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13. Harper's Island
This show starts brilliantly enough. The tension builts, people disappear, except it shares the same problem of a lot of horror, which is this: once the murderer is revealed, once the mystery stops being a mystery, a lot of the sheer horror simply stops. And while the story is good, there are holes - like, for instance, why doesn't people start noticing the thinning of the herd a bit sooner? But all in all, I liked it - early on, I was kind of theorizing that there wasn't a murderer, that the whole thing was in fact just a great big clusterfuck of individual plots and accidents. Which would have been interesting, but probably a lot harder to give a satisfying ending. Which HI has - apart from my boredom at the child inevitably surviving...
14. Harper's Globe
I suspect this might have been better, if I had watched it as it was originally aired, as brief clips online rather than the complete webseries on the dvd. As is, I never actually feel for the main character or particularly want her to survive (also, if the internet is cut to Harper's Island, who is she writing with online? Other people on the island? But weren't they getting massacred too?)
15. Left Behind II: Tribulation Force
I continue to blame slacktivist.
16. Highlander the series season 3.
It continues to be an interesting experience, watching Highlander - the things you finally get to see, having heard so much about (like Joe's bar and - ah, let's wait until the next paragraph with him), and the things you see that you haven't heard about (like Anne, and Maurice, and...). It's interesting what fandom has cared about. Also, I'm beginning to wonder how Macleod managed to be so many places just around WWII? There were several interesting Immortals this time around, that I would have loved to see more of - Kalas was a fun villain, I'm sorry about Fitz's death and quite frankly, what do people see in Richie? Anyway, on to the important bit.
Methos.
Why, hello there, character I'm basically watching this show to see. Finally showed up, have we. And it only took you the better part of three seasons. Ah well, never mind that. And young!Peter Wingfield is pretty! I mean, I've seen Peter Wingfield before, but mostly in never stuff like Sanctuary, where he's certainly a nice sight, but seriously, why didn't anybody tell me he was this pretty back then?
Anyway, so far I'm enjoying Methos, though that first episode - fandom had always given me an impression of a sneaky, survivor character, so it took me a bit reconsile the episode with that impression - because either fandom has got it wrong and he's not awesome at all, or fandom is right and it's just your usual early-appearances-creators-needing-to-get-to-know-the-character-themselves stuff. I read somewhere that Methos was supposed to have been just another one-episode-Immortal, that he was supposed to have died there - and that makes the episode make sense from outside, but not from inside. Why would a 5000 year old survivor act like Methos acts in that episode? Because he's being sneaky and tricky, that's why.
I cannot believe that someone, who has survived for more than 5000 years in a world containing the self-propagating, self-inflicted, genocidal horror that is the Game (though that's a rant for another day), would ever allow himself to get so rusty as to not be able to beat an opponent who's favoured method of fighting is the ambush. If Kalas hadn't made a lot of noise and drawn a lot of attention, but just encountered Methos, I suspect he'd have wound up a head shorter without half as much fuss. But instead Methos allows someone else to fight. Why? Who is he trying to fool? Not Kalas. Not Macleod - an Immortal who, despite an impressive headcount (seriously, why the other Immortals don't just give the guy a wide berth, I don't know), does not have a reputation for fighting unless attacked or provoked. Or should I say, not Macleod directly.
Now, when we meet him, Methos has succesfully infiltrated the Watchers, an organization that seems to be in the middle of a period of internal crisis and schism when we meet them - Horton and his Hunters being only the most obvious example of the fact, that the observe-and-record philosophy seems to be in need of a reformation. We've seen a Watcher basically feed "her" Immortal easy kills, there's Joe's friendship with Macleod, there's the guy that found that friendship downright offensive, there's Immortals knowing about them. Something like, oh say, finding out that the oldest Immortal has been sneaking around among them, knowing all their secrets - that might well cause serious trouble in an organization that already has more than its fair share.
So, here's Methos, minding his own business, when he hears from Joe that another Immortal is hunting him, and that Joe gave his name and address to a third Immortal. And Methos knows that, pretty much whatever he does now, that the Watchers - that Joe Dawson - is going to find out that he's Immortal. That he's Methos. So, damage control. Seem weak. Rusty. Harmless. Do some quick research on this Macleod fellow coming - unless, as I'd not be surprised to learn, Methos makes a point of knowing about the Immortals that frequent any place he lives. Find out that this Macleod fellow is big on honour, on protecting the helpless - and play into that. Seem helpless. Go so far as to let him think you'd let him take your head. Count on that honour. And then - disappear.
