chrryblssmninja / Entries tagged with tv

sloooowly trying to catch up with things after 2017 drained me.

TV time!

Favorite episodes of 2017

Halt and Catch Fire – 4.4 – “Tonya and Nancy”
episodes 7,8 (didn't get to watch the last two eps before they were taken off OnDemand! this is what drives ppl to find ...other streams!)

Narcos finale
this show can be iffy but that was a strong end. don't feel sure about them continuing to Mexico, even if they can get more actual accents this time around...esp since the location scout was killed

No-End House finale – “The Hollow Girl”

Mr. Robot season 3 ep 5, 7, 8

( the rest of the episodes watched in 2017 )

xpost: https://chrryblssmninja.livejournal.com/502737.html

crossposting from tumblr...

chrry’s media year in review

music will come later

this was a busy year so I didn’t do as much as I wanted

films watched in 2016

books read in 2016

(interesting that the first and last books are Irish)

Top books read:

To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith

You Will Know Me, by Megan Abbott

Faithful Place/Broken Harbor, by Tana French

Still Life Las Vegas, James Sie

The Flight of Icarus, by Raymond Queneau

A Girl is a Half-formed Thing, by Eimear McBride

The Mark and the Void, by Paul Murray

Man Tiger, Eka Kurniawan

2/5ths of this list is Irish…

short stories:

Eleven Prague Corpses (Kirill Kobrin) and Let Me Tell You (Shirley Jackson)

poetry:

Amorgos, by Nikos Gatsos, trans. Sally Purcell

dunno if I’ve got strong movie recs besides the Everest documentary Sherpa

performers seen on a screen the most this year:

(includes individual movies, tv series, and music videos)

six times: Meiko Kaji

five times: Aneurin Barnard and much of the Stray Cat Rock crew

three times: Pina Menichelli, Wunmi Mosaku, Riz Ahmed

favorite TV episodes this year:

Brooklyn 99 – 3.18- – “Cheddar” followed by Terry Kitties and Paranoia arc

Elementary - 4.17 -“You’ve Got Me, Who’s Got You?” Paul Cornell + superheroes. also, “Miss Taken”

Orphan Black – 4.2 – “Transgressive Border Crossing”

Penny Dreadful – 3.2 – “Predators Far and Near” Twist! Too bad it went all bad

Mr. Robot – 2.7 – “Handshake”

The Night Of – 1.8 – “The Call of the Wild

Maybe Narcos 2.4-5

Halt and Catch Fire –3.5 – Yerba Buena 3.6 – “And She Was” 3.7 “Threshold”

Brooklyn 99 – 4.3 – “Coral Palms, Part 3”

Westworld – 1.4 – “Dissonance Theory” thanks Ed Brubaker

Black Mirror – 3.1, 3.4

General monster design in Channel Zero

favorite tv discovery:

New Scandinavian Cooking

and now,

( tv episodes watched from October thru December 2016 )

( TV watched from July through September 2016 )

( TV watched from April through June )

so many things going on in the world but my life somehow skitters back and forth and forward

went to Napa Valley wine country for the food on my birthday earlier this month. Here is my flickr album but you can see some of the food on this page of my tags rn.

still have to go through Father's Day photos because we went to a Puerto Rican restaurant and I really like Puerto Rican food that goes beyond rice and beans. give me all the plaintains (and gas pain)

so...Euro 2016...some very interesting results. So great to watch Iceland. Still rooting for Germany of course (#11 scores! aw the memories), and France can be here and there. Poland sometimes catches my interest. too bad for Ireland and some other underdogs but at least they got good wins. haha England. at least it seems like the worst fans left before the round of 16. usually don't root for Italy but (sorry to fans) I was glad they knocked out Spain.

