Sunday 26 June 2022

"Oh, no! Fanny's exposed!"*

 Well, that's the second quarter of the year almost done and dusted - where is it going in such a hurry??  So, as is now traditional, here's what I've been reading and watching since the last update:

Read

∘  The rest of Typeset in the Future, by Dave Addey  (from Star Trek: The Motion Picture onwards - last seen here, and presented on the right by my little Box Fox, Rutherford, from Star Trek: Lower Decks)

∘  And I'm still reading Little, Big, by John Crowley (I'm just over halfway through, now.  I bought it on Kindle and thought it must be thousands of pages long as it's taking so long to get through, but I've just checked and it's 'only' 564 pages...) 


Watched

∘  Call Me By Your Name (Netflix)  - This reminded me of parts of my own teenage years.  Not that I was a cool, self-assured teen (far from it, in fact) who had a dalliance with an older man in Italy, unfortunately.  The fly on Timothée Chalamet's shirt right at the end stole the show, though.

∘  Cobalt Blue (Netflix) - My gods the artist lodger (played by Prateik Babbar) is handsome!

∘  Star Trek: Picard (Amazon Prime) - S2, eps 5-7 then I gave up on this incoherant mess, leaving eps 8-10 unwatched.  I should have known after the crushing disappointment of season one.

∘  A Monster Calls (BBC iPlayer) - Enchanting and sad.

∘  The Lost City (Cinema) - It's like a joyous Romancing the Stone with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum 💕

  P.S. I'm still waiting for the Splash remake with Channing Tatum as a merman...

∘  Amélie (Netflix) - Delightful!  One of my favourite films now.  Thank you Ms Scarlet and Melanie.

∘  Russian Doll (Netflix) S2 - Not as good as season one, and not enough adorable Charlie Barnett playing his character's grandmother!

∘  Heartstopper (Netflix) - Just lovely.  If only growing up gay had always been this easy, though.  Still, I hope that today's baby gays have it easier still.

∘  Black Widow (Disney+) - Pretty good, but a Black Widow film should have been made years ago.  It's too little too late now.

∘  Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Cinema) - What a crock!  I didn't particularly enjoy the first Dr. Strange film (I don't really like him as a character), but this one is so much worse.  Fortunately, it's not really about Dr. Strange as Wanda Maximoff, the 'Scarlet Witch', seems to be the star, but I think her character has been absolutely shafted.  The end of WandaVision has been completely undone, turning her into a one-dimensional villain.  Also, newcomer America Chavez is just a plot device and gets little to no characterisation at all, and the magic is mostly ill thought through with no subtlety!  Not recommended.  /rant

∘  WandaVision (Disney+) - Some good ideas, but not what I was hoping for.

∘  The Incredibles 2 (Disney+) - Not as good as the original, but that's a very high bar to clear.  Still excellent, though.  And it's good to see Edna Mode again.

∘  Loki (Disney+) - Rather entertaining, but it's watered the Loki character down somewhat.

∘  The Theory of Everything (Netflix) - I loved this biopic of Stephen Hawking, and it's no wonder Eddie Redmayne won an Oscar for his performance.

∘  Jurassic World Dominion (Cinema) - Non-stop excitement that doesn't stay still long enough to for you to dwell on the ridiculousness of it all.  Well, until it's over then it all falls apart, but still: Dinosaurs!

∘  The Danish Girl (Netflix) - Another astonishing performance by Eddie Redmayne.

∘  The Umbrella Academy S3 (Netflix) - Not a patch on season two, but still very good.  I really loved how Vanya's transition to Victor (Elliot Page) was treated so matter-of-factly - almost a non-event (which is as it should be, really) - and accepted by all without incident. 

∘  Detectorists (BBC iPlayer) - Only the gentle and charming first series as of this writing, but I'll probably squeeze in the remaining two before month's end.

