idiosyncreant | Entries tagged with reviewage

VERONICA MARS

The library had a DVD set of the first season of Veronica Mars, and lately so many people had mentioned it by the way I decided to go ahead and watch a couple episodes.

Yikes.

Looking at the outfits everyone's wearing makes me realize that is the era of my youth. A weird feeling...

The show itself had fun dialogue and an intriguing premise, but to be honest, it wasn't fun enough in world to make me want to watch the whole season to find out what happened.

I think watching Buffy has immunized me, to be honest: I just wasn't that interested in watching her go through different boyfriends and solve different little mysteries, when there was not much else to appeal to me.

***

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE

Was not quite so time-shock-like, since it's the era of my childhood, comfortably distant.
It's a funny trend in the era, though, this idea of a rational, self-sufficient woman with her life all set up nicely (including a lover) falling for someone irrationally and never validating it, just...having to change.

Serendipity and Only You are other rom-coms of the time that have this kind of inexplicable thing happen.* Instead of creating some kind of undeniable chemistry between them, or even throwing them together so they bond, it's like they were hit by a train.

That aside, it was wonderful to watch Tom Hanks being young(er) and somehow cute in his own way. Also, unusually believable as a young dad. Did he have kids of his own yet? If he didn't, he sure looked like he did.

It was a movie full of fun sets and pretty locales, though.

*Only You involves a more rational twist in the form of Robert Downey, Jr., though I much prefer him at his current age. However, the heroine's irrational urge remains the same.

Next: ANIME and finishing FULLMETAL EEEP

Dear Readers,
I have started a manga with a too-stupid-to-live heroine. :sigh: It's derivative, and no doubt to be full of martyrous behavior. But it's got something, apparently, because I haven't stopped...

***
The other kawaii-type manga on my shelf right now is Captive Hearts...

with the obligatory bondage-imagery.

This is by the Vampire Knight mangaka, but predates it. It's not as strong in world-building, maybe, but it's also less of a soap. So, that puts it much higher on my list...

Like D.N.Angel, the trope of youngster-bound-by-family-curse is set up to both interfere with and increase the pitch of the romance. In this case, the hero's been raised almost like the young-master of the house, but he does remember a time when his family served instead. When the young heir girl of the family is returned to her country after being long missing--well, we don't get much time to share in his pity-party, because his must-serve gene is tripped hard-core. His low exposure to the phenomenon means he's got no guard against it, and his "slave to the princess" routine scares even his butlering father.

It's the kind of cute premise that can almost only exist in a comic where we don't have to look too carefully at the semantics...

It is also only a handful of volumes long, all of which are to be got at my library. There is that.

***
And for something completely different:

House of Five Leaves is a samurai manga with a gravitas and somber art style that made me check it out just to reward the library for getting it and the publishers for publishing it.

And it's quite thoughtful, and well-drawn, with a main character who's a bit unreadable but in a good-samurai-conflicted sort of a way.

It's an artistic manga, and so a little slow for my usual taste (you can see the other kind of manga I'm working on)
but It promises very well to continue to be intriguing. I'm guessing this will be the kind of thing I'll order from the library when I want some brain-work that's not hectic.

Dear Hungry!,
I am watching you for Mukai Osamu, but that doesn't mean you should open with a shower scene.
That's just gonna make things awkward between us...

(p.s. Mukai, why are you never without a girlfriend? Makes it hard for a girl to adopt you...)

***

The Dark Knight
Felt oddly like the intense finale of a grim drama, actually, rather than a feature film.

I enjoyed the Hong Kong businessman plot, and Heath Ledger's performance. I liked the single scenes involving the mob, and the theme of Batman as the Dark Knight (is that a phrase used for someone taking drinks for someone else in the West as well as Asia?)

But I found the Two-Face thread ultimately only interest in light of that last development. As a crazy, he's going to looked washed up next to the force of chaos that's Joker. He worked much better as the contrast against Batman and Bruce Wayne, was much more interesting.

Maybe the main reason this movie felt as long as it's two hours and twenty minutes was because the movie seemed to be about Gotham, instead of Batman. And it's interesting angle, but I'm an Iron Man kind of girl--I want to see my man make things and blow stuff up with it. And by that definition the hero was Joker. I'd get behind that, but he also didn't get enough screen time, relatively.

The Batman Beyond Joker movie was more cohesive that way...