And judging from the season finale, the gambit worked. Joe is more intrigued than worried about the Immortal that infiltrated his organization - and more importantly, he doesn't seem to have shared the fact that an Immortal did infiltrate the Watchers, judging by how the other Watchers act towards "Adam". (Also, I am sorry they didn't show the phone call - Methos calling Joe. That's one conversation I would have loved to have seen.)
Speaking of the season finale - I suspect the whole reveal-the-Immortals scheme would have made me more worried, if I hadn't consumed to much urban fantasy of the post-masquerade-reveal type - like True Blood. Worlds where far scarier things than people who cut off each other's heads somehow manage to reveal themselves without the world ending for anybody (actually, the biggest effect of a reveal would probably be the Game grinding to a halt - states tend to frown on people duelling, killing other people, causing extensive electrical damage, that sort of things). But I guess it might have seemed more paranoia-enducing back in the 90s, and I do remember reading fanfic post-reveal that had a strong tendency to be dystopic back in my early online days, so maybe it seemed like a more real threat (that was the time of series like Pretender, X-files - paranoia must have been the word of the day). Truth be told, I suspect that the days of Immortal secrecy must necessarily be numbered - I mean, imagine an Immortal duel in modern day London? CCTV on every street corner? There has already been a few close calls with cameras in the series so far, and today people carry so many cameras around with them. In this paranoid surveillance society we have going, how long would it take before Immortals got revealed anyway? All it takes is one slip-up. And surely, if you want to avoid the government hunting and studying you, the best thing to do is go so public that they can't touch you - secret organizations hate drawing attention to themselves, and trying to kidnap, say, that really old guy who has been writing bestsellers about how the plains of Giza looked before the construction crews moved in - kinda attention drawing. Just saying. That said, seriously, how much database could that measly cd-rom have contained anyway? Not that much - so just tell the reporter that it's an elaborate live rpg or something - unless somebody is going to go out and cut or stab or shoot someone, how will he prove differently.
And of course everybody else has already has those thoughts, as I'm about 20 years behind on this one...
17. The Gil Mayo Mysteries
Okay, so maybe this series isn't high art, but I quite liked it anyway, and I'm sorry that it only got the one season. It's British crime mystery, set in a Midsomer Mysteries style countryside, though it's - well, quirky. Not as quirky as, for instance Pushing Daisies, but still, definitely quirky, and very sweet.
18. Strangers on a Train
Thrillers are admittedly not the genre I'm most into, but this is a perfectly entertaining one. It's funny, how this movie basically spends all its time telling a fairly straightforward story, whereas if it was made today, it would have needed at least a couple of side plots to make up a movie, because the core plot would have needed less exposition - though I suppose that has to do with the fact that movies like SoaT told the story in full back then, so now we catch on faster.
19. Iron Man
One thing I must confess, having re-watched this - I fail to find Pepper awesome anymore. She just - isn't. Huh.
20. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
It's a shame that you don't usually get to see silent movies the way they should be seen - in a cinema with live music. So when you get the chance, you should grab it - even if it is just a single piano. And this is a good movie - more melodramatic than genuinely scary, but well, those were the days - and if the happy ending felt contrived and I spent half the movie convinced that the cop was the serial killer, well, them's the breaks. Also, I quite enjoyed the London shown in this movie - the details and manners and people. Mind you, one tiny thing - what is with silent movies and people with freaky eyes?
21. Kaze no tani no Naushika (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind)
As always with a Miyazaki movie the visuals are stunning, though I must confess to finding the insects more creepy than anything (not to mention the warrior). Also, I find myself having no real sympathy for most of the non-Valley humans - dear friends, commiting genocide-by-giant-bugs/eldritch-atomic-horror on innocent third-parties is not acceptable behaviour, savvy?
22. L'illusionniste
Again, lovely visuals, but the story was a bit too melancholy for my taste these days.
23. John Carter of Mars
I wonder why this movie has apparently been a failure in the States. I mean, it's fun -Mars Barsoom is full of lovely visuals, there's the fierce princess and a decent enough hero and occasional comic relief. The plot does share the usual SF problem (as seen in for instance Avatar) of being a bit white-man's-burden, Mighty Whitey, but at least it has the excuse of the story having been written back before post-colonialism, unlike Avatar. Still, I like the Martians - though personally, I would have loved if the princess had just married the warlord guy - honestly, she'd have been the one doing the actual ruling anyway, if what little interaction there was between the two was any indication, and honestly, does anybody think that the way the conflict between the two citystates was resolved is not just going to lead to new civil wars in a generation or two? And it's not like John Carter is an unsympathetic character (also, Superman? Total copy of John Carter's power-set. Early on, anyway. Just saying. Nevermind.)
