RhaenysBee

Small roundup from a not reading heavy couple months: 

I read A Line to Kill which was an okay whodunnit but I do feel like I’m beginning to tire of the series and the overarching character story of Hawthorn is dragged out way too much. It was okay, I’ll finish the series. 

I listened to Dopamine Nation which did nothing for me, I guess I went in with too high and too strong expectations. It’s a collection of case studies about various addictions from the author’s clinical psychology practice. The book is trying to make the point that dopamine and other hormonal imbalances and reactions are the shaping forces of addictions but it doesn’t really say anything overly useful, practical or revolutionary. Not my favorite listen by far. 

But then, I listened to Persians by a gentleman called Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and that one was, is and forever will be one only my favorite listens. It was so much fun, it’s such a deep and rich story of the Achaemenid empire and its culture and customs and struggles, it’s 19 hours of pure epic bliss , it reads like a story, it feels the gaps of between the snapshots you learned in history class, it includes the international context. I can liken it to the Genghis Khan book by Jack Weatherford which I also absolutely loved. Wonderful. One of the best. And yes, now I think about the Achaemenid Empire every day

I nearly finished Doom by Niall Ferguson. You wouldn’t think I like a book about catastrophes, the hypochondriac worry worm I am, but the truth is, cognitive understanding and structured information work very well on my brain. It makes me feel secure and comfortable because if I understand something I don’t fear it. What an unpleasant deep dive into my mind. Anyway, the book is about natural and manmade catastrophes (accidents like Chernobyl or Titanic, volcanic eruptions like Pompeii, wars, pandemics, epidemics, etc) and how humanity handled and managed them. Works with a lot of data but not boring at all, insightful, no conspiracy theories or rewriting history, just a side of the coin we don’t think about. The momentum for the book is obviously the Covid pandemic and it does come back to it multiple times to juxtapose against previous pandemics. Really enjoying it. It’s also my gateway drug to Niall Ferguson, because I want to listen to a few more of his books, including the one about the history of money.
 

I seem to be in the age where I have favorite historians and watch biopics of famous women while I do needle point stitching projects. I have prematurely become both of my grandmothers. 

And I’m also reading Frankenstein because I’m still a millennial at heart who desperately wants to be influenced by the US YouTube autumn and Halloween culture. I do like Frankenstein, much more than I expected, but I don’t enjoy Halloween culture. I just don’t. 90% of spooky season content recommendations of the internet do nothing for me. Autumn culture, yes, Halloween, I’m too old and European for that one. Anyway, Frankenstein reads like a classic, being one, and explores topics far deeper and more meaningful than oh it’s spooky season, read and watch spooky stuff because it’s spooky. Why am I rambling on like this in the book thread? Sorry. 

15 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Definitely one of the most boring films I've seen in a long time.

 right???

11 hours ago, Zorral said:

Because Poe did attend West Point, though he left before graduation.

Unexpectedly, I did like The Bluest Eye enough to watch it all.  But I love the Hudson River Valley and will watch anything that supposedly is set there.  And read books set there too.

I mean, all right but still feels like an idea what you would call clickbait if it were on social media. I kept expecting some impact on Poe’s life or career (starts writing poems, quits writing poems, meets Annabelle Lee, one of the young women in the film are Annabelle Lee, etc etc) but nothing, it’s just an overdone cameo. And might I say, that may have worked as opposed to Poe’s being the main protagonist. 

Anyway, I’m glad you enjoyed it, each to their own and everything should be enjoyed by some. 

Last night I started watching Blonde, while I waited for my pumpkin pie to cool and did my hair. The runtime should have been warning enough. Anyway, I put the pie in the fridge at 0:40ish, did a face mask and was still barely over halfway through the movie. At this point, 1:05am, I gave up and went to sleep. I will finish it before I pass judgement, but not a fan so far. 

Mostly bad luck with movie choices for the second half of the week. 

The Pale Blue Eye is some sort of… slightly supernatural crime drama that for some reason has to do with Edgar Allen Poe, I have no idea why Poe is in this story, it’s not even based on true events, so why not have a random old Jack protagonist rather than Poe… the supernatural element is a red herring, the crime solving is boring as hell, this movie couldn’t keep my attention for 10 minutes straight. I kept ending up Google searching wall sconces for my hallway. It wasn’t visually interesting, it didn’t have a captivating soundtrack or atmosphere. The one thing it had was very strong acting. 