I may have just repeated every review this movie's gotten in seven years. Let me know if I repeated yours or not. ;)

***

Green Lantern

I think I must be coming to a level of knowledgable experience with comic-book hero movies, because this one was fun, but I didn't think much of it. Ryan Reynolds was adorable (I don't know HOW, maybe because he looks more like a guy in real life than a movie) and I though the obligatory girl was much less boring and more of an interesting love interest than many a hero's girlfriend.

I also thought, when we went to Green Lantern Planet, that it was the kind of fantasy art world that I would have liked in Thor, much more believably drawn/rendered.

But again, as an Iron Man girl, I could have watched twice as many dogfights and been happier. It felt like the opening of the series...but one where the sequel problem of the rage ring was ultimately uninteresting. The characters acting as the villain were not very interesting. (Actually, scientist nerd guy was interesting, but he got a horror film treatment and I wanted such a character to be redeemable. So that use of him was uninteresting, in a way.)

I think in essence this was a monster movie, and it just wasn't my style.

It seems weird to have my hero/movie pick of the past year be The Green Hornet, but that movie got it's element ratios right for humor, plot, and fun things to watch for me.

Avengers come soon! I have Superman Returns to watch and then I'm fresh out...

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

And now, the part of our program where Bethany comes out and validates her drama-watching habits...but reviewing a drama!

Love Shuffle
This is unusual among the Japanese shows I watch as 1) not being a manga adaptation and 2) being geared toward adults.

The second attribute does not necessarily mean that the show will be any more romantic (or sensual) than the teen shows I watch, but in this case it was both. (Though seriously: K-drama has it's own little squeamishness toward kissing scenes, but J-drama blows it out of the water.)

The premise is the kind of ridiculous thing I watch dramas for: three guys and a gal who all live on the pent-house floor of an apartment building start to commiserate over the miserable cycle of falling in love, and decide to do a partner swap--cycling around week by week. To make this an actually interesting drama to watch, there are several wild-cards in this shuffle--a patient of the psychologist neighbor, obsessed with dying on her 20th birthday. A married woman who seems pretty above-board with her affairs, but is not as she seems.

The story was actually more interested in the psychological battles people are fighting with, both for themselves, and with their partners, than romance. It may be the most romantic j-drama I've watched yet, though, because it does dwell on connections, and people's motivations for living.

Jennifer Crusie wrote some great posts about how important the formation of a community is for her in a story, and how that's the core of the stories she writes. This show really made me think of that principle, because the most enviable part of the silly game is seeing how the four neighbors and the people who are close to them develop a family-feeling--where people sit around a table in their shared hallway after work at night, and eat and drink wine...

And get into trouble.

The script didn't linger too long on the actual structure of the game, but continued to twine people together, and explore chemistry. It did have a lot of fun with the puns that won't translate, but I liked that there were characters who both found that kind of humor lame...and then got caught up in it themselves. Because that's the way it works when you have a real dynamic community.

Tumbling

I started watching this somewhat hesitantly, but I love a good sports-themed story. And besides--the hottest young actors of j-drama, all playing male rhythmic gymnasts? ...It had to be awesome, in a bad way or a good way.

And then it was a "school gang-lord joins the rhythmic gymnastics club" story. And there continued to be plotlines that involve boys fighting, and "but we are comrades!" angsty bits and GAH.

There go another ten hours of my life.

There are certain retellings that manage to make you *more* interested in the original material, feel more fond of the story in general.

This week I've been lucky enough to come across two of these.

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George

This cover art is an example of completely acceptable graphic design that cues the reader completely wrong. At least for me it did.

After reading Ice by Sarah Beth Durst, I had ordered this book without really looking much into it. I knew I'd heard of it before, it was a retelling of the East of the Sun, West of the Moon retelling, which is what the Ravelry read-and-knit-along is doing for the winter theme.

I felt a jarring sensation when I opened the book and it was *not* (like Ice) a modern-world updated version. In fact, it's told so much in the tone of a fairy tale that though the heroine's name is not revealed until the end of the book (she has a nickname) it never seemed weird. (My biggest problem with fairy tales as a child was not getting a sense of personality from the characters, who often lacked even names. It's actually kind of funny to have this reversal...)
No, this book is set snugly in a Scandinavian history where their fairy tales (rather than the eddas of gods) are the cultural landscape.

And I loved that. It was done so well. It did what a more straight-forward retelling needs to do: tie together the bones of the fairy tale with flesh that makes it live and work and color the ideas more deeply.

