(no subject)

[blodeuedd]

You know what? I managed to only finish one book this week, and it's not even one I particularly want to brag about, since it's only 200 pages long and took me over a month to read (it was my bathroom book, so it was read in very small doses).



Gossip Girl (Cecily von Ziegesar):

Reading this, I kept thinking back to the equivalent of my youth -- and I say youth because I'd stopped reading Sweet Valley High and The Babysitter's Club by the time I was 13 -- and was struck by how innocent it all was. In fact, the first books in which I read about teenagers having sex, apart from Judy Blume's, were Christopher Pike's, and his characters were always 18 years old. In Gossip Girl, they're younger than that, and they smoke and drink all the time, too!

What would I have thought about this ten or fifteen years ago? When I was 17, which is the age of most of the characters in this book, I spent a good portion of my time reading, bitching about The Wheel of Time with M-P, thinking about and/or playing Magic: The Gathering and D&D, kissing bashy_boy and... I hadn't gotten into anime yet, so what the hell did I do with my time, anyway? I certainly didn't spend it shopping for designer clothes and going to fancy parties! Obviously, I'm not the target audience...

I was expecting to be intensly bored by this book, but it was surprisingly light and fluffy and readable, in spite of the amount of cigarettes and drinks consumed by the characters. I'm not sure I'll read the sequels, even though I have them (courtesy of A-L's suitcase being too full for her to take them back to Canada), but maybe one day, if I'm feeling particularly frothy.

Final verdict: 7/10




Battlestar Galactica : Razor:

I popped this DVD in with some trepidation, given my tempestuous affair with BSG. I fell completely in love with its first season, stuck with it even though the second started to annoy me more and more, and have only watched the first half of the third. I'm so disillusioned, I don't know if I can stand to go back to it. First and foremost among its crimes is transforming the whole damn thing into a soap opera, complete with flashbacks to things that had never even been hinted at before (I smell retconning...) and BOXING AS A METAPHORE FOR WORKING OUT PROBLEMS WITH YOUR RIVALS/FRIENDS/LOVERS/YOU-WISH-HE-OR-SHE-WAS-YOUR-LOVER. *gnashes teeth at the sheer stupidity*

Razor tells the story of the Battlestar Pegasus, and how Admiral Cain got to be so bloodthirsty -- though I guess if my super-hot girlfriend turned out to be a Cylon, I'd be pretty pissed as well. It was interesting in that you had mainly female characters, but again, those who aren't bridge bunnies (Dee) or wrench wenches (Callie) are either screwed up (Starbuck) or cold-hearted bitches (whether by nature, like Cain seems to be, or circumstance, like Roslin). Kendra managed to be above that, and I found her an interesting character -- too bad we won't be seeing more of her!

Is it just me, or does Adama manage to back out of most major moral desicions, shoving the responsibility off to someone else? This time, he was able to tell Lee, "It's your ship, your call," instead of having to express his opinion. (He did, but only after)

One thing that was cool about the episode was the badass chicks team of Starbuck, Kendra and that other woman, and the razor metaphore would have worked, if only she'd been holding an actual razor.

Final verdict: 7/10


This week's lesbian movie:

Imagine Me & You:

It's funny, whenever I see Piper Perabo's face, my second thought (after, "She's gorgeous, even though her teeth should scare me!") is, "I know I know her face, why can I never remember who she is?" This time, my confusion was compounded by the British accent.

This was a (sometimes bitter) sweet little movie, about a bride falling in love with the (female) florist, and what happens when the florist loves her back. I liked how all the characters were handled, without coming too close to caricature, though they easily could have, especially the womanizing friend and Rachel's parents. Overall, it's a low-key little movie, unassuming and charming.

#1 reason to see this movie: Sweetest two-women-go-on-what-amounts-to-a-date-and-play-DDR-together scene EVER! So cute and giggly!

Final verdict: 8/10


Now, some anime!



Gauche the Cellist:

Another entry for the "Charming & Sweet" category! When I first saw this hour-long movie, way back in my anime club days, I fell in love with its simple charm. It's based on a story by Miyazawa Kenji (another of his stories inspired Night on the Galactic Railroad, which I also love) and tells of Gauche, whose cello playing in the local orchestra is less than perfect. He's visited by various talking animals, and they help him improve his playing and truly understand the music. Put like that, it seems silly, but it's a touching little story. It's nice to see Gauche calm down and work through his frustrations; he tortures the poor cat, but by the time the mice come to visit, he's at peace with himself and his performance.

As a bonus, there's lots of lovely music featured, most notably Beethoven's Pastorale, and the animation is simple but well-done. The anthropomorphic animals are particularly good, especially the too-cute-for-words tanuki.

Final verdict: 9/10




*Laughs uproariously at Eiji's little "Kaidoh the famous tennis player inspiring a dying boy" fantasy* Ah, Eiji, how I love you... And Oishi's quite the romantic with his little "Let's watch the sunrise from the mountaintop!" plan. The guys were so mean not to immediately agree!

Is it just me, or are 90% of Sakuno's lines saying someone's name? And of those, at least 90% are "Ryouma-kun..." At first, I was sure I'd hate Tomo, but now she's a breath of fresh air compared to Ryouma's would-be love interest. I love how clueless Ryouma is when it comes to her, though.

What's up with Inoue and Saki? Either they freelance (and must not get paid much) or their magazine has a huge enough budget to pay two reporters (well, a reporter and a photographer, since Saki seems to know even less than I do about tennis!) to hang around middle schools all day, watching the tennis teams practice.

So if Hyotei is the Gayest Tennis Club Ever (so far!), then Jousei* is the Girliest-Looking Tennis Club Ever (so far) simply by virtue of including the twins, who are clearly female. Though I guess they could still compete for the GTCE trophy because of Wakato; for one thing, he has a transformation sequence (seriously, in tennis!) during which he SPOUTS RAINBOWS, and then he said to Kaidoh, in all seriousness, "I'm looking forward to seeing your Snake!"

Your fangirls are fooling no one.

That episode was particularly easy to riff, however, what with Wakato thinking he's in the Matrix and Ryuuzaki-sensei's "That formation has another advantage as well" comment, about the Golden Pair's "I" formation.

Oishi: Why yes, there is! I get a GREAT view of Eiji's ass!

Fine, the whole SERIES lends itself very well to those kinds of comments, and not just about Oishi and Eiji. Good lord, is it any wonder it's still riding the waves of fuelled-by-fangirls popularity in Japan?

* Interesting, isn't it, that "josei", written with the characters for "female" and "being" would mean "woman", eh? What difference does a long or short vowel make in that grand scheme of things, anyway? *cracks self up*

Comments

[krk.livejournal.com]

Do you know what is worse than Gossip Girl the book? Gossip Girl the TV series. I thought it might be a fun watch but NOPE. It is sort of in this weird zone of something I don't think is appropriate for youth to watch and is too juvenile for any self respecting adult.