shallowness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shallowness) wrote2021-07-18 03:28 pm
shallowness) wrote2021-07-18 03:28 pm
Entry tags:
Revisiting things
Out of Sight is on iPlayer at the moment. I don’t think I’ve watched it since it was first shown on TV (or possibly I rented it out on video. It is about 23 years old.) If my life was cool, I’d want David Holmes to soundtrack it.
Rewatching it was to rediscover why this film always appears in lists of films with couples with sizzling. Even as the characters discuss other movie couples. It was interesting that although I don’t think it passes the Bechdel test and I believe Jack gets more screentime, Karen has so much agency and is quite rounded. She’s the white hat who does the right thing (although it’s doing the right thing that lead to Jack getting caught, and his reward is that she bends the rules to offer him a hopeful ending, because it’s an off-white hat.) She’s the one who’s competent with guns, who works out what’s going on when the patronising male team leader keeps dismissing her. She’s the one who has a fantasy scene.
It’s also impossible not to watch with all the weight of what is yet to come (and wonder how badly did Lopez behave on set, really.) You can see that Soderbegh and Clooney will refine some of this in the Ocean’s movies. The cast is stacked, with Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson cameoing, and a young Viola Davis here a young Catherine Keener there. It’s hard to watch Don Cheadle in this and not think of how legendarily bad his mockney accent will be in the Ocean’s movies, but I also saw glimpses of Clooney’s performances for the Coen brothers here. Funny to think that he was on the comeback trail after Batman and Robin and how he would make it to the A-list, although this movie was a very good first step, funny to mentally list all the DCU and MCU movies all the actors would rack up too.
I’ve also started rereading what was known as the Seven Kingdoms trilogy but is now the Graceling realm series, before I turn to my copy of ‘Winterkeep’. It was clearly time, because while I remembered the broad sweep and relationships of ‘Graceling’, I was surprised at the details. It’s a YA medievalish fantasy world, where Gracelings – people gifted or graced with an extraordinary ability – are known by having eyes of two different colours. I was a little more snarky that Katsa’s eyes are a brilliant blue and green (although Cashore doesn’t descend to ‘cerulean’ and ‘emerald’) and Po’s are gold and silver.
Katsa makes for a hugely sympathetic protagonist, whose fighting Grace has been used by her uncle and King to turn her into his thug. But she’s started rebelling, creating a secret Council to do Scarlet Pimpernel-like things in the other kingdoms, and on one of those mssions, she has a curious meeting with Po (time for Teletubbies), another Graceling, from the island kingdom of Lienid.
Used to most people being terrified of her and tending to believe she’s a monster, Katsa has no mother, and only her servant Helda as a female figure of note in her life. She’s not interested in dressing up and being pretty, and very much against getting married or losing her selfhood. While the Chosen Warrior Princess thing is specific to her, there’s a lot that female readers will empathise as to What It Feels Like For A Girl. Towards the end of the book, she becomes the protector and older sister figure of Bitterblue. (I know she’s a princess, but Bitterblue is very with it and articulate for a traumatised 10 year old.)
Revisiting the story of the Monsean King that Katsa must face now knowing that the writer was somewhat influenced by the abuses perpetuated by some Roman Cathoic priests adds a new dimension. It’s very much a YA novel (there were passages where I longed for a little more texture, especially in the first part, until it got trippy, but that may also be because it’s Kata’s close third person POV, and she’s a bit clueless about some things, though smarter than others about other topics.) The only cruelty that we definitely know Leck is guilty of (only!) is using his Grace to impose his will on others, murder, violence against girls/young women and animals, but there’s always a hint he’s guilty of sexual abuse too.
I found the development of Po’s Grace a bit too convenient for the plot. It was handwaved off, but I snarked as to whether it was due to the YA novel appropriate sexing with Katsa, but Katsa’s Grace doesn’t change, just her perceptions of it (it’s not for killing, but for surviving) as she acts in more extreme circumstances than she’d faced before.
However, it was still a gripping read, and I look forward to revisiting the next books.
Rewatching it was to rediscover why this film always appears in lists of films with couples with sizzling. Even as the characters discuss other movie couples. It was interesting that although I don’t think it passes the Bechdel test and I believe Jack gets more screentime, Karen has so much agency and is quite rounded. She’s the white hat who does the right thing (although it’s doing the right thing that lead to Jack getting caught, and his reward is that she bends the rules to offer him a hopeful ending, because it’s an off-white hat.) She’s the one who’s competent with guns, who works out what’s going on when the patronising male team leader keeps dismissing her. She’s the one who has a fantasy scene.
It’s also impossible not to watch with all the weight of what is yet to come (and wonder how badly did Lopez behave on set, really.) You can see that Soderbegh and Clooney will refine some of this in the Ocean’s movies. The cast is stacked, with Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson cameoing, and a young Viola Davis here a young Catherine Keener there. It’s hard to watch Don Cheadle in this and not think of how legendarily bad his mockney accent will be in the Ocean’s movies, but I also saw glimpses of Clooney’s performances for the Coen brothers here. Funny to think that he was on the comeback trail after Batman and Robin and how he would make it to the A-list, although this movie was a very good first step, funny to mentally list all the DCU and MCU movies all the actors would rack up too.
I’ve also started rereading what was known as the Seven Kingdoms trilogy but is now the Graceling realm series, before I turn to my copy of ‘Winterkeep’. It was clearly time, because while I remembered the broad sweep and relationships of ‘Graceling’, I was surprised at the details. It’s a YA medievalish fantasy world, where Gracelings – people gifted or graced with an extraordinary ability – are known by having eyes of two different colours. I was a little more snarky that Katsa’s eyes are a brilliant blue and green (although Cashore doesn’t descend to ‘cerulean’ and ‘emerald’) and Po’s are gold and silver.
Katsa makes for a hugely sympathetic protagonist, whose fighting Grace has been used by her uncle and King to turn her into his thug. But she’s started rebelling, creating a secret Council to do Scarlet Pimpernel-like things in the other kingdoms, and on one of those mssions, she has a curious meeting with Po (time for Teletubbies), another Graceling, from the island kingdom of Lienid.
Used to most people being terrified of her and tending to believe she’s a monster, Katsa has no mother, and only her servant Helda as a female figure of note in her life. She’s not interested in dressing up and being pretty, and very much against getting married or losing her selfhood. While the Chosen Warrior Princess thing is specific to her, there’s a lot that female readers will empathise as to What It Feels Like For A Girl. Towards the end of the book, she becomes the protector and older sister figure of Bitterblue. (I know she’s a princess, but Bitterblue is very with it and articulate for a traumatised 10 year old.)
Revisiting the story of the Monsean King that Katsa must face now knowing that the writer was somewhat influenced by the abuses perpetuated by some Roman Cathoic priests adds a new dimension. It’s very much a YA novel (there were passages where I longed for a little more texture, especially in the first part, until it got trippy, but that may also be because it’s Kata’s close third person POV, and she’s a bit clueless about some things, though smarter than others about other topics.) The only cruelty that we definitely know Leck is guilty of (only!) is using his Grace to impose his will on others, murder, violence against girls/young women and animals, but there’s always a hint he’s guilty of sexual abuse too.
I found the development of Po’s Grace a bit too convenient for the plot. It was handwaved off, but I snarked as to whether it was due to the YA novel appropriate sexing with Katsa, but Katsa’s Grace doesn’t change, just her perceptions of it (it’s not for killing, but for surviving) as she acts in more extreme circumstances than she’d faced before.
However, it was still a gripping read, and I look forward to revisiting the next books.