It’s been a slow few weeks of media intake.
TV
- Sex Education – All the week Su and I watched Sex Education! Of course I’d already watched it, but I thought that she might enjoy it too. She doesn’t normally like US high school stories about kids trying to get laid on prom night, which is what this basically is, but I figured there’s more to it than that. She loved it. I enjoyed watching it over again.
- Russian Doll – Everybody is talking about this show, about a woman who dies again and again, like Groundhog Day. I watched the first episode, and found her abhorrent, and everyone along with her. Just awful, overly confident, slimy, gross, annoying, smug, awful people who think they’re witty and funny when they’re not, who I wouldn’t want to know. So there’s supposed to be pleasure in watching her die repeatedly? I don’t get any appeal of this show. That said, I didn’t like ‘Killing Eve’ either. This seems to be going for the same unlikable woman as a lead – I wouldn’t watch a protagonist like this whether it was a man or a woman. I can only think people just love how irreverent and rude she is. Yeah…
Movies
- Battleship Island – Just finished watching this Korean big-budget movie about the infamous haikyo/ruin Gunkanjima, and the Korean war-slaves who were press-ganged into running its vast underwater coal mine. At 130 minutes it’s a little overlong, but the trademark Korean brutality really builds into genuine present day rage at how these people were treated by the Japanese, and how the Japanese still like to deny they did any of this stuff. If Germans deny in the same way, it’s an actual crime. In Japan it’s government policy. Some fantastic action, some rousing court-style arguments, and an amazing climax. A great movie.
- All the Boys I’ve Loved – Light rom-com about a high-school girl who writes letters to, you guessed it, All the Boys she Loved, without ever intending to send them. But, they get sent, and rom-com antics ensue. It was fun. I don’t know if the acting was up to much, but that doesn’t really matter.
- Us and Them – Chinese love story, not a rom-com but with plenty of laughs, set in Beijing as two youngsters grow up alongside each other as friends, becoming lovers, and… It’s a really nice, but emotionally draining movie. It makes China look just like the US or UK – and I think that’s interesting. New Year there is much like New Year here. They live in nice-looking cities. They are regular first-world people living in cramped conditions, hunting for work. Is this what it’s really like? I haven’t been so I don’t know.
- Velvet Buzzsaw – Wacky Jake Gyllenhaal horror vehicle where he plays a feted art critic who comes across a hoard of paintings by a dead man which are imbued with evil. A nice bit of fun, with Jake’s performance just hilarious even when he’s only looking at a piece of art and not even saying anything.
News / podcasts
Nothing much going on. Brexit continues to be a thorn in the country’s sude. Trump too. The fever on both is going to have to break soon. Brexit is in a month!