Quaran-TV, part 9
Feb. 28th, 2021 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12We woke up to a world blanketed by mist — a real surprise, since I'd figured it was too warm for that to happen again this year. By 10am or so, the mist had all burnt away, and Matthias and I spent a couple of hours in the garden, weeding the very overgrown vegetable patch and flower beds, and clearing all the bits of random rubbish that the previous owners left behind. Things are definitely now on track for us to start growing vegetables!
We didn't watch a huge amount of TV this month, but we did finish some stuff.
A while back, I watched the first of two existing documentaries on the NXIVM cult. I always meant to watch the other one — Seduced — and now that I've done so, I can see why everyone was saying that it was the better of the two. This one focuses much more on the experiences of a single former cult member (rather than a group of them), and I think it benefits from that, while also telling its story in a tighter manner.
La Révolution is a very, very silly French-language Netflix series in which the members of the aristocracy in pre-revolutionary France are literal bloodsucking immortals, and those resisting their rule are fighting a war on two fronts: seeking to overthrow feudal rule, and literally fighting to survive beings who want to drink their blood and kill them. I think it could have benefitted from leaning even more into the ridiculous premise, rather than wanting to be taken seriously as well.
Paranormal is another Netflix series — this one Egyptian-made — about a university medical professor in 1970s Cairo who can see ghosts, and has to solve various supernatural mysteries. I was hoping for something similar to P Djèlí Clark's fiction, but unfortunately it's not as accomplished as that. Again, it seems to want to adopt a more serious tone than the subject matter really warrants, and thus suffers from wild tonal shifts (one moment a light-hearted comedy of errors, the next minute half the family of the protagonist have been murdered, for example).
By far the high point of this month's TV viewing (and I suspect of the year's viewing) was South African Netflix spy thriller Queen Sono. This is a stylish six-parter, following the adventures of the eponymous heroine as she tries to unravel both a current mystery involving an exploitative Russian security contractor company, and unresolved problems from her past concerning the death of her mother, who was a resistance fighter against apartheid rule. The cast of characters is wonderful, the action crisscrosses the African continent (almost exclusively taking place in slick, modern cities filled with skyscrapers, high-end restaurants and cafes, unlike Western-made fiction about Africa, which always obscures this reality), and everything from the costuming to the set design to the score is just gorgeous. There was meant to be a second season, but sadly the show was cancelled due to COVID, which is very frustrating!
Although there's still one episode left of WandaVision, I'll write about it here rather than leaving it to the end of March. I was surprised how much I ended up loving this show, since neither character really grabbed me much in the Marvel films. But when they're actually given interesting material to work with, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany can actually act, and in particular they're great comedic actors, and have good chemistry with each other. I loved all the different sitcom pastiches, and the sense of the uncanny and strange bleeding into ordinary suburban life. I've found myself less interested in the standard MCU shady government organisation shenanigans (I generally never have much interest in this in the MCU), although I do love Monica Rambeau, Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis hanging out together, and hope they get to work as a team in other Marvel films or shows. As I'm not a comics reader, I'm oblivious to any comics storylines being referenced, but the TV show stands just fine on its own.
Back at the beginning of the month, we watched Queen and Slim, a meandering indie film set in the US south. The titular characters meet via online dating, have a disastrous date which takes a horrifying turn when they're pulled over by a police officer (they're black) and end up killing him. Rather than sticking around to face the inevitable unequal justice, the pair flee, hoping to escape to Cuba. It's part road trip and journey of self-discovery, part Bonnie and Clyde cat-and-mouse attempt to evade the law (and of course the setting and ethnicity of the characters means that it evokes stories of escaped slaves and the Underground Railroad, as well), told with exquisite compassion. If anyone is interested in watching this film but feels they need to know how it ends before doing so, let me know, because I can really appreciate that the subject matter is pretty heavy.
In a complete tonal shift, last weekend we watched the Mel Brooks Star Wars parody, Spaceballs. I'd never seen this before, but I love Mel Brooks, and for an '80s comedy I felt it held up well.
Finally, last night I watched what I'm certain will be one of my top films of the year: Space Sweepers. This is a Korean film, set in a grimly plausible future in which privileged elites live in terraformed satellites orbiting the Earth, and an Elon Musk-type villain (played with scenery-chewing relish by Richard Armitage) is setting up a colony on Mars. The remaining ninety-five per cent of humanity ekes out an existence on a ruined Earth, dreaming of the skies. Our found family of heroes work clearing up space junk, constantly in debt and endlessly trying to put together enough money to buy the same privileges of the citizenship which eludes them.
I had never heard of this film before, but I was sold on the basis ofskygiants's excellent review, which I strongly recommend you read! Nothing I could say will do the film justice, but that review certainly captures all the things I love about it.
We didn't watch a huge amount of TV this month, but we did finish some stuff.