didn't get to see much of Copa America because of work
I did see the last US win, as well as a replay of much of a certain 7-0 game...
on Sunday, I was at PF Chang's bar during my work lunch hour (technically dinner but whatever). The mall was closed but the restaurants outside weren't.
Before the store closed, I saw one or two people in various club shirts, but someone passed by in a Dortmund jersey with Reus on the back and I was like !!! Made me wonder if I would have ended up supporting Dortmund if I started watching soccer later...especially since I like these Polish players (though one was eaten up by Bayern like so many) instead of trying to catch the odd game of unfortunate Bremen...
anyways while I was eating I heard "R U Mine?" play overhead and I was like yesssss. and then I saw on the ESPN news ticker that the Copa America final was about to end overtime and go to penalty kicks and I asked them to switch the TV channel so I could see. And Messi missed! I don't like or hate him or anything it's just a surprise.

wasn't able to get tickets for the Arsenal - MLS All-Stars game, but I'll check again before the match, and if not, I'll go to a place near the stadium to watch with fans.

oh, now I have a videocamera and tripod of my own! also updated my phone because my old hand-me downs became too troublesome. We'll see if I can get myself to be more productive with time and tech. Also going to see if I can use my gift card to get a dolly for the tripod.

btw two of the online compliments for the store where I work thanked me by name for my service!

sometime I'll get to the Penny Dreadful finale. heard it was disappointing but I'm not too invested and the show was often inconsistent anyways. Animal Kingdom started ok but I didn't finish the 2nd episode because it wasn't special enough, besides some good acting, for me to actually carve out time to watch. Orphan Black had an overall solid fourth season, and I'm trying out Thirteen on its BBC America airdates.

still catching up verrrrry slowly on Okkupert, Adventure Time, and Manhattan (I was waiting until I had enough free credits to "purchase" official stream episodes). Waiting out the hype on other shows I haven't tried yet, but maybe I'll start Gomorrah, Detectorists, Bojack Horseman, The Night Of, or Wentworth. Maybe some Japanese or Korean shows or whatever's waiting in my watchlists/bookmarks/drafts. Found that my libraries have more connections to streaming sites that make it easier and actually legal to stream some movies, TV, and books that are hard to find.

ok I have Captain America thoughts and other things but

I just marathoned s1 of Mr. Robot and even though I knew a little bit about some twists beforehand, it still broke my brain

also the Penny Dreadful reveal in the latest episode

Things are going better!

I'm planning two microbudget independent short films right now because chrry

posted this Polish film comparison back in March

the new Last Shadow Puppets album is growing on me
it's better for room or headphone listening

at least BvS gave us a great theme for Wonder Woman

I've broken down all my goals into mini-steps that I can cross off and it's really helping me feel better about my life

ETA:
the weather is getting warmer!

also forgot to put( episodes watched from January through March )

I'll mention what appeals to my odd tastes, but the links are there so you can check what appeals to you!

VIEWING, MOVIES
Emphasis on world premieres.
io9's 75 sci-fi/fantasy films in 2016
Fandor's most anticipated compilation.
Ioncinema for 2016 and 2017.and more
Den of Geek's 27 most anticipated UK films list
A poll I created for upcoming 2016 cinema. Hundreds of titles.
Movies that premiered at Sundance 2016
Women in mainstream cinema.
10 upcoming releases by and/or about POC (ONTD)
East Asian films to watch in 2016
10 Australian films to watch in 2016
IMDB USA release calendar
Rotterdam film festival

ANTICIPATING:
Captain America: Civil War
Creepy and The Woman in the Silver Plate - Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the latter a French production with Tahar Rahim, Olivier Gourmet, Mathieu Amalric, Malik Zidi and Constance Rousseau.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople - Taika Waititi
Keanu - Key and Peele make a movie about a cat.
A Monster Calls - The book is one of my favorites, and J.A. Bayona could capture its power.
Raman Raghav 2.0 - Anurag Kashyap just finished shooting this film with Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the titular serial killer.
Rangoon - Vishal Bhardwaj
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
A Storm in the Stars - Haifaa al-Mansour (Wadjda) takes on the story of Mary Shelley.
Three/Three on the Road - Johnnie To crime film.

