A plateful of cookies

I just... need a day or something to mourn the end of a TV series, a series that was dead before I finished the second, and last, season.

It was Counterpart. A sci-fi series about two parallel worlds and crossing between them: a Cold War era spy game playing out between them, complete with spies, sleeper agents and conspiracies that continued into the now. There was a lesbian assassin struggling to find her identity after killing her Other, a sleeper agent who wanted a life that was uniquely hers and not her Other's. A man who was hard and cruel on one side but soft and cowardly on the other, his wife - who on both sides had a job to do and did it, and the soft, cowardly, man learned to love his wife by loving the other.

There were even other little things beyond the story that endeared the series to me. While it didn't achieve a perfect 50:50 ratio of men to women for both directing and writing, it came very close. The characters & casting, while imperfect too, did have people of colour, who had little backstories and motivations of their own.

( I think the creator must've known that this little, serious, confronting series would not be long lived )

There are people grumbly on the internet about the movie of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. (I have not read the book.)

Mostly because there’s a new modern storyline to parallel the historical one. And a random Hugh Jackman badly singing Mandarin. (I can get people not liking that. It was random and awkward.)

But platonic life partners? Lady composer? Maybe the fact that movies are ‘less intellectual’ and it was decided that viewers who didn’t read the book needed a modern parallel in order to empathise with the characters? (And there were people complaining it was too hard to distinguish the two time periods. Really?)

So I liked it. Though fair warning given for sad endings, people dying, historical sexism and domestic abuse, and those warnings should tell you it is not the happiest of movies.

So, watched The Hobbit yesterday. I went with my parents - my dad is the harder scifi/fantasy geek, whereas my mum just likes to go see interesting/exciting movies - and so I managed to go 'no, the high frame rate version is supposed to be the best, we should see that one'. So technical things first.

I don't get why people were so concerned with the high frame rate. Everything was amazingly smooth and, aside from a few moments where characters movements looked a little jerky and too-fast which I put down to encoding errors, everything was gorgeous and glorious. I'm not likely to go see it again in 2D and at the regular frame rate, but the difference in detail captured between the LotR trilogy and this first Hobbit movie is astounding. It's pretty much like you're in Bag End itself and I've been to the behind the scenes LotR exhibit and the level of detail is better than that even. Somehow.
Out of Bag End however, the HD just tends to make me think that I'm fairly sure the path where Bilbo catches up with the dwarves is a place I've actually walked along myself, the Shire river looked like any river/stream on any New Zealand farm and that, oh, they filmed that sequence up there in the North Island.

Unlike most people, especially Sherlock fans, I was actually somewhat concerned about Martin Freeman's casting as he just didn't fit into how Bilbo looks in my head. And he still doesn't, but within the first five minutes I could see why he was chosen outside of his talents at acting the woebegone 'normal' guy. Because there is a resemblance to Frodo in his Bilbo. (And a little to Merry and Pippin, whom Frodo and Bilbo are related to distantly if I remember correctly.) That and the delivery of that 'Home' quote, which everyone has seemingly gif-ed, while rather overly British was delivered beautifully.

The music was gorgeous as always and I am expecting an Oscar for sound design/score somewhere along the way. I am looking forward to what the music, which I call 'Going on an Adventure', that is heard as Bilbo runs out of the Shire is actually called. The combining of the Misty Mountains melody with the LotR scenery theme was really well done, even though I think it was almost a little overused.
( And now, spoilery comments! )

I did end up with a few favourite dwarves... mostly the ones I recognise from other stuff. Which means Thorin, Bofur and Kili. Although the youngest whose name I can't remember does get an honourable mention, as does Fili, because all the young dwarves are adorable.
Award for "Actor who I don't like in the other things you've done, but you do pretty good here" goes to Richard Armitage because I hate Lucas North but do rather like Thorin.

And while the tease for Smaug was very nice, The Hobbit isn't a movie that left me keening for next year. Which is good in my opinion. It gives you time to fall back into the book, to re-read the appendices and figure out the timelines and family trees. (And to reacquaint myself with Dwarfish runes.)


Additional trailer related thoughts: Star Trek - the only thing I'm interested in is why Cumberbatch's character has knotwork on his sleeves, Man of Steel - I am utterly uninterested in this and why did Dragonball Z have such a crap movie adaptation, because I'd rather have Son Goku that Clark Kent.

( Spoilers for Brave, obviously )

Oh, and go see Brave as the emotional plot line is more mature than you think, the animation and music are gorgeous, there are hilarious moments and yay! Two wonderful female main characters as well.