The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley

Contrastingly, this cover is of the kind that I don't find particularly exciting, but actually evokes the story's tone quite well. In fact, after reading the book I'm fond of it.

The Folk Keeper is not so much a retelling as a story involving a well-known feature of Fae--which would be a bit of a spoiler, and so I won't come out and say what. But it's one I've been a little intrigued by but found largely colorless until this story used it as part of a world that's got a new sort of logic, though built with familiar elements. The Folk are what you'd think: the almost intangible (and yet physically real) faerie folk, the spiteful tiny trouble-making kind.

And The Folk Keeper of this story is a girl with a distinct attitude. From the recommendation I read on my f-list the other day, though, I fell in love with the tone of her attitude. It's both appropriate to the time-period (I'd say Edwardian England, but vague in a way that's good) and yet interesting, fresh.

The book's descriptive bits were beautiful, and yet it felt light of touch, a brief read. It was quite dark, and yet the diary format kept it a little distant. Which did not soften the impact.

There is a strong resemblance in ambiance with this one and The Perilous Gard, though they share very few actual attributes. A plus in my mind...

I am watching The Greatest Love's first episode for the second time.

I was going to skip to where I left off when I decided not to watch more of it the first time, but I'm glad I didn't--a lot of what seemed odd and weirdly paced of the first 15 minutes is making heaps of sense this time.

I'm not sure if it was my mood or if I really have absorbed more of how the seniority system works in Korean show-biz since last spring (it's...possible) but I'm glad I'm giving it another shot.

For example, in the Hero and Heroine's first encounter, I was too tuned out to realize that when Heroine aggressively tries to get the celebrity to show himself she's not just being nosy.
The odds are huge that he's her "underclassman", since she first entered show biz as a teen, and he's being rude to her. She's of an age where making sure people act appropriately is not just a concern of hers--it's her *duty*.

And he is INCREDIBLY rude, but even moreso in the context of an Asian culture.

Lots of shows about show-biz even in Korea are not grounded so much in the reality but the fantasy of what it's like to be a star. The ladies writing this show are purposefully incorporating the world around them and it's rules to make the story richer, though--so when I think it's kind of par the course for the hot star to be an arrogant sonova--well, the heroine thinks it's the auntie's job to make him respectful.

Sadly, I think I shouldn't knit and watch this at the same time, because that may have been my downfall before...

Kimi wa Petto, Korean Movie version

This is a review I didn't want to write so negatively; trust me, in a movie based off a manga I love about a woman adopting a young man as her pet and meanwhile dating someone else my standards are exactly what you'd think they would be:

we're in this for a good time, okay?! don't think too hard!

But when an adaptation does all the things you don't want it to do...well. It was worth watching since I was looking forward to it, but I probably won't rewatch it.

The heroine of the original story is awesome because she's a strong-willed woman who's not trying to trample anyone but is a bit of a social klutz. Super smart, capable, tall and skinny in an Asian society where men are more prone to feeling defensive about this than find it attractive. The main theme of the latter part of the comic is entangled in this. Is Awesome Sumire really Awesome Sumire with the guy she's dating? When she's only real and vulnerable in front of her platonic roomie/pet Momo?

And then there's the Momo problem. I am now even more impressed with Matsumoto Jun's performance on this, even thought it was CLEAR the dance scenes were edited so we didn't have to watch him actually attempt modern ballet dance.

Jang Geun Seuk could have nailed this--in fact, this is the saddest thing about the movie: I think ALL the cast could have done beautifully in their roles! It was the writing and directing that were problematic. One of the main keys to the relationship between Sumire and Momo is the security.

And yet, in this movie, "Momo" doesn't stop making passes at Sumire, having a kind of playboy vibe. And that's not the way this story works: He's a bit generous with himself, but it's a warm, loving sort of vibe, not a leering one.
That balance is important, because it's the comfort of being together that both keeps her from realizing she could love him, and that ultimately is the most important thing in their relationship.

The final

blow was that they went the easy route instead of the meaningful one: the heroine gets found out and has the choice taken from her. She lacks agency significantly throughout the story, and then in the end she makes no positive move that we can really see.

And that sucks.

Because the thing I loved about the original story is Sumire facing up to lying to herself and consequences of a selfish decision, and still being happy because she's figured out what she wants. As much as that's possible.

The Japanese drama didn't get all of this right, but it got the heart of it, anyway.