CASUALLY EXPECTING:
10 Cloverfield Lane
Fitoor
Free Fire - Ben Wheatley directs a 1978 Boston mob deal gone wrong. With Cillian Murphy, Michael Smiley, Brie Larson, Armie Hammer and Sharlto Copley.
Kimi no na wa (Your Name) - New anime from well-reputed director Makoto Shinkai. [trailer]
Moana
Pyromanen (Pyromaniac) -Erik Skjoldbjærg directs a cast that includes Trond Nilssen returning to feature film.
Under the Shadow - Babak Anvari. Iranian horror picked up by Netflix.
War on Everyone - John Michael McDonagh comedy about two corrupt cops (Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña) in New Mexico. With Tessa Thompson, Theo James, Stephanie Sigman, and Caleb Landry Jones.
Zama - Lucrecia Martel adapting Antonio di Benedetto. The book is good, although it's not my favorite by the author.

RESERVING JUDGMENT, POTENTIAL IN CONCEPT:
Arrowhead - "A low budget Star Wars-inspired sci-fi movie featuring Shaun Micallef as the voice of a droid that looks like a desktop computer from the early 90s? Well, OK." [trailer]
Ghostbusters
certain comic book and other franchise movies that don't need further promotion
Sherpa - Jennifer Peedom. A documentary that changed subject when tragedy struck.
XX - horror anthology with only female directors and leads. [IMDB]

RESERVING JUDGMENT, POTENTIAL WITH DIRECTOR/REPUTATION:
Ali and Nino - Documentarian Asif Kapadia tries drama with this legendary Azerbaijani love story. Stars María Valverde and Adam Bakri. First reviews weren't glowing, though.
The Bad Batch- Director Ana Lily Amirpour turns to remote Texas and a community of cannibals. With Jim Carrey, Jason Momoa, Keanu Reeves, Diego Luna, and Giovanni Ribisi. No word if Masuka the cat will make a cameo.
The Bride of Rip Van Winkle - Shunji Iwai
A Cure for Wellness - Gore Verbinski horror with Dane DeHaan.
Eight & a Half -Hong Kong anthology directed by Ann Hui, Sammo Hung, Ringo Lam, Patrick Tam, Johnnie To, Tsui Hark, John Woo, and Yuen Woo-Ping.
Éternité - Tran Anh Hung (The Vertical Ray of the Sun, The Scent of Green Papaya, Cyclo) directing Mélanie Laurent, Beatrice Bejo and Audrey Tautou in period drama.
The Handmaid - Park Chan-wook
In a Valley of Violence - Ti West directs a Western. With Ethan Hawke, Karen Gillan, John Travolta, Taissa Farmiga, Burn Gorman, James Ransone, and Toby Huss (who is so good on Halt and Catch Fire).
High Life - Claire Denis directs a galaxy-explorer story written for the screen by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird.
Laissez Bronzer Les Cadavres - Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani do film noir. "The only other certainty is their continued collaboration with one of the most talented cinematographers working today, Manu Dacosse.”
Love and Friendship - Whit Stillman's approach could be suitable for adapting Jane Austen.
Madly - anthology by Gael García Bernal, Anurag Kashyap, Natasha Khan, Sebastián Silva, Sion Sono, and Mia Wasikowska.
Midnight Special - Jeff Nichols. Michael Shannon plays a father protecting his superpowered young son. With Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver and Sam Shepard.
Mindörökké (For Ever) - György Pálfi makes unique films.
Neon Demon - Nicolas Winding Refn does horror. Stars Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks.
The Queen of Katwe - Mira Nair directs Lupita Nyong'o as the Ugandan chess player Phiona Mutesi. With David Oyelowo.
A Quiet Passion - Terence Davies directs Cynthia Nixon and Jennifer Ehle in a biopic about Emily Dickinson.
The Salesman - Asghar Farhadi directs a movie about actors performingThe Death of a Salesman.
The Sense of an Ending, Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox) directs a prestige UK production.
Story of Your Life - Denis Villeneuve adapts Ted Chiang's alien contact story
A United Kingdom -. Amma Assante. "David Oyelowo plays Prince Seretse Khama of Botswana, who causes an international stir on marrying a white woman from London (Rosamund Pike)."
The Unknown Girl - Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. "Adèle Haenel plays Jenny, “a doctor who becomes obsessed with the identity of an unknown woman who died after being refused surgery.”