24. Iron Man 2
25. Thor
Yay, almost ready for Avengers! (Watching this vid also helps getting ready!)
This show starts brilliantly enough. The tension builts, people disappear, except it shares the same problem of a lot of horror, which is this: once the murderer is revealed, once the mystery stops being a mystery, a lot of the sheer horror simply stops. And while the story is good, there are holes - like, for instance, why doesn't people start noticing the thinning of the herd a bit sooner? But all in all, I liked it - early on, I was kind of theorizing that there wasn't a murderer, that the whole thing was in fact just a great big clusterfuck of individual plots and accidents. Which would have been interesting, but probably a lot harder to give a satisfying ending. Which HI has - apart from my boredom at the child inevitably surviving...
14. Harper's Globe
I suspect this might have been better, if I had watched it as it was originally aired, as brief clips online rather than the complete webseries on the dvd. As is, I never actually feel for the main character or particularly want her to survive (also, if the internet is cut to Harper's Island, who is she writing with online? Other people on the island? But weren't they getting massacred too?)
15. Left Behind II: Tribulation Force
I continue to blame slacktivist.
16. Highlander the series season 3.
It continues to be an interesting experience, watching Highlander - the things you finally get to see, having heard so much about (like Joe's bar and - ah, let's wait until the next paragraph with him), and the things you see that you haven't heard about (like Anne, and Maurice, and...). It's interesting what fandom has cared about. Also, I'm beginning to wonder how Macleod managed to be so many places just around WWII? There were several interesting Immortals this time around, that I would have loved to see more of - Kalas was a fun villain, I'm sorry about Fitz's death and quite frankly, what do people see in Richie? Anyway, on to the important bit.
Methos.
Why, hello there, character I'm basically watching this show to see. Finally showed up, have we. And it only took you the better part of three seasons. Ah well, never mind that. And young!Peter Wingfield is pretty! I mean, I've seen Peter Wingfield before, but mostly in never stuff like Sanctuary, where he's certainly a nice sight, but seriously, why didn't anybody tell me he was this pretty back then?
Anyway, so far I'm enjoying Methos, though that first episode - fandom had always given me an impression of a sneaky, survivor character, so it took me a bit reconsile the episode with that impression - because either fandom has got it wrong and he's not awesome at all, or fandom is right and it's just your usual early-appearances-creators-needing-to-get-to-know-the-character-themselves stuff. I read somewhere that Methos was supposed to have been just another one-episode-Immortal, that he was supposed to have died there - and that makes the episode make sense from outside, but not from inside. Why would a 5000 year old survivor act like Methos acts in that episode? Because he's being sneaky and tricky, that's why.
I cannot believe that someone, who has survived for more than 5000 years in a world containing the self-propagating, self-inflicted, genocidal horror that is the Game (though that's a rant for another day), would ever allow himself to get so rusty as to not be able to beat an opponent who's favoured method of fighting is the ambush. If Kalas hadn't made a lot of noise and drawn a lot of attention, but just encountered Methos, I suspect he'd have wound up a head shorter without half as much fuss. But instead Methos allows someone else to fight. Why? Who is he trying to fool? Not Kalas. Not Macleod - an Immortal who, despite an impressive headcount (seriously, why the other Immortals don't just give the guy a wide berth, I don't know), does not have a reputation for fighting unless attacked or provoked. Or should I say, not Macleod directly.
Now, when we meet him, Methos has succesfully infiltrated the Watchers, an organization that seems to be in the middle of a period of internal crisis and schism when we meet them - Horton and his Hunters being only the most obvious example of the fact, that the observe-and-record philosophy seems to be in need of a reformation. We've seen a Watcher basically feed "her" Immortal easy kills, there's Joe's friendship with Macleod, there's the guy that found that friendship downright offensive, there's Immortals knowing about them. Something like, oh say, finding out that the oldest Immortal has been sneaking around among them, knowing all their secrets - that might well cause serious trouble in an organization that already has more than its fair share.
So, here's Methos, minding his own business, when he hears from Joe that another Immortal is hunting him, and that Joe gave his name and address to a third Immortal. And Methos knows that, pretty much whatever he does now, that the Watchers - that Joe Dawson - is going to find out that he's Immortal. That he's Methos. So, damage control. Seem weak. Rusty. Harmless. Do some quick research on this Macleod fellow coming - unless, as I'd not be surprised to learn, Methos makes a point of knowing about the Immortals that frequent any place he lives. Find out that this Macleod fellow is big on honour, on protecting the helpless - and play into that. Seem helpless. Go so far as to let him think you'd let him take your head. Count on that honour. And then - disappear.
