Books, movies and TV
Nov. 20th, 2006 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieThis is going to be long and rambly and about every topic under the sun.
Saw two movies in the theater this weekend: The Prestige and Borat. The former was an unrealistic bore-fest (the central conceit was just…no, I cannot suspend disbelief in that fashion) and the characters had no inner life of their own or any realness but acted as puppets pulled by the screenplay. Blah.
Borat was quite funny if eminently forgettable, though I must be singularly depraved because the ‘shocking’ scene people and critics were mentioning just had me going: ‘huh? That’s what the fuss is about? Why?’
The best thing about both of those movies were the trailers. I am very interested in seeing The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz (I love RW and while I don’t get the fuss about HJ, I like him well enough). I am dying to see Apocalypto. I don’t like Mel Gibson, and I have no idea if the movie will be any good, but I am so interested in seeing Mayan Civilization on screen. It really is like nothing else I’ve seen before. And the trailer for Casino Royale made me want to watch a Bond movie in…ever. Daniel Craig comes across as ruthless enough to be a routine killer (unlike Pierce Brosnan who came across as suave but not at all realistic as an agent), the feel seems to be darker and grittier and not so much about pretty shiny things. I’ll give it a try, if for nothing else than sheer wonder of a Bond movie being 96% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. I have to say, the temporal functioning of the Bond universe gives me huge headaches. How come Bond can look like Sean Connery AND Pierce Brosnan? How can he be Bonding in the sixties and then still Bond in 2006, and look younger than he did in the eighties? Why does Bond start his career in 2006 and is a seasoned professional by 1972? It makes my head hurt :P
I’ve been neglecting my Battlestar Galactica write-ups.
I loved it. The Tigh parts were my favorite. The scene where Tigh poisons Ellen is just…might very well be my favorite scene on BSG. They were one of the strongest couples on BSG, if amazingly uniquely dysfunctional and that scene just broke my heart. Tigh is in for a steep steep descent. No wonder he is wandering off by himself when there is a celebration. When she says he didn’t bring everyone back, he doesn’t mean Duck and other suicide bombers. He means Ellen.
The Lee saves the day scene was predictable but was awesome, and the scene with Lee and Dee where he told her he was proud to have her as his wife was great too. This is the first scene I really ‘got’ the connection before the two, so keep it up, writers!
My Kara love continues unabashed. She is actually my favorite character, I must confess. And the mind frak with the child and Leoben (who she kissed OMG and stabbed)…she is going to be much more broken than before. And seeing her modus operandi, she will push the one stable good thing in her life (Anders, who continues to totally make me love him) out of her life. See, that’s the catch-22. She pushed Lee away and first hooked onto Anders because he was safer, because they were on Caprica with no future. But she did let him into her heart and now he is going to be pushed away just like Lee. I did love the scene where he found her unconscious, and he is kissing her, and he is relieved, and freaking out, and everything, totally amazingly insanely great.
I’ve been reading Jasper Fforde Thursday Next series and I really recommend. I’ve also started watching Bleach, the anime, which I like but don’t love (yet).
And in non-related to anything dorama news. Why or why are so many Taiwanese dramas unsubbed? I love Korean dramas and enjoy Japanese ones, but there is nothing as satisfying as a good Taiwanese drama. But so few of them are subbed! Whyyyyyyyy? I’ve watched the first part of first ep of Hana Kimi unsubbed (and it’s awesome awesome awesome. Ella makes a good Mizuki. The other TW actresses I love: Barbie Hsu or Ariel Lin are too feminine and/or too old to pull this off and Wu Zun=HOT as Sano, though I still would have loved to see Mike He in the role) but I can do that because I read the manga. Generally, no subs, means no watching for me. And that is evil.
Why am I mentioning this again? Because I went looking for subs of Marry Me (Let’s Get Married) but could find none. Even though it starred Mike He. Whyyyyy? *weeps*
Wedding cold feet? This is a story about an idol who gets dumped at his own wedding.
After his sudden rise to stardom, the actor Liu Yu Ming (Mike He), nicknamed Bian Dang (Lunch Box), overruled his agency's objections and decided to get married. When the news spread, chaos reigned. His fans were very upset about his impending wedding and fights broke out outside the church. Then, they found out... the bride was a no-show. In the ensuing chaos, Bian Dang and his makeup artist, Xiao Qing, put on disguises and sneaked pass the paparazzi.
The aggressive paparazzi forced Bian Dang to go into hiding. With no home to go back to, Xiao Qing introduced him to a strange place called "The Escape Pod." Everyone there wanted to run away from their old lives. There was Poki who tried to escape his debt in Japan, Wen Zi Yu (Fish) who was running away from home, and there was the owner of The Escape Pod, Chuan Tou (The Captain). In this place, they began a magical love story of running away from and being ran away from.
And the rest of the post is occupied by general dorama babblings so it’s under the cut.
I tried a whole bunch of doramas this weekend on for size, to see which one toobsess watch next.
I checked Korean Loveholics just to see if it worked and it worked just fine. It seems to be part Sang-Doo and part Forbidden Love which makes for an odd combination, about a female teacher and a male student who fall for each other without knowing each other’s status. And she kills some bad guy to protect him but doesn’t remember so he takes the blame and goes to jail and when he comes out 5 years later, he decides to win her back. But she is engaged to be married. It’s going to be crack.
I have also checked a bit of Prince Turned Frog. It’s supposed to be quite famous but my shallow observation? The guy isn’t too hot. Boooo! I like guys with longer hair and sharper cheekbones, I am afraid.
I have watched the first episode of Nobuta Wo Produce which came highly recommended but so far I am not getting the fuss. It’s well acted and unusual but I think it marches to the beat of its own drummer too much. The tonal mood shifts are a bit jarring, and the characters just mildly annoy me so far. Shuji is very nice and normal but because of that, he doesn’t come across as very interesting. He is a smart, well-adjusted kid, which is realistic but doesn’t make it super exciting. Akira? I have to say, huge props to Yamapi because the character here is nothing like the angsty focused mess that is Kurosaki (and the same is true for Horihita Maki whose borderline antisocial shy wreck Nobuta is miles from the confident, well-adjusted Tsurara). But Akira as a character? Creeps me the hell out. What is with the weird speech pattern and the inappropriate invasion of personal space and everything? Either he is growing the biggest pot collection in Japan or he is mentally disturbed. Seriously, he creeps me out completely. I just want to smack him and tell him to snap out of it. But see, he is weird but not messed-up so…
Anyway, I’ll keep on watching and see if I get into it more.
I have also watched the beginning of Spring Waltz. Me likes. It’s the first ‘seasons’ drama I’ll watch so we’ll see. I am still amused at the whole thing being set in Austria, but Jae-Ha, the hero, has awesome cheekbones and I love him being mean to that secondary girl with glasses who came tostalk interview him. He is all high-strung and temperamental before a concert, yay. The heroine is amazingly adorable (I confess in most Korean dramas, much as I love the hero, it’s the heroine I fall for) and has clearly had the childhood romance of OTP with the hero on some island (but the secondary girl seems to have had one to, so I guess boy Jae-Ha was just one big tease. Hmmm. Why is one childhood love better than another?). The one annoying thing is Daniel Henney. His looks don’t appeal to me (he is prettier in stills) and the fact that he keeps speaking English. To Koreans. In Austria. Is a bit mind-boggling. He is not good at acting, either. But I will definitely watch more of this.
Just to get my Vic Zhou fix, I rewatched a little bit of Mars (I swear, certain parts of that DVD are worn through) and it’s just as amazing and wonderful and heart-breaking as ever.
And I also watched episode and a half of Delightful Girl Chun-Hyang which is LOVE and which deserves a separate post of its own. And ditto on Temptation of the Wolves which is what every teen movie should be.
Saw two movies in the theater this weekend: The Prestige and Borat. The former was an unrealistic bore-fest (the central conceit was just…no, I cannot suspend disbelief in that fashion) and the characters had no inner life of their own or any realness but acted as puppets pulled by the screenplay. Blah.
Borat was quite funny if eminently forgettable, though I must be singularly depraved because the ‘shocking’ scene people and critics were mentioning just had me going: ‘huh? That’s what the fuss is about? Why?’
The best thing about both of those movies were the trailers. I am very interested in seeing The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz (I love RW and while I don’t get the fuss about HJ, I like him well enough). I am dying to see Apocalypto. I don’t like Mel Gibson, and I have no idea if the movie will be any good, but I am so interested in seeing Mayan Civilization on screen. It really is like nothing else I’ve seen before. And the trailer for Casino Royale made me want to watch a Bond movie in…ever. Daniel Craig comes across as ruthless enough to be a routine killer (unlike Pierce Brosnan who came across as suave but not at all realistic as an agent), the feel seems to be darker and grittier and not so much about pretty shiny things. I’ll give it a try, if for nothing else than sheer wonder of a Bond movie being 96% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. I have to say, the temporal functioning of the Bond universe gives me huge headaches. How come Bond can look like Sean Connery AND Pierce Brosnan? How can he be Bonding in the sixties and then still Bond in 2006, and look younger than he did in the eighties? Why does Bond start his career in 2006 and is a seasoned professional by 1972? It makes my head hurt :P
I’ve been neglecting my Battlestar Galactica write-ups.
I loved it. The Tigh parts were my favorite. The scene where Tigh poisons Ellen is just…might very well be my favorite scene on BSG. They were one of the strongest couples on BSG, if amazingly uniquely dysfunctional and that scene just broke my heart. Tigh is in for a steep steep descent. No wonder he is wandering off by himself when there is a celebration. When she says he didn’t bring everyone back, he doesn’t mean Duck and other suicide bombers. He means Ellen.
The Lee saves the day scene was predictable but was awesome, and the scene with Lee and Dee where he told her he was proud to have her as his wife was great too. This is the first scene I really ‘got’ the connection before the two, so keep it up, writers!
My Kara love continues unabashed. She is actually my favorite character, I must confess. And the mind frak with the child and Leoben (who she kissed OMG and stabbed)…she is going to be much more broken than before. And seeing her modus operandi, she will push the one stable good thing in her life (Anders, who continues to totally make me love him) out of her life. See, that’s the catch-22. She pushed Lee away and first hooked onto Anders because he was safer, because they were on Caprica with no future. But she did let him into her heart and now he is going to be pushed away just like Lee. I did love the scene where he found her unconscious, and he is kissing her, and he is relieved, and freaking out, and everything, totally amazingly insanely great.
I’ve been reading Jasper Fforde Thursday Next series and I really recommend. I’ve also started watching Bleach, the anime, which I like but don’t love (yet).
And in non-related to anything dorama news. Why or why are so many Taiwanese dramas unsubbed? I love Korean dramas and enjoy Japanese ones, but there is nothing as satisfying as a good Taiwanese drama. But so few of them are subbed! Whyyyyyyyy? I’ve watched the first part of first ep of Hana Kimi unsubbed (and it’s awesome awesome awesome. Ella makes a good Mizuki. The other TW actresses I love: Barbie Hsu or Ariel Lin are too feminine and/or too old to pull this off and Wu Zun=HOT as Sano, though I still would have loved to see Mike He in the role) but I can do that because I read the manga. Generally, no subs, means no watching for me. And that is evil.
Why am I mentioning this again? Because I went looking for subs of Marry Me (Let’s Get Married) but could find none. Even though it starred Mike He. Whyyyyy? *weeps*
Wedding cold feet? This is a story about an idol who gets dumped at his own wedding.
After his sudden rise to stardom, the actor Liu Yu Ming (Mike He), nicknamed Bian Dang (Lunch Box), overruled his agency's objections and decided to get married. When the news spread, chaos reigned. His fans were very upset about his impending wedding and fights broke out outside the church. Then, they found out... the bride was a no-show. In the ensuing chaos, Bian Dang and his makeup artist, Xiao Qing, put on disguises and sneaked pass the paparazzi.
The aggressive paparazzi forced Bian Dang to go into hiding. With no home to go back to, Xiao Qing introduced him to a strange place called "The Escape Pod." Everyone there wanted to run away from their old lives. There was Poki who tried to escape his debt in Japan, Wen Zi Yu (Fish) who was running away from home, and there was the owner of The Escape Pod, Chuan Tou (The Captain). In this place, they began a magical love story of running away from and being ran away from.
And the rest of the post is occupied by general dorama babblings so it’s under the cut.
I tried a whole bunch of doramas this weekend on for size, to see which one to
I checked Korean Loveholics just to see if it worked and it worked just fine. It seems to be part Sang-Doo and part Forbidden Love which makes for an odd combination, about a female teacher and a male student who fall for each other without knowing each other’s status. And she kills some bad guy to protect him but doesn’t remember so he takes the blame and goes to jail and when he comes out 5 years later, he decides to win her back. But she is engaged to be married. It’s going to be crack.
I have also checked a bit of Prince Turned Frog. It’s supposed to be quite famous but my shallow observation? The guy isn’t too hot. Boooo! I like guys with longer hair and sharper cheekbones, I am afraid.
I have watched the first episode of Nobuta Wo Produce which came highly recommended but so far I am not getting the fuss. It’s well acted and unusual but I think it marches to the beat of its own drummer too much. The tonal mood shifts are a bit jarring, and the characters just mildly annoy me so far. Shuji is very nice and normal but because of that, he doesn’t come across as very interesting. He is a smart, well-adjusted kid, which is realistic but doesn’t make it super exciting. Akira? I have to say, huge props to Yamapi because the character here is nothing like the angsty focused mess that is Kurosaki (and the same is true for Horihita Maki whose borderline antisocial shy wreck Nobuta is miles from the confident, well-adjusted Tsurara). But Akira as a character? Creeps me the hell out. What is with the weird speech pattern and the inappropriate invasion of personal space and everything? Either he is growing the biggest pot collection in Japan or he is mentally disturbed. Seriously, he creeps me out completely. I just want to smack him and tell him to snap out of it. But see, he is weird but not messed-up so…
Anyway, I’ll keep on watching and see if I get into it more.
I have also watched the beginning of Spring Waltz. Me likes. It’s the first ‘seasons’ drama I’ll watch so we’ll see. I am still amused at the whole thing being set in Austria, but Jae-Ha, the hero, has awesome cheekbones and I love him being mean to that secondary girl with glasses who came to
Just to get my Vic Zhou fix, I rewatched a little bit of Mars (I swear, certain parts of that DVD are worn through) and it’s just as amazing and wonderful and heart-breaking as ever.
And I also watched episode and a half of Delightful Girl Chun-Hyang which is LOVE and which deserves a separate post of its own. And ditto on Temptation of the Wolves which is what every teen movie should be.
