Dressed in gold
Jan. 30th, 2022 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Today the house is filled with sunlight, and flocks of wood pigeons have descended on our garden, where they appear to be munching their way through our lawn, and the shoots on the tops of the cherry trees. It's still wintry, but change is definitely in the air.
Yesterday, Matthias and I headed into Cambridge to meet up withnotasapleasure and her husband, with whom we went to a museum exhibition of exquisite gold jewellery and other archaeological finds from the Saka nomads, who lived in what is now Kazakhstan. (They lived elsewhere as well, but what I mean is that these pieces were found in Kazakhstan.) The pieces — excavated by Kazakh archaeologists — were amazing, although I felt the exhibition itself was somewhat lacking in context, even by the standards of archaeology (which we always joke will fall back to assuming an object had 'ritual purposes' if its use isn't immediately apparent). It was more a collection of shiny pretty things — but it was a nice way to spend an hour or so. Since entry to this museum and exhibition was free, we followed it up with a quick look around another exhibition on medieval coins, partially the work of our friend ![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
Rory_Naismith, who was a PhD student on the same programme as all of us.
Today is, as planned, a lot quieter: pottering around Dreamwidth, a bit of cooking, some yoga in the afternoon. Ideally I'd like to finish my current book, but I'll have to wait and see how that goes.
I can't see that I'm going to finish any more TV shows in the next two days, so I've written up my TV roundup for January a little early.
Season 2 of The Witcher. Matthias and I watched this over our Christmas/New Year holiday, and it was perfect. Cheesy, somewhat generic epic fantasy with a big-for-TV budget and no desire to take itself seriously. It hit exactly the right tone, the cast seemed to be having a great time, and I really enjoyed snuggling up in front of the fire and watching an episode or two after dinner.
Around the World in 80 Days. This was a pan-European adaptation of Jules Verne's novel (which I haven't read), and felt like something of a balancing act between whimsical adventure story and half-hearted critique of colonialism, with a side dish of absurdly tragic backstories for all the main characters. That may sound as if I didn't enjoy the show at all, but in actual fact it was fun — elevated by the performances of the main cast and their chemistry with one another. The show appeared to be setting things up for a sequel with the same characters and another Verne adaptation, and I'll certainly watch that — but I hope the showrunners are able to settle on a single tone by the time that follow-up comes around.
The Tourist is a miniseries starring Jamie Dornan as a man who wakes up in the Australian outback with amnesia, and has to piece together his history while every single person he encounters seems to be trying to kill him. This was a servicable enough TV thriller, although I had to constantly silence the little voice in my head shouting that's not what Australia is like! That's not what the outback is like at all! in order to suspend my disbelief. Then again, amnesia is nothing like what Dornan's character experiences, so the show was not exactly going for realism.
Yellowjackets is a high contender for show of the year for me, even though it's only January. The series follows two timelines: a soccer/football team of teenage girls in the 1990s whose plane crashes in a remote, mountainous area of North America, and some of those characters twenty years later, dealing with the fallout of the crash, and the trauma of what they had to endure in order to survive. The pacing in both timelines is exquisite, the various interpersonal relationships are written and acted brilliantly, and the story is allowed to unfold at exactly the right speed, building a great sense of suspense, horror and dread. There are some folk-horror elements, and the show is definitely tapping into the nostalgia of women like me who were teenage girls during the whole 1990s trend for pop cultural occultism, but the show hasn't yet come down conclusively on whether the supernatural elements are real. Normally this would annoy me, but here I like that the show keeps me guessing.
Matthias and I jumped on the Squid Game hype train very late, and I'm not sure there's much more to be said about this Korean Netflix show which pits its desperate, indebted characters against one another in deadly children's games. It's not subtle in its critique of predatory lending and the horrors wrought by capitalism on those it leaves behind, but I don't really find that innappropriate given the subject matter. What I do find frustrating is that it's clearly setting up for a sequel, and I don't feel the show needed it.
