Here We Go Again

Another Round/Druk. I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would - I mean, the premise sounds silly. Four middle aged men decide to stay permanently drunk? I wouldn't have watched it if not for Mads, but I should have had more faith in Thomas Vinterberg. And I have to say that as a middle aged person whose life has slid into a rut of sameness, I had a great deal of sympathy for the thought behind it. Wouldn't it be nice if we could regain some of the spontaneity and freedom and party life we had as students? But, you know, definitely on an intermittent and temporary basis! Currently on Hulu.

Nomadland. This, OTOH, was exactly what I was expecting. Fabulous performance from Frances McDormand in a rather slow, melancholy, thoughtful film with great cinematography. Currently on Hulu.

My Octopus Teacher. A man free dives in the same bay every day for a year and becomes fascinated by the octopus that lives there. A beautifully filmed documentary on the life of an octopus, and some of the other creatures she shares the bay with. It was rather lovely, not just as a wildlife piece, but in the life-changing effect she had on the diver. Did it deserve to win a Best Documentary Oscar? I haven't seen the other contenders, so I can't say, but I can imagine there were more worthy ones. But then I'm still deeply bitter that Twenty Feet From Stardom won an Oscar instead of The Act of Killing, when the latter remains the single most impactful documentary I have ever seen. My Octopus Teacher is currently on Netflix.

Invincible. Not a film, an animated series, definitely for adults. GO AND WATCH IT. As long as you don't mind animated blood, because it is violent.
I had heard absolutely nothing about this until a friend at yoga told me about it, which is crazy when it has a voice cast that includes J K Simmons and Sandra Oh. Where the hell was the publicity for this?? Based on a comic book, and twisting and turning all the way through, with so many characters having their own secret agenda. My niece doesn't like watching animation, but I told her to watch just the first episode and see if the ending didn't hook her. She promptly binge watched the lot. It's on Amazon Prime.

I keep watching all kinds of fun stuff, and rarely tell anybody about any of it. Some of it is already very well known, some of it I never see mentioned among my friends, so what the heck, here goes.

( I think this might get long. )

At Yaoi Con, I bought a manga called In These Words. It was a random buy of a manga I'd never heard of by a group I'd never heard of, that I bought just because I liked the cover art and the blurb on the back. I read it yesterday and it is amazing. The story is about a psychiatrist who is hired by the police to interview a serial killer. After he takes the case, the psychiatrist begins to have nightmares about being abducted and raped by the killer - but are they nightmares, or did it really happen?

The story is dark, intense and creepy. The artwork is stunning on every page, including five colour double page spreads that are utterly gorgeous. If the subject material doesn't put you off, I can't recommend it enough! The police procedure side of things is completely off the rails, but just run with it XD

The drawback? It seems to be hellishly hard to come by. I bought it at Yaoi Con published by 801 Media, but I can't find any mention of it at their website. Amazon know of it, but given the limited number of sellers and ridiculous prices being asked, I would guess the only copies available are those bought at Yaoi Con or pre-release promotionals. Read the reviews though - it's not just me!

Alternatively, the authors have a website where they appear to sell individual chapters as separate doujinshi. Again that would work out an expensive way of buying it, but look at the art :-)

This is an ongoing work, and I'm really really hoping 801 plan to release it properly, including another volume. If you can find it at a price that doesn't bankrupt you, go for it!

Spreading the word through the f-list! If anyone here likes Sherlock, and hasn't yet read The Death and Resurrection of the English Language by wordstrings, then I strongly recommend you go now and read. Right now.

Slasher friends have been trying to convince me for a long time to watch Supernatural. I had seen a couple of episodes of Supernatural, and left with the impression that it was a boring monster of the week show, and no thank you.

More recently, some of the SO's geek friends began telling him he should watch Supernatural. I said no, it's crap. The SO's friends insisted that it gets good. So we equipped ourselves with the first season of Supernatural, and a carefully hand-picked-by-the-geeks list of the episodes that were worth watching, because they were good, or related to the arc plot. Over the last couple of weeks, we watched 11 episodes of Supernatural's first season.

Conclusions: A 'good' episode of Supernatural is like a mediocre episode of the X-Files. After one particular episode, I remarked to the SO that it was like watching the Persuaders, only in the Persuaders the fact that they're incompetent is a joke, and in Supernatural we're supposed to take these morons seriously. The plots are utterly predictable, and vary from dull to annoying. The dialogue is trite.

The SO and I are unanimous: we're not prepared to sit through any more of this drivel just because the arc plot might get interesting round about season four. We were willing to stare through a few bad episodes of Spartacus: Blood and Sand with the assurance that it got interesting at ep 4 or 5, and were very glad we did. But writers - if it takes three series for your show to become bearable, sorry, we're long gone.


In stark contrast, last night we caught up with episode 3.10 of Breaking Bad (while watching Supernatural, we got a couple of weeks behind). It's a bottle story, in which two people talk about the long term plot and try to kill a fly. And it's mesmerising. It's awe-inspiring, how tense and involving that incredibly simple piece of television is. This was a series that grabbed me by the soul in episode one, just like The Wire or Pushing Daisies did, and they don't let go. Forget Supernatural, we're about to give Treme a whirl, with high hopes. And people - if you know any other series, new or old, as good as Breaking Bad or Pushing Daisies, you'll be telling me, right?

The in-laws are gone! I am free! Which makes now seem like a very good time to review another book of male photography, in this case Dylan Rosser's Red.

( Nudity Below )

Yay for new finds! permetaform pimped this Korean manga last week, so some of you will now have seen this rec twice - well, that means, if you didn't look the first time, what are you waiting for? Mangafox have called it Night of a Thousand Dreams, but the official licenced version, (which is available to buy from Amazon, 'cos I just did) calls it One Thousand and One Nights.

( Review Down Under )

Hey, f-list, you've all been slacking, seriously slacking. Why had nobody told me about Breaking Bad? I found out about it almost two series behind, via an accidental rambling conversation with lady_ganesh that started off being about Star Trek. It's just not good enough!

Breaking Bad, the premise - Walter White, a middle aged high school chemistry teacher, discovers he has terminal cancer and lousy health insurance. So he goes to a small-time drug dealer, who also happens to be one of his former students, and offers his services in the production of methamphetamine.

The first two episodes are like a masterclass in how to write black, black comedy. Even when you know where it's going. Especially when you know where it's going. From episode 3, it becomes more serious, a drama with some black comic moments. That was almost a disappointment at first, because those first two eps were like gold, but the drama series is really good too.

So go! All of you! Go watch! You have two series to catch up on, because there will be a third.

The week just gone was the Seattle LesbiGay FilmFest again, and I squeezed in three films this year - one gay, one lesbian, one documentary.

( Reviews under here )

It's been so long since I read a fanfic that made me squee and squee, I'd almost forgotten what it feels like to bounce and buzz, to be all sucked in and run flat :-) I was pointed there by crack_van, read it today, and now I offer it up to you.

A Tithe to Hell by Aja

L/Light (of course). 34,000 words of two differently twisted, unhealthily obsessive geniuses fucking with each other in every way. Warnings for porn, violence, blood, more porn, and the mind of Yagami Light. Hey, it's Death Note, from when it was good, only with added porn. What could be better?