The Cabinet of Curiosities - it does what a Del Toro series would do I guess, but again and again I am forced to admit that supernatural macabre does nothing for me. I don’t necessarily mind it if the movie or the series has another element that captivates me (band of kids saving the day - stranger things and scooby doo, cool crime fighting - whatever the hell was the name of that show with Dakota Fanning and Daniel Brühl, coming of age - Wednesday, double life and family - Charmed, genius storytelling - Buffy)  I watched the first episode of this, I couldn’t tell you what it was about. There were very pretty antiques and a xenophobic main character who was punished for his xenophobia by being eaten by some tentacle demon. No idea about the other 45 minutes. It was poor even for a background watch. 

Pamela, a Love Story - I did say I would watch this and I watched it, it was the best film of the weekend, so beautiful, so heartwarming, so wholesome and inspiring. I’m so sorry that Pamela Anderson was upset by the Pam and Tommy thing, I can understand and see why, though I still think it didn’t reflect badly on her and didn’t paint Tommy Lee as a one dimensional jerk either. Yes it was distorted and fictionalized, as are all similar works, but the conclusions and the messages weren’t different from Pamela’s own recounting of the story. Still, I do understand her. Anyway, I don’t regret watching (Pam and Tommy, I mean) because ultimately it was the necessary step for me to find myself becoming a Pamela Anderson fan. I’m listening to something now, but my next audible buy will be her autobiography. Pam’s bottom line message in the documentary was that you have to go forward no matter what, don’t think too much and always choose love and kindness. These are all incredibly relevant in my life right now which may be why her life story moved me so much. 

This cold is just not leaving me though I do feel loads better than I did last weekend and early this week. Anyway, I watched Pam and Tommy. I’m not sure when and why it got on my watch list originally but it was there and I wanted a break from movies. I liked this series. I enjoyed this series. I appreciate this series. 

The acting is pretty solid even though both leads are delivering an over the top representation of their characters’ real life counterparts. This doesn’t keep you from taking either show Tommy or show Pam seriously. In fact, the series actually manages to make you empathize with not only Pam, not only Tommy but even the asshole who stole their tape. That says something about the writing. It isn’t preachy (for which I bow down before every show) but it takes a very solid stand on the morality and sociology of the events. It can be genuinely humorous and genuinely serious when it chooses and makes you feel like you’re on the wild ride with Pam and Tommy and feel their joy, their sorrow, their anger and their love.
I know there was quite a bit of controversy around the series (actually, name one series around which there isn’t quite a bit of controversy…. Oh well) because they didn’t ask for Pamela Anderson’s permission to make the movie but stirred up traumatic events from her life to capitalize on. I mean… that’s just being a public figure. The series doesn’t in any way reflect badly on Pamela, quite the opposite. My knowledge, understanding, perception and regard of her was hugely influenced by this show, and I spent half an afternoon watching old interviews with her, I want to watch her documentary and listen to her autobiography on Audible, because - permission to shoot or not, Lily James’s overplaying her or not - the show made her my most favorite person in the entire celeb world right now and I want to hear more of her life story. That is hardly a disservice and probably the reason why Lily James, Sebastian Stan, Seth Rogan and the rest choose to bring this series to life.

Still feeling moderately shit, so here’s what I watched yesterday. 

Downton Abbey the movie as part of my Downton Abbey rewatch, which felt way too fast paced now (compared to 2019 in the movie theatre when I hadn’t yet seen the series). But it made me  nostalgic for the series as well as for 2019 which was the last and most happy and peaceful  year before the shit tsunami hit. So sweet, pretty enjoyable, visually beautiful, feel good. never a bad choice. 

Tolkien - I started this one months ago, might have been an entire year as a background movie for ironing and stopped midway through. But turns out I really enjoyed finishing it and The Great has made me appreciate and enjoy Nicholas Hoult’s acting style. Its atmosphere was really in line with the period movies I’ve been watching, it was heartwarming and full of lord of the rings parallels that made me nostalgic for Lord of the Rings and the 00s when I was most obsessed with Lord of the Rings. I will rewatch this movie, because I want to appreciate the first half of it too. 

The Last Duel - yes I got back to this, because I want to consider myself an adequately open minded person. I can appreciate it, but I can’t say I liked it much. Generally, it dragged on a bit, which I’m sure is down to several reasons, the attention span of the audience, its fundamental structure of retelling the same plot from 3 perspectives, a general slow pace, some odd editing choices . I was a bit lost at their historical accuracy and attention for detail choices as well. Like why give the contemporarily absurd wig to Matt Damon but have married Jodie Comer walk around with flowing maiden hair (and not even be frowned upon by her mother in law) instead of a headdress? I could go on and on nitpicking weird details they didn’t pay attention to. There was this circumstance, upon which the entire story rested, that wasn’t explained or put into context in any of the povs. 

