shallowness

Strictly Christmas films special

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I also managed to watch most of Peter Pan Goes Wrong live, and given that I’d just managed to scald myself and was watching it with my hand in a bold of cold water and still laughed helplessly, it was hilarious. It’s mainly slapstick (a recurring theme of my Christmas holiday) – and it does what is says on the tin, the premise is that it's a televised adaptation of a production of 'Peter Pan' and what can go wrong does. You can tell that it's origins are on stage and they could have developed the possibilities of it as TV more, but it's more important that it was funny.

(I'm in the middle of catching up on The Witness for the Prosecution, and I need to post about Sherlock and Brooklyn Nine-Nine sooner rather than later.)

I meant to be writing about Poldark this morning, but life interfered last night so I'll have to catch up on it along with Victoria tonight or tomorrow night.

On Saturday night, I posted The Sketch Harry Potter, Mature. Rolf Scamander/Luna Lovegood
Summary: Rolf is looking through the sketches his colleague Luna has been drawing and finds something very unprofessional. 917 words.

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How come I’d never heard of ‘The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet’ by Becky Chambers? I only came across it by picking it up off a shelf in a bricks and mortar bookshop because of the title. (Oldschool.) Consider yourself informed if you like female-centric science fiction that takes place in the great expanse that is space, love crews that become families, made up of multi-faceted beings (‘sapients’ to use the novel’s term) working out what it means to be them, be they Human or not, around others.

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I went to see Suicide Squad last week (life has been a little busy since). My hopes/expectations were that it would be less dull than Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. It passes on that score, but that doesn’t mean it was ‘good’, though. There were plot holes, there were too many characters and too many flashbacks. ( Read more... )

I forgot to wait for scenes in the middle of the credits.

Parks and Rec 7.4 Leslie and Ron (this was the only episode available to catch up on, so I hope the next will be 7.5 and Dave won’t skip it).

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Digital Spy was reporting at the end of last week that Nashville was cancelled - I wasn't going to be able to watch season 4 and I don't even know if it's started airing here. Also Castle ( spoiler ) And the Huntingbird spin-off is not going to fly. Just like last year.

In other news, I watched the Rogue Cut of DoFP and I don't think the extensions add much, though I suspect I'm now going to be concentrating on reading X-Men fic before X-Men Apocalypse comes out.

Dave have, for once, not taken a break after airing a season of Parks and Rec, so we've gone straight into season 6, yay!

6.1

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6.2

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I posted Fancy Hotel, a Person of Interest/The Night Manager ficlet. Zoe and John were the focus of the prompt and remain the focus of the fic, but I had TNM on my mind and it was the spark for me. I wish I could have come up with a better title, but at least I managed a summary.

I caught up with B99 3.14 Karen Peralta

( Itsy-Bitsy Spider )

Of course, I’m now behind again because I chose to watch Scorpion (post to come).

I went to see a double-bill of films yesterday for the first time in ages. First was Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Yes, I know. One word review: ponderous.

( more words ) There were lots of problems, but I’ll focus on the most relevant one, which is that you’ve seen the trailer(s), and who hasn't given the promo push, most of the film will not come as a surpise.

And before this film a new-to-me Captain America: Civil War trailer aired and I think that contained a major development that made me clap my hands to my mouth in disbelief that they’d show that now. What is wrong with the people behind cutting these trailers? Stick to the first third, show glimpses of the main characters, give a flavour of the mood...people are going to go see films featuring Captain America, Iron Man, Batman and Superman!

Having said that, The Lego Batman Movie trailer filled me with glee.

What I wasn’t spoiled for in BvS:DoJ was ( Read more... ) Roll on the Wonder Woman solo movie, which seems like the only thing DC is doing that Marvel seems to need to worry about.

The second film I saw was Eddie the Eagle, which is thoroughly entertaining. It has also had a huge promo push in the UK, and benefits from being a sporting underdog dramedy based on a true story that I'm about old enough to remember, but I don't think they used the last third in the promo material.

Finally, I've caught up on Parks and Rec

5.11

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5.12

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I watched The National TV Awards on Wednesday night – I was in a weird mood. ( Also contains Downton spoilers )

Last night, I posted I appreciate your appreciation, an Andy/Daisy fic. In one way, I’m had put to explain why I wrote it of all things after the Christmas special as ( spoilers )

And now, let me make a public service announcement, because someone might as well profit from my bitter personal experience. Back your documents up now. Of course, I'm sure you have a better back-up system than the one I had been quite lax about.