And judging from the season finale, the gambit worked. Joe is more intrigued than worried about the Immortal that infiltrated his organization - and more importantly, he doesn't seem to have shared the fact that an Immortal did infiltrate the Watchers, judging by how the other Watchers act towards "Adam". (Also, I am sorry they didn't show the phone call - Methos calling Joe. That's one conversation I would have loved to have seen.)
Speaking of the season finale - I suspect the whole reveal-the-Immortals scheme would have made me more worried, if I hadn't consumed to much urban fantasy of the post-masquerade-reveal type - like True Blood. Worlds where far scarier things than people who cut off each other's heads somehow manage to reveal themselves without the world ending for anybody (actually, the biggest effect of a reveal would probably be the Game grinding to a halt - states tend to frown on people duelling, killing other people, causing extensive electrical damage, that sort of things). But I guess it might have seemed more paranoia-enducing back in the 90s, and I do remember reading fanfic post-reveal that had a strong tendency to be dystopic back in my early online days, so maybe it seemed like a more real threat (that was the time of series like Pretender, X-files - paranoia must have been the word of the day). Truth be told, I suspect that the days of Immortal secrecy must necessarily be numbered - I mean, imagine an Immortal duel in modern day London? CCTV on every street corner? There has already been a few close calls with cameras in the series so far, and today people carry so many cameras around with them. In this paranoid surveillance society we have going, how long would it take before Immortals got revealed anyway? All it takes is one slip-up. And surely, if you want to avoid the government hunting and studying you, the best thing to do is go so public that they can't touch you - secret organizations hate drawing attention to themselves, and trying to kidnap, say, that really old guy who has been writing bestsellers about how the plains of Giza looked before the construction crews moved in - kinda attention drawing. Just saying. That said, seriously, how much database could that measly cd-rom have contained anyway? Not that much - so just tell the reporter that it's an elaborate live rpg or something - unless somebody is going to go out and cut or stab or shoot someone, how will he prove differently.
And of course everybody else has already has those thoughts, as I'm about 20 years behind on this one...
17. The Gil Mayo Mysteries
Okay, so maybe this series isn't high art, but I quite liked it anyway, and I'm sorry that it only got the one season. It's British crime mystery, set in a Midsomer Mysteries style countryside, though it's - well, quirky. Not as quirky as, for instance Pushing Daisies, but still, definitely quirky, and very sweet.
18. Strangers on a Train
Thrillers are admittedly not the genre I'm most into, but this is a perfectly entertaining one. It's funny, how this movie basically spends all its time telling a fairly straightforward story, whereas if it was made today, it would have needed at least a couple of side plots to make up a movie, because the core plot would have needed less exposition - though I suppose that has to do with the fact that movies like SoaT told the story in full back then, so now we catch on faster.
19. Iron Man
One thing I must confess, having re-watched this - I fail to find Pepper awesome anymore. She just - isn't. Huh.
20. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
It's a shame that you don't usually get to see silent movies the way they should be seen - in a cinema with live music. So when you get the chance, you should grab it - even if it is just a single piano. And this is a good movie - more melodramatic than genuinely scary, but well, those were the days - and if the happy ending felt contrived and I spent half the movie convinced that the cop was the serial killer, well, them's the breaks. Also, I quite enjoyed the London shown in this movie - the details and manners and people. Mind you, one tiny thing - what is with silent movies and people with freaky eyes?
21. Kaze no tani no Naushika (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind)
As always with a Miyazaki movie the visuals are stunning, though I must confess to finding the insects more creepy than anything (not to mention the warrior). Also, I find myself having no real sympathy for most of the non-Valley humans - dear friends, commiting genocide-by-giant-bugs/eldritch-atomic-horror on innocent third-parties is not acceptable behaviour, savvy?
22. L'illusionniste
Again, lovely visuals, but the story was a bit too melancholy for my taste these days.
23. John Carter of Mars
I wonder why this movie has apparently been a failure in the States. I mean, it's fun -
24. Iron Man 2
25. Thor
Yay, almost ready for Avengers! (Watching this vid also helps getting ready!)
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And I don't think John Carter flopped as big as folks want us to believe. There's negative hype going on and has been since before it opened. Looking at the sales figures it's done all right. Probably less than expected by the studio, but hey.