Disclaimer: any time a familiar story chooses to do an installment from the point of view of a character not the protagonist, I immediately and involuntarily compare it to the Pinky’s POV episode of Pinky and the Brain. You’ve been warned.
*sigh* It’s about House again.
Sort of.
One of the major ways both the new Sherlock Holmes movie and House differ structurally from the original Sherlock Holmes stories is in their choice of point of view. Read more »
“What? What? No. No, it can’t be! You’re coming back to life? No, I killed you. I killed you all! You’re dead!” – Ash, Evil Dead: the Musical
Early in the morning of the first day of Reading Week, I woke up to find something moving around on my sheets. A devilish something that looked like a cross between a tiny cockroack and those crawly things you used to poke in grade school to make them curl up into armadillo balls. Its name? Bedbug. Read more »
First, a disclaimer: you can tell this issue matters to me because I’ve managed to get myself sufficiently interested to blog about it by remembering an episode of House that aired way back in November (“Ignorance is Bliss”, to be precise). On the other hand, I did just have a cup of coffee for the first time this year, and I’m this close to spending the rest of the day beating the remaining levels I need in order to get the Golden Sunflower Trophy in Plants vs. Zombies. So take this as you will.
There’s a recurring theme in popular media that I find insultingly simple: that you can’t be both intelligent and happy. Read more »
So often what I post on this blog is a critique of the stories I’m obsessed with, explorations of why points they bring up or moves they make drive me nuts. Most of the time, I say what I like about them, too, but some of the stories I mention most often inspire rants on various subjects rather than a single, balanced review. This happens to the point that anyone who reads this might come to the conclusion that I find nothing likable about these book or TV series.
Well, obviously, that’s not true, or I wouldn’t be watching them. Anyway, in the spirit of positivity, here’s why I love – or at least love to hate – the series that drive me to blog. (I would pretend this has something to do thematically with it being Valentine’s Day, but let’s be honest: that’s only because it happened to fall on a Sunday this year.) Read more »
Why am I blogging about this? To be honest, I don’t know. I guess it’s always good to identify one’s own shortcomings so as to be able to work around them or improve them.
I guess, more to the point, I don’t have anything else to write about this week.
Yes, it’s that time again. The time when I’ve been reading and watching lots of things but none of them have inspired me to a rant. So I’ve written short reviews instead.
In retrospect, I think this is closely related to my decision to put off watching the rest of this season of House… Read more »
Or, perhaps, a few least not-favourite female characters.
See, I tend to have this love-hate relationship with female characters. I want to like them – I really, really want to like them, often because they’re one of only a handful of women or girls in their story (sometimes, seemingly, in their entire fictional universe). But so often, they fall short of my expectations, not necessarily because they as “people” are bad but because at some point their creator(s) forgot that women are still regular human beings.
So would I hang out with these four women if they were real? Probably. (Although some of them probably wouldn’t hang out with me.) Do I think they’re great role models for women and girls and/or people in general? … Sometimes. In the context of their stories, often*. When applied to real life… not so often. Do I wish I could re-write their stories to make their universes more conducive to them being completely awesome? Heck yeah. Read more »
Or, “You Can’t Go Holmes Again”? Let’s face it, between Sherlock and his more modern incarnations like Dr. House, there’s a lot of scope for puns when discussing the Master.
Anyhow, so I saw Sherlock Holmes over the holidays. Did I like it? Yeah, overall, it was great.
But wait, Sarah, I pretend to hear you say in order that I might segue into the next part of the blog! Aren’t you a diehard Holmes fan? In some ways, the filmmakers took the original Sherlock Holmes stories, ripped them apart, and jammed all the pieces back together like a broken jigsaw puzzle. How could you stand that Irene Adler was basically a female American-insert character like Tom Sawyer in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Or that they strongly hinted not only that Holmes loved her (sacrilege in some parts) but that she loved him back? Etc.
Well, a lot of their changes did make me laugh. But I have a secret: I’ve never been as interested in Holmes as I am in what it’s possible to do with characters like him. Read more »
(But first, let me strongly recommend Leonard Mlodinow’s book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. Awesome.)
Before I start these rambling musings inspired by James Cameron’s new movie, Avatar, I should give you two warnings.
First, this is not a review of Avatar. It’s an opinion essay that uses the movie as an example to illustrate a point. To find out whether Avatar is the kind of movie you’d like to see, you’d be better off checking out the review section of your local paper or Roger Ebert’s website or someone else’s blog.
Second, somewhat related, I’m not trying to judge anyone for liking or disliking Avatar. It had pretty nifty special effects – if you like those and don’t mind some other drawbacks, then you should check it out. And if you think you might enjoy it, you might not want to read what follows, at least until after you watch it and form your own opinions.
Right. So why didn’t I like Avatar? Read more »
Happy birthday, Diana! And happy belated new year, everyone else!
With 2010 fresh upon us, it seems like ’tis the season. What about you? Add yours in the comments!
1. How to tell the difference between real Game Boy Advance cartridges and counterfeit ones. Read more »