Today my knitting projects helped me start a couple of decent dramas, and finish one.

(I'm on introvert recovery still--after trying to spend holiday time with the family, having both my brother and Dad around through today, and having to do the housekeeping the past two days...well. Still catching up. It's been a long month.)

The one I'll mention, though is "In Time With You", a Taiwanese drama.

The set-up is that these two are besties, always there for each other (except for getting a little busy when they're in relationships). They were rivals, enemies in high school, at which time the hero told the girl "I think you are a really cool woman. ...But don't misunderstand! I could never be in love with you."

Yeah.

Of course I'm a sucker for stories where the slow discovery of someone is central. And the appeal of the show was in the fact that its two sweet people just living lives where they sometimes miss each other coming or going.
They have a relationship that's worked for the past 15 years, and though the lens they see each other though is a little blinded by that high school beginning, there's also a reason to keep that equilibrium.

Of course, the ego-soothing part of this show is that they're both turning 30 in the year of the drama's events, and the 25-year-old new employees are talked about as "Too young, right?" Hah.

The closing of this show may be the one that was the most satisfying in feeling like, "YES, this was what was supposed to happen." Without any discussion of destiny, the fact that they're going to spend the rest of their lives together is *right*.

Delivery on soaring love stories is a bit harder to end since you know that every day life is going to take some of the shine off that chemistry...

***

That ran too long. Without further ado, I'm going to post my complete list of dramas I've watched under a cut. ;)

( HEREIN MY SHAME though not all this year's work, sheesh )

Current Music: Queen - Son Dam Bi

I just watched Thor AND Captain America.

My takeaway...

THOR:
don't try to outdrink a Norse deity. Especially when there's beer involved.

CAPTAIN AMERICA:
Why does Stanley Tucci keep having to disappear in these movies? ...can he please be the HERO in a romantic comedy rated PG13 and under? Because I would totally watch that. Multiple times.

AVENGERS:
awesome, now I have something to look forward to from the next year. I was worried about that.

Um, otherwise... I'm a bit disappointed that I've learned to see animation flaws and green-screening. Because it's distracting. In Thor I found it particularly unattractive, not being able to buy the world. But I guess I can also appreciate better when people do it well. I was thinking of the primitive and yet ultimately effective animation leading Hellboy II, and then the Doctor Parnassus sequences, too.

On the upside, I found out that the Dark of the Moon Transformers movie is the one without Megan Fox, so...

It was just exactly the kind of day you expect from November today...dreary gray and misty, rain looming but not falling with any power.

Perfect for reading a scary manga series! "Broken Angels" (more accurately, "Breaking Angels") was a bit surreal and left some major plotpoints unexplored but kept me reading quite avidly.

I found a decent manhwa, even in the usual style, too! "My Boyfriend is a Vampire" is the perfect blend of rich-school fantasy/vampire secret society/gangster boy who looks like a girl who has a sad mishap with a vampire resulting in gender-bendering...

my loli fop combi top

#

State of the Nano

is I've read that manuscript so many times I had to skim it instead of actual reading. Judgment pending on whether it's something I can actually work with or not, but I think the language roughness is worst in the first few chapters, and with some expansion and trimming of weird verbiage, it is as good a story as I remembered. At the core. Under the murk and swamp-muck.

AUGH GUYS
why did no one tell me that Honey&Clover was so...awesome?

Okay. I've seen it high on lists of manga and J-dramas, but but but

I suppose, it wouldn't have occurred to anyone to frame it as "Yankee-kun as the Howl-like sculpting genius has megane bestie like a Kyoya suffering unrequited love and third is the bumbling hero played by the adorable Nakatsu of Hana Kimi, with interesting and non-cute-idiot girls"

or to say that the first episode was enough evocative of life being bittersweet and the turning points of our self-understanding in youth that I would be happy if the rest was standard J-Drama fare, because the first part was unexpectedly beautiful and evocative

of course, I tend to be a sucker for anything about creative people living out the daily life of balancing art and need for reality, too.

Anyway.

I was trying to find something to watch that I didn't have to pay attention to--both City Hunter and Protect the Boss remain unfinished because I need to Sit DOWN and Watch them both, but this wasn't exactly the right candidate.

I'm happy I started it anyway, boggit.

So I wrote earlier that I had volumes of Bleach, Death Note, and Fullmetal Alchemist* out from the library.

(*Rose! It was 25! I just wish I'd been able to read it right after the last two... T-T Dear Hawkeye, stay forever the most baddest EVER)

I am afraid, because I really, really am enjoying Bleach. I had a vague idea that like Naruto it ran hundreds of volumes and millions of anime episodes... But I really wanted to be sure if I liked it or not! It looked fairly awesome, and things don't run that long for no reason...

Doomed. Doomed, I say.

51 and counting volumes of manga, 300 and counting of anime episodes (none of the sneaky watch-the-anime-it wraps-in-one-season trick there) and I don't even know how much I can get at my library...

Maybe, like with Naruto, I'll get the gist and get tired? But I actually had a harder time getting into Naruto than Bleach...

I know at least one of you FList is a fan. What do you think is going to happen to me?

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

It's that time again! (Already? you cry)

The time when Bethany comes out and tells you to watch another K-Drama!

why you want to watch Protect the Boss

I'm only on Episode 9, but this show has been solid in its writing and tone so I have no qualms about suggesting it. It may veer into dramaaaangst territory, or do something weird to fill any extra episodes thrown at it, but I'm not really worried.

Lo, I should probably not say these things for public record. Oh well.

This show is unabashedly cute and light. It takes very familiar set-ups, and somehow always delivers something different.

For instance, Done And Done: girl meets rich boy, they don't hit it off.

Well, in this show, she actually get him beaten by thugs after she fights her way through them. Though he's been on an expensive man-hunt for her, when she gets hired as rich-boy's secretary...he doesn't recognize her face. EVER.

Another trope: The hero is a spoiled brat, with a sense of superiority and right to childish behavior.

But in this show, every single character shows a side of childishness. Their vulnerabilities, motives, though to certain other people they maintain a pretense of strength or superiority, the writer doesn't allow anyone to maintain that illusion.

I could go on and on about the things I like about it, but it boils down to what I've already mentioned.

~ Full-bodied characters, who aren't allowed to stay in their stereotype
~ A plot that takes the golden standards of set-up ripe for conflict, and putting a lemon twist on the actual outcome
~ A light sense of humor
~ As the pictures show, a really pretty spectrum of sets and characters.

The physical comedy of this show is hilarious, but not overstated.
The hero is handicapped by a phobia, not actually a jerk, though he does take certain priviledges for granted.
And when he realizes he's in love with the heroine, he's so characteristically open and unabashed about it, it's completely refreshing.

If you wanna ask more about it, I am trying to restrain myself here, but I'd LOVE to tell you more.

I've also got more pictures and special focus posts on it at suitdistraction/protect the boss tag, but beware spoilers. ;p

So. This is something I've been working on for a long time, and no longer am that happy with, but I need to just POST it and move on.

EPIC DRAMA LIST OF EPICNESS or, My Hit List of To-Watch Dramas, 1.0

( Read more... )

I need to make a complete list of all the dramas I've ever watched, so I can ~~weep and mourn over my lost youth~~ see what I've missed, and let people ask about them. But this will take a bit of mining and probably will result in digressions into rewatching, so. This is it for now!

Sorry if you saw this while I was trying to fix the cut. Also, if the formatting is still not coming through inside the cut.

I watched the Star Trek movie just this week, and really, really enjoyed it.

First note: I have watched part of *one* Star Trek episode, and it was probably a Next Generation show, when I was fairly tiny. I found it fascinating, though. Of course I know a lot ABOUT it, just by being around SF/F fans and general cultural exposure.

But I come from the ignorants' sector, going into the movie.

One of the things that struck me as different from my mental image of Star Trek was the lovely contrasts within the ships, and the worlds.

The shiny high-tech with glass and florescent lights on the bridge...and then the working-ship grunge and industrial gray of other areas. The mining ship was so reminiscent of the Firefly ambiance I kind of laughed to myself.

Watching the commentary, I heard one of the creators say something about the story being more about Spock than Kirk--which is definitely true if we lay down the ground rule that the hero of a story has the most dynamic character arc.

There was something very fetching about him, with his child-like incapability to not handle his feelings when they surfaced. There's an adorable dork factor at work there. One that is also at work with Spock "Prime" as played by Leonard Nimoy.

(I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that Nimoy had a role in the movie. Weirdly, though I'm not familiar with him at all, I KNEW it was him when he came on screen. It was a weirdly transcendent moment.)

