1965 was a busy year for William Shatner. It was the year he starred in a television series about a brash, headstrong young idealist who takes charge and makes impassioned speeches about truth, justice, and the American way. It was the year he filmed the first feature film in Esperanto. Oh, and he also filmed the second pilot for Star Trek.
( Read more... )

Pick 20 movies and put their summaries from TV Tropes' Better Than It Sounds and have your friends guess WITHOUT CHEATING.

Note: Okay, I cheated: they didn't list 20 of my favorite films so you're getting a little mix.

( just something to do )

What I would really, really like from this show is a different/no soundtrack, different editing, fewer broad reaction shots, and the absence of anyone not Crane or Shore.

I hate when things I like are entangled in things I do not. It makes shunning them much harder, but watching them rather painful.

In other words: MORE SHATNER.

In other news, I am back from Ohio, where I spent the past week with my family. Photos and all that coming soon, though I will be somewhat scattered still as I have a friend coming in tomorrow for a week and computer issues based on having moved the computer into the living room (where there is no internet) to replace the television which is in the shop. Priorities are interesting, aren't they?

How are you? Anything exciting going on? Any links I should know about? What have I been neglecting?

( Battlestar Galactica )

( Mad Men (Season 1) )

We're still in the middle of Touch and have plans for Deadwood, Rose of Versailles, and the new-to-DVD Mysterious Cities of Gold.

There was neither the great love or hate of last season's ending, because I was far less invested, both because of Martha and the Master. I like Donna, but I was neither in love nor did I identify with her, as I was/did with Martha. And the build up of the Master (and John Simm being awesome) fueled my interest (and allowed the colossal stupid of JesusFairy!Doctor to affect me more than it should have).

That said, it was enjoyable, though there were a few rather upsetting developments.
( spoilers! )
This got more passionate than I intended, but I just got to thinking. Overall, none of the highs and lows last season put me through, despite the fact that Martha's fate is the "best" of all of them. That just goes to show what identification can do for your experience. I'm very much looking forward to Sarah Jane Adventures starting up again, so I'll have something consistently decent in the DW universe to watch.

With the passing of Yves Saint Laurent, this is either the best or the worst time to mention one of my biggest, and most inconsequential, pet peeves:

I hate the word pantsuit.

Don't get me wrong--I love women in suits. For my money, there's not much hotter than mid-series Scully in a dark (expensive) suit. But I have never understood why, when "suit" means "jacket and trousers," we need a new word to specify that this one's worn by a female. Yes, I get that suits for women used to be exclusively skirt-oriented. If you weren't some kind of rebel. So maybe it was necessary to specify--decades ago. As it is, since it appears to me that as far as business attire goes it's all good, it really bothers me. Now that women are "allowed" to wear suits, can't we just call them that? I can't help but feel that the word now implies something about the wearer--that "pantsuit" is code for "woman playing a man's game."

Plus, it's just ugly. The word "pant."

Yeah, there are better things to be angry about, and I don't really feel oppressed or anything. But it's one of those things that rankles when I hear it, like getting my sock bunched in my shoe.

---

On a completely different note, we have now finished Battlestar Galactica season 3, and loved it. Yeah, there were a few slow episodes in the middle, but they were better than the slow ones from S2, and I think watching it all in a batch of a few weeks really alleviated what everyone who watched it as it came out hated. So now the issue is--wait for all of S4 to air because we know we usually like things better in bulk, or head on in on the high of the finale?

NO NO NO NO NO NO NONONONONONOOOO

( S3 spoiler )

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

I don't know why this bothers me so much. Please don't let this be true.

If you please, go to phuck's journal and tell me which characters I'm most like.

If you think that sort of thing is fun.

It's ridiculous how much the light changes here. I work from 6:30-5. In the winter, I arrive at work in the dark and leave in the dark. In summer, I wake up and go to sleep while it's light. Amazing.

The dogs are doing well, and I am amused by how often the seem to unconsciously mirror each other's position. More often than not, they're lying with the same orientation, even if they're not next to each other. Like how you cross your arms when the guy across the desk does. Mr. Darcy will be sad to see her go on Tuesday, I think.

