mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-09-29 07:12 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-09-29 07:12 pm
Entry tags:
Media roundup:
A bit of a miscellaneous one, rather than for a set time period or anything, since I do these... sporadically, at best. Just kind of a vague sense of Some Stuff I've Experienced Lately.
Things I've played lately:
Nier: Replicant
Not a lot to say that I didn't already talk about before. I'm still curious about what way we get to have an impact on the ending, or if it will be much of one. Going through with new knowledge (though admittedly, not all of that knowledge is something the protagonist is privy to) very much makes me wish that I could alter the story - have the protag make different choices, choose not to fight certain enemies, prevent NPC deaths that I know are coming...
But at the same time, it is effective tragedy to know that you're doing something terrible, yet be unable to stop or alter it.
Things I've read lately:
Spelunking Through Hell by Seanan McGuire
Summary: Alice Price-Healy has spent decades searching for her husband, after he was taken away by the Crossroads as payment for a deal he made saving her life. Finally, she receives a clue to where he may have been hidden... though she still has little idea how to rescue him.
I enjoyed it! I do, however, think it very much needed the buildup of the rest of the Incryptid series behind it to grant it the necessary weight. That is generally what the author has said: the entirety of the series was built just so that people would care about these characters and their story - as a standalone, without the way in which these characters have hovered in the distant background of the rest of the series, I don't know that there's enough connection to them to really feel invested in their story. (Mainly to say: I think she had the right idea by saving this story for the 11th entry into the series.)
There's also a LOT that references the short stories about the characters. Those short stories have been released via Patreon. Taylor and I read them all (all the ones written so far, anyway), and did so specifically to be "ready" for this book, and I'm glad we did. But I'm not completely sure how the book would come off without that context? I think there's certainly enough for it to be understandable, but I think the mentions of those events and characters felt a lot richer for having read the stories, rather than having them just be disconnected references.
Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire
Summary: October is forced to fight against one of her oldest friends, as one of the long-lost Queens of Faerie is found... no matter how much destruction her return leads to.
I got to have the Real Fandom Feel with this one, because Taylor and I have our pet theory that we went into the book with, so we've been flailing at each other over it.
Turns out, our pet theory was not confirmed in this book, though our second-favorite prediction was half-right! But our pet theory also hasn't been sunk, and in fact we've been given what feels like even more direct hints that we ARE right about it.
I enjoyed the book, but it ended on a painful cliffhanger. We have to wait a year for this to resolve!? I have trusted this author through cliffhangers before (between books 2 and 3 of Newsflesh and between books 9 and 10 of Incryptid and have always wound up very happy with the payoff, but still!
Things I've watched lately:
Don't Worry Darling
Summary: Alice lives a completely idyllic 50s life with her loving husband, Jack. While the work he does is mysterious, it provides a completely perfect, comfortable suburban life for the two of them, much like all the rest of the members of the community. Strange things begin happening around Alice, causing her to question whether everything is possibly as perfect as it seems to be.
Alex and I went to see this one on Tuesday. I've mostly ignored the ~drama~ that's been alleged about the whole thing, and don't really care about that. The movie itself seems to be kind of love it or hate it - I've seen a couple people saying it was literally one of the worst movies they've ever watched, and that I really don't get.
I wouldn't say it's my new favorite or anything, but I thought it was pretty good. I thought it was well-acted, the costume design was great, and I thought it captured a sort of fridge-horror aspect that I really liked.
This is not the only movie I've seen to have a similar twist, but this one utilized it really well, imo. It captures something that to me feels like a very true-to-life horror around MRA types. At the same time, while this is a wild sci-fi concept, it didn't exaggerate the attitudes to the extent that they no longer felt "real". (Sorry, I'm trying not to give the twist away 100%, which makes this sound a little vague, maybe.) But a lot of works of fiction utilize real groups or real attitudes as a source of horror or conflict, and dial them up to 11. While in this case, the *result* is very extreme, the attitudes themselves were not cartoonishly evil. That seems all the creepier, because I can fully buy in to the idea that this WOULD be considered reasonable/desirable/acceptable to actual, real people, no matter how abhorrent it is.
Alex disliked the end for being "ambiguous", but I don't really think it was... while we see no fallout, I think it was clear enough what happened.
Diabolique
Summary: The wife and the mistress of an abusive man team up to murder him. After his body disappears, the two of them seem to be stalked by someone who knows what they've done.
A movie from the 90s, remaking a French film from the 50s. I hadn't seen it before.
