What have I got to show for myself?
Jan. 26th, 2008 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blodeueddI thought I'd have at least one book review this week, but I went and started two new ones, so barely touched the four I was already in the middle of... On top of that, I've been mainling Prince of Tennis, which is the longest series I've ever sat down to watch (178 + OVAs + movies + musicals if I can get my hot little hands on them), so that means that I only watched one other thing this week, and it was a short one, too!
Floored By Love:
It's short, it's sweet, it... tries hard? This hour-long film takes place in Vancouver, and tells two stories. First of all, Janet and Kara have been together for three years. Now that same-sex couples are allowed to get married in B.C., Janet wants to get hitched, but Kara still doesn't want to come out to her family. The other story is about Jesse, a teenager who's just come out to his family. His biological father is gay, and also never around to spend time with him, and Jesse hopes that they'll be able to have a closer relationship now that they have more in common. On the other hand, Jesse's step-father worries that he and Jesse will grow apart, so he decided to try to be cool to impress Jesse, with predictable results. The two stories eventually intersect, and the ending is happy and fluffy.
I want to say that for a Canadian production, this isn't bad, but that sounds kind of mean, doesn't it? The acting ranged from decent (Janet and Kara were pretty sweet together) to grating (Jesse's little sister, especially), but with a film about Issues (coming out, same-sex marriage), whose dialogue was pretty obvious, it's hard to sound really believable.
One thing that annoyed me about Janet was her obsession with getting married. It came across as "Hey, the law was passed yesterday, let's do it!", and when Kara balks, it's a short step from there to arguing about commitment and sleeping on the sofa. Shouldn't she be insisting that Kara come out to her family first? Though maybe she figures that Kara's traditional Chinese family would accept their relationship more easily if they were legally married.
Final verdict: 6/10
I guess I may as well write down some thoughts on Prince of Tennis right now, since it'll be a while before I get to the end of it, so
How hilarious is this show? Inui Juice will never get old, of course, and Kawamura's "BURNING!" never fails to crack me up, but there's all the unintentional (!) hilarity of everyone's special moves, defying the laws of physics at the drop of a hat. It's probably better that I know practically nothing about tennis, as I would likely be much more critical. Still, it's fun to see those familiar tropes in a sports setting, since I'd never really watched any shounen sports series*. But it's all there: the stare-downs, the friends/supporters on the sidelines, the characters who exist solely to ask "What's going on???" and the ones who exist solely to answer "In tennis, the rules are that..." or "Well, this is his XXXX technique, in which...", the girl who'se the obvious love interest for the oblivious hero but who doesn't really do much except need rescuing**, the attack names shouted out (Kikumaru Beam, anyone?), the universal truth that passion and focus will eventually beat skill... Tenipuri has it all!
It's a good thing that I had the whole series and didn't have to wait between installments, because it wasn't until the handbag-thief episode that I started to like Kaidoh, and longer than that to kind of like Ryouma, or at least not be bothered by him. Although, for the moment, the most annoying character is Karupin. Had the production team never seen a real cat? CATS DO NOT MEOW WHILE HUNTING/PLAYING BECAUSE THAT WOULD SCARE THE PREY AWAY! Plus, he sounds nothing like a real cat, and his tail looks like a horse's. Anyway, if I'd only seen the first few episodes, I don't know if I'd have bothered to watch the rest, even with the lure of the fandom.
And my last comment will be: Muzuki, what the HELL were you doing wearing your grandmother's sweater in episode 40? It was purple! With BIG PINK FLOWERS!!! *twitch*
* The only battle-centred shounen series I truly got into were Yuu Yuu Hakusho and Rurouni Kenshin, but from what I've seen of others, those and the sports ones all boil down to the same elements, don't they?
** One of the reasons that I liked YYH so much was that Keiko is neither helpless nor in need of constant rescuing. Sure, she's most often just standing around while Yuusuke does his thing, but she's not standing around squealing or shrieking "Yuusuke!" or sighing about how cool he is.
Floored By Love:
It's short, it's sweet, it... tries hard? This hour-long film takes place in Vancouver, and tells two stories. First of all, Janet and Kara have been together for three years. Now that same-sex couples are allowed to get married in B.C., Janet wants to get hitched, but Kara still doesn't want to come out to her family. The other story is about Jesse, a teenager who's just come out to his family. His biological father is gay, and also never around to spend time with him, and Jesse hopes that they'll be able to have a closer relationship now that they have more in common. On the other hand, Jesse's step-father worries that he and Jesse will grow apart, so he decided to try to be cool to impress Jesse, with predictable results. The two stories eventually intersect, and the ending is happy and fluffy.
I want to say that for a Canadian production, this isn't bad, but that sounds kind of mean, doesn't it? The acting ranged from decent (Janet and Kara were pretty sweet together) to grating (Jesse's little sister, especially), but with a film about Issues (coming out, same-sex marriage), whose dialogue was pretty obvious, it's hard to sound really believable.
One thing that annoyed me about Janet was her obsession with getting married. It came across as "Hey, the law was passed yesterday, let's do it!", and when Kara balks, it's a short step from there to arguing about commitment and sleeping on the sofa. Shouldn't she be insisting that Kara come out to her family first? Though maybe she figures that Kara's traditional Chinese family would accept their relationship more easily if they were legally married.
Final verdict: 6/10
I guess I may as well write down some thoughts on Prince of Tennis right now, since it'll be a while before I get to the end of it, so
How hilarious is this show? Inui Juice will never get old, of course, and Kawamura's "BURNING!" never fails to crack me up, but there's all the unintentional (!) hilarity of everyone's special moves, defying the laws of physics at the drop of a hat. It's probably better that I know practically nothing about tennis, as I would likely be much more critical. Still, it's fun to see those familiar tropes in a sports setting, since I'd never really watched any shounen sports series*. But it's all there: the stare-downs, the friends/supporters on the sidelines, the characters who exist solely to ask "What's going on???" and the ones who exist solely to answer "In tennis, the rules are that..." or "Well, this is his XXXX technique, in which...", the girl who'se the obvious love interest for the oblivious hero but who doesn't really do much except need rescuing**, the attack names shouted out (Kikumaru Beam, anyone?), the universal truth that passion and focus will eventually beat skill... Tenipuri has it all!
It's a good thing that I had the whole series and didn't have to wait between installments, because it wasn't until the handbag-thief episode that I started to like Kaidoh, and longer than that to kind of like Ryouma, or at least not be bothered by him. Although, for the moment, the most annoying character is Karupin. Had the production team never seen a real cat? CATS DO NOT MEOW WHILE HUNTING/PLAYING BECAUSE THAT WOULD SCARE THE PREY AWAY! Plus, he sounds nothing like a real cat, and his tail looks like a horse's. Anyway, if I'd only seen the first few episodes, I don't know if I'd have bothered to watch the rest, even with the lure of the fandom.
And my last comment will be: Muzuki, what the HELL were you doing wearing your grandmother's sweater in episode 40? It was purple! With BIG PINK FLOWERS!!! *twitch*
* The only battle-centred shounen series I truly got into were Yuu Yuu Hakusho and Rurouni Kenshin, but from what I've seen of others, those and the sports ones all boil down to the same elements, don't they?
** One of the reasons that I liked YYH so much was that Keiko is neither helpless nor in need of constant rescuing. Sure, she's most often just standing around while Yuusuke does his thing, but she's not standing around squealing or shrieking "Yuusuke!" or sighing about how cool he is.