RESERVING JUDGMENT, POTENTIAL WITH CAST:
Birkebeinerne (The Last King) - Norway in 1206 is in civil war. With Kristofer Hivju, Jakob Oftebro, and Benjamin Helstad.
Don't Think Twice - An improv group of friends face conflict when one member lands a TV show while the rest have to deal with the lease. With Gillian Jacobs and Keegan Michael-Key.
Ghoomketu - Nawazuddin Siddiqui as a writer who goes to Mumbai to "prove his worth" in 30 days. This comedy has has supporting roles/cameos? by Amitabh Bachan and Huma Qureshi. Anurag Kashyap plays an Inspector.
Loving - Another Jeff Nichols film has Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton as the couple in a landmark mixed-race marriage case.
Our Kind of Traitor - Ewan McGregor, Naomie Harris, Damien Lewis, Stellan Skarsgård, Grigory Dobrygin, and Pawel Szajda in a John le Carré adaptation.
Over the Fence - Nobuhiro Yamashita directs Joe Odagirl and Yû Aoi.

VIEWING, TELEVISION
IMDB: 2016 in upcoming TV series
When does [insert show name here] come back in the United States?
io9's guide to sci-fi/fantasy TV
Kotaku's guide to Winter 2016 anime

SOME NEW SHOWS
Falling Water (USA): Three people (David Aja, Will Yun Lee, and Lizzie Brocheré) caught in a collective dream that might help them save the world. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo directed the pilot, which I hope will have the same creepy vibe as his early feature Intacto. Among the other credits is Ramón Fernández as "Mysterious Latin Man."
Frontier (Netflix): the North Atlantic fur trade in the late 18th century. Stars Jason Momoa.
Luke Cage (Netflix) and other Marvel shows
Midnight Sun - Leïla Bekhti plays a French detective sent to Arctic Sweden to investigate what will be the first of several murders.
SS-GB (BBC One): Sam Riley plays a detective drawn into a complicated case in Nazi-occupied London. Also stars Kate Bosmorth, Jason Flemyng, and Aneurin Barnard.
Underground (WGN America): Runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad. Stars Aldis Hodge. Premieres March 9.
Westworld (HBO) I like the cast, but I'm worried we'll be forced to sit through a lot of gratuitous...everything. Ed Brubaker's on the writing staff, though.

I'll see if the Powerpuff Girls' reboot is ok...I think I'm one of the few who was ok with the newer special. There will also be Vampire Hunter D: Resurrection. The Living and the Dead (with Colin Morgan) looks like a slower approach supernatural show. New horror includes Slasher (with Katie McGrath) and a modern-day Tales from the Darkside (is it a TV movie or failed pilot?) along with a Tales from the Crypt reboot that's more like one tale per season [more].. Secret City has Anna Torv, Jacki Weaver, and intrigue, although Aussies tell me that few Australian dramas turn out well. TNT is trying to adapt Animal Kingdom to Southern California, while Sony is adapting Roadside Picnic as a TV show, La Reina del Sur will be Queen of the South, and The Phantom of the Opera is becoming the TV show Coney Island. Richard Armitage is a spy again in Berlin Station. Archie Panjabi will lead the ABC anthology The Jury but I'm not sure if that will air in fall.
This is the best series synopsis I've found:
Blood Drive: The cars run on blood. Do you need a plot?

RETURNING
(not including shows in midseason or on my to-try list. I just started Manhattan and I'm already sad that it wasn't renewed for a third season.)
Agent Carter - season 2 recently started, seems alright so far
Black Mirror - returning on Netflix, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis in the first episode
Fortitude - filming season 2 right now
Halt and Catch Fire
Orphan Black - April
Narcos
I forgot what other shows I watch...