Only Murders in the Building is a comedy gently mocking the genre, popularity, and fans of true crime podcasts, but it's done from a place of affection. It brings together three oddball neighbours in a New York apartment building (itself an affectionate caricature of fictionalised Manhattan and fictionalised New Yorkers) who decide to make a podcast about the death of one of their neighbours, and the result is a lighthearted, fun piece of television.
Cheer's second season brings us back to the strange world of competitive college cheerleading in the United States. This time it follows two teams — the team shown in the first season of the documentary, and also their sole rivals for the championship (one of the oddities being that in this particular division, only these two teams compete, making victory more urgent, and defeat even more bitter). What struck me in the first season — the lack of self-awareness of all involved, the strange environment and relationships engendered by the specific characteristics of competitive cheerleading and the team concerned — struck me even more forcefully this time around. For whatever reason, both teams seem to consist mainly of young adults who came from sad or challenging circumstances: absent or abusive parents, parents in prison, childhoods of grinding poverty. Race and class aren't mentioned directly, but they loom large, and there is an overwhelming sense, articulated explicitly by several of the cheerleaders, that excellence at sport, any sport, was seen as their only way out of their difficult, impoverished homes and communities. Into this rather charged, toxic environment walk the teams' coaches, and in the case of the original team's coach in particular, one feels that these vulnerable athletes latched onto their coach as a surrogate authority figure and have a rather unhealthy relationship with her in ways that they are not fully aware. Obviously, as with all documentaries there is somewhat selective editing, but the way the show teases out these various themes is very cleverly and compellingly done. The talent of the athletes speaks for itself — the individual tumbling passes and stunts they can do are incredible, and the final routines are outstanding — and that, combined with the various tensions and undercurrents the show brings to the fore makes for unsettling viewing that raises more questions than it answers.
Yesterday, Matthias and I headed into Cambridge to meet up with
notasapleasure and her husband, with whom we went to a museum exhibition of exquisite gold jewellery and other archaeological finds from the Saka nomads, who lived in what is now Kazakhstan. (They lived elsewhere as well, but what I mean is that these pieces were found in Kazakhstan.) The pieces — excavated by Kazakh archaeologists — were amazing, although I felt the exhibition itself was somewhat lacking in context, even by the standards of archaeology (which we always joke will fall back to assuming an object had 'ritual purposes' if its use isn't immediately apparent). It was more a collection of shiny pretty things — but it was a nice way to spend an hour or so. Since entry to this museum and exhibition was free, we followed it up with a quick look around another exhibition on medieval coins, partially the work of our friend Today is, as planned, a lot quieter: pottering around Dreamwidth, a bit of cooking, some yoga in the afternoon. Ideally I'd like to finish my current book, but I'll have to wait and see how that goes.
I can't see that I'm going to finish any more TV shows in the next two days, so I've written up my TV roundup for January a little early.
Season 2 of The Witcher. Matthias and I watched this over our Christmas/New Year holiday, and it was perfect. Cheesy, somewhat generic epic fantasy with a big-for-TV budget and no desire to take itself seriously. It hit exactly the right tone, the cast seemed to be having a great time, and I really enjoyed snuggling up in front of the fire and watching an episode or two after dinner.
Around the World in 80 Days. This was a pan-European adaptation of Jules Verne's novel (which I haven't read), and felt like something of a balancing act between whimsical adventure story and half-hearted critique of colonialism, with a side dish of absurdly tragic backstories for all the main characters. That may sound as if I didn't enjoy the show at all, but in actual fact it was fun — elevated by the performances of the main cast and their chemistry with one another. The show appeared to be setting things up for a sequel with the same characters and another Verne adaptation, and I'll certainly watch that — but I hope the showrunners are able to settle on a single tone by the time that follow-up comes around.
