Nine Muses

Fringe

Charity — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:52:08 +0000

I watched the pilot of Fringe last night and I’m sufficiently intrigued. I was not so deeply enamored of it that I’m sitting here waiting with bated breath for Tuesday’s next episode, but it was interesting.

The balance of science (or fringe science, actually, hence the title) with the investigative elements (Everyone knows how much I love crime and legal shows, right?) is a good mix. Really, I keep thinking that it’s going to play out much like X-Files, which, while excellent, I never really got all that into. I do like that it’s supposedly not supernatural stuff going on — just science that’s so advanced that it’s beyond what we think is possible.

The characters are okay — nothing too new. The female protagonist, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv who has done plenty of things but nothing I’ve seen before), is not yet far out of the typical female detective/FBI agent mold. You find out early on that she’s not much for sentiment, doesn’t have any close bonds with much of anyone aside from her love interest, and so on. Her male counterpart, Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson of Dawson’s Creek "fame"), is, at this point, equally cookie cutter. He has daddy issues, is too smart for school (never finished, but is a genius), and can’t stick to any one thing in his life prior to the events in the show. The acting was solid, however. After the initial scene with him, I forgot all about the Dawson’s Creek days, which is a good thing generally. It would seem to imply that he’s not the same character again, though there are some shared elements.

I found the scientist/father, Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble — yes, the guy that played Denethor in RotK) the most interesting, both as a character and from an acting standpoint. He’s not really all that far off the absent-minded professor archetype, but he does it so well that I found myself drawn in. His character felt more fully fleshed, not just a cardboard cutout. I did find it a little disconcerting, however, that his symptoms from his long loony bin stay seemed to come and go depending on the need. It is somewhat explained in the story, however, as he refers to "waking up" after all his time away from the world. We’ll see how that goes.

As they pointed out on "Best Week Ever", some elements of the pilot are almost amusingly reminiscent of Lost. It starts with a plane incident; the bad guys (maybe) are a big corporation, and there’s some grand mystery out there. I’m half-inclined to believe that this is intentional on the part of J.J. Abrams, but who can say for sure. Considering how much I loved the first two or three seasons of Felicity, Alias, and Lost, I’m okay with a little bit of formula, intentional or not, tongue-in-cheek or seriously meant. It all works for me.

Overall, I liked it. I’ll watch it again and we’ll see where it goes.

(That takes care of my sci-fi quotient for the season. Now, if someone would just make another great sitcom, I’d be happy.)

Snicker

Charity — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:39:27 +0000

I was browsing around the web (surprising, I know) when I ran across an article about what the author refers to as "Fancy British People" movies… you know the sort — those period pieces that take place in England, tend to be about "Society" (which must be capitalized), etc.

Anyway, he had this humorous observation to make when talking about what qualifies for the genre: "They also can’t be French. Those people wouldn’t know moral repression if it glanced disapprovingly in their direction." That made me snicker, so I had to share.

Read the whole article. It’s well worth it.

(Talking about a movie article counts within my loose media/entertainment theme for this blog, right?)

To Do (Obtain) List

Charity — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:39:39 +0000

It’s that time of year again. We’re nearing the end of the dead summer season. Instead, in this feast or famine world of game releases, there’s a rush of must-have can’t-resist pre-order-to-make-sure-you-get-it titles. So, this is my list of things that I am looking forward to, and will be spending my much more scarce entertainment dollars on:

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility (Wii) - August 27
Spore (PC) - September 7
Fallout 3 (PC) - October 7
Fable 2 (360) - October 21
Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii) - November 3 or 16 (Depending on who you ask)

Timeless

Charity — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:02:07 +0000

I’m re-reading Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising Sequence and am finally on the last book, Silver on the Tree. I’ve come to a bit where a man is talking to the main character’s family about a bullying his son participated in a few days before. This all takes place in the U.K. and the book was written in 1977. The target of the bullying is a Sikh boy. This father is going on about those Pakistani and Indian people and how they’re take jobs from honest Englishmen, live 16 to a house, and take advantage of the national healthcare system. It’s funny (not the ha-ha sort of funny, either) that this is such a precise parallel of the sort of attitude we see here in the U.S. today, especially in CA and the southwest, regarding the Mexican immigrant workers. I guess that sort of ignorance and stupidity is timeless.

Holy cow!

Charity — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:25:30 +0000

Sheesh, I haven’t updated since September? I knew it had been a while, but this is just excessive.

So, I had a baby and she’s six months old and beautiful. She has her own blog. Ask me for the link if you want it.

I’ve hardly had any time to play games for the last six months. I just reinstalled Diablo 2 this last week once they announced Diablo 3 was coming out. I finally managed to get some time to install the expansion for NWN2 as well, but then decided to finish the main campaign first, since I’m so close and someone totally lied about the expansion not following after the main campaign. It totally does!

I’m also waiting eagerly for Fallout 3 and Spore. I’ll link to my Spore page later if I can figure out how to do it.

I’m also also re-reading some classics from my tween years right now: I’m about halfway through “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” and “The Grey King” (Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series).

Oh, yeah, and I took up knitting.

More comprehensive updates will hopefully come later, as I think I’m turning the corner on being able to find the time to type up a thing or two.