rose_griffes

FILMS and TV:
There was a new Wallace and Gromit movie, Vengeance Most Fowl. Apparently the studio made a deal with Netflix, but the film itself was in movie theaters for a brief window. During which I saw it! It wasn't up to the level of, say, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Still a fun and entertaining film, though. Next time I sign up for Netflix, I’ll be sure to rewatch it.

Later I rewatched Jurassic Park, which housemate A had never seen. We both enjoyed it, although some elements didn't age very well. I’m thinking specifically of the whole “Dr Grant doesn't like children but Dr Sattler wants him to like children.” Also, still can't quite believe they cast someone 20 years younger than Neil what's his face as his love interest. I mean, I can, but… Anyway, the special effects held up well, and the overall story was still super entertaining.

(Neil whatsisface is a babe, don’t get me wrong. And Dr. Sattler is obviously a consenting adult, and yadda yadda yadda - but generally speaking it’s not a romance that works for me within the story, so I’m happy to nitpick it.)

Oh! And I rewatched beloved film Arrival with housemate A - another movie she’d never seen. A. noticed Denis Villeneuve’s distinct lack of ANY HUMOR AT ALL, which is accurate to all of his films that I’ve seen so far. A bit of levity wouldn’t go amiss, Villeneuve! But we both (still) loved it.

Finally finished rewatching Rings of Power, which works even better on its second round: the story arcs are more perceptible now that the story is more complete. Good cast, good visuals, interesting takes on the source materials.

[edited to add: I haven't had time for Andor, season two yet! Hoping to watch it in June.]

BOOKS:
Seanan McGuire published book 18 (!!!) in her Toby Daye series - The Innocent Sleep. This one differs from previous books – the story is told from Tybalt’s POV rather than Toby’s. It worked well for me, and was a good change of pace.

I’ve read and/or listened to all of the novellas and novels in the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. Lots of fun even though I accidentally read them out of order. I’ll give the new show on AppleTV+ a try once I have any time for TV. Maybe next month? I have no idea when that's gonna be.

Alison Goodman has a trilogy that can be loosely described as Regency-Era Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fewer quips, more anguish about maintaining social standing in a highly stratified (and dangerous) society. I enjoyed all three. The first book is called The Dark Days Club.

Ben MacIntyre wrote The Spy and the Traitor, about Oleg Gordievsky, who worked for the KGB and then began feeding information to the West, due to ideological differences. His escape from Russia was thrilling–a nice sustained gallop within the story. I then read MacIntyre’s Rogue Heroes, about the history of Britain's SAS. Both worthwhile books.

T. Kingfisher continues to create both creative fantasy romance and the most hair-raising dark fairytales. Paladin’s Faith was the former and A Sorceress Comes to Call the latter. I’ll keep reading Kingfisher for both. (She also writes straight-up horror, which I sometimes have to avoid due to general squeamishness.)

Common theme in this post: revisiting familiar media. I re-read a couple of novels by Dick Francis, and listened to audiobook versions of two more novels by him. They’re very much centered in the time frame when they were written, which is… both good and bad, I guess. But Francis always did his homework for story settings and details, and while there are commonalities between the male protagonists, he also managed to make them distinct enough to feel worth reading. And hey–sometimes you want to read about a morally good guy dealing with bad situations.

Media update Jan-Mar 24

Audiobooks! I still find them a bit frustrating at times, especially when I miss a word or don’t know how to spell a character’s name. But I’ve listened to a few of them lately.

Ben Aaronovitch has a collection of short stories set in the Rivers of London universe. I enjoyed them; Kobna Holbrook-Smith is widely appreciated for his work on the Peter Grant novels, and most of these short stories were from Peter’s point of view.

I listened to a Miss Marple novel. Given my frustration with not knowing how to spell character names, or the occasional missed word, I figured I would go with a story that would be slightly familiar to me. A good plan, it turns out: I wasn’t so distracted by “how is that spelled” and it was ok to drift away from the story for a few seconds now and then.

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Book-books. E-books in this case. I’ve read several historical romance novels by Grace Burrowes, and she’s a “yay” for me. Meredith Durant was more frustrating, given the good plot mixed with ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE anachronisms.

Rachel Aaron’s By a Silver Thread trilogy is, well, complete with three books. Her stories don’t have the depth of prose that, say, Seanan McGuire can achieve, but the plots are coherent, the action works well within those plots, and I was rooting for the lead character. So: future Detroit with magic and gods. If that seems intriguing, give her books a try.