The acting was fine, especially on Adam Driver and Jodie Comer’s part, because I’m sorry, when I looked at Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, all I saw was Matt Damon and Ben Affleck - in ridiculous hair styles. The curse of an all star cast. The atmosphere was grim, dreary, cold and uninviting, very much your usual grim medieval vibe, I don’t remember the score if there ever was one. I did warm to Jodie Comer’s character but it wasn’t really enough for the story to grip me. I applaud the choice of subject matter because it was brave and said more about a relevant issue than any shove down your throat streaming platform messaging ever did. I applaud the nuance, the approach. It’s just that the film failed to captivate, it felt like a big, fancy paint by numbers project. 

1 hour ago, dog-days said:

Hope the worst is over soon!

The Branagh Poirot adaptations bore the life out of everyone, and I'm not just saying that because I think he's overrated. (Boarders: don't tell me to watch his Shakespeare films. I've seen them. They aren't appalling, but they aren't good either. Plus I generally think actor/director deals with the director also playing the lead are a terrible idea. Exception: Coriolanus with Ralph Fiennes.) 

Re: Christie. I've never read the books, but I've liked some of the film/TV treatments. In particular And then there were none featuring Tywin Lannister. Also quite liked the Malkovich Poirot. I've got a bit of a thing for the 'retired detective/general/assassin comes out of retirement and aces it' trope; see also McKellan's Mr Holmes. 

Well, it’s reassuring to hear that it’s a general sentiment rather than the peculiarity of my taste in movies. Though I’m sure that plays a part too.

And Then There Were None was okay because Charles Dance carried it, but never tickled me in any other way. I love a good detective story but so much depends on editing and cast. I watched BBC’s Sherlock about four times and never got bored. I also loved See How They Run - maybe because it was a creative twist on your average Agatha Christie whodunnit that bores me so much. 
 

anyway, instead of The Last Duel, I watched The Electric Life of Louis Wain and spent about 25-33% of the runtime ugly crying. And then another good 15 minutes after the movie was over, because I kid you not, I just cannot stop crying. What has this movie done to me? And why didn’t I stick with Jodie Comer and her 14th century French bulldog? 

So the flu season finally caught up with me too. Movie rundown from the past 36 hours of camomile tea, nose spray and echinacea drops. 

The Last Letter from Your Lover (Netflix) is the most redundant movie you will ever see. It is so dragged out, there’s so much plot it leaves no breathing room for either character or atmosphere, the jumping around between the 60s and present day ruin both vibes, we don’t spend enough time with really any of the characters to really draw them out and understand them and thus care, the present day plot always pretends to be solving some mystery about the past but never ends up doing so because the movie simply chooses to go on with other time line story as well and spoil itself. One of the most bland and lackluster will-they-won’t-they rides, lacking in every possible area. 

The Crooked House - I have a feeling that Agatha Christie is just not my cup of tea. The Kenneth Branagh Poirot adaptations bored the life out of me as well, but I blamed the direction and the all star cast. Well The Crooked House, with a less A list cast, and with Julian Fellows who I absolutely adore because Downton Abbey has a special place in my heart, also bored the life out of me. Sure the last 15 minutes was interestingish, but it dragged on way too much, it failed on the atmosphere front and neither of the leads managed to carry the movie. Oh well. 

Spencer - this was brilliant. There was an atmosphere, a pleasant visual world and five times the tension for fifth the plot of either of the above mentioned two. It’s really just two hours of Kristen Stewart acting out inner turmoil with award worth skill, humility and dedication. It was absolutely beautiful. By far my favorite of the sick day movie marathon. 

The Wonder is, if anything, cinematographic masterpiece, I felt like I was stuck in a gothic Victorian painting. The raw, dreary, unforgiving visual world was for me in line with the story but not the ridiculous horror sounds they added, that’s an entirely different genre and feel for me which took away from the depth and layers of the themes the story and the visuals conveyed. While it had a rather well built plot and solid storytelling, the movie still only worked because Florence Pugh carried it. 

I tried to watch The Last Duel, lost me with the first scene, wanted to give it a chance anyway, lasted 10 minutes altogether. Hire cheaper actors and pretend to listen to experts who you hopefully consulted  about historical accuracy. 

