Briefly

[selenak]

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: I read the novel only once, when it first came out, and only roughly remember the plot, so I am not very emotionally invested, but so far, so good for a first episode. I'm charmed (again) by the Georgian plus magic England.

Mad Max: Fury Road: is all that. Like, I imagine, a lot of viewers by now, I'm not not familiar with the previous Mad Max movies beyond knowing they existed and that Tina Turner's We don't need another hero was originally written for No.3 (which also has Tina Turner herself in it). Oh, and the Buffy fan in me knows that season 7's Showtime was a Mad Max homage, thanks to Andrew pointing that out in the episode itself. And that's it. Which is fine because this nominally fourth movie in the series is standing on its own, telling its own tale, and you don't need to know more. I had no intention of watching it before a) the MRA complained about it being feminist indoctrination, and b) the internet buzz about it being actually really good started, and yes. Great action movie, and Charlize Theron's Furiosa hopefully will join Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor as a female cinematic icon. Which reminds me: before the movie started, there was a trailer for the weirdly spelled latest Terminator installment, featuring teenage Sarah and grizzled Schwarzenator, and just, no. I'm sticking with my "no Terminator movies beyond the first two and The Sarah Connor Chronicles" canon in this 'verse, thanks, and thankfully The Sarah Connor Chronicles establishing this is a multiverse with mulitple timelines makes this exceptionally easy.

Comments

[wee_warrior]

Ohhh, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell has started, great! I love the book, I've been waiting for the series to come out... *bounces*

I actually loved Mad Max 3 when I was a teenager. I think I knew the movie by heart (and no, it's really not a good movie by any stretch. Tina Turner is awesome, though.). I feel like I have to brave agoraphobia and dislike of 3D movies to see Fury Road in the theatre, though I'll have to wait for next month.

Emilia Clarke plays a teenage Sarah? Huh. Well, technically Danaerys is a teenager, too, I guess, but Clarke usually looks quite comfortably in her twenties.

[selenak]

It's one of these films which really work best on the big screen, like Gravity, so catch it if you can.

[jesuswasbatman]

The original three Mad Max films are pretty good, I thought. They do need a warning that they are less good as far as treatment of female characters goes - Max's wife is famously fridged in the original film, and there are some scenes of sexual violence just to prove how nasty the baddies are. (Tina Turner's character in the third film, however, is an antagonist but is semi-sympathetic and not, as I remember, judged in a gendered way.)

[selenak]

Ah, okay. In the new film, despite the fact that freeing women from slavery is the premise, something that's utterly missing is solely a rape scene but also any of the villains making a sexual threat. (As opposed to your standard "so going to kill you" threat.)

[jesuswasbatman]

I do think you'd like Aunty Entity though. Although I just found out one DVD cover notoriously calls her a "dominatrix", she's more costumed and framed for glamour than crude sexualisation, and she's a middle-aged woman in an SF film who is politically powerful and not morally judged according to conventional gender roles. (In some ways, she's almost Servalan if she was just as ruthless but also cared about being an effective ruler beyond simple self-service.)

[selenak]

She does sound interesting! Maybe in the wake of the new movie the old ones are going to be repeated on tv, I'll watch out for that then.