READING
io9's sci-fi/fantasy book preview and comics preview
promising: The Winged Histories, I Am Providence, The Last Days of New Paris, Certain Dark Things, The Winds of Winter (???)
The Millons' Great 2016 Book preview
I have This Census-Taker in my library stack but I've heard negative reviews. Maybe The Queen of the Night will live up to hype.The Book of Memory sounds promising. I'd want to read Álvaro Enrigue's Sudden Death untranslated. I like Oyeyemi's works although the ending of Boy, Snow, Bird was a big misstep. Shelter, by Jung Yun, Margaret the First, by Danielle Dutton, and Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi, could be good. Aravind Adiga's The Selections will be out in June.
Bomb Magazine spring books preview
A Floating Chinaman, by Hua Hsu, sounds interesting.
25 new books by African writers
I'll look out for The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician and Tales of the Metric System. Wow, that combination sounds nerdy.
ETA: Upcoming books by Black authors

LISTENING
2016 in music
Stereogum’s 101 most anticipated albums

Anticipating:
The Last Shadow Puppets
M.I.A. – Matahdatah
maybe RJD2
Islands will have two albums?
Lemaitre's latest single is danceable.

I was going to continue with my practice of setting 101 goals for the new year, but then I can't remember if I clicked "revert to previous draft" when I opened this page or not, so, my goal for the year is...accomplish something.

I did write about my media highlights and favorite music of 2015.

Goals actually accomplished in 2015:

I was able to show whomp around San Francisco, and I also reconnected with many relatives on both sides of my family! I'm a really social person, and it was great to see and talk with them.

With the family, I returned to Las Vegas and Puerto Rico. New places we visited included Yosemite and Mammoth, other towns in Gold Country, Also did more local tourism, including the Renaissance Fair at Casa de Fruta. All the hyperlinks in this paragraph link to pictures!

I did get to speak Spanish more, especially in Puerto Rico, and I used Japanese a little at work (although, when one customer asked me a question in Japanese, I answered in Spanish. I corrected myself and she was fine with it, but yeah). I even had a simple conversation in Norwegian! Although I can't say more because we can't post about specific customers on the internet. Even a few phrases of Tagalog helped once. I am now on over 80 days of practicing Gaeilge and Norsk on Duolingo.

Finally visited New People when we went to a festival in Japantown. My mom bought me this Omocat sweater...partly because I forgot to wear warm enough clothing for that windy day...

I did start lifting 20-pound free weights, and while I didn't get to 25-pound, I did move from 10 reps to 15 reps over the course of the year.

I bought some nice and often useful clothes (many via work discount), as well as 2 CDs, nice yearly agendas (classic art for 2015, and a slim Star Wars one with Rey and BB-8 on the cover for 2016 through 2017), and the Universal classic Horror DVD set. Also received a new photo camera and mini-tripod prior to our Las Vegas trip.

I did read at least one book from every continent except Antarctica, but I think that's less of a feat because diverse selection is pretty much my general taste when I go to the libraries here. Also read five non-fiction books, as well as five books published in 2015. Now I want to read more from before 1900.

I think I'll just dump my list of TV watched from October through December here. So much I still have to catch up on...
( the episodes )

finally finished Les Revenants

(so many emotions! so many questions! so many torpedoed theories!)

think I can finally return to what I wanted to accomplish in October

then I see that The Man in The High Castle episode 2 is out

ETA: oh hey found a way to watch the Norwegian show Okkupert, about Russians occupying the country
no subs tho...
ok this is a weird coincidence - not only is it speculative fiction about an occupied country, like The Man in the High Castle, but it has the dad of Ana Girardot (Lucy in Les Revenants) in the cast...

ETA 2: yessss this has undertekster at least so Google Translate can help

-internally screaming about Les Revenants season 2-

mood: geeky

( episodes watched from July through September )

Wasn't able to continue doing Solstice Specials anymore.

