Dee Laundry

Media Diary - August 2018

Crazy Rich Asians - movie (theater) - AWESOME. Go see it if you haven't. Fun rom-com; funny; Awkwafina is hilarious; main female character is extremely relatable; dude main character, and his best friend, and his other best friend's husband, are super hot; the always-put-together perfect female character is RELATABLE and not horrid as she always seems to be in every other rom-com. Go see it!

Speak - book - YA book by Laurie Halse Anderson. I joined a book club for adults who read Young Adult books, and this was this month's selection. I cried a few times when the protagonist's depression pinged a little closely to my experience of depression as a teen. Not the same cause for depression as I had, but some of the same effects.

The Night of - TV (HBONow) - Great acting, good mystery. Riz Ahmed was amazing and so was John Turturro. The stepfather was a "he seems familiar" actor, who turned out to be the guy from "At Home at the Zoo" with RSL. Ah ha!

The Princess Diaries & Princess Diaries 2 - movies (Prime? Netflix? HBONow?) - CUTE! Funny to see Anne Hathaway being "ugly."

Ordeal by Innocence - TV short series (Prime) - 2018 BBC three-parter based on the Agatha Christie book. One of the most engaging adaptations, really taut and spooky. End is different from the book, and I was genuinely startled when the reveal was made.

The Incredibles 2 - movie (theater) - Fun! Both the Little Laundries came with (they're both teenagers now but will always be the Little Laundries to me) and we had a great time.

*** And then I went on a Martin Freeman jag because REASONS ***

Cargo - movie (Netflix) - I liked it. Mr. L thought it was slow. Agreed with one reviewer that MF seemed a little removed from the kid; he was a bit more intellectual toward the problem than emotional. Overall, it was thinky genre rather than gory genre, if that influences your decision.

The Good Night - movie (DVD) - I really liked it even though I hadn't thought I would. Gwyneth uses her power to annoy me for good in this film. One of the most meaningful-to-me portrayals of depression I've ever seen. (This is more evidence in my "Martin is introverted, Simon Pegg is extroverted" suspicion.)

Ali G Indahouse - movie (Netflix?) - Still can only watch the scenes with Ricky C (MF) in them. "Trust me, man; I got a D in Physics" is still a hilarious line.

Vodafone - ads (Vimeo):
Action sequence! - https://vimeo.com/271667452
Cute seated dancing - https://vimeo.com/233491832
I like the suit and the setting (MF is a jerk) https://vimeo.com/219718023

Voorman Problem - short film (purchased from Amazon) - Thinky little drabble of a movie. Eleven minutes. Most intriguing use of Belgium.

Media Diary - May 2017

Willful Machines - book - Eh. It seemed like this book was custom-designed for me: closeted gay nerdy teen protagonist meets self-aware robots and considers what truly constitutes life while solving a mystery and angsting about not living up to the expectations of his successful family. But the writing never grabbed me; I never felt immersed into it, not once. I found myself skimming a lot. Sorry, author Tim Floreen, you and your partner and your twin baby daughters seem cute but this book didn’t do it for me. :(

Westworld, eps 6-end of S1 - TV (HBONow) - After finishing the season, my thoughts were: “We've now finished the first season, and it was fine. I definitely empathize with the Hosts. There's one scene where Maeve says, "Oh Felix, you really do make a terrible human being. [long pause] And I mean that as a compliment." The human beings in this are awful.”

Secret Life of Pets - movie (Netflix) - Cute and silly. Didn’t really make sense but it was fun.

Moneyball - movie - People using facts to show up swaggering ‘we know best’ types, aka, my jam. They exaggerated the bifurcation of statistical analysis and personal negotiation (the “price” of a player isn’t a sticker price; it’s always going to be influenced by the other team’s perception of your interest level), but I can see how it was done to juice the drama. Also done to juice the drama: approximately nine gazillion scenes of Brad Pitt’s face as he considered things silently. Any other actor in the world and the audience would have fallen asleep, but it was Brad Pitt after a professional stylist had wiped the grime off, so it wasn’t boring. Blatant, but not boring.

Star Trek V: I don’t know the name of it - movie - This was a watch-together with Bironic and Ignazwisdom. Oh my god this movie was so boring. We snoozed our way through it. Iggy’s going to blog it on her Star Trek Tumblr if anyone’s interested in my “witty” comments throughout.

The Flash, Season 2 - TV (Netflix) - This series is like candy to me. Delicious every minute of indulgence but doesn’t linger with me later. Felicity Smoak remains my favorite character even though she’s only been in one episode each season.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2 - movie - ADORED it. Funny, great-looking action, lots of found-family and friendship to put a warm feeling in my heart. Drax continues to be the best. I pointed out to my son (who watched with me) that it’s rude to call someone ugly, especially as much as Drax called Mantis ugly, but that all the rest of his behavior toward her was what real-life women appreciate: acknowledging that looks are irrelevant to your value as a person. (PS. I will probably ask for this on DVD for Christmas, thereby adding to my accidental collection of Kurt Russell & Sylvester Stallone fun flicks.)

Riverdale - TV (Netflix) - Watched all 13 episodes in two days. Liked it. I had thought it would be teen comedy but instead it’s a mystery story a la Twin Peaks (though less supernatural). Thumbs up. Cole Sprouse continues to be my inappropriately-young-for-me dapper-woman crush. See photo evidence here: http://deelaundry.tumblr.com/post/161430613216/my-inappropriately-young-for-me-girl-crush-cole

The President Show - TV (Comedy Central) - The pathos of this show really gets to me. It’s funny, and I hope cathartic for the guests, but very unexpected to feel the moments of connection and empathy.

This is a thing Bironic and Nightdog do, so why not me?

April 2017 (not complete, who cares)

Mockingjay - book - FINALLY FINISHED THIS SERIES! - Impressions: I liked the third book, made sense that Katniss was removed from the action, THIS is how you do a ( slight spoiler ) epilogue (side-eyeing you hard, HP) - Ideas: H/W fusion fic; Peeta vid for Vividcon

Mockingjay part 1 - movie - I don't like how few people were in the conf room in 13 - not the right feel, I would've preferred we stayed in Katniss POV (though I can see why the filmmakers would've made the decision)

Mockingjay part 2 - movie - Tigris was too pretty, some changes in pods were good and some weren't, mutts were as scary as I had pictured them, wonder if author wrote the Snow part specifically for Donald Sutherland because he FALLS INTO THAT PART oh so chilling, J Law is a good actor but they still should have given an olive-skinned actress this part

Ex Machina - movie - UGH. The core tenets of the movie are repellently misogynistic and I find it disappointing that Mr. L and apparently every film critic ever doesn't get how repellent it is.

How to Get Away with Murder Season 3 - tv - woot! like a fanfic on film in terms of pure feels fulfillment, I am reminded of Sue's line on Glee about how it's hard to keep track of couples with how often the partners change, sometimes I have to ask myself, 'Now who am I supposed to be empathizing with this ep?' Viola Davis is a very good actor, Bon-Bon is a lying liar who lies (everybody else I think I know what's a lie and what's truth but not her).