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First day of class...
Jan. 10th, 2005 01:28 pmWell, I'm back in Bloomington. I've got my American History course tonight - the first history course I've ever taken at university, actually. Should be interesting. And then tomorrow I begin teaching my first self-designed course -on Fantasy, no less! (Woo-hoo!) If you stumble across any interesting Fantasy stuff on the Net (or elsewhere) let me know - I might even get to cite you in my class. :)
Reviews and other stuff: I saw _Kinsey_ last night. It's pretty good, but I found myself really wanting a more thorough exploration of some of the characters. It seemed like the movie was glossing over a lot, although I suppose it's hard to do anything else in a biopic. "IU" didn't look like IU either, but I suppose that's not a major criteria for judging a film. The performances were all solid and the story was thought-provoking, so it gets a thumbs up from me.
_Open Water_: I wanted to see this movie when it first came out, but the people I was supposed to see it with wimped out at the last minute. And then I heard lukewarm reactions from those who had gone to see it as a horror film, and was told it was good but "not really that scary." I figured it was probably one of those art house films that was sold as something it wasn't in order to sfind a bigger audience. I was *partly* right.
Open Water isn't a horror movie, it's a man-against-nature story, and it's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally disturbing. It was particularly interesting to see it in the wake of the Tsunami, in a "this is what being stranded in the middle of the ocean is like" kinda way. The movie is *very* good, but don't see it expecting the next Jaws - it's more like a water-logged "To Build a Fire." It's scary in the sense that bad stuff can happen at any minute - and does.
As far as books go I finally finished "Jonathan Strange / Mr. Norrell" (I can never remember which the order of their names.) It's very much a long-lost Masterpiece Theatre miniseries with magic, so if you like the Romantic period drawing-room dramas with creepy fairy magic thrown in, you'll really enjoy it. But if you detest such things, you might want to avoid it. I'm in the first camp, so I found it a good read.
I also finished "The Jane Austen Book club" which is an amusing contemporary bok with no connection to Fantasy whatsoever - except that Kelly Link appears to have been one of the major readers of the manuscript. It's well-written and amusing, but you should have probably read at least one of Jane Austen's novels and be into contemporary chick-lit before you pick it up.
Last but not least I caught the season premiere of 24 last night. I was pretty skeptical about this one - the spoilers I'd read on the Net sounded terrible, and the series has been in a downward spiral since season 1. Surprise! As usual, I was completely wrong and this episode turned out to be one of the best since the Pilot, instantly converting me from a "well I'll tune in and maybe watch it if it seems good" viewer to a "must... keep... watching..." viewer. I hope they keep it up!
Reviews and other stuff: I saw _Kinsey_ last night. It's pretty good, but I found myself really wanting a more thorough exploration of some of the characters. It seemed like the movie was glossing over a lot, although I suppose it's hard to do anything else in a biopic. "IU" didn't look like IU either, but I suppose that's not a major criteria for judging a film. The performances were all solid and the story was thought-provoking, so it gets a thumbs up from me.
_Open Water_: I wanted to see this movie when it first came out, but the people I was supposed to see it with wimped out at the last minute. And then I heard lukewarm reactions from those who had gone to see it as a horror film, and was told it was good but "not really that scary." I figured it was probably one of those art house films that was sold as something it wasn't in order to sfind a bigger audience. I was *partly* right.
Open Water isn't a horror movie, it's a man-against-nature story, and it's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally disturbing. It was particularly interesting to see it in the wake of the Tsunami, in a "this is what being stranded in the middle of the ocean is like" kinda way. The movie is *very* good, but don't see it expecting the next Jaws - it's more like a water-logged "To Build a Fire." It's scary in the sense that bad stuff can happen at any minute - and does.
As far as books go I finally finished "Jonathan Strange / Mr. Norrell" (I can never remember which the order of their names.) It's very much a long-lost Masterpiece Theatre miniseries with magic, so if you like the Romantic period drawing-room dramas with creepy fairy magic thrown in, you'll really enjoy it. But if you detest such things, you might want to avoid it. I'm in the first camp, so I found it a good read.
I also finished "The Jane Austen Book club" which is an amusing contemporary bok with no connection to Fantasy whatsoever - except that Kelly Link appears to have been one of the major readers of the manuscript. It's well-written and amusing, but you should have probably read at least one of Jane Austen's novels and be into contemporary chick-lit before you pick it up.
Last but not least I caught the season premiere of 24 last night. I was pretty skeptical about this one - the spoilers I'd read on the Net sounded terrible, and the series has been in a downward spiral since season 1. Surprise! As usual, I was completely wrong and this episode turned out to be one of the best since the Pilot, instantly converting me from a "well I'll tune in and maybe watch it if it seems good" viewer to a "must... keep... watching..." viewer. I hope they keep it up!
