rose_griffes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rose_griffes) wrote2025-01-06 09:16 pm
rose_griffes) wrote2025-01-06 09:16 pm
first post of 2025
I saw three movies in three days in December!
First, Wicked.
Visually impressive. Excellent performances by the leading women. But my top reaction was “Huh, wish I’d seen this as a stage musical.” I do plan to watch the second film.
The War of the Rohirrim
Visually messy - some impressive moments, but it didn’t have a consistent style. The leading woman was drawn with what I think of as anime face: huge eyes, tiny nose, pointy chin. But her aging father looked like… well, like an aging father. And there were even landscape moments that did something similar, with the spectacular adjacent to the mundane. So that was frustrating. The story mostly worked for me while still not being something I cared about much: just sort of… there?
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Really enjoyed this. Timely, given that I saw it a week before Christmas. The cast was good, including the kiddos, which is essential for a film like this. Pretty explicitly a religious story–more specifically, a conversion story. I didn’t even resent the voiceover, although… eh. Could’ve still been left out. Honestly, my favorite of the three films from the week.
The Rings of Power, season two:
I didn’t have any real quibbles with the aesthetic of season one, but season two was nonetheless a big improvement. Galadriel got the leading-lady hair she deserved! Almost everything came together in ways that gave real moments of character development. My one quibble is due to unforeseeable cast drop-outs. So hopefullyhot elf Arondir gets more to do in season three.
I recently rewatched the first episode of RoP season one with housemate A, whose comment was, “Huh. Galadriel isn’t a Mary Sue, unlike what the internet said.” After just one episode! I still don’t think s1e1 is very strong, but apparently it had enough to make the Mary Sue claim obsolete. But also, s1e1 has a LOT more “we’re telling you what’s gonna happen (but you won’t realize it until much later)” than I remembered.
BOOKS. Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues romance novel series continues to be a delight. They’re historical romances set in London, but with a boarding house as the key location, there’s more variety in the people featured in each story. (Also, I’ve listened to a few of the audiobooks in this series - yay, library! - and they’re funny. Although it is disconcerting at times to hear the sexy bits narrated, given how often I skim over those parts.)
Ghosted: An American Story, by Nancy French. French’s husband, David French, is a former lawyer turned political commentator who got a lot of heat when he pushed against pro-Trump forces. He’s very politically conservative, so this didn’t go over well. (To put it lightly - we’re talking about death threats, among other things.) Anyway, I first came across Nancy French’s work via her husband’s writing. She mostly did ghost-writing–relevant to her book title, but not the only meaning behind it–until this autobiographical work. It’s dark, it’s hopeful, and it’s interesting. Definitely some tough topics, given Nancy French’s difficult childhood, difficult adolescence, and difficult ongoing life.
I am horrifically behind on reading ANYTHING here on DW, and that may not change soon. Feel free to link me to whatever I missed that I should see.
First, Wicked.
not spoilery
Visually impressive. Excellent performances by the leading women. But my top reaction was “Huh, wish I’d seen this as a stage musical.” I do plan to watch the second film.
The War of the Rohirrim
Peter Jackson’s team makes an animated LoTR film
Visually messy - some impressive moments, but it didn’t have a consistent style. The leading woman was drawn with what I think of as anime face: huge eyes, tiny nose, pointy chin. But her aging father looked like… well, like an aging father. And there were even landscape moments that did something similar, with the spectacular adjacent to the mundane. So that was frustrating. The story mostly worked for me while still not being something I cared about much: just sort of… there?
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
1970s book turned into film set in the 60s or 70s, with much fidelity
Really enjoyed this. Timely, given that I saw it a week before Christmas. The cast was good, including the kiddos, which is essential for a film like this. Pretty explicitly a religious story–more specifically, a conversion story. I didn’t even resent the voiceover, although… eh. Could’ve still been left out. Honestly, my favorite of the three films from the week.
The Rings of Power, season two:
This is a positive opinion!
I didn’t have any real quibbles with the aesthetic of season one, but season two was nonetheless a big improvement. Galadriel got the leading-lady hair she deserved! Almost everything came together in ways that gave real moments of character development. My one quibble is due to unforeseeable cast drop-outs. So hopefully
I recently rewatched the first episode of RoP season one with housemate A, whose comment was, “Huh. Galadriel isn’t a Mary Sue, unlike what the internet said.” After just one episode! I still don’t think s1e1 is very strong, but apparently it had enough to make the Mary Sue claim obsolete. But also, s1e1 has a LOT more “we’re telling you what’s gonna happen (but you won’t realize it until much later)” than I remembered.
BOOKS. Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues romance novel series continues to be a delight. They’re historical romances set in London, but with a boarding house as the key location, there’s more variety in the people featured in each story. (Also, I’ve listened to a few of the audiobooks in this series - yay, library! - and they’re funny. Although it is disconcerting at times to hear the sexy bits narrated, given how often I skim over those parts.)
Ghosted: An American Story, by Nancy French. French’s husband, David French, is a former lawyer turned political commentator who got a lot of heat when he pushed against pro-Trump forces. He’s very politically conservative, so this didn’t go over well. (To put it lightly - we’re talking about death threats, among other things.) Anyway, I first came across Nancy French’s work via her husband’s writing. She mostly did ghost-writing–relevant to her book title, but not the only meaning behind it–until this autobiographical work. It’s dark, it’s hopeful, and it’s interesting. Definitely some tough topics, given Nancy French’s difficult childhood, difficult adolescence, and difficult ongoing life.
I am horrifically behind on reading ANYTHING here on DW, and that may not change soon. Feel free to link me to whatever I missed that I should see.