But I've continued keeping track of full TV episodes watched!

( episodes watched April - June )

lol my brother's calling me a hipster for not wanting to watch Game of Thrones anymore

couldn't really get into the Daredevil pilot (well cast but...I dunno. seems like close to the Bendis-Maleev stories I really liked but not quite there), but I started Fortitude today and now I'm on...episode 4. Strange because most people think the later is slow and it's usually hard for me to stick with murder mystery TV becausthey aren't contained like movies. But this show starts out with a polar bear eating a dude! Interest captured right there.

An FFA friend posted a link to this today: In Celebration of Old-School Livejournal

I had stayed off of f-list and tumblr dash the past two weeks to make time to watch movies for a "Best of 2010-2014" poll for YAM-Magazine. The vote actually ends in fifteen more days, but I want my life back! So I'm slowly returning back to social media and all the TV and other things I had put off during that period.

I also had a really nasty sore throat; last week during an overnight shift I had to keep running back to the water fountain whenever I got violent, suffocating coughs that required lots of water to help me recover. (I made sure to cough into my elbow instead of the clothes I was fixing at the store, though.) Today, I'm still coughing a little, but recovery's going well.

Ranking some of the movies I've seen recently for the poll, from excellent down to pretty good:

The Boy and the World (O menino e o mundo), 2013: a dialogueless Brazilian animated movie that I first couldn't get into when I was tired, but when I woke up and sped up the movie a little (I thought the poll deadline was that midnight) it was perfect. Doesn't matter that the message is blunt- it's relevant to Brazil and done really well.

The Missing Picture (L’image manquante), 2013: The director, Rithy Panh, made clay figures to illustrate his life in Cambodia before and during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Some commenters said it was slow but I thought the pacing had good speed. This is the only movie I actually paid to watch, since I streamed it with Amazon gift credit, and I was so captivated I had finish the film at wayyy too early in the morning.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Kaguya-hime no monogatari), 2013: It's great, but I have minor quibbles about things that stand out after reading the Yasunari Kawabata prose version of the tale.

Whiplash, 2014: Definitely my tempo.

Grey Matter (Matière Grise), 2011. It starts out a little meta, following a young director in Rwanda trying to put together a movie. Then you see the movie he had in mind. Some early parts seem really iffy but pay off at the end. Only wish for a little more to the final full circle scene, but otherwise a great debut that has me anticipating more from Kivu Ruhorahoza.

The Selfish Giant, 2013. Really plunges you into the lives (and accents) of two kids who try and make a little money from selling scrap metal.There are a couple of moments that made me gasp, and the last third of the film is so intense.

The Prize (El premio), 2011. Very good with performances and atmosphere. Though made in Mexico, it's based on the director's childhood under Argentina's dictatorship.Good interview in Spanish here.

Nostalgia for the Light (Nostalgia de la luz), 2010. Chilean documentary that makes a brilliant connection between astronomy, archaelogy, and the experience and aftermath of life under dictatorship.

The Dark Horse, 2014. An outstanding entry from New Zealand in the usually middling "troubled coach helps troubled kids through training in a competitive activity" genre.

Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (Jigoku de naze warui), 2013. A Sion Sono hyperexplosion of blood and color about yakuza wars and filmmaking.

I saw other good movies, but these are the ones I felt most compelled to write about at this time. Okay, special mention to the macabre Canadian comedy Eddie: The Sleepwallking Cannibal (Thure Lindhardt should really get to do more comedy!) and trippy Russian movie Generation P. The animation style in Le tableau is so gorgeous and the meta concept so innovative that I wish the script was better for the first third of the movie. Oslo 31 August really messed me up, and I was able to recognize quite a few of the performers in the end montage of Bombay Talkies.
Made some other discoveries, like: Tom Hardy does a really good Welsh accent and I can easily identify Andrew Scott's voice (Locke), and Matthias Schoenaerts in Bullhead/Runskop really looks like Tom Hardy. Looking forward to future significant roles for Amrita Acharia (Jeg er din), Saleh and Adam Bakri (Salvo, Lamma shoftak, Omar), Aniello Arena (Reality), Karidja Touré (Bande de filles), and so many of the actors in Starred Up. Also glad to see quality features from female directors such as Paula Markovitch (El premio), Clio Barnard (The Selfish Giant moreso than The Arbor), July Jung (Dohee-ya), Annemarie Jacir (Lamma shoftak), Tanya Hamilton (Night Catches Us), Alice Rohrwacher (Le meraviglie and Corpo Celeste), Iram Haq (Jeg er din). Amma Asante (Belle), and more.

