It's beyond my control...
Nov. 13th, 2022 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn catching-up-with-the-Mouse-news:
She Hulk: Attorney at Law: enjoyable silly fun, for the most part. The fourth wall breaking female narrator is rapidly becoming such a cliché, though, that I really hope future productions will give it a rest. After Orphan Black, I'm sure all of this feels like a holiday for Tatiana Maslany, and it reminded me a bit of the start of Alias the comics (not so much Jessica Jones the tv show), where every day problems in a world with superheroes were a plot thing. Also, , the pay-off for Jen's dating problems through the season - that men who were into She Hulk weren't into her, if they weren't scum anyway - would be that Matt Murdoch comes into town as her legal opponent in a case, only for the two of them to hit it off in more than one sense and have enjoyable casual friends with benefit sex thereafter was something I hadn't seen coming and which was hilariously fitting. The "Incel fanboys bashing female characters as the ultimate villains" thing I'd seen before and somewhat better on s6 of Buffy, but hey, it bears repeating. I think the reason why the comedy format works for me here when it didn't in the last two Thor mnovies is that the show never pretends to be anything but frothy silly fun, and manages to be so with much affection for the entire universe it's set in, and it's (non-incel fanboy) fans. The scene alone where Jen keeps bugging Bruce about whether or not Steve Rogers ever had sex.... (BTW, the now canonical answer is that Steve lost his virginity to one of the chorus girls on the Captain America War Bonds tour in 1943.) The season finale was a bit too much wall breaking for my taste, but hey. All in all, not a must, but if you want rl distraction in a fun way, that'll do it.
Non-Mouse:
Dangerous Liasons (prequel tv series): I've now seen the first two episodes and am cautiously optimistic they might actually pull this off. Now, given that Merteuil and Valmont are essentially supervillains of pre revolutionary France in their novel, I wasn't sure whether or not an origin story would work. Also, I haven't forgotten that some adaptions - looking at you, Cruel Intentions, though otherwise you're fun - tend to soften the Valmont character and make him less villainous than the Merteuil character, which I didn't want, but I also didn't want the reverse. And then there's the part where part of what makes Les Liasons Dangereuses compelling is the very fact that two amoral characters get away with their schemes for a long time before destroying each other. And any prequel with two main characters from another work has the problem that their fates are fixed.
What the tv series, did, so far: the most obvious move was making our younger antiheroes poor to give them something to strive for and to make them somewhat more understandable than if they had been living in the same care free privilege they enjoy at the time of the novel. I.e. young Valmont is for now minus his inheritance and title because his father had married and reproduced again while future Merteuil is, in the most radical departure, a young prostitute radically reinventing herself and her backstory in order to escape her background by the end of the first episode. (Sidenote: here I thought, hm, there's a famous precedent of a prostitute rising high in French society in that era, to wit, Louis XV's last maitresse en titre, the Marquise du Barry, who did start out as a prostitute, but in her case, people knew this. How would future Merteuil be able to keep this hidden?) When we meet them, they're already lovers, though we find out how they met in the second episode. It's also quickly established that young Valmont doesn't really support himself through his professed job (he's a cartographer's underling) but through several affairs with rich oder women. Whose love letters he keeps in case he needs to blackmail them for more cash. The problem is that he hasn't told Camille (future Merteuil) about this part when the series starts though he knows all about her circumstances, and she minds the lie. Having thus established the two with the two conflicting goals of wanting to be together vs wanting to rise to the top of society, the show establishes the "love/war" theme of the original novel (Valmont thinks it's the former, Camille knows it's the later), gives both close relationships with the people who will be their servants in the novelistic future and several dastardly people to outwit on their rise to the top. Because Camille after considering herself betrayed uses Valmont's future blackmail letters collection herself to get out of her situation and makes one of his marks her mentor and key to freedom instead, they're also set against each other in the second episode already, which means that instead of the "they fall in love and break up at the end" arc I had expected, we get a "they're broken up, but how will they trust each other again enough to be at the point where they are when the novel starts?" arc instead.
Visually, the show is very pretty indeed, shot in Prague and surroundings, which means it gets to use the theatre where Don Giovannni was performed for the first time and which was amply used and featured in all the opera scenes of Amadeus, among other movies. There are several nods to the most famous film version of Dangerous Liasons (i.e. the Stephen Frears directed one with Glenn Close and John Malkovich), - for example the "getting made up and getting dressed" scenes -, but also, of all the things, to John Adams. (The pilot uses the balloon launch which John Adams had Abigail, John and Jefferson watching.) Camille's friend/future companion Victoire is played by a black actress, as is the majordomus of her mentor's household, and when I saw the trailer, I also saw the usual suspects complaining about the existence of black people in pre revolutionary Paris (which there were, sigh) in the YouTube comments, but I hadn't expected the show to do more than cast pocs, which is why I was agreeably surprised when episode 2 dropped the fact that the Merteuils (aka the household reinventing-herself-Camille wants to get into) have overseas plantations and owe part of their wealth to them. Since both Victoire and the Majordomus are given personalities and view points in the two episodes so far, I am now curious whether the tricky situatoin of gens du coleur in France will actually be adressed (no slaves in France itself, if you brought some with you as an overseas visitor, they had the right to sue for their freedom, BUT plenty of exploited slaves in the French colonies, who had zero rights.
Lastly, the second episode introduced a mystery backstory drama between Camille and a noblewoman preceding Camille's days as a young prostitute, who has now turned up in the present, and whom she intends to avenge herself on. Given that the Marquise de Merteuil in Laclos' novel might tell Valmont "I was born to avenge my sex on yours", but has no problem ruining women as well as men (poor Cecile) if it suits her, I find this very in character.
Lastly: ever sincemildred_of_midgard recced the Podcast History of the Germans, I wanted to try it, and now I finally found the time and am delighted. There are 25 minutes per episode, the guy in question is a good storyteller with a sense of humor and the gift to explain very complex episodes in a way that makes them understandable without coming across as patronizing, and while I already knew bits and pieces about some of the cast in the episodes I've listened to so far, there's enough new for me that I'm learning tihngs in addition to being intrigued, amused and appalled in turns.
She Hulk: Attorney at Law: enjoyable silly fun, for the most part. The fourth wall breaking female narrator is rapidly becoming such a cliché, though, that I really hope future productions will give it a rest. After Orphan Black, I'm sure all of this feels like a holiday for Tatiana Maslany, and it reminded me a bit of the start of Alias the comics (not so much Jessica Jones the tv show), where every day problems in a world with superheroes were a plot thing. Also, , the pay-off for Jen's dating problems through the season - that men who were into She Hulk weren't into her, if they weren't scum anyway - would be that Matt Murdoch comes into town as her legal opponent in a case, only for the two of them to hit it off in more than one sense and have enjoyable casual friends with benefit sex thereafter was something I hadn't seen coming and which was hilariously fitting. The "Incel fanboys bashing female characters as the ultimate villains" thing I'd seen before and somewhat better on s6 of Buffy, but hey, it bears repeating. I think the reason why the comedy format works for me here when it didn't in the last two Thor mnovies is that the show never pretends to be anything but frothy silly fun, and manages to be so with much affection for the entire universe it's set in, and it's (non-incel fanboy) fans. The scene alone where Jen keeps bugging Bruce about whether or not Steve Rogers ever had sex.... (BTW, the now canonical answer is that Steve lost his virginity to one of the chorus girls on the Captain America War Bonds tour in 1943.) The season finale was a bit too much wall breaking for my taste, but hey. All in all, not a must, but if you want rl distraction in a fun way, that'll do it.
Non-Mouse:
Dangerous Liasons (prequel tv series): I've now seen the first two episodes and am cautiously optimistic they might actually pull this off. Now, given that Merteuil and Valmont are essentially supervillains of pre revolutionary France in their novel, I wasn't sure whether or not an origin story would work. Also, I haven't forgotten that some adaptions - looking at you, Cruel Intentions, though otherwise you're fun - tend to soften the Valmont character and make him less villainous than the Merteuil character, which I didn't want, but I also didn't want the reverse. And then there's the part where part of what makes Les Liasons Dangereuses compelling is the very fact that two amoral characters get away with their schemes for a long time before destroying each other. And any prequel with two main characters from another work has the problem that their fates are fixed.
What the tv series, did, so far: the most obvious move was making our younger antiheroes poor to give them something to strive for and to make them somewhat more understandable than if they had been living in the same care free privilege they enjoy at the time of the novel. I.e. young Valmont is for now minus his inheritance and title because his father had married and reproduced again while future Merteuil is, in the most radical departure, a young prostitute radically reinventing herself and her backstory in order to escape her background by the end of the first episode. (Sidenote: here I thought, hm, there's a famous precedent of a prostitute rising high in French society in that era, to wit, Louis XV's last maitresse en titre, the Marquise du Barry, who did start out as a prostitute, but in her case, people knew this. How would future Merteuil be able to keep this hidden?) When we meet them, they're already lovers, though we find out how they met in the second episode. It's also quickly established that young Valmont doesn't really support himself through his professed job (he's a cartographer's underling) but through several affairs with rich oder women. Whose love letters he keeps in case he needs to blackmail them for more cash. The problem is that he hasn't told Camille (future Merteuil) about this part when the series starts though he knows all about her circumstances, and she minds the lie. Having thus established the two with the two conflicting goals of wanting to be together vs wanting to rise to the top of society, the show establishes the "love/war" theme of the original novel (Valmont thinks it's the former, Camille knows it's the later), gives both close relationships with the people who will be their servants in the novelistic future and several dastardly people to outwit on their rise to the top. Because Camille after considering herself betrayed uses Valmont's future blackmail letters collection herself to get out of her situation and makes one of his marks her mentor and key to freedom instead, they're also set against each other in the second episode already, which means that instead of the "they fall in love and break up at the end" arc I had expected, we get a "they're broken up, but how will they trust each other again enough to be at the point where they are when the novel starts?" arc instead.
Visually, the show is very pretty indeed, shot in Prague and surroundings, which means it gets to use the theatre where Don Giovannni was performed for the first time and which was amply used and featured in all the opera scenes of Amadeus, among other movies. There are several nods to the most famous film version of Dangerous Liasons (i.e. the Stephen Frears directed one with Glenn Close and John Malkovich), - for example the "getting made up and getting dressed" scenes -, but also, of all the things, to John Adams. (The pilot uses the balloon launch which John Adams had Abigail, John and Jefferson watching.) Camille's friend/future companion Victoire is played by a black actress, as is the majordomus of her mentor's household, and when I saw the trailer, I also saw the usual suspects complaining about the existence of black people in pre revolutionary Paris (which there were, sigh) in the YouTube comments, but I hadn't expected the show to do more than cast pocs, which is why I was agreeably surprised when episode 2 dropped the fact that the Merteuils (aka the household reinventing-herself-Camille wants to get into) have overseas plantations and owe part of their wealth to them. Since both Victoire and the Majordomus are given personalities and view points in the two episodes so far, I am now curious whether the tricky situatoin of gens du coleur in France will actually be adressed (no slaves in France itself, if you brought some with you as an overseas visitor, they had the right to sue for their freedom, BUT plenty of exploited slaves in the French colonies, who had zero rights.
Lastly, the second episode introduced a mystery backstory drama between Camille and a noblewoman preceding Camille's days as a young prostitute, who has now turned up in the present, and whom she intends to avenge herself on. Given that the Marquise de Merteuil in Laclos' novel might tell Valmont "I was born to avenge my sex on yours", but has no problem ruining women as well as men (poor Cecile) if it suits her, I find this very in character.
Lastly: ever since
mildred_of_midgard recced the Podcast History of the Germans, I wanted to try it, and now I finally found the time and am delighted. There are 25 minutes per episode, the guy in question is a good storyteller with a sense of humor and the gift to explain very complex episodes in a way that makes them understandable without coming across as patronizing, and while I already knew bits and pieces about some of the cast in the episodes I've listened to so far, there's enough new for me that I'm learning tihngs in addition to being intrigued, amused and appalled in turns.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 03:23 pm (UTC)I am inclined to grumpiness on the choice of who Steve lost his virginity to and Jen's ranting about what a terrible thing it would be if he were a virgin but that may say more about me than the show.
The cast seemed strong and likable. Jen and her family, Nikki and Pug especially. The Daredevil episode was the strongest and just felt like a single issue team up comic. Gives me hope for Daredevil: Born Again that Cox's Matt felt recognisably the Netflix Daredevil while still bringing the funny in the more lighthearted episode.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 05:37 am (UTC)That part I took as her baiting Bruce so he'd deliver the information, not as a serious opinion that dying without having had sex is the worst, etc. Not to mention that they were drunk at the time (well, in as much as they can be.)
The Daredevil episode was the strongest and just felt like a single issue team up comic. Gives me hope for Daredevil: Born Again that Cox's Matt felt recognisably the Netflix Daredevil while still bringing the funny in the more lighthearted episode.
Oh, same here. I also would love a Jessica Jones guest episode, with Jessica and Jen solving a case together, thus further bringing the Netflix and the Disney shows together. Not to mention that the second and third season of Jessica Jones definitely went overboard with the grimn, and The Defenders, while flawed, showed how well the character works in an ensemble story. (The Jessica and Matt scenes especially were golden, both the dialogue ones and stuff like her simply taking the elevator while he daredeviled his way acrobatically upwards.)
The cast seemed strong and likable.
That's very true. Btw, I'm not a Hulk expert, so is this Scar Bruce is introducing in the final scene from the comics?
no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 12:55 pm (UTC)Since MCU seems to have been a slave gladiator all through out his stay, I'm a bit perturbed he ended up with the kid as well.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 09:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 10:03 pm (UTC)the gift to explain very complex episodes in a way that makes them understandable without coming across as patronizing
Yes, this! I had this whole list of books about the Middle Ages that I wanted to read for German practice this year, but I ended up getting stalled by "Too many unfamiliar names that are all the same, and everyone's related, and I can't keep them straight!" Thanks to this podcaster helping me keep them straight, I'm now reading things like that bio of Otto von Freising.
ETA: How far have you gotten? And feel free to bring things up in salon as you listen, I would love your perspective, and I know Cahn would too!
no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 05:44 am (UTC)I mean, I even saw some of their bones, due to their heads being on display as relics on separate altars in the cathedral when I was a child. (Not anymore.)
Oh, neat!
no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-17 02:51 pm (UTC)Also, I didn't know there was a Dangerous Liaisons prequel tv show! I am intrigued.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-18 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-18 12:09 pm (UTC)I did love the Matt Murdoch appearance though.
I do have to admit that I am worried about Dangerous Liaisons because I love the original literature and all the various adaptions that have sprung from it. However I will take encouragement from your positive response and plunge in forthwith.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-18 06:32 pm (UTC)Dangerous Liasons prequel: so far, I am intrigued, and will continue to review it.