So as part of batchin’ it last night, I watched a whole mess of Babylon 5 episodes. Allow me to apologize for saying that the doctor is the most boring character on the show. I was totally wrong about that.
Now that I’m 12 episodes into the first season, I think I’m ready to watch the original pilot. Perhaps I will do that tonight.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
My local theatre had an Indiana Jones marathon on Saturday, so I went to that ($9 for three movies! – no Crystal Skull). It confirmed my view that Last Crusade is by far the best, and Temple of Doom is the worst of the four.
Still enjoying Star Trek: TNG.
When is the next Babylon 5 discussion (Episode 5) going to be up?
With Crystal Skull, they could only have charged $5.
I honestly didn’t think it was that bad (and better than Temple of Doom). It was different than the others, but that’s because they shifted the era and genre of their call-backs to match the time period of the movie, which I thought was a neat idea. Really, the main problems around it are that we’re willing to accept things in classic movies that we aren’t willing to accept in present-day ones.
I don’t think there’s any genre in which I’d accept surviving an H-bomb test because you were hiding in a fridge.
I could see Police Squad!/Sledge Hammer! pulling it off.
That’s not accepting it, that’s being invited to laugh at how ridiculous it is,.
I can tell there aren’t many southerners around here, because if there were, at least one of them would have said, “No, that happened to me once. It really works.”
I think Temple of Doom gets a lot more crap than it is due.
But that’s because I read a lot of pulp adventure fiction and Kali-worshippers threatening treasure hunters was popular in the pulp age.
On its own, though, it’s not terribly good. It’s still better than Crystal Skull, though, which doesn’t even have “pulp homage” kred.
The future Mrs. Spielberg and the kid are so damned annoying there’s no possibility of enjoying it.
Also, it is just me, or is Alison Doody one of the must beautiful women who’s ever been onscreen?
Still reading Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.
Fun trivia for me: I just got to the part where singer-protagonist Jason Taverner’s most recent hit is named as “Nowhere Nothin’ Fishup”; this song title was used by Built to Spill for a VU-referencing (it also uses lyrics from “Oh! Sweet Nuthin'”) song from their first record.
Here’s a live performance of it – it’s not one of my favorite tracks of theirs, I find the chorus annoying, and there’s some distortion on Doug’s vox, I can’t tell if it’s intentional or accidental.
But the verses are nice, and it has some EPIC guitar work, plus a weirdly-poetic image at the end:
In America, every puddle: gasoline rainbow
(NSFW language, obvs.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRIZQd95Oz0&hd=1
Max Frisch and Justified.
Justified is awesome, if absurdly violent (how does Raylan still have a job?), and makes me miss Kentucky, and real trees, terribly.
My goal had been to get through two of Frisch’s novels this weekend (they’re all short), but I am only starting the second (I’m not Stiller). We’ve had a steady stream of visitors to conspire with a stick girlfriend, a bored teenager, and a 4-year old to make it difficult for me to find quiet time.
Also, I am just about to finish season 4 of Fringe, the last streaming on Netflix. Could it possibly be more convoluted at this point?
I thought that Season 4 was where it really started to get awesome. Remember how awesome Mr. Jones was? WELL NOW HE’S EVEN MORE AWESOME. And the Observers? THEY’RE… well, we knew they were time travelling scientists.
I haven’t been keeping up with Season 5 (waiting for the box set) but I understand that they treat you the opposite of how Lost did.
Season 5 was only a half-season, 13 episodes, so they didn’t have much time to get as convoluted. (Episode 9 functions as the “episode 19 is always weird” episode.) And yeah, I think it was a satisfying conclusion.
I admit I had a little trouble making it through this (the 4th) season, but the last few episodes, with their reveals, have been satisfying. We just watched the finale, and now I’m in that brief phase in which I have to see season 5. I will be out of it after some lunch and an episode of something else, though.
This is something it took me well into my 30s to develop: not just the ability to delay gratification, but the ability to recognize that such desires are fleeing, so that when I do delay, the desire itself, at least in its acute form, will go away, and I will be just fine.
It’s not just that Raylan shoots a lot of people, it’s also that he seems to get involved in a lot of stuff that isn’t at all under US Marshal jurisdiction.
They actually poke fun at this in-show a bit (his boss, Art, is awesome).
I do love Art. It’s like he’s the voice of the writers saying, “Yeah, we know this is crazy, but we’re all having fun, right?”
I hope when I reach his age I am half as cool as Art. They give him great lines.
Also, are you still watching Hannibal? I know I keep beating this drum, but it is just stupidly good.
No, I’m not, despite weekly conversions that go like this: “We keep forgetting Hannibal.” “Shit, we do. Let’s watch it tomorrow.”
I worry now that I’m too far behind for on demand or Hulu.
After more than five months of reading, I have reached the last Wheel of Time novel.
Have you been enjoying them, or was this more like a test of self-discipline?
I hadn’t read the first few in years, so I had forgotten how gripping they were. After book four, there’s a slow decline in quality, once it goes from being an adventure story to being based more on character conflict, Jordan’s flaws as a writer (his difficulty writing women in general and women in love in particular) starts to become a problem.
In the late stages, the plot slows to a crawl, as we are constantly distracted with pointless digressions. Book 10 is the nadir of the series in my opinion, precisely because just about nothing happens in it.
And then, with book 12 Sanderson takes over, and the jump in quality is profound. Sanderson is a much better writer, and he knows how to get on with the story.
That doesn’t sound like a recommendation.
Honestly, it’s not. This is a series that has been a presence in my life for a long time (I’ve been reading it for 15 years, half my life). And while both ends of the series are great, there’s a lot to get through in the middle that probably makes it not worth the while. Having now read the entire series end-to-end, I doubt I’ll go back to it again.
On balance, I think my advice would be to skip it, and go read some of Brandon Sanderson’s own work instead.
“Jordan’s flaws as a writer (his difficulty writing women in general and women in love in particular) ”
… I believe you have Robert confused with his Wife!
Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant by Anthony Powell
I have been watching B5 so I could join in the conversations here. I was remembering it being really, really awful, and my re-watching is not dissuading me of that opinion.
For example, here’s a thing that happens at least twice in every episode:
Alien We Don’t Like says something boastful. Human We Do Like gives an underhanded compliment. Alien We Don’t Like starts off being pleased with the comment, then does a double take, then does one of those Laurel and Hardy “OOO, I ought a'” things, and marches out of the room, and everyone left in the room laughs. It’s like a bad Saved By The Bell gag that get’s replayed over and over. WTF is up with that?
On a more positive note: Have started in on TNT’s The Americans, which is wicked good. Reading The Gone Away World, which is also wicked good.
Oh, Le Carre has a son who is also a writer?
Y’all need to stop mentioning books. My Kindle budget is out the window at this point.
I liked The Americans, but was watching it on my on demand service. I fell behind, and they rolled off the episodes I hadn’t watched yet.
Spoilers: The Soviets actually win the Cold War, the US starts spying on its own citizens, and Putin steals your newspaper off your porch.
Wow, really? So that explain why I haven’t had a newspaper on my porch in over a decade.
PUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTIIIIINNNNNN!!!!!!!
Tod, I’ve been thinking about this comment since I read it and, believe me, I totally sympathize. I’ve been asked to watch shows that just made me say “ugh”.
Now, the alien I think you’re talking about is G’Kar. Yeah, he does that a lot. That’s kind of his job in the first season. With that said, I will ask you to (maybe) jump ahead and watch one episode and one episode only. On Season One, Disk 3, there’s an episode called “The Believers”. It won’t spoil anything between what you’ve watched and now, I don’t think, and I believe that it represents the best of what the show can do.
If you watch it and say “unadulterated pap!”, then I am confident that I will not be able to say that the high spots are not worth the price of the low spots.
I have a lot of friends, however, who have told me that Babylon 5 is their favorite series, like, EVER. Granted, these friends are all in the same circle (we game together) so it’s not like I’m getting this opinion from both my hairdresser and my stockbroker… but they’re not carbon copies of each other either. If you think that you *MIGHT* dig sci-fi if done carefully, I’d say watch Episode 10.
Fellow Babylonians! How wrong am I?
I do know that it gets at least somewhat better, and that actually reminds me of me second beef, which I’ll ROT13:
Vg znl jryy or gung V’z erzrzorevat gur Oehpr Obkyvrgare (fc?) punenpgre gbb zhpu, ohg guvf pbzznaqre Fvapynve znxrf zr guvax bs n tnzrfubj ubfg, be fbzrbar ba n ybpny pbzzrepvny gelvat gb trg zl va gb zl ybpny Sbeq qrnyre.
Ur whfg qbrfa’g bbmr “yrnqrefuvc.”
DMan and I have made jokes about his “stupid intense face” that he pulls out pretty much every episode. He’s growing on me, though. He may not communicate “yrnqrefuvc” (and I get that) but he’s communicated something close to “qrprapl” and that does some heavy lifting.
Getting caught up on Burn Notice. I agree with the consensus view that it is a show that has gone on too long, but it’s still entertaining.
Pretty miraculous, when it stars a lead who is such a terrible actor.
I. Love. Burn Notice. I do not know why I love Burn Notice, but I would watch it if they made a musical episode.
Two words: Bruce Campbell.
Yeah, Bruce Campbell.
Ah, Bruce Campbell. That reminds me, I need to go back and watch Evil Dead in preparation for my plans next weekend.
That might be it. I watched the Bruce Campbell Burn Notice movie twice. Thinking about it now, I may watch it a third time this week.
We watched up through season four. The other seasons all ended with a “OH MY GOSH I NEED THE NEXT SEASON RIGHT FREAKIN NOW” and season four ended with “whew… awesome”.
Season Five is, of course, right over there… but I’m in no hurry to start it up.
I’ve been reading KJ Parker’s Engineers trilogy and listening to A Wizard Abroad by Diane Duane. Also I watched this very odd little Japanese movie, Quill, about a guide dog.
My son and I are going to read The Drowned Cities this summer because he had to read Ship Breaker for school, and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, this is a genre that I know very little about, so I’ve had trouble finding other books like these that he might like. You wouldn’t happen to have any suggestions, would you? He’s 15, reading mostly young adult stuff.
Hm. I haven’t read those Bacigalupis yet (though I enjoy his stuff generally) so it’s a bit hard to guess. Maybe Mieville’s Un Lun Dun? Or if he wants something much darker, Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Daughter is marvelous and would’ve suited me at that age (but it is VERY dark indeed).
If he (and/or you) can stomach the didacticism (I couldn’t), Doctorow’s Little Brother might be worth a try – if not maybe he might still like one of his other not-so-YA books, like Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town? I think that one is less dependent on “oh yeah, work world is like this” than some of his others….
If it’s the post-apocalyptic thing that works, I would strongly recommend Westerfield’s Uglies, Pretties, etc.
Oldies but goodies that for some reason feel like they would fall in the same ballpark: Robert C. O’Brien’s Z is for Zachariah, and Ian McDonald’s Out on Blue Six, and Monica Hughes’
Oh, while I am thinking of Ian McDonald, I would put quite strong money – stronger than on most of the rest of these suggestions, I think – on your son liking McDonald’s Everness series, which starts with Planesrunner, even though I haven’t read it either.
Hope one of these suits 🙂 If not, if you give me a little more idea of *what* he liked about Ship Breaker, and maybe some other titles he has liked, that might help me refine my suggestions a bit…
Awesome! Thank you (and thanks Mike, below). I really appreciate it. I’m going to check these out.
I’ll have to talk to him some more about what he liked about Ship Breaker. I’m not sure the post-apocalyptic world impressed him as much as some of the sci fi aspects of it (e.g., the human-animal “half breeds”: he was enamored with Tool, the main “half breed”character, which is why he’s excited about the second book, because it’s mostly about Tool). I think he also liked the pace, because there was a lot of action from the very beginning. I think this is why he liked the first Hunger Games book, but couldn’t make it through the second (I didn’t even bother trying to get him to finish it and read the third, because the third was awful).
I know I liked the fact that there wasn’t a great deal of world building, just a few basic facts: a post-fossil fuel world, meaning radically different modes of transportation (e.g., super-advanced sailing ships), in which the climate has been radically altered (presumably because of fossil fuels) resulting in both extra strong storms and massive flooding rendering parts of the U.S. coast uninhabitable, and an extreme divide between the haves and have-nots of the world, with the have-nots basically surviving day to day doing back breaking work for almost nothing (there’s some talk of what the haves world is like, but other than one of the central plot points, we mostly just see that it’s a life of what is for the have-nots unimaginable luxury). Add in a couple details like a highly addictive new form of speed, and the human-animal hybrids that are used as slave labor, and you have the entire canvas on which the story is painted. And it works pretty well, I think.
OK, so this is a weird rec for a kid who doesn’t have a lot of patience for unnecessaries, but has he read Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau? That’s like, THE classic half-breed story, one of my all-time faves, and it’s actually a super streamlined story despite its victorianness… also short!
That’s actually a great idea. I loved it when I was his age, and a few years ago I read him The War of the Worlds and he seemed to like it (I read him a couple of Doyle’s Challenger books around the same time, which he also enjoyed, so I’m confident he can appreciate writing from that era). I hadn’t really thought of reading more Wells for some reason, but he should be interested if for no other reason than that, as a big Warehouse 13 fan, he will assume it was written by this H.G. Wells.
Thank you.
The classics along those lines are John Christopher’s Tripods books (a trilogy plus a prequel).
I’ve been boning up on rules regarding social security disability payments. Dry reading, that’s for sure. Oh my goodness, it is so confusing. Just when you think you understand their wacky system they through a curve ball at you! And I get paid to do this stuff!!! I don’t know how a layperson could be expected to navigate through the system.
I’ve also been reading some new material I’m expected to be certified as a trainer in about toxic vs. healing environments. Work, work, work. Blah!
Reading: Interesting Times, by TP. (Rincewind!)
Watching: we watched Meryl Streep in Thatcher (is that the name of it?) last night. My wife said Streep was excellent but that the movie could have been about anyone getting old. I can’t confirm since I fell asleep 45 minutes in.
“We watched this movie. The actors were all completely forgettable, not stars like we used to have. They mumbled, and the background music was way too loud. I couldn’t follow the plot, so I just closed my eyes and took a nap. I think it was about getting old.”