∘  Test Cricket (Sky Sports) - Mainly for the gorgeous Jimmy Anderson (on the right there [via]), but I do actually enjoy watching the game even though I still don't fully understand all the rules etc.  

Oh, and the commentators are usually quite amusing, too.


Rewatched

∘  Spider-Man: Homecoming (BBC iPlayer) - Ahhhh...  Little Tom Holland!

∘  Heroes S1 (BBC iPlayer) - I remembered to stop at the end of season one, and not subject myself to the ensuing mess of the following seasons.

∘  Jaws 2 (Amazon Prime) - This always makes me wish I could sail a little boat with the beautiful Mike Brody (and that I was much younger so that there's no hideous age difference.  Oh, and no big, rubber shark).

∘  Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Netflix) - Two seasons isn't enough, godsdamnit!

∘  Ghosts (BBC iPlayer) twice - * Post title from S2, "The Grey Lady"

∘  Deadpool 2 (Amazon Prime) - Snarky fun with Ryan Reynolds.

∘  Crashing (Netflix) - Rewatched to get my Jonathan Bailey fix (as seen here).

∘  Fleabag (BBC iPlayer) - Just amazing.

∘  Amélie (Netflix) - No, I haven't accidentally added this to the 'rewatched' section by mistake - I watched it again a few days later.

∘  Star Trek: Lower Decks S2 (Amazon Prime) - My favourite Star Trek (sorry, DS9).

∘  The Craft (Netflix) - Fairuza Balk is suitably bonkers as Nancy, but I just can't get over Robin Tunney's lumpen performance and how terrible her hair is!  I started to watch The Craft: Legacy, but it was just so teen drama awful that I gave up about halfway through.

∘  Death Becomes Her (Netflix) - Never not hilarious!

∘  The Others (Netflix) - Dull.  I only watched this because I hadn't made it through the whole film when I first watched it with my boyfriend at the time.  We ended up falling asleep part-way through (after a very busy day, as I recall, but it might very well have been because of its dullness).

∘  And a smattering of Star Trek Enterprise, Deep Space Nine, and The Next Generation

There'll be less telly watching from now on as I've got rid of Netflix (now that I've seen Umbrella Academy).  And I haven't found any new music, so I'm still listening to White Lies, ABBA, Erasure and Natacha Atlas's "You Only Live Twice", as featured here last month.

 Do you see anything you like or loathe?  What have you been reading and watching this year?

21 comments:

  1. Honestly I don't know where you find all this stuff. You never watch anything good! Literally the only thing on your list I've seen is Dirk Gently and I did go fairly bonkers over it so all hope for your taste isn't lost. Plus we'll never fight over a man, it actually amuses me that all your crushes do absolutely nothing for me. Now if you were to go after Alexis Kanner there would be trouble! I know he's dead, but hey, we witches....

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    1. PS I don't even like Jake Gyllenhaal 's bum.

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    2. This may surprise you (unless you already know), but Jimmy Anderson is from Burnley, and as such has a Lancashire accent. And I still fancy him!

      I had to google Alexis Kanner. He sported quite the array of sideburns in his day, didn't he?!

      Don't like Jake's-

      *faints*

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  2. PPS Even without Netflix, Tucker's Luck is on YouTube. 😍

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    1. Todd Carty/Tucker never did anything for me. My fondest memories of the Grange Hill lot were of Gonch, Trevor Cleaver, Roland Browning, Imelda Davis, and Fay Lucas.

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  3. SWEETMARYSUNSHINE!!! Where do you find the time to indulge in all of these shows, sweetpea? xoxox

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  4. BTW, thanks for the reviews! I might have to watch a couple of them. Also, I agree with you re: Star Trek: Picard, the MITM even gave up and he really wanted it to be good. xoxo

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    1. Even though seasons 1 and 2 have disappointed me, I still have my hopes up for season 3 with the reunion of the old TNG crew! Those hopes will almost certainly be dashed against the rocks again, though...

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  5. A Splash remake with Channing Tatum as a merman?! Gives a whole new spin on Bette Midler's own "Vicky Edie" mermaid routine: "And the question before us? Where is her clitoris?"

    Such a shame you didn't enjoy Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - I thought it really worked precisely because it followed what happened to Wanda after the total mental mindfuck that was Wandavision (which was brilliant), and her subsequent obsession with the Darkhold. It basically ties in a quite a few threads from decades' worth of comics into one cataclysmic film (albeit all compacted into one story, rather than several - House of M and its fallout in particular).

    As for Loki - that was an utterly mind-blowing experience, although the concept of "Loki Tom" and "Loki Sylvie" kissing was, basically (given they are basically just variants of the same being) a wank. Jx

    PS Madam Acarti and I watched The Others (with subtitles) in Amsterdam's De Spyker gay bar, on its famous "dual screen" TVs - the adjacent one showing hardcore gay porn - and thoroughly enjoyed it, far more than what was going on in the cheesy 1990s grunt-fest just to its left...

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    1. I must admit, I'd forgotten about the Darkhold influence, and my 'review' is somewhat biased because I think Wanda/The Scarlet Witch is such an intriguing character. Also, I watched WandaVision after MoM.

      I really enjoy Tom Hiddleston's Loki (well, I really 'enjoy'' Tom Hiddleston...), but that binge watch while I was staying at my sister's was probably too much of a good thing.

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    2. God gods! I'd never really thought about mermaids' clitoral deficiencies...

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    3. Is that why there are such things as mermaids purses?

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  6. Do you mean the 2001 film The Others with Nicole Kidman and, er, Eric Sykes? I was bemused by Sykes, I kept waiting for something funny to happen. I loved the series Sykes when I was growing up.
    Fleabag was terrific - such a bittersweet ending - left me crying for days. Also left me with a crush on Andrew Scott, who made me wish I was a little bit younger.
    Sx

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    1. Yes, that's the one, Ms Scarlet! Funnily enough, I was waiting for Fionnula Flanagan to be revealed as an android as I only knew her as Data's robot mum in TNG.
      Andrew Scott is more than a bit yummy!

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  7. P.S I agree with Savvy - how did you manage to watch so much in 3 months?! I fall asleep too easily these days!
    Sx

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    1. As well as the antisocial thing, you may have noticed that I've hardly read anything, and my Star Trek art has tailed right off.

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  8. The remaining two seasons of "The Detectorists" are worth the bother if you can squeeze them in.

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    1. They have been squeezed, Very Mistress - I finished the last episodes of series 3 this evening. Definitely worth the bother.

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  9. I'm so glad you loved Amelie! We watched "The Future of Folk" last night as you had mentioned it sometime back and I have to say it was another win! We also watched Eurovision sometime back and that was fun!

    I agree with Jon about the Loki kissing Loki. He's supposed to be an arrogant bastard so what's a little self-love with your other you, I suppose? It was still silly though. They softened his edges too much and I resent that.

    We agree about Russian Doll season 2 as well. Timothee Chalamet did a fantastic job in the new Dune movie, so I've been reading the books while we wait for part two. I still need to watch "Call me by your name" though.

    The Others is a slow movie for sure. We saw it in the theater. We were concerned because someone walked in with a tiny baby and we were all thinking to oursleves What are they doing?!?! But the baby never woke up and cried. Not even when some big burly man in the audience screamed in terror when a door was suddenly slammed in the movie. It was hilarious! Everyone quietly snickered. It was the best part really. Although the plot twist was really good, the movie was too slow.

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    1. I wish I'd squeezed in another watching of Amélie before dumping Netflix, but I liked it so much that I'll probably get it on DVD. Or even Blu Ray as I now have a Blu Ray player! Yes, no more playing DVDs in my PC's crappy disc drive!

      We do seem to have similar tastes in/thoughts about films & TV - I shall take note of any recommendations you may give in future.

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