One of my first thoughts was "ah, I see where The One Lifetime Movie I Genuinely Enjoyed got much of its plot from."
I liked the cast: Sharon Stone was very hot in the 90s, and Isabelle Adjani does "fragile waif" extremely well. Also Kathy Bates is in it, and she's pretty much always delightful to watch.
And "Wife and mistress team up to murder abusive husband/lover" really is an A+ plot (even if there is more to it.)
Apparently this was ROUNDLY hated when it came out, and to be fair I haven't seen the movie it's remaking, so maybe that one is miles better. I don't know, I thought it was fine? It wasn't SUPER suspenseful, but I was entertained, and ultimately enjoyed the ending.
Dark Skies
No, not the newer, better-known one, and also not the TV series. This was a low-ish budget made-for-TV disaster movie from 2009! (Also apparently known as "Black Rain.")
Summary: A group of three college friends come across a fourth man who has been living as a recluse in the woods. They recognize him as a brilliant scientist who graduated a few years before them. The four wind up trapped in a storm that rains deadly acid - the result of an industrial "accident" caused by unscrupulous business decisions.
We picked it, assuming it would be an extremely formulaic SyFy-style disaster movie... and I won't say it *wasn't* that, but I *was* surprisingly charmed by it, for two main reasons:
- 1: it had a much stronger thesis than most of these movies have. It's typical enough to have an Evil Corporation [represented in this movie by an Evil Businesswoman, played by Leslie Hope as our "kinda slight name recognition" actress for the film], but this movie was a lot more critical of it than I'm used to seeing. Instead of "oh, this one company was bad and led by one bad person", this one actually stated "as long as businesses are motivated solely by profit, they can never be trusted to make good decisions regarding health and safety."
- 2: after the main guy has a random shirtless, bare-ass scene toward the beginning, Alex and I were both waiting for Obvious Pretty Girl!Scientist Love Interest to show up. While one of the other characters is a Pretty Girl!Scientist... she is not the love interest!
The shoehorned-in romantic subplot was between the main guy and one of the other men in the group. #equality #lovewins To be honest, it surprised me that they actually went for it, and I like it. I want to watch bad genre movies with queer characters, and I got to do that!
Things I've played lately:
Nier: Replicant
Not a lot to say that I didn't already talk about before. I'm still curious about what way we get to have an impact on the ending, or if it will be much of one. Going through with new knowledge (though admittedly, not all of that knowledge is something the protagonist is privy to) very much makes me wish that I could alter the story - have the protag make different choices, choose not to fight certain enemies, prevent NPC deaths that I know are coming...
But at the same time, it is effective tragedy to know that you're doing something terrible, yet be unable to stop or alter it.
Things I've read lately:
Spelunking Through Hell by Seanan McGuire
Summary: Alice Price-Healy has spent decades searching for her husband, after he was taken away by the Crossroads as payment for a deal he made saving her life. Finally, she receives a clue to where he may have been hidden... though she still has little idea how to rescue him.
I enjoyed it! I do, however, think it very much needed the buildup of the rest of the Incryptid series behind it to grant it the necessary weight. That is generally what the author has said: the entirety of the series was built just so that people would care about these characters and their story - as a standalone, without the way in which these characters have hovered in the distant background of the rest of the series, I don't know that there's enough connection to them to really feel invested in their story. (Mainly to say: I think she had the right idea by saving this story for the 11th entry into the series.)
There's also a LOT that references the short stories about the characters. Those short stories have been released via Patreon. Taylor and I read them all (all the ones written so far, anyway), and did so specifically to be "ready" for this book, and I'm glad we did. But I'm not completely sure how the book would come off without that context? I think there's certainly enough for it to be understandable, but I think the mentions of those events and characters felt a lot richer for having read the stories, rather than having them just be disconnected references.
Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire
Summary: October is forced to fight against one of her oldest friends, as one of the long-lost Queens of Faerie is found... no matter how much destruction her return leads to.
I got to have the Real Fandom Feel with this one, because Taylor and I have our pet theory that we went into the book with, so we've been flailing at each other over it.
Turns out, our pet theory was not confirmed in this book, though our second-favorite prediction was half-right! But our pet theory also hasn't been sunk, and in fact we've been given what feels like even more direct hints that we ARE right about it.
I enjoyed the book, but it ended on a painful cliffhanger. We have to wait a year for this to resolve!? I have trusted this author through cliffhangers before (between books 2 and 3 of Newsflesh and between books 9 and 10 of Incryptid and have always wound up very happy with the payoff, but still!