Finally, the reason for which I actually intended to make this post:( TV episodes watched between January 1 and today. )

I'll mention what appeals to my odd tastes, but the links are there so you can check what appeals to you!

VIEWING, MOVIES
Emphasis on world premieres.
Fandor's most anticipated of 2015.
The Guardian's alphabetized list.
IMDB’s poll lists Sundance titles likely for distribution
Full list of Berlinale announcements.
Ioncinema's anticipated "foreign" release countdown.
Indiewire's anticipated 100, all on one page.

ANTICIPATING:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Johnnie To’s Design for Living musical with Sylvia Chang Ai-Chia that is mentioned at the bottom of this article. Not sure if it will be even finished this year, though.

CASUALLY EXPECTING:
Mockingjay Pt. 2.
Iffy on Avengers 2.and also Chappie-- Neill Blomkamp gets another chance but why Die Antwoord...
Mad Max: Fury Road - based on the trailer
Ferryman - Wong Kar-wai and Tony Leung

RESERVING JUDGMENT, POTENTIAL IN CONCEPT:
Advantageous - Victorian Futurist sci-fi about a mother's struggles and sacrifice for her daughter.
Atom Heart Mother - "Ali Ahmadzadeh will showcase his movie ‘Madare Ghalb Atomi’ (Atom Heart Mother) whose cast include[s] famous Iranian actor and actress, Mohammad Reza Golzar and Taraneh Alidoosti." (source) Named after the Pink Floyd album?
Beasts of No Nation- Good book. Cary Fukunaga directing. Idris Elba will play the leader of the soldiers.
Calamity Qui? - "brings Western heroine Calamity Jane back to life in a kaleidoscope of cinematic and historical references."
La casa más grande del mundo (The Greatest House in the World) - "By Ana V. Bojórquez and Lucía Carreras. Entrusted with a major task, the Mayan girl Rocío grows beyond her own limits. In sublime shots, the camera follows Rocío’s journey through the breath-taking mountain scenery of Guatemala."
Child 44
The Forbidden Room - I'm not the Guy Maddin fan I used to be, but this seems promising.
Francophonia : Le Louvre Under German Occupation - Alexander Sokurov (who filmed The Hermitage in one take in Russian Ark) now visits The Louvre.
The Hateful Eight
Have You Ever Killed a Bear? Or Becoming Jamila - "a young actress takes an in-depth look at an Algerian resistance fighter she is supposed to play."
In the Heart of the Sea - Ron Howard directing Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw and Brendan Gleeson. I've heard the book is good.
K - Emyr ap Richard, Darhad Erdenibulag. “Tries its hand at Kafka’s novel fragment The Castle and transposes the land surveyor’s struggle against opaque bureaucratic structures into the Inner Mongolia of the present.”
Li Wen at East Lake - "Shot as a straightforward doc, the style of the film feels like a departure for Luo, until after 35 minutes this non-fiction preamble comes to a close and a fictional story begins featuring the titular Li Wen."
London Road - "dark musical" with cameo by Tom Hardy.
Nebesnyj Verbljud (Celestial Camel) - "By Yury Feting. The 12-year-old shepherd boy Bair has to find an angry run-away mother camel. On the back of an old motorcycle, he sets out on a magical and dangerous journey through the endless vastness of the Mongolian steppes."
Partisan - Vincent Cassel is a commune leader who trains child assassins. Won a Sundance special jury award for cinematography.
Queen of Earth
The Revenant - Alejandro G. Iñárritu directing Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, and Domhnall Gleeson in a revenge Western. Emmanuel Lubezki is director of photography.
The Second Mother - "This densely layered yet almost fast paced-feeling drama, from writer-director Anna Muylaert (Collect Call), passes not only the Bechdel test with flying colors but dissects with both chilling precision and humor such matters as class differences, real mothers vs. caretakers and whether privilege and one’s own station are things that can be questioned or changed."
The Seventh Fire - "When Native American gangster Rob Brown gets sentenced to prison for a fifth time, he must confront his role in bringing gang culture to the remote Ojibwe village of his youth. For seventeen-year-old Kevin, Rob is the embodiment of a new kind of Native "warrior" in this haunting and visually arresting nonfiction film about the gang crisis in Indian Country, presented by Terrence Malick."
Spiderwebhouse - Black-and-white drama turned fantasy as three children are left by their mother (Sylvie Testud) to take care of themselves.
Slow West
Things of the Aimless Wanderer - "cutting-edge" multiple-perspectives film from Rwanda with only two scenes of dialogue.
Tordenskjold - Life after war for an 18th-century naval hero played by Jakob Oftebro.
Wondering if Guldkysten is the movie Oftebro talked about that deals with Scandinavian involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.
The Witch
The Wolfpack - documentary about brothers reenacting films