( belated doctor who squee, w/ spoilers )
That's all for now, I think. Mr. Daroga and I watched the first two episodes of Rome the other day, and we're definitely on board for the rest. Also re-started Neon Genesis Evangelion, which somehow I'd forgotten the sheer amount of awesome of. God, the intro song/montage makes me cry. I'm actually not kidding. I need to get that.

So. The first thing you'll want to know is...
( was it as good as you're all saying it was? )

I loved it.
( less vague )

( this week, on Doctor Who... )
Next week:

Cap'n Jack, war, and... well, I don't have any idea, but it looks awful dramatic. Oh, I see, it's a season-trailer.

Doctor Who 3x05 - "Evolution of the Daleks"
( when last we left our intrepid heroes... )
I think I might be asking too much of this show, reading too much into it, or whatever, but I really don't think it's very good. I think I'm holding on for possibilities and nostalgia. When was the last time I was really satisfied by Doctor Who? What percentage of New Who eps did?

Yeah, I know I'm really late with this one. I probably won't say anything that hasn't already been said.
( Like <i>Phantom of Manhattan</i>, only totally not. )
So overall, I'm still not sold on the treatment of social issues in this show. And I'd like to see Martha used as something other than a decoy of sorts to get the Doctor into trouble. But I won't get tired of the Daleks' voices any time soon, and despite some design-awkwardness about the hybrids (both pig and Dalek), it's a cool idea.

My observations for this week--now in an almost timely manner!

( IMAGINE A FUTURE... WHERE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IS RUSH HOUR )

( ramblings about 3x02 )

[Poll #963430]

ETA... Yeah... That should read "OTP," not "OPT."

I don't usually do this, as everyone usually sees things years earlier than I do. But I'm only a few days late this time, so I figured I'd offer my observations. For what it's worth, and all that.
( Not that you're replacing her. )
Well. That was fun. We'll see how it goes, won't we?

Soap

I'd never seen so much as an episode of this show until my library got it in and I remembered Mr. Daroga saying something about it being funny. And it is; it seems remarkably innovative for its time, and is silly enough to enjoy even now. It reminds me, in a way, of Arrested Development (though not nearly as good): they're genre-bending "meta"-shows that acknowledge their roots. They're successful both as parodies *and* as examples of the thing they're mocking.

Also, I feel really bad about finding a young, painfully skinny Billy Crystal (playing gay son Jodie) hot.

Star Trek

Just started season 3. The first disc, including "Spock's Brain," "The Enterprise Incident," "The Paradise Syndrome," and "And the Children Shall Lead" had left us wondering if season 3 was worth it. I mean, AtCSL was okay, but it wasn't *good*. But with "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" the show is back. I feel like the real Star Trek has returned, replete with hoyay (though truth be told, AtCSL has an elevator scene that was about as overt as you can get) and snappy comebacks. Not Joss-style, but they can zing from time to time. Plus, who would have guessed that Dr. Pulaski was once hot?


Big Love

I think stoney321 rec'd this. It's a big old soap opera with three wives and Bill Paxton, who I usually can't stand but who is subdued here to the point I can. It's a fascinating, unbiased look at a different culture within our own, and everyone's great. I think Jeanne Tripplehorn is pretty, and Lilly Kane looks a lot better without so much makeup, although her boobs are scary big. Plus, bonus of Lilly/Mac interaction, and you know I adore Tina Majorino.

Not the bestest show ever, and the episodes are a little variable, but very enjoyable and I really appreciate the care that's been taken. It'd be really easy to pass vierwer-manipulative judgement on the characters, and that's avoided.


Touch

Okay. I don't know what to say about this. It's an anime from the early 80's that was apparently wildly popular in Japan, but has never been released here. I feel weird recommending something that you can only get under the table, but it's so worth it. There are twin boys, the girl they grew up with, baseball, high school, and a plot twist so totally awful a mere quarter of the way through, I have no idea how the rest of the 100 or so episodes are going to go.

I also don't know how to tell you how good it is. It's like (and inspired) a bunch of other anime series, but the guy who did the manga, Mitsuru Adachi, has such a gentle touch it doesn't feel like your standard sit-com love triangle. There are so many quiet moments we're left to just feel what's going on; though the show tends towards way too much flashbacking to stuff I saw five minutes ago because I'm not waiting a week or whatever between episodes. If you like to read, please try to find his Short Program, 1 and 2. Short stories, many of them wonderfully subtle (though sometimes confusing as he has a tendency to draw his characters very alike).

The basic story is that the two brothers, Kazuya and Tazuya, have grown up with Minami in the plot between their two houses. Now in junior high, Tacchan is the "useless" and lazy brother while Kacchan is a basepall ace and the assumed future husband of Minami. But this initial assessment isn't the complete picture, and the relationship between them all emerges as an interesting and complex one.

We're addicted.

I'd like to talk about the situation in Iraq, and the burgeoning one in Iran, and how irritating (and infuriating) I find the actions of my country… but I won't. There's nothing I can say that hasn't been said much better by someone else; but I sometimes wonder if I'll have to leave the country for ideological reasons. Anyone have a good country for me? I won't, because I think it's important not to abandon a place that has such potential (I feel the same about private vs. public schools—don't run out on the thing your staying might help fix), but I'm sorely tempted.

No, I'm not going to talk about that. Instead, I'll rant about something that is completely insignificant but currently also irritating. That is:

Why do all the good shows get cancelled?

I just finished watching Arrested Development last night. I know, I'm really really late to this party. But I had to wait to get the DVDs. And it just pisses me off that something this consistently funny got canned. It never sucked. Ever! And my admiration for the writers (and indeed, everyone) knows no bounds. Jokes resurface from three years ago, having been transformed in the meantime by subsequent events. It never falters. Even when they found out they were going down, they managed to pull things together and create a satisfying ending that made as much sense as anything else in the show did. And it's funnier than anything's been in a long time. Well, anything I've seen.

(Though I'm offended by the repeated assertions that it's wrong to date your cousin. But I might be biased.)

But what's up with well-crafted, consistent television getting cancelled? True, some shows I like get continued, at least for now. But for the past five years or so, the stuff I like the most has either died or been in tremendous danger of doing so. I don't think Buffy or the X-Files would have survived if they'd been introduced in that time period.

But maybe this is just the natural order of things, and Firefly and Arrested Development, had they been allowed to continue one episode longer would have SUCKED, bringing the entire series down. Maybe it's a blessing to be able to own the DVDs and not regret any part of it.

But I really don't think that's true.

Side note: I didn't watch the Oscars—too wrapped up in AD—but I clearly didn't miss anything. I'm tired of Scorsese, and in retrospect while I haven't seen Venus and do not think it would show me an Oscar-worthy performance, I can't bear to watch Peter O'Toole lose again, and anyway I'm disgusted with "our" options for best film. Yes, I'm a curmudgeon. But I should be forgiven, for I saw Beckett on the big screen this weekend. Where's the writing these days?

I have exactly one quarrel with the new Battlestar Galactica. And it's not even the poor thing's fault. But everywhere that people are selling this show to others, I see something like this: "Oh, it's not science fiction! I mean, it's scifi but with real characters!"

If you don't see something wrong with this sentiment, you are among the people who think science fiction is something completely different from what I think it is. And that strikes me as strange. To me, a show without proper characterization or plot is a bad show, regardless of genre. So this "scifi for not-scifi-people" thing that BSG has going for it is an affront to every good scifi lovin' geek out there. It's an implication that, to the popular consciousness, scifi=lasers in space. This is due, I think, to the weakness of the visual medium when dealing with genre, in that a few coded items (jumpsuits, computers, spaceships) can mean science fiction regardless of what else is going on. I'm not going to come out as a hard sf advocate, but I *do* think that the essential components of science fiction are these: a strong "what if" scenario and internal consistency.

For me, Battlestar Galactica, with its complex relationships and through lines and attention to detail, is a good show. It also happens to be science fiction. The fact that people feel the need to do the "scifi, but..." bit in its defense means that people don't have a good idea about what science fiction should be doing all the time: creating worlds and situations that reflect upon our own. I read and watch science fiction because it is able to explore complex and important social, political, and scientific issues outside the constraints of our own culture. BSG, in other words, should be the standard, not the exception.