A while back, I watched the first of two existing documentaries on the NXIVM cult. I always meant to watch the other one — Seduced — and now that I've done so, I can see why everyone was saying that it was the better of the two. This one focuses much more on the experiences of a single former cult member (rather than a group of them), and I think it benefits from that, while also telling its story in a tighter manner.
La Révolution is a very, very silly French-language Netflix series in which the members of the aristocracy in pre-revolutionary France are literal bloodsucking immortals, and those resisting their rule are fighting a war on two fronts: seeking to overthrow feudal rule, and literally fighting to survive beings who want to drink their blood and kill them. I think it could have benefitted from leaning even more into the ridiculous premise, rather than wanting to be taken seriously as well.
Paranormal is another Netflix series — this one Egyptian-made — about a university medical professor in 1970s Cairo who can see ghosts, and has to solve various supernatural mysteries. I was hoping for something similar to P Djèlí Clark's fiction, but unfortunately it's not as accomplished as that. Again, it seems to want to adopt a more serious tone than the subject matter really warrants, and thus suffers from wild tonal shifts (one moment a light-hearted comedy of errors, the next minute half the family of the protagonist have been murdered, for example).
By far the high point of this month's TV viewing (and I suspect of the year's viewing) was South African Netflix spy thriller Queen Sono. This is a stylish six-parter, following the adventures of the eponymous heroine as she tries to unravel both a current mystery involving an exploitative Russian security contractor company, and unresolved problems from her past concerning the death of her mother, who was a resistance fighter against apartheid rule. The cast of characters is wonderful, the action crisscrosses the African continent (almost exclusively taking place in slick, modern cities filled with skyscrapers, high-end restaurants and cafes, unlike Western-made fiction about Africa, which always obscures this reality), and everything from the costuming to the set design to the score is just gorgeous. There was meant to be a second season, but sadly the show was cancelled due to COVID, which is very frustrating!
Although there's still one episode left of WandaVision, I'll write about it here rather than leaving it to the end of March. I was surprised how much I ended up loving this show, since neither character really grabbed me much in the Marvel films. But when they're actually given interesting material to work with, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany can actually act, and in particular they're great comedic actors, and have good chemistry with each other. I loved all the different sitcom pastiches, and the sense of the uncanny and strange bleeding into ordinary suburban life. I've found myself less interested in the standard MCU shady government organisation shenanigans (I generally never have much interest in this in the MCU), although I do love Monica Rambeau, Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis hanging out together, and hope they get to work as a team in other Marvel films or shows. As I'm not a comics reader, I'm oblivious to any comics storylines being referenced, but the TV show stands just fine on its own.
Back at the beginning of the month, we watched Queen and Slim, a meandering indie film set in the US south. The titular characters meet via online dating, have a disastrous date which takes a horrifying turn when they're pulled over by a police officer (they're black) and end up killing him. Rather than sticking around to face the inevitable unequal justice, the pair flee, hoping to escape to Cuba. It's part road trip and journey of self-discovery, part Bonnie and Clyde cat-and-mouse attempt to evade the law (and of course the setting and ethnicity of the characters means that it evokes stories of escaped slaves and the Underground Railroad, as well), told with exquisite compassion. If anyone is interested in watching this film but feels they need to know how it ends before doing so, let me know, because I can really appreciate that the subject matter is pretty heavy.
In a complete tonal shift, last weekend we watched the Mel Brooks Star Wars parody, Spaceballs. I'd never seen this before, but I love Mel Brooks, and for an '80s comedy I felt it held up well.
Finally, last night I watched what I'm certain will be one of my top films of the year: Space Sweepers. This is a Korean film, set in a grimly plausible future in which privileged elites live in terraformed satellites orbiting the Earth, and an Elon Musk-type villain (played with scenery-chewing relish by Richard Armitage) is setting up a colony on Mars. The remaining ninety-five per cent of humanity ekes out an existence on a ruined Earth, dreaming of the skies. Our found family of heroes work clearing up space junk, constantly in debt and endlessly trying to put together enough money to buy the same privileges of the citizenship which eludes them.
I had never heard of this film before, but I was sold on the basis of
skygiants's excellent review, which I strongly recommend you read! Nothing I could say will do the film justice, but that review certainly captures all the things I love about it.
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Date: 2021-03-01 11:54 am (UTC)I had low, low expectations for WandaVision but from the reviews it seems okay?? who knew. I believe this was the original reason for the various MCU TV series - to allow them to explore other concepts the movies couldn't (which have rapidly escaped popular consciousness) so it'll be interesting to see if it can be maintained.
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Date: 2021-03-01 05:50 pm (UTC)I was pretty cynical about the Disney Marvel TV shows, but having now seen WandaVision I'm cautiously optimistic about the other series that are coming up.
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