Movie and anime-watching over the weekend
Oct. 18th, 2004 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaI caught up somewhat on the Monster anime. Was ten eps behind, now more like three. ^^; Boy, this series is creepy; the pitch isn't "horror" per se, but the suspense is pretty much constant. Also freakiest usage of a Ronettes song ever.
There should be a Johann icon that says "some of us don't need notebooks".
What else, what else? Watched the first ep of Bleach. Voices are all pretty good thus far; though now that I hear it in Japanese I note that the French translation lost Rukia's antiquated speech patterns somewhere along the line (can't be helped, I think - they're mostly grammatical). Mostly I'm reminded of how cool all the characters are and how I'd like to hang out with them. XD I've always kind of had a problem with this series - insofar as one can call it a problem - in that I can't decide what pairings I like best. I don't mean by this that I think it should be gen, because "gen" for me means that I like the (presumably) canonical lack-of-pairings better than anything the fandom could come up with, and with Bleach it's the opposite. All the characters are cool like nuclear cold fusion, and all the pairings I can come up with in my head are even cooler than that, m/f, m/m or f/f. I just can't decide. XD;;; One may point out that I'm under no obligation to decide, but that's not how my mind works. Not because I'm a rabid OTPer but because I'm really only capable of elaborating one personal fanon continuity per series. I could probably not, for instance, write a TezuRyo fic and then turn around and write a TezuAto fic; it'd end up TezuRyoAto, or else my brain would, I dunno, explode in confusion.
Now adding Wong Kar Wai to list of directors for whom I'd like to make a mix CD. Yet another imaginary FST challenge: soundtrack a movie by a given director that doesn't exist. XD
***
The Films I Saw This Weekend (A Dramatization):
Michael Winterbottom: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club!
Olivier Assayas: Metric!
Michael Winterbottom: Von Bondies!
Olivier Assayas: Tricky!
Michael Winterbottom: Primal Scream!
Olivier Assayas: I've got Brian Eno on the soundtrack!
Michael Winterbottom: Franz Ferdinand! Just admit I know more people in bands than you!
Olivier Assayas: ...
Michael Winterbottom: ...
Olivier Assayas: RANDOM LESBIAN ANGST!
Michael Winterbottom: COCKSUCKING!
[fade to black]
...Okay, okay. But seriously, both films had their sins of omission. Clean didn't quite tie together dramatically, although individual episodes and performances were effective - one gets the impression Emily's real paradigm shift must have occurred in prison, and they skipped over that part. (Also Maggie Cheung is a wonderful actress, but Monsieur Assayas needs to get over this impression that she can sing.) 9 Songs suffered by being not universal enough or not specific enough, I don't know which is closer to the mark. But if you've written (or read a bunch of) NC17 fic you know that a sex scene can be made to operate on several levels: A) it has solely pornographic value and tells you nothing about the people involved, even the fact that they are people; B) it tells you what those people are like - in bed; C) it tells you what those people are like in general, or something about what people in general are like, or even - shokku! - serves a purpose in the plot other than "romance". I kind of felt 9 Songs was bouncing around level B. Which isn't terrible, but... watching ordinary anonymous people fuck doesn't do it for me in any sense when I don't know anything about their backgrounds, personalities, aspirations, etc. ^^; You do sort of manage to figure out that he's a wussy Mac-loving London hipster and she's a callow American, but that's after, like, four explicit sex scenes. Even BeBoy characterises better than that! Should've at least written in the characters' reactions to all those gigs they attended. XD
Not to mention this was apparently Michael Winterbottom's entry for PoT Subrosa, so much so that I expected cranes any second. No, seriously, if you're of age and the film is available, you should go see it for an object demonstration of how NOT to mention Antarctic ice sheets with ponderous and irrelevant pretension.
EDIT -- Oh, you can also go see it for Franz Ferdinand doing "Jacqueline", which is apparently one of the titular nine songs (and thematically it should be). XD Mr. Winterbottom makes me feel a lot better about my complete lack of photographic sk1ll0rz, in the sense that he apparently couldn't get Paul in the frame either.