Update: the repair of my heating cost $300. Plus the $75 I paid last week. This is more money than I pay for heating in an entire fcking year. What an utter disgrace. 
the silver lining is that I ended up paying it to a decent repair person as opposed to the sketchy people last week. Aaaaaand that he did need to do repair work, not just push two buttons, so at least there was some added value. Still, total rip-off. 

Last week people came over to do heater maintenance. One day later I tried to turn on the heating, didn’t work. Since Monday, I’ve been calling every day, they promised me to come every day, never showed up. Today they don’t even answer the phone. So I’ve been trying to get someone else to come and make the heating work. One lady on the phone told me they don’t have fixed prices and the professional would be able to tell on site how much it costs. I asked her to give me a range or an estimate. She can’t do that either, they work with brand repair prices . I said ok can she be more specific because that doesn’t help me much because I can’t really get them out here blind and find out on the spot if I have to pay  $100 or $300. She told me to call someone else then. The next person was helpful but just for the house call wanted $150 excluding any work. So now a person is coming who will allegedly show up and turn my heater on for $130ish. That puts me at $200 for turning my heater on. That’s more than I’ll pay for gas bill during the entire 6-7 months of heating season. (For scale, the average monthly salary in this country is $1000) The nerve of these people… well. I suppose I won’t be getting a new vacuum or a sewing machine this month. This is the most Friday-13th Friday 13th I ever had. 

And here I am having a week off and getting up at 8 to get ready super slowly  and then drag my ass to a cafe to read crime fiction and have a mid morning cappuccino. I did clean the bathroom yesterday. No, I’m not traveling or doing anything special, I’m just savoring every second of not having to work and it’s the best feeling I’ve had all year. Home-cation for everybody. 

I have never actually done Secret Santa before but I’m afraid I’ll have to wait for a non-recession round to join. I do promise it’s a bucket list item and one of these years I’ll do it. Have fun and looking forward to pictures of the fun!  

I think halloween is a 100% apt time to raise Pictionary from the grave. 

1. 5 

2. 2

3. 1

20 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Awww, poor Sophie Turner. One day she and Joe Jonas decide England is going to be their “forever home”, they sell the mansion in Florida and start house hunting, then they have an argument and he files for divorce. Now he’s withholding their daughters’ passports do they can’t join their mom in England, and she had to sue him.

I guess all his American friends and family told him England was no place to live, right?

Oooooh that divorce is the tea of the season. I have no idea how Joe Jonas’s PR/legal team thought he could ever win the public in this and age by framing Sophie as a negligent mum. But I hope that turning a page and starting fresh in the UK will be good for Sophie. 

Sorry sorry but I must already request an extension  may I have till Friday? 

16 hours ago, Datepalm said:

In a complete change of subject for this board, I just saw a kid, maybe 12-13 years old at most, walk away from a yard sale with the whole box set of books 1-4*. He'd never seen the show nor read GRRM before. It was fun to see. 

Also, Canadians are really, really into yard sales. There seem to be multiple ones on every block in Toronto every single weekend.

*I like that box set. It's pleasingly cubical.

I’m trying to sell my books on FB Marketplace but nobody wants them anymore  should have done that before the final season came out. 

Well, I would only know from YouTube but North America is overall obsessed with thrifting and yard sales and estate sales. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, we are still obsessed with trying (and failing) to afford IKEA  

@Jez Bell so glad to hear your father got the new kidney. Speedy recovery to him. 
 

And I like the theme suggestion  if we want something less real-worldy I’ll throw a spooky-season theme idea out there 

I’m watching Bones (still), and I don’t understand why 

I also watched The Help on Sunday. It was heartwarmingly lovable. It was slightly oddly paced and the tension didn’t always work out as they intended, some character stories were lacking, but the (main cast) acting was superb  and the effort for nuance was there. Octavia Spencer herself is enough reason to watch this movie. She did have more opportunity to showcase her full acting prowess in the mini series about CJ Walker’s life, but she brought her usual warmth and force of nature to this movie as well. It wasn’t anything mind blowing, but it’s a sweet movie for a chill weekend. I wouldn’t rewatch it, but I do recommend it above mentioned occasions. In fact,  I might rewatch it with my mum, just because I know she would enjoy this movie for its atmosphere and being an Octavia Spencer fan.

I’m in, whichever the majority vote picks. Thanks for thinking of me!  

Well look at that… this thread is finally finished??? Cannot be.  

as for a new one, I always thought this would be the last. But hey maybe the next one will break the record again and take 5 years to off  nice to see you around, Sniffer! 