Things I've watched lately:
Don't Worry Darling
Summary: Alice lives a completely idyllic 50s life with her loving husband, Jack. While the work he does is mysterious, it provides a completely perfect, comfortable suburban life for the two of them, much like all the rest of the members of the community. Strange things begin happening around Alice, causing her to question whether everything is possibly as perfect as it seems to be.
Alex and I went to see this one on Tuesday. I've mostly ignored the ~drama~ that's been alleged about the whole thing, and don't really care about that. The movie itself seems to be kind of love it or hate it - I've seen a couple people saying it was literally one of the worst movies they've ever watched, and that I really don't get.
I wouldn't say it's my new favorite or anything, but I thought it was pretty good. I thought it was well-acted, the costume design was great, and I thought it captured a sort of fridge-horror aspect that I really liked.
This is not the only movie I've seen to have a similar twist, but this one utilized it really well, imo. It captures something that to me feels like a very true-to-life horror around MRA types. At the same time, while this is a wild sci-fi concept, it didn't exaggerate the attitudes to the extent that they no longer felt "real". (Sorry, I'm trying not to give the twist away 100%, which makes this sound a little vague, maybe.) But a lot of works of fiction utilize real groups or real attitudes as a source of horror or conflict, and dial them up to 11. While in this case, the *result* is very extreme, the attitudes themselves were not cartoonishly evil. That seems all the creepier, because I can fully buy in to the idea that this WOULD be considered reasonable/desirable/acceptable to actual, real people, no matter how abhorrent it is.
Alex disliked the end for being "ambiguous", but I don't really think it was... while we see no fallout, I think it was clear enough what happened.
Diabolique
Summary: The wife and the mistress of an abusive man team up to murder him. After his body disappears, the two of them seem to be stalked by someone who knows what they've done.
A movie from the 90s, remaking a French film from the 50s. I hadn't seen it before.
One of my first thoughts was "ah, I see where The One Lifetime Movie I Genuinely Enjoyed got much of its plot from."
I liked the cast: Sharon Stone was very hot in the 90s, and Isabelle Adjani does "fragile waif" extremely well. Also Kathy Bates is in it, and she's pretty much always delightful to watch.
And "Wife and mistress team up to murder abusive husband/lover" really is an A+ plot (even if there is more to it.)
Apparently this was ROUNDLY hated when it came out, and to be fair I haven't seen the movie it's remaking, so maybe that one is miles better. I don't know, I thought it was fine? It wasn't SUPER suspenseful, but I was entertained, and ultimately enjoyed the ending.
Dark Skies
No, not the newer, better-known one, and also not the TV series. This was a low-ish budget made-for-TV disaster movie from 2009! (Also apparently known as "Black Rain.")
Summary: A group of three college friends come across a fourth man who has been living as a recluse in the woods. They recognize him as a brilliant scientist who graduated a few years before them. The four wind up trapped in a storm that rains deadly acid - the result of an industrial "accident" caused by unscrupulous business decisions.
We picked it, assuming it would be an extremely formulaic SyFy-style disaster movie... and I won't say it *wasn't* that, but I *was* surprisingly charmed by it, for two main reasons:
- 1: it had a much stronger thesis than most of these movies have. It's typical enough to have an Evil Corporation [represented in this movie by an Evil Businesswoman, played by Leslie Hope as our "kinda slight name recognition" actress for the film], but this movie was a lot more critical of it than I'm used to seeing. Instead of "oh, this one company was bad and led by one bad person", this one actually stated "as long as businesses are motivated solely by profit, they can never be trusted to make good decisions regarding health and safety."
- 2: after the main guy has a random shirtless, bare-ass scene toward the beginning, Alex and I were both waiting for Obvious Pretty Girl!Scientist Love Interest to show up. While one of the other characters is a Pretty Girl!Scientist... she is not the love interest!
The shoehorned-in romantic subplot was between the main guy and one of the other men in the group. #equality #lovewins To be honest, it surprised me that they actually went for it, and I like it. I want to watch bad genre movies with queer characters, and I got to do that!
no subject
Oh, delightful <3
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Same here. They satisfy me. :D
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I never read any of the short stories about Alice, which may be why that book fell short for me.
no subject
I think that the short stories definitely added to my enjoyment (even though there's still a gap between where those left off and where Thomas disappears.) It definitely gave me more of a sense of who the characters were and why this mattered to them, even though we've seen Alice come and go through the main series.