The Tourist is a miniseries starring Jamie Dornan as a man who wakes up in the Australian outback with amnesia, and has to piece together his history while every single person he encounters seems to be trying to kill him. This was a servicable enough TV thriller, although I had to constantly silence the little voice in my head shouting that's not what Australia is like! That's not what the outback is like at all! in order to suspend my disbelief. Then again, amnesia is nothing like what Dornan's character experiences, so the show was not exactly going for realism.
Yellowjackets is a high contender for show of the year for me, even though it's only January. The series follows two timelines: a soccer/football team of teenage girls in the 1990s whose plane crashes in a remote, mountainous area of North America, and some of those characters twenty years later, dealing with the fallout of the crash, and the trauma of what they had to endure in order to survive. The pacing in both timelines is exquisite, the various interpersonal relationships are written and acted brilliantly, and the story is allowed to unfold at exactly the right speed, building a great sense of suspense, horror and dread. There are some folk-horror elements, and the show is definitely tapping into the nostalgia of women like me who were teenage girls during the whole 1990s trend for pop cultural occultism, but the show hasn't yet come down conclusively on whether the supernatural elements are real. Normally this would annoy me, but here I like that the show keeps me guessing.
Matthias and I jumped on the Squid Game hype train very late, and I'm not sure there's much more to be said about this Korean Netflix show which pits its desperate, indebted characters against one another in deadly children's games. It's not subtle in its critique of predatory lending and the horrors wrought by capitalism on those it leaves behind, but I don't really find that innappropriate given the subject matter. What I do find frustrating is that it's clearly setting up for a sequel, and I don't feel the show needed it.
Only Murders in the Building is a comedy gently mocking the genre, popularity, and fans of true crime podcasts, but it's done from a place of affection. It brings together three oddball neighbours in a New York apartment building (itself an affectionate caricature of fictionalised Manhattan and fictionalised New Yorkers) who decide to make a podcast about the death of one of their neighbours, and the result is a lighthearted, fun piece of television.
Cheer's second season brings us back to the strange world of competitive college cheerleading in the United States. This time it follows two teams — the team shown in the first season of the documentary, and also their sole rivals for the championship (one of the oddities being that in this particular division, only these two teams compete, making victory more urgent, and defeat even more bitter). What struck me in the first season — the lack of self-awareness of all involved, the strange environment and relationships engendered by the specific characteristics of competitive cheerleading and the team concerned — struck me even more forcefully this time around. For whatever reason, both teams seem to consist mainly of young adults who came from sad or challenging circumstances: absent or abusive parents, parents in prison, childhoods of grinding poverty. Race and class aren't mentioned directly, but they loom large, and there is an overwhelming sense, articulated explicitly by several of the cheerleaders, that excellence at sport, any sport, was seen as their only way out of their difficult, impoverished homes and communities. Into this rather charged, toxic environment walk the teams' coaches, and in the case of the original team's coach in particular, one feels that these vulnerable athletes latched onto their coach as a surrogate authority figure and have a rather unhealthy relationship with her in ways that they are not fully aware. Obviously, as with all documentaries there is somewhat selective editing, but the way the show teases out these various themes is very cleverly and compellingly done. The talent of the athletes speaks for itself — the individual tumbling passes and stunts they can do are incredible, and the final routines are outstanding — and that, combined with the various tensions and undercurrents the show brings to the fore makes for unsettling viewing that raises more questions than it answers.
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Date: 2022-01-30 01:26 pm (UTC)You are the only other person who I've seen talking on Dreamwidth about Yellowjackets!
I love it so much - I love that the teenage girls get to be ***people*** together, rather than just love objects/sex objects like women/girls on television so often are.
Also as someone with PTSD, talking about trauma and post-trauma resonates with me.
I thought the casting was very clever also - most of the adult Yellowjackets are played by actresses who had their breakout roles playing villains in the 1990s, which is when the early part of Yellowjackets is set...
Melanie Lynskey/Shauna was in Heavenly Creatures
Christina Ricci/Misty was in The Addams Family/Addams Family Values
Juliette Lewis/Natalie was in Natural Born Killers
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