ETA: There's entries under the TBA section of future Disney films for Into the Woods and The Graveyard Book. Eeeee! (Okay, so the Mary Poppins spin-off, Oz prequel, Maleficent, the unannounced Marvel character and Doctor Strange movies are also exciting to hear about, but nowhere near as much as the above two are.)

Whoo! My bi-yearly icon change around. I still need a few more I think. Something slashy, switch around the Pokemon one, another cute thing and maybe either something shiny and sciency.

ANYWAY. The episode.

( Which had gloriously Neil Gaiman-y music even. )


( Things that I am glad for from this episode. )



( As a consequence of the TARDIS being put into a human, I now kind of ship... well, what I said in the title. Also, my hair can do crazy. We all know what that means. )



( Tangentally, if I were to have a ride in the TARDIS... )


The unrelated bits at the end:
I keep hearing dubstep in TV programs. This is somewhat disconcerting, as it's a very NOT mainstream kind of genre. Except it kind of is, but not... it's somewhere between popular and obscure and bits of it float through and those floating through bits mystify me. Especially because they're original bits of dubstep, not dubstep mixes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory songs or the lines the turrets say or Nyancat.

There should be a "I Want You Gone" and a "The Humans are Dead" mashup. I keep listening to the former and partway through singing "Binary solo! Zero zero one." during an instrumental bit.

I saw it.

Somewhere, there is a very unhappy Dream wondering what the hell is happening to his realm. There also needs to be more crossover fic with HOLiC as well as stuff exploring thaumaturgical architecture/architectural thaumaturgy and the Khloidanikos (from the Doctrine of Labyrinths series).

It was not that confusing. I survived and manage to help map out a timeline for Tsubasa. Inception is... comparable, but doesn't involve nearly as many stable time loops or paradoxical almost incestuous relationships. Um... it may have also helped I went expecting it to be "IT WAS ALL A DREAM" and thus it was a bit less than what I had expected.

( This is probably spoilery )

Also a very odd movie if you can, or have ever, lucid dreamed. You find yourself mentally shouting at the screen about denying the situation and just willing a change.
The sensation of exiting a dream is also more like falling [into a black hole and becoming infinitesimaly dense], not falling prompts the exiting of a dream.

I am talking of course, about the rather frightening level of subtext displayed between Maria and Sarah Jane in the first/second season of The Sarah Jane Adventures.
If you know the story of how I got into slash (namely I realised that there was something going on between Touya and Yukito (but with their English names) in Cardcaptor Sakura when I was eleven) then you should assume that I have no problem with such a thing as slash in children’s programming. I’m all for subversive messages that promote liberal thinking, especially if they’re a bit of a parental bonus.

( There is just something creepy with the way that Maria is apparently the person Sarah Jane trusts the most... (a minor diversion about the role of Maria and Rani) )

( ... which gets derailed by me talking about shipping. )

( Shipping isn’t probably what you wanted to hear about the Sarah Jane Adventures though, right? So I'll talk about the show itself. )

( BECAUSE I actually managed to watch all of the episodes released thus far, you get some nice episode commentaries. )

( So yes. My general opinion is that this is FUN. )

Which it isn’t, really. Graphic novel just sounds better than ‘the collected strips from the official magazine’. Which is what this is.
It’s a crack up really, even if I have heard/recognise the name of one of the contributing artists (D’Israeli). Except there are no proper title pages for the chapters, so I don’t know which chapter they drew.

( The reason why it’s a crack up is because… Rift War is a very weird little story. )

( Whereas ‘Jetsam’ was kind of fantastic in comparison. )

So er… ‘Jetsam’ is awesome and would take someone only ten minutes at the most to read in a bookstore or at the library.
The rest, Rift War… well, if you do have 30 minutes up your sleeve and don’t mind being confused as to whether that person is Owen or Jack, you could read the rest as well.

Now… I wonder if they’ve done any compilations of the fiction in the magazines aside from Consequences….

I tend not to do write ups for the Jaz Parks series, mostly because they are delicious literary junk food for me* and because I read through 1-4 in the space of a month or so and you probably didn’t want to read about me spazzing about how I loved the action and the romance was smushy, but not overly so and the characters had a laugh at themselves too.


But this is the latest book, just released, so I feel as if I should give some points of note (that aren’t commentary).
( Some points of note... )

( ...a few annoyances... )

( and some commentary )

( BONUS FOOTNOTE! )