost the will to live", gak. Gak. Gak. Just... bad. The particularly vexing thing about that is that we see Anakin choking her right there on the screen, and we see Palpatine slyly telling Anakin that he killed her. He should have damn well killed her in earnest. He should have crushed her windpipe or otherwise done enough damage that they were able to save the babies but not her. I'm also vexed that this goes against Luke and Leia's exchange about their mother in Return of the Jedi, sure, but if Lucas is going to break his own canon like this I could have at least bought it more if he'd just had Anakin's own rage destroy Padme.
Sam Jackson was completely wasted as Mace Windu, and his death scene was totally botched. Palpatine lost the moral high ground of pretending to be weak and helpless to make Anakin think Windu was the attacker when he went HAH HAH and whipped out the lightning again anyway. That was just too "evil for the sake of being over the top evil". So was Anakin killing the Jedi children, for that matter. And "younglings"? If you're going to try to show us how Anakin's all evil now and how he'll kill children because his master told him to, CALL THEM CHILDREN. Don't rob the deed of its impact by giving them a neutral label like "younglings". And while we're on the topic, some angsting out of Anakin about being ordered to kill children in the first place would have been nice. His entire motive for turning to the Dark Side is supposed to have been to gain the power to protect Padme, and one also presumes their child. So why is he so willing to go kill other children? It just does not track.
Also, what the HELL was up with General Grievous coughing? What's the story with the clearly organic material that made up part of his body? Is this something that gets explained in the Clone Wars cartoons? And 'Grievous' as a character name in general? Gak.
I did, however, like the action sequences as I said. I liked seeing Yoda trying to whup it up on the Emperor. I liked the duality of the Yoda-Emperor duel and the Ben-Anakin duel (even though I was confused as to why the hell they'd have built a mining station on that moon if conditions there were unstable enough to destroy it as we saw happening during the duel). I really liked that Anakin was actually finally acting in that critical moment where Padme sees that oh yeah, he's gone batshit and is thoroughly in the grip of the Dark Side now. He had this utterly convincing light of manic conviction in his face, and that little smile he had made it extra creepy. Padme taking that single step back from him in horror worked too. So did the line he gives her about "together we can rule the galaxy!"--very cool little callback to the line Vader gives Luke in Empire, a sort of a tie to tell you that that mania still grips him by then, too.
I liked Ewan MacGregor's presence through most of the movie, and I liked that little toss-off line he has about blasters being "uncivilized", when he throws the gun he uses to shoot Grievous aside.
I'd told Meems it wasn't "half bad" when the credits started rolling... and at least in part I do still stand by that, since I did actually more or less enjoy myself as I watched it. But it wasn't "half bad" on the scale of "movies that suck", I should say. It was certainly better than oh, say, Event Horizon or Species or Dungeons and Dragons.
As a Star Wars movie, though... I wish I could have gotten something more. I've got the closure now of knowing how the story ends, but it would have been nice to go out on a movie that didn't suck. Sigh.
Friday miles: 1.7
Saturday miles: 2.3
Sunday miles: 20.0
Miles adjustment from last bike ride: 4.0
Miles out of Hobbiton: 238
Miles to Rivendell: 220