For two days it’s been 18C max. 
[Insert tears of joy] 

Turns out I didn’t even have 2.5 half episodes left, I had only the 0.5 to go. I suppose all seasons have been 8 episodes and I should have remembered that, but why the fck would you cut it off after 5 and release 3 separately? Why not halve it? 

Anyway. It had potential, but ended up going off the rails and was an eventual train wreck. Referring back to the previous point of discussion, I did have to Google at least three things the show should have made clear to make sense of what turned out to be the final episode. 

there was a lot I didn’t like and a few things that did work beautifully, so let’s start with those. 
 

And onto the myriad of problems. 
 

23 hours ago, williamjm said:

I think to schoolchildren all teachers are automatically classified as 'old' regardless of whether they're in their mid-20s or coming up to retirement.

I actually remember having “young teachers” who were great favorites with the kids because they were “young”, I think these were the 20 somethings, and early 30something men, anybody who had kids themselves counted as “old”  

On 8/5/2023 at 11:43 AM, dog-days said:

The monsoon problem was fixed. The hot water went off again a couple of days ago, with the lettings agency muttering about a new boiler. Not sure when/if that'll happen. The current one is ancient with the flue conveniently close to my bedroom window. Have applied for a new job, and will keep on applying for jobs, so I hope I won't be living here much longer. 

Primary/elementary school teachers tend to be very nice people. I'm the offspring of two of them. 

Not sure if I'd recognise the people I went to primary or secondary school with these days – it's been so long. 

That sounds like an improvement, fingers crossed for a new boiler. Household troubles that are out of your control are such a pain. I still cringe to remember the gas cutoff in the house from last autumn *shudders*. 
 

good for you, they must be amazing people! I have a special warm place in my heart for every teach I ever had. Even the ones I didn’t like as a kid. 

On 7/22/2023 at 8:33 PM, dog-days said:

It's been quiet here for almost a month since a problematic housemate left, having been served with a two-week eviction notice after smashing a neighbour's window with a hammer. 

Now water is pouring through the kitchen ceiling after someone had a shower in the new bathroom that was finally installed at the start of June. This happened a couple of hours after the hot water was fixed; it had been off for the last five days. As a result, I am an expert in sponge baths, and have another skill to add to my LinkedIn profile. 

I'm not really bothered about the ceiling...just grateful hammers don't seem to have been involved again. 

Has this water situation improved at all since?  

well well, would you know that going to the grocery store in your hometown at around 9am on a Saturday means running into every second elementary school teacher you had? I’ve got to say, these ladies are looking amazing. I want to be them when I’m…. Well I have no idea how old they are. I suppose at the tender age of 7-10 I didn’t really have a sense of what “old” meant because I remember them as being old when they taught me, but boy 20+ years later they are a little smaller, little grayer but pretty much the same? Really sweet people.
 

During  this nostalgia week here I also saw at the grocery store: my old hair dresser’s mother and daughter who had the daughter’s baby with them, the lady who used to be the school receptionist and always smoked in her cubicle and later became a postwoman, the lady who used to run the library where I read nearly every YA and children’s book from the selection and donated all my YA and children’s books after the covid clean out. And one of the cashiers is the lady whose mom used to do housework for us when my mom had been ill, and whose daughter I used to take the bus to grammar school with. Oh and I walked past a woman in front of the store, whose sister used to be in my class and whose dad used to be the school janitor. Life is weird and beautiful. 

14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

There is nothing about this show that isn't . . . baffling . . . 

Is it sad that a show feels the need to explain what happened in the show, and seems to expect the viewers are going to be thrilled they are telling us what we didn't get?

EXPLAINER
‘The Witcher’ Season 3 Ending Explainer: What Happens to Geralt?
Who ended the season in grave danger?
Who Is Falka? Freya Allan Explains Ciri’s ‘The Witcher’ Journey
Who Is Emhyr? Explaining the Mysterious Emperor in ‘The Witcher’
Etc.

https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/witcher-season-3-ending-explainer?

 

I mean the show is so bad I do need the explanation, I just stand no chance understanding their plot because they spend all the screen time on pretentious monologues instead of building a story…

they did the same with game of thrones in the later seasons when the writing got to such lows and the scenes were so dark we literally couldn’t follow events… I don’t know, twenty years ago nobody needed aftershow episodes and explainopedia because watching an episode was enough to get it… in series with a tenth of the budget the Witcher had… 

but what am I moaning about I have 2.5 episodes left, so the benefit of doubt is still kicking.