Yes, last night after posting the fic, I suddenly has some difficulty saving stuff on my USB stick and then found a few documents were corrupted and my fiction files...were gone from it. If I had kept to my back-up schedule...but I might as well say ‘if I had a time-turner...’ So, I’ve been scrabbling to find out what I’ve lost and back-up what I’ve got. In a way, it’s a good job I wasn’t more productive with fic since Sepbtember, and there are a couple of things that were saved because I’d saved them elsewhere, but...aargh.

Brooklyn Nine Nine (season 3’s Halloween episode) managed to distract me from kicking myself.

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To fill the second half of the slot, E4 repeated an old episode, which made sense, because I didn’t think we were so far behind that they could maintain airing two episodes a week. It was the second season opener, which made a nice background as I frantically tried to find and save what I could.

Well, mine anyway.

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Happy New Year!

I realise I haven't posted about much else recently, but I'm not watching much TV at the moment – if Supergirl were on Freeview, I would watch that and, for contrast, maybe The Last Panthers. Everybody having watched Jessica Jones makes me feel left out – I haven’t even seen Agent Carter, yet. I was also going to have a moan about not being able to see The Man in the High Castle either, but then realised I do have that counter-history book that I could read. I might give Tripped a try (the alternate universe bit interests me more than the slacker/stoner/bromance bit) if the Christmas run-upping calms down.

Speaking of, Christmas TV will also involve that Agatha Christie adaptation with Aidan Turner looking angsty and Douglas Booth turning up so I can make Jupiter Ascending references. Spiffing.

Moviewise, I haven’t seen the Captain America: Civil War trailer, or clicked on the spoilers for the no doubt weighty discussions, but I am relieved by what I've seen Natasha’s hair.

Also, regarding ancient Marvel suff (the casting spoiler about Thor 3), ( Read more... )

Meanwhile, as I’m not going to see Star Wars, it’s fairly slim pickings at the cinema – although Sisters is getting good reviews. The last film I went to see was Bridge of Spies (excellent) and the trailers seemed to promise that the Gleesons (father and son) and Ben Wishaw were in all the movies. The only trailer that left me thinking ‘I have to see that!’ was The Revenant.

As for the Golden Globes, did the Foreign Press Association watch a different version of The Martian to me, one where Mark Watney sang to make the potatoes grow, or something? Surely it's in the wrong category. I know it was a beaker half full of H2O film, but it was in no way a comedy.

I watched Pitch Perfect 2 on DVD last night, having been unable to see it in the cinema. I thought it was a bit of a mess, suffering from sequelitis. It coasted a bit on liking the characters from their previous outing, the actors' charm - Hailee Stanfield is a welcome new addition, in particular - and it is funny in an offbeat way. The musical numbers were generally my favourite parts.

I enjoyed Bill, which I saw in the cinema a few days ago, much more unreservedly. It's the Horrible Histories team doing a Shakespeare biopic and it's very, very funny in an inclusive way, kids will love it, accompanying adults will love it and so will people who know their Shakespeare. Not always for different reasons, either, because doesn't everyone laugh at silly voices? It left me smiling and shipping ( spoiler? )

The thing is, I probably laughed just the same amount when I saw the trailers for both films, but one stuffed most of the film's best jokes into the trailer, while the other had more to choose from...

Right, some links:

( AOU recap; a pointed fake trailer; Inside Out analysis; Jupiter Ascending compared to The Matrix and Firefly stuf )

I found myself in the weird position of checking I could find Dave on the EPG in the house the other day. (An explanation for people outside the UK, Dave is the name of a free-to-air TV channel that claims to be the home of witty banter, in an attempt to fight people like me’s long-established perception that it’s the place where ‘funny’ panel shows and Top Gear air on repeat.) It’s now the home of Parks and Recreation, which was on last night in the much more sensible 8 p.m. slot than BBC Four’s late-night one - seriously, I remember an interview where the cast were criticising it.

But although 8 o’clock on a Monday night is a good slot in theory, in practice, it was a relief I’d also checked that Dave has a catch-up facility online, because my life being what it is at the moment, there was no way I was going to be able to watch it live. So I’m probably going to sneak in a few more season 3 Leslie/Ben fics before I do – does that make me a bad fan? A selfish one. I want Dave to be glad they bought the rights, but I also want to read more fic before canon moves on.

(In other TV news, I plan to catch up eventuallyon Tuppence and Tommy’s adventures and Person of Interest, which is back this week. SHAW! BEAR! MACHINE! Strong likelihood of helicopters and defenestration!!!)

What I did do last night was catch up on Nashville

3.9 Two Sides to Every Story

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