midweek report thinging

[meganbmoore]

Watched:

Last Samurai(and the episode of Inu Yasha that aired monday night)

Last Samurai: After the first 20 or so minutes, this was quite good. Based on my admittedly limited knowledge, it wasn't a completely accurate view of Samurai Life, but likely as close as you can get without scaring off an american audience, though there were a few things they could have made more clear, such as why Katsumoto would make his sister take care of the man who killed her husband, or the importance of the top knot, and I wish the music had been Japanese(best bit of music is burried at theend of the credits) but it had a pretty solid story and good action(though it was appalling light on the swordfights for a Samurai movie) and enough history and pretty scenery(without focusing on it to the point where I wanted to go "move along...move along) and details to make me happy. And it had Ted Goldwyn, one of those actors I love every time I seem him, but who never seems to be in any movies that I want to see.

Also rewatched(kinda) Spiral today...as in, I had it on for noise and went to watch bits and pieces...I'd forgotten how annoying Hiyono was in the first episode...and you always notice little things when you rewatch things.

Reading:

Usagi Yojimbo: Duel at Kitanoji: Between this and Last Samurai, I have my Samurai fix for a coupla weeks...hopefully. And...yeah, good, solid samurai stuff. For some reason, the Lone Goat and Cub story, while almost a copy of about half the Lone Wolf chapters I read, seemed so incredibly refreshing...

SOS v1: Gallery copy sent to me from viz. Expect a pretty favorable review to be at BF withinthe next few weeks.

BIRDS OF PREY #75-77: Love Zinda, like the new approach to the art, undecided as yet as to the new direction, and esp. as to the buddy-buddy-ness between Oracle and Huntress. As an aside: are Black Alice and Harvest established characters, or brand new? They felt established to me, but I've never heard ofthem before.

WONDER WOMAN #209-211: On the one hand, kudos to Rucka for remembering that its the massive amounts of mythology behind the Wonder Woman character and how she interacts with it and how it affects her that made not only the two best modern WW runs...George Perez and Phil Jiminez...so good, but also what made Hikketia(which I can't spell) great. HOWEVER...I have one major, MAJOR problem with what he's had going onsince issue #200, and that's his portayal of Athena. Quite frankly, I can't picture the freaking GODDESS OF WISDOM being as stupid as she is. Yeah yeah yeah...she's supposed to be coming across as sly and manipulative and cunning cuz Rucka thinks she was some big bully girl in mythology who bossed around a bunch of cowards who later got passed off as heroes(paraphrasing from a couple of interviews here) but the woman is the goddess of wisdom...that means she's smart enough to KNOW that her big plan here will backfire and it's just so stupid and feels so forced and the only thing about the whole bit that even remotely said "Athena, Goddess of Wisdom" was the last couple of pages of #211. Oh and, all that "Whore Goddess" talk? I know it was supposed to show how much the gorgons hated Athena, but when they're talking about the VIRGIN goddess, the goddess supposedly destined to always be a virgin, they come across as morons and I keep wanting to throw history and mythology books at them.

And...uhm...I didn't quite mean to rant quite that much there...

Oh, and I forgot to get the used DVDs while at Hastings today and used the last of my store credit to buy "Shrine of the Morning Mist" which sounds interesting, though I'm not quite sure about the animation...

Comments

[gloryquest.livejournal.com]

I wondered about Black Alice myself...seems like an interesting character.

[booster17.livejournal.com]

As far as I know - Both Black Alice and Harvest are brand new characters. But I agree that Gail has managed to give them the feeling of having been around for a while. Good job.

[jamesgrasselli.livejournal.com]

Isn't his name Tony Goldwyn?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Heh...first thing I ever saw Tony Goldwyn in, he had this curly-top thing going that made me think of a really soft Teddy Bear(not his face or physique, just his hair) and I've always gotten his name screwed up ever since.