Lois McMaster Bujold has an eleven novella / twelfth book in her Penric & Desdemona series. Still consistently enjoyable!

One of y’all mentioned Barbara Hambly’s novels recently, and the name struck a chord. The last time I looked for her books, my local library had ZERO e-books of hers. That has changed, so I read the first of her vampire novels, set in the early 1900s. Hambly is a dedicated researcher, and one of her goals is to achieve a certain level of period appropriate characters and behaviors–even with the vampires, whose attitudes and comportment align well with their original cultures and languages. Book one of the vampire series is called Those Who Hunt the Night. I plan to read more, but I may have to go to the ACTUAL library (*gasp*)--they have books 1, 3 and 7 available as e-books, but not the others.

Hambly’s series featuring protagonist Benjamin January begins with A Free Man of Color. January, or rather Janvier, is a black man living in 1800s New Orleans. I’m in the middle of book three, so this is also a successful-for-me series. Both this series and the vampire novels have a mystery at the heart of each book; solving, or at least mitigating, the problem is essential to at least one character’s survival in each story. They’re not, however, classic whodunits. Characters clash and there’s usually not a clean-cut happy ending. Just people moving forward, sometimes carrying scars.

Didn’t finish: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by Suzanne Collins. Not due to a lack of quality in the writing; it was more about not necessarily wanting to read through a villain arc, especially knowing in broad strokes where the story would go.

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With the current Disney+ subscription, I rewatched the Narnia films from the 2000s. All enjoyable, although the third one had a lower budget, which was visible in the FX quality. Also, just and less-effective writing. But still good enough.

Ahsoka series: I’ve made it through most of the episodes of season one. So far my grade is “mixed”.

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FINALLY: Dune, part two: aaaaaah! The narrative loves Paul Atreides. It made a Paul-shaped space JUST FOR HIM. He says he doesn’t love the narrative back, but he’s lying to himself. LINK ME TO YOUR POSTS ABOUT DUNE!

Aaaaand this post has been in progress for weeks, so I’m stopping now. Whatever I missed, I can write about next time whenever I come up for air again.

In the last five months I’ve watched the Muppet movies that a) had a theatrical release and b) are easily found online. Muppets from Space, the only non-musical of the bunch, isn’t available.

some blather about that, plus an embedded video

Unsurprising favorites: either beloved original The Muppet Movie (1979) or The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), which had the winning factor of Michael Caine taking the role of Scrooge as seriously as an actor NOT interacting with puppets.

Charles Grodin used a similar tactic in The Great Muppet Caper as the lovestruck yet pragmatic villain. His quirky humor made his screentime the most compelling; the movie dragged a bit when he wasn’t around. I’m still cackling at his delivery of the line, “Thieves aren’t breathing down your neck,” to his sister in the film (played by Diana Rigg).

Really random side note: more than 30 years after Grodin co-starred in the film, he wrote RPF about an imagined almost-fling with Miss Piggy–posted in Vulture magazine.

Caper gets a bit too silly at times, but I still enjoyed Miss Piggy’s modeling reverie, which has a full-on parody / homage to Esther Williams’ films.

Watch on YouTube

In spite of the nostalgia factor of the earlier films, I would put Muppets Most Wanted (2014) ahead of them–third place after the original film and the Dickens adaptation. It might be due to the eccentric music, but also there’s just something about the very idea of evil Kermit Constantine, the world’s most dangerous frog, that makes me giggle. Plus, Ricky Gervais as henchman villain Dominic Badguy was perfect: Gervais isn’t a favorite of mine, but this role suited the production well.

Loki season two:

eh, a few spoilers

I haven’t read many reviews, but there seemed to be a consensus that the first part of season two dragged a bit. I certainly felt it, and it wasn’t helped by the aesthetic, which didn’t have enough variety. Most of it looked a bit muddy, even though it also looked expensive.

But the acting was fantastic, and the ending worked very well for me. A winner overall, even if it felt too slow early on.

Started the new Doctor Who episode on Disney+, but haven’t yet finished. How did they get David Tennant’s hair to be so tall?!

BOOKS!
Ava Reid’s The Wolf and the Woodsman was a pointed fairy tale that I didn’t love, but that made me think. So, success on that front.

Curtis Sittenfeld did a ton of research about Saturday Night Live to write her novel titled, Romantic Comedy. Enjoyable, not nearly as fluffy as one might think, given that title. I liked it more for the behind-the-scenes view of an SNL clone than for the people and romance.

Non-fiction: Jasmine L. Holmes’ book Carved in Ebony is about ten black Christian women, all American, and their impact–both in a historical and religious sense. It’s an explicitly religious book, by the way–in both the women profiled and the author herself. I started reading (e-book) and finished with the audio book, which worked well for a change. I’m not often an audio book consumer, but I had Thanksgiving travel and needed a lengthy distraction.

I still haven’t watched much television lately - the only streaming service I’m currently using is Amazon Prime, and instead of television, I’ve been on a bit of a binge for 90s-2000s action movies, preferably with espionage. We’ve rewatched:

• The Fugitive, which is still pretty awesome. Prime Harrison Ford (he didn’t kill his wife!), plus Tommy Lee Jones is warmly compelling. While there’s an element that didn’t age well for me, and the conspiracy at the heart of the film is odd, the acting, cinematography, and music more than make up for it.


• The Bourne Identity. So, writer/director/producer Tony Gilroy doesn’t like Star Wars, but worked on Rogue One and was the main force behind the prequel-prequel show, Andor. Well, decades before that, he created a script for this Robert Ludlum novel, part of a series of books about former spy-assassin Jason Bourne… yet he didn’t like the novel. Interesting choices, Gilroy. At any rate, the writing in this film still works for me, but as with The Fugitive, a lot depends on the visuals (actors, cinematography, fight and chase choreographers) and the soundscape (John Powell’s soundtrack, the other sound effect artists).


• The Bourne Supremacy, in which Gilroy doesn’t even pretend to adapt the second novel of the same name. Frustrating character death early in the movie, but I still liked the film well enough. Matt Damon is fine in the leading role, but they could have gone for someone with a less American-looking face. Ah, well.


• Not a rewatch: Patriot Games features more Harrison Ford, who was too old for this role, but *handwaves*. Also, Sean Bean played the STUPIDEST IRA TERRORIST EVAH. Hee. It was not a great plot, though entertaining enough.


• I also watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves for the first time. It was cracky fun. Doesn’t fit the themes of the other movies on this list, but OHMYGOODNESS, REGE-JEAN PAGE IS STILL THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN IN THE WORLD.


• Mrs. Potts Angela Lansbury didn’t get enough screentime in the 1980 film The Mirror Crack’d, but given that a still-luminous Elizabeth Taylor was onscreen instead, it was fine. I remembered the plot - including the why and how for the murder - from the novel, so this was strictly for the fun of seeing Taylor and other actors of her generation shine onscreen.


• I tried two spy/crime related television shows from Canada, Three Pines and Absentia. Both were Not Great. Oof. Oh, and the first episode of Prime’s Hanna just didn’t click for me. Maybe too violent? I don’t recall now - it’s been a few weeks since I made the attempt.

Currently on my “I should watch this show” mental list: Carnival Row, season two (on Prime). Season three of The Witcher (Netflix). Ahsoka (Disney+), though I may choose to finish Rebels first.

What I’ll probably actually watch next: The Bourne Ultimatum. 3 Days of the Condor. Something else with spies and action from 10-50 years ago.

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Books! Seanan McGuire did a swerve and swerve back with Sleep No More, the 17th (seventeenth!!!) book in her Toby Daye series. Still highly enjoyable, though I think I liked the novella at the end even more.

I thought I had read all of Rachel Aaron’s solo novels, but then I found a ⅔ complete trilogy that starts with The Last Stand of Mary Good Crow and continues with The Battle of Medicine Rocks. Instead of the future *with magic* we now have the past (American western) *with magic*. And it’s good! Not without flaws, but I recommend it. Hoping for book three sooner rather than later. (No title or release date yet.)

T. Kingfisher continues to impress. Nettle & Bone doesn’t fit into her other story-verses; it’s something of a fairy tale, but grittier and longer.

Kate Clayborn’s contemporary romance Love Lettering won me over with fonts.

Heroine Complex is a contemporary superhero-action-romance, and solid without being transcendent. I’m willing to try more by Sarah Kuhn in the future.

I haven’t been watching TV at all. I think my brain is in “I can’t bring myself to care about it if it’s not Andor” mode, which is hilarious. But also: SO BUSY! There’s been too much going on for me to think about shows that I’m not watching.

I have read some books in the last... *checks DW* ... month?! Wow, it really has been more than a month since my last post.

So. Quick thoughts about books I read in late April - May.

For the Love of the Bard, by Jessica Martin, was a twee romance, featuring a town in Maine that has a bit of a Shakespeare obsession. That was the best part: getting to know the author’s invented city and the many ways Shakespeare’s works are incorporated into it. Probably a fun read for theater nerds.

Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues romance series will wrap up soon; I read the first two books (of a planned six) and liked them both. I literally laughed aloud at least once while reading the second one.

New-to-me author Rachel Aaron has several novels set in a magical future. I’ve read all three books in her DFZ (Detroit Free Zone) series, and they were just a blast: popcorn novels at their very best. Mages, sentient city-gods, a smidge of romance, and a lot of intriguing plot.

Looking forward to reading more of Aaron’s work - she has another series set in the same future, but focused more on dragons.

I didn’t finish Claudia Gray’s The Murder of Mr. Wickham. It just wasn’t the right moment for it.

Aaaaand back to the whirlwind. I probably won't be here most of June. Too much to do.

Roommate A’s favorite film is the 2002 adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby. Having watched it, I can see why she loves it--it’s delightfully earnest as well as visually appealing. Young Charlie Hunnam and Anne Hathaway make a gorgeous couple; Jamie Bell as Smike pulls real pathos into a character that could have been one-note.

Seanan McGuire published her final InCryptid novel this month; books eleven and twelve are both written from grandmother Alice Healy’s point of view. She’s, uh, NOT a traditional grandmother. I appreciated the slow revelation of the villain in eleven, and the comeuppance for that villain. Book twelve pulled most of the family back together with some well-earned reconciliations. (And some well-earned rejections of reconciliation.)

Anyway, if you like monsters and fighting and planet-hopping and a smidge of romance now and then, I recommend the series.

So. Shadow and Bone, season two.

retraction of high-pitched scream

Remember how I said that episode six felt like a good place to end the season? Perhaps they should have. Episodes seven and eight were wildly uneven. Ultimately I was okay with where Mal’s part of the story went, even though it’s different from the novels. But that might be my problem with other elements: I know (roughly) how the original trilogy goes, and my expectations, even at a subconscious level, probably ran parallel to those ideas.

Still not a fan of Mathias. He was a hard-to-sell character in the books. Most of the Fjerdan storyline in the duology is a least-favorite part. Also, enemies to lovers is not my favorite trope.

I do wish Inej had gotten more backstory. It will be truly disappointing if she doesn’t get more development in season three. Assuming there is one. Because season two was a bit too messy.

Happy Halloween, y’all!

Tana French’s first novel, In the Woods, was good almost-Halloween fare. First-person murder mystery novel, told by (surprise, surprise) a detective with childhood trauma. It works, though. I did figure out one key piece before the end, if not all the motivations.

Started but didn’t finish Dinner for One: How Cooking in Paris Saved Me, by Sutanya Dacres. My previous experience with memoir + cookbook left me with little appetite (pun intended) for the genre, so… yeah. Gonna try the apple dessert recipe, though.

Amazon’s Rings of Power had a strong finale–intriguing enough for me to watch season two when it comes out. It still fits in the “good not great” category for me, but it edged a lot higher within that category by the end.

The first two episodes of She-Hulk: Attorney-At-Law were more fun than I expected, although uneven. But it’s hard to go truly astray with Tatiana Maslany as the lead. She’s telegenic and a talented actor.

Having just (re)signed up for Disney Plus, I’ll probably go for some Star Wars shows next: Andor for sure, maybe the Obi-Wan show. The thing is, I’m not sure how interested I am. Or rather, I’m just not as interested as I thought I’d be; not sure how much of that is Disney’s amazing failures with the sequel trilogy, or that I’m just not in much of a drama kind of mood. Hm.

Finished book three of the Wrexford and Sloane murder mystery + slow-build romance. Still enjoying it! On to book four.

Contemporary romance The Stand-In by Lily Chu was a jaunty romp. Very tropey, but written in a (mostly) realistic way.

Watched episode one of the Amazon Rings of Power adaptation, and that was... ok, rough isn't the right work. Clunky, maybe. Chock-full of exposition, yeah. I do plan to give episode two a try for a couple of reasons. One, some people whose taste I sorta trust have said that it gets better and they like it. Two, the second half of the episode worked better than the first half, and the ending was good. I wouldn't say solid - that would require a better foundation than this episode had. But enough to intrigue me.

And that's that!

The minor yet annoying health problem I've been having is, apparently, easily recognizable and easily treated. So there's that; I started meds yesterday. Am hoping for a fast recovery but there's also a simple medical procedure if the meds don't take care of things in a timely fashion.

In the meantime I've gone back on a romance novel binge. Nothing soothes the slightly battered and distressed body like an Amanda Quick romp. And my local library has several of hers available through the Cloud Library app, hurrah.

I appreciate the recommendations for Hulu shows and films in my previous post. Figured I should mention that the most-mentioned show, Elementary is one that I've watched. Well, partly--I saw all of season one, which was very good! And a banger of a finale (loved the Moriarity reveal). I watched most of season three, I believe... and I'm not sure how much else. Part of season five? I never gave the show its own tag, so there's not an easy way to find my last-watched episode. Quite possibly I mentioned something about it on Tumblr (where I was meticulous about tagging), but since I deleted my Tumblr account...

At any rate: with only 3 weeks left, I'll either have to watch PART of the remaining Elementary episodes, and save the rest for another Hulu round, or I'll have to prioritize them in some fashion. So if you have any favorite sets of episodes, lemme know.

I have survived the summer travels! Still in recovery mode, but I shall persevere.

Summer movies:
Thor: Love and Thunder was mostly amusing, occasionally annoying, and chock-full of eye candy of all kinds. Pretty men and women! Interesting non-people visuals! It also doubled down on the distinct version of Thor that Taika Waititi wrote for Thor: Ragnarok, which should give most people a big hint if this movie is for them. As for me: well, mostly? Waititi’s style doesn’t always mesh well with my own tastes, so there were definitely some things I would have skipped. But still fun overall.

Top Gun: Maverick was also entertaining, in a well-executed, over-the-top way. I went into it having already read this review, which goes with the theory that ( spoilers )

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No TV to report. I canceled my Netflix membership without even starting season four of Stranger Things, even though I think I’d probably like it. Just not enough time this summer.

Summer books:
Jodi Taylor’s Just One Damned Thing After Another lives up to its title. The subtitle might be “The amazing debut adventures of the BEST time traveler-historian to ever exist!” Or something of the sort. I will say that the narrative does NOT lack forward momentum. What it does lack: nuance and a richness of language.

Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta wrote The View Was Exhausting. It’s a romance novel featuring a leading actress of color and her wealthy and famous sometimes fake boyfriend. It delves into some of the pitfalls of big money and of celebrity while being a person of color. Absorbing and gratifying, but not soothing.

Elizabeth Lim’s Spin the Dawn feels very linked to fairytale origins. Young girl dresses as a boy to save her family, but instead of going to literal battle, she enters a contest to become the royal tailor. Compelling but a bit too easy to forget. To be fair, I read it early in the summer.

I read book 7 of Melissa McShane’s The Extraordinaries series, Soaring Flight. McShane is fast becoming a “just buy it” author for me, at least for this series. Just FYI, ( brief spoilery content notice )

The big summer read was Larry McMurtry’s anti-western classic, Lonesome Dove. I write anti-western, but McMurty himself thinks he felt short of the mark. The novel was published in 1985; in a 2000 edition, McMurtry wrote:

It's hard to go wrong if one writes at length about the Old West, still the phantom leg of the American psyche. I thought I had written about a harsh time and some pretty harsh people, but, to the public at large, I had produced something nearer to an idealization; instead of a poor man's Inferno, filled with violence, faithlessness and betrayal, I had actually delivered a kind of Gone With The Wind of the West, a turnabout I'll be mulling over for a long, long time.

For myself, I think he hit the mark... mostly. But the characters, in all their deeply tragic flaws, were still human, and some even “larger than life” heroic. Maybe someday we’ll un-learn our romanticization of America’s western history; until then, McMurtry’s novel is going to be misread by many.

One thing to note: a stylistic evolution in the last few years made the novel a bit of a hard read for me. We don’t often see multiple jumps in point of view within a small section nowadays, at least not with some kind of marker to hint that the point of view has changed. McMurtry slides from one character’s POV to another without anything to note the switch.

Anyway. While the book has a slow start, it’s a haunting and worthwhile read. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks. I may track down the 1989 miniseries. Or not; I rather like the characters as I see them in my mind.