There should be a Johann icon that says "some of us don't need notebooks".
What else, what else? Watched the first ep of Bleach. Voices are all pretty good thus far; though now that I hear it in Japanese I note that the French translation lost Rukia's antiquated speech patterns somewhere along the line (can't be helped, I think - they're mostly grammatical). Mostly I'm reminded of how cool all the characters are and how I'd like to hang out with them. XD I've always kind of had a problem with this series - insofar as one can call it a problem - in that I can't decide what pairings I like best. I don't mean by this that I think it should be gen, because "gen" for me means that I like the (presumably) canonical lack-of-pairings better than anything the fandom could come up with, and with Bleach it's the opposite. All the characters are cool like nuclear cold fusion, and all the pairings I can come up with in my head are even cooler than that, m/f, m/m or f/f. I just can't decide. XD;;; One may point out that I'm under no obligation to decide, but that's not how my mind works. Not because I'm a rabid OTPer but because I'm really only capable of elaborating one personal fanon continuity per series. I could probably not, for instance, write a TezuRyo fic and then turn around and write a TezuAto fic; it'd end up TezuRyoAto, or else my brain would, I dunno, explode in confusion.
Now adding Wong Kar Wai to list of directors for whom I'd like to make a mix CD. Yet another imaginary FST challenge: soundtrack a movie by a given director that doesn't exist. XD
***
The Films I Saw This Weekend (A Dramatization):
Michael Winterbottom: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club!
Olivier Assayas: Metric!
Michael Winterbottom: Von Bondies!
Olivier Assayas: Tricky!
Michael Winterbottom: Primal Scream!
Olivier Assayas: I've got Brian Eno on the soundtrack!
Michael Winterbottom: Franz Ferdinand! Just admit I know more people in bands than you!
Olivier Assayas: ...
Michael Winterbottom: ...
Olivier Assayas: RANDOM LESBIAN ANGST!
Michael Winterbottom: COCKSUCKING!
[fade to black]
...Okay, okay. But seriously, both films had their sins of omission. Clean didn't quite tie together dramatically, although individual episodes and performances were effective - one gets the impression Emily's real paradigm shift must have occurred in prison, and they skipped over that part. (Also Maggie Cheung is a wonderful actress, but Monsieur Assayas needs to get over this impression that she can sing.) 9 Songs suffered by being not universal enough or not specific enough, I don't know which is closer to the mark. But if you've written (or read a bunch of) NC17 fic you know that a sex scene can be made to operate on several levels: A) it has solely pornographic value and tells you nothing about the people involved, even the fact that they are people; B) it tells you what those people are like - in bed; C) it tells you what those people are like in general, or something about what people in general are like, or even - shokku! - serves a purpose in the plot other than "romance". I kind of felt 9 Songs was bouncing around level B. Which isn't terrible, but... watching ordinary anonymous people fuck doesn't do it for me in any sense when I don't know anything about their backgrounds, personalities, aspirations, etc. ^^; You do sort of manage to figure out that he's a wussy Mac-loving London hipster and she's a callow American, but that's after, like, four explicit sex scenes. Even BeBoy characterises better than that! Should've at least written in the characters' reactions to all those gigs they attended. XD
Not to mention this was apparently Michael Winterbottom's entry for PoT Subrosa, so much so that I expected cranes any second. No, seriously, if you're of age and the film is available, you should go see it for an object demonstration of how NOT to mention Antarctic ice sheets with ponderous and irrelevant pretension.
EDIT -- Oh, you can also go see it for Franz Ferdinand doing "Jacqueline", which is apparently one of the titular nine songs (and thematically it should be). XD Mr. Winterbottom makes me feel a lot better about my complete lack of photographic sk1ll0rz, in the sense that he apparently couldn't get Paul in the frame either.