RESERVING JUDGMENT, POTENTIAL WITH DIRECTOR/REPUTATION:
Arabian Nights - Miguel Gomes. I'm not sure about shifting the 1001 Nights to modern-day Portugal, but we'll see.
The Assassin - Hou Hsiao-Hsien directing Shu Qi in wuxia.
Balikbayan #1 (Memories of Overdevelopment Redux) - Kidlat Tahimik
Bombay Velvet - Anurag Kashyap
The Brothers Lionheart - Tomas Alfredson
Crimson Peak - Guillermo del Toro
The Embroiderer - Brillante Mendoza
Éternité - Tran Anh Hung (The Vertical Ray of the Sun, The Scent of Green Papaya, Cyclo) directing Mélanie Laurent, Beatrice Bejo and Audrey Tautou in period drama.
Floating Gardens - Majid Majidi
The Insects - Jan Švankmajer
Journey to the Shore - Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who also might release a French-language film with Tahar Rahim later this year.
Let the Bodies Sunbathe! (a.k.a. Corpses in the Sun) - haven't seen Cattet and Forzani's other works yet, but they have an interesting title.
Love in Khon Kaen - Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Love and Peace - Sion Sono, who also has Shinjuku Swan this year.
Mariposa - Marco Berger
Midnight Special - Jeff Nichols
Mountains May Depart - Jia Zhangke directing Zhao Tao in a drama that reaches from 1990's China to 2020's Australia.
Sicario - Denis Villeneuve directing Emily Blunt as an FBI Agent versus a drug cartel. Wondering how they will treat the subject.
Taxi - Jafar Panahi
Tomorrowland - Brad Bird
Triple Nine - heist drama by John Hillcoat
Umimachi Diary - Hirokazu Kore-eda
The Voice - Gyorgy Palfi
War on Everyone - John Michael McDonagh
Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld - Takashi Miike
Zama - Lucrecia Martel adapting Antonio di Benedetto. The book is good, although it's not my favorite by the author.

RESERVING JUDGMENT, POTENTIAL WITH CAST:
Green Room - "Director Saulnier’s follow-up looks to be heading into similar heightened exploitation territory, a twist on the siege movie that pits punks against psychotic fascists, the former led by ever-rising stars (Anton) Yelchin and (Imogen) Poots, the latter by, in one of the best bits of casting of the year, Shakespeare veteran/winner of the internet Patrick Stewart, who rarely gets to play with material like this and is bound to have a ton of fun with it."
Legend -Tom Hardy as the Kray twins.

VIEWING, TELEVISION
IMDB: 2015 in upcