(no subject)
Feb. 22nd, 2015 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretA thing I realized recently... when I was about seven or so and obsessed with the reruns of Adam West Batman on WPIX 11, my parents threw me a Batman birthday party. My grandmother sewed me a Batman costume, which I would regularly put on for the next several years when I wanted to feel awesome. And my mother... in addition to the Batman themed decorations and the cake and whatever else she did for the party, my mother wrote a Riddler-style puzzle hunt where we solved rhyming clues that brought us all over the house to catch the Riddler.
And I just realized that as an adult, I go up to Boston nearly every year to (sometimes dress in costume and) compete in the MIT Mystery Hunt, but Batman (and my mother) is responsible for my first puzzle hunt experience. And I'm pretty grateful for that.
---
Thoughts on recently consumed media:
-Kingsman was a pretty hard no. The problem wasn't gratuitous violence, it was the film's attitude toward the gratuitous violence. I was revolted by the scene in the church, which compromised a major character's morality while trying to have its cake and eat it too by fetishizing the moment.
-The Last Five Years movie was delightful, though my relationship with that musical is so tied up in the people who I've shared it with that I can't really give it any kind of honest review. I loved it because I was going to love it no matter what. Anna Kendrick's "I Can Do Better Than That" was a particular treat, and though I think I've seen "The Schmuel Song" performed better than Jeremy Jordan did, I've never seen it staged better.
The movie struggled at times with staging the more surreal moments in the the play- "The Next Ten Minutes" didn't quite sell the overlap for me, chiefly, but overall I thought it was well shot, but this was a movie that was all about the music, and both Jordan and Kendrick did a very good job with the material, and Kendrick in particularly is obviously a superstar.
And... here's a picture of Every Shapiro in Washington Heights!
-Jupiter Ascending was a lot of fun to watch. I don't think it was as well-crafted or well-plotted as Guardians of the Galaxy, but I admired it a hell of a lot more. The originality of the visual universe felt almost like A New Hope in its hidden depths. I'll tell you what- I would really enjoy a sequel where Jupiter has come into her own as a secret space princess. I liked her a lot in this movie, and she was obviously smart and brave and kind, so it was disappointing that she was thrust into a universe where she defaulted to damsel because there was too much she didn't know for her to possibly make the right choices. I want a movie where Jupiter can wage a subtle war of soft power against Titus and Kalique, and not be overwhelmed by their familiarity with the ground rules. (Having seen the second Matrix film, though, I'm not certain the Wachowskis are the directors to give us that growth.)
In general, I admired the movie for building a universe on a massive scale and then not trying to bore us with all the tedious details. There is so much detail in that movie that passed me by, so much density and volume to the movie, that it was remarkable.
And I just realized that as an adult, I go up to Boston nearly every year to (sometimes dress in costume and) compete in the MIT Mystery Hunt, but Batman (and my mother) is responsible for my first puzzle hunt experience. And I'm pretty grateful for that.
---
Thoughts on recently consumed media:
-Kingsman was a pretty hard no. The problem wasn't gratuitous violence, it was the film's attitude toward the gratuitous violence. I was revolted by the scene in the church, which compromised a major character's morality while trying to have its cake and eat it too by fetishizing the moment.
-The Last Five Years movie was delightful, though my relationship with that musical is so tied up in the people who I've shared it with that I can't really give it any kind of honest review. I loved it because I was going to love it no matter what. Anna Kendrick's "I Can Do Better Than That" was a particular treat, and though I think I've seen "The Schmuel Song" performed better than Jeremy Jordan did, I've never seen it staged better.
The movie struggled at times with staging the more surreal moments in the the play- "The Next Ten Minutes" didn't quite sell the overlap for me, chiefly, but overall I thought it was well shot, but this was a movie that was all about the music, and both Jordan and Kendrick did a very good job with the material, and Kendrick in particularly is obviously a superstar.
And... here's a picture of Every Shapiro in Washington Heights!
-Jupiter Ascending was a lot of fun to watch. I don't think it was as well-crafted or well-plotted as Guardians of the Galaxy, but I admired it a hell of a lot more. The originality of the visual universe felt almost like A New Hope in its hidden depths. I'll tell you what- I would really enjoy a sequel where Jupiter has come into her own as a secret space princess. I liked her a lot in this movie, and she was obviously smart and brave and kind, so it was disappointing that she was thrust into a universe where she defaulted to damsel because there was too much she didn't know for her to possibly make the right choices. I want a movie where Jupiter can wage a subtle war of soft power against Titus and Kalique, and not be overwhelmed by their familiarity with the ground rules. (Having seen the second Matrix film, though, I'm not certain the Wachowskis are the directors to give us that growth.)
In general, I admired the movie for building a universe on a massive scale and then not trying to bore us with all the tedious details. There is so much detail in that movie that passed me by, so much density and volume to the movie, that it was remarkable.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-23 01:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-23 01:47 pm (UTC)