What the movie did best, that I wasn't exactly expecting, was deliving on the sheer awesome posed by the concept. The vastness of the universe is in the corner of your eye. The rigor of the world as a member of the fleet is right there in front of you. And everything that happens is very tactile.

Also, it made me want to go watch the original show, pretty much immediately. Though I haven't.

This week's movie selection are the first Transformers and The Green Hornet

I really enjoyed watching both while they were playing, but I think The Green Hornet is going to be the one that sticks with me.

Just ignore with me the fact that the *fourth* movie of the Transformers franchise came out, please...

***

Transformers: whatever the first ones called

Shia. Boy, he's cute in this. He gives life to run-of-the-mill hapless hero lines that might not be so funny if not delivered well. Kind of makes me thing of Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 10 Things I Hate about You.

This makes it hard to enjoy a different aspect of the movie, though. Megan Fox is superhot, I get it. But she moves in super-obvious ways that make me wanna shout, "Sam, behind you! It's a maneater!"
I know the whole point of her character is that kind of wish fulfillment, but it just makes a girl sad...

I found the car fantasy much more engaging. Though I did, a little bit, miss the old junker version, when it went? It's like the Back To The Future car, the hotness is NOT in being super-sleek, the Siwon of cars. It's like a Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman, type of car: getting older, yes. But just getting more sexy.

Anyway. I was actually kind of not impressed with the actual CG Transformers. I think the animation lacked visual focus, because I was there for the awesome robots, and yet those fight scenes with them together didn't hold my interest. Shabby cinematography, which makes sense (your animators aren't necessarily going to have the director's eye) but still, was Not Very Awesome.

The scenes with the invader bots? Especially the splodey desert sequence, but also any time you saw the evil alien tech scan itself into something that looked part of the surroundings... That was good stuff. The scenes were tight by default.

I liked the good Transformers all better as cars. I think it was a bit lame to try and give them humanoid, moving faces (understand, I have no connection with any source material here) and also using the cliche of robot-processor voice. My brother has the student versions of several sound producing softwares--and the potential for cool sounding voices is there.

Hey, if you wanted to be actually superawesome and do something daring (I know, that's not what this movie is for) make it that ALL the good robots have to use radio clips to communicate. That would be charming, an underdog-team handicap to overcome, right?

But I stray from the actual reality of the movie here.

I loved the secondary guys in the squad that escapes. I was impatient to be stuck with them at the beginning, but wishing they got more screentime at the end.

So, QUESTION: sequels. Does the Transformer animation get better? Is Sam still cute? Are there still cool side characters like the preposterous British decoder gal and rawksome GI daddy?

'Kay, I'm done now.

***

the Green Hornet

I thought I would enjoy this movie, but kept my expectations low. Having one of the main characters be an active moron is not usually on my list of desirables.

I hadn't seen Seth Rogen in anything before, though, so I was pleasantly surprised by the *charm* of his idiocy act, where you get the impression that he's basically a screwed-up nice guy. So. The part where he and Kato fight seemed a bit contrived, in how actually megalomaniacal he was. I was relieved when they mostly stopped with the talking bit and got on to the trash-the-house brawling. Because that was fun to watch.

Obviously, the making-of-epic-herogear and car show was completely satisfactory. Coulda gone longer but it's not everyone's ideal scene...

Something that worked for the movie being fun that I wouldn't have expected was the language. Partly, it never seemed gratuitous (a comment I never imagined myself saying). It was an active part of the ridiculousness in many spots, to ramp up the humor, and other times expressed just what the characters meant. And, the stupid malapropism of some of the things Britt says make the character all the more endearing

Another thing that was unexpectedly funny, when I usually don't go for those kind of gags was the bromance subtext. The fact that it kept cropping up was so organic.

"...we're just male friends, uh, just PLATONIC male friends."

Especially since the character can't seem to say anything that doesn't sound like a fumble-fingered come-on.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

I'm rewatching Coffee Prince, since it's been a long time and MANY dramas since I did the first time--and man. This is a really good show.
( Why this show's writers deserve prizes and hugs... )

Hero loves his granny. Gotta fall for that...

And I hadn't noticed, but like physical contact, the whole people-singing-to-each-other element starts in the second episode, if not earlier. So when later it's a big emotional moment, it's not some pretty heart-tugging out of nowhere, but just an element of the reality.

That's the kind of set-up that made this a masterful piece of TV writing. The jostling and fighting is set up so that scenes where it escalates feel natural. Wah.

To think, if this hadn't been one of my first shows, I might not be here today...

Pasta was an odd show--in that there were several reasons I wouldn't have liked it, if presented with them, though only one even phased me while I was watching...

( Cut for the Dissenting, i.e. non-K-Drama-addicts, of my F-List )

In the end, the stumbling blocks that would have made it not work for me in a more standard show were trumped by the fact that sometimes it went with K-Drama tradition, but in certain key places it veered off from expectation.
Taking the main annoying antagonist of the characters, and putting him at a disadvantage, so he's more that character who's always bumbling along trying to do the evil boss's bidding--except he's got no evil boss. Taking the wide cast of characters and pitting them against each other, and weaving them into shifting alliances.

Even taking the two characters I kept confusing for each other, and putting them side-by-side, being annoyed by their similarities.

In the end, the humor of the show was more subtle and humane than most of the dramas I watch. I'm impressed.
...And I got to see mah favorite Ajussi get the girl, even if he had to be a jerk to do it. 9_9

I dreamed this morning I was back in Japan, I believe volunteering help, and was being helped get settled in at a dorm by, as far as I can tell, Ok Taecyeon...

who is part of one of the boy-idol K-Pop groups and was in Dream High and cameos a lot in the We Got Married show, but is NOT any sort of fixation for me, so this is pretty hilarious

When we looked in the place my pillow was supposed to be it was a tiny travel thing, but I assured him it was all right and that I'd packed my own, though I was trying to remember where I'd put it...

It's really astonishing how often I'm both smoothing things over and trying to tie up loose ends in my dreams that aren't straight-up nightmares.

***

gjules recommended this to me when we met up because she was in Tulsa recently, and I read it and immediately got on the waitlist for the next (which I totally understand you being eager to buy, Gen, the ending of the first is kind of...yeah! Awesome, but NOT CONCLUSIVE) from the library.

If you like YA, and teen narrators with a spice of their own humor, not just the standard snark, this is the book for you. The supernatural boarding school and interesting set-up for the paranormal are likewise excellent, great UF if you are partial to that.

Stand-out as far as deeper writing than most YA paranormals go is that her access to her powers is definitely a more accurate analogue to the way our power of choice and personality and talent emerges as we mature--it's not cut-and-dried, and it's not easy, and it's not even really what she's thinking about most of the time. Hah.

Current Mood: fragile

I'm starting another discipline-season of writing poems!

Forewarned is forearmed, as they say, so my dear friends...consider yourself forearmed.

***

I finally thought to get this out of the library, though I've been following

carriejones on LJ since she came to Conestoga several years ago--she's funny and charming.

And so is this book, though with a bit, too.

I'm sure I won't be the first to draw comparisons to Twilight, (not even the first to intelligently discuss why Need is superior) but some of the tropes shared by both really struck me as I was reading.

Zara gets sent to backwater Maine because her depression at home is worrying her mother. She is befriended by two fringe kids, one super-class-president type and the fringe kids' somewhat cooler loner friend who is hot. And whose eyes telegraph "danger".
But there's this creepy guy stalking but never getting very close, she has to drive herself because Granny's an EMT and there's snow on the ground, and people are really worried about a boy disappearing....

The more grounded complexity of this book really felt like the classic *bones* of a story that make Twilight fetching, but deal with so much more artfully. And it's a great YA book. BTW. In case you were wondering.

I really like the MC, with her interests and quirks, and the people surrounding her, and the way the paranormal elements offset and relate to each other in this world.

And now I'm going to go check out the sequel...

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June 2022

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Ever Bethany

do we make it out alive?

Entries tagged with reviewage

Cultural Literacy 101: Veronica Mars, Sleepless in Seattle

Manga Conga Line

Bit on j-drama, then the Comics Movies

J-Drama: Love Shuffle + bonus: TUMBLING

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The Greatest Love: Episode One, Take Two

You're A Pet, and notes on how an adaptation can miss the spirit of a story

I began as I mean to go on, but now it's time for a little self-reflection...

comic book movies, how I love you

you're sick, I'll 'umor ya.

I need something to spin to! I am failing to find it!

BLEACH and why I am not to be trusted with minor decisions

Protect the Boss - beware the Epic Cuteness

K-Drama Hit-List

Star Trek (2009)

Red Classic: another irrelevantly late movie review

Revisiting Coffee Prince

K-Drama Report: PASTA

dreams by design, Hex Hall, and a pretty boy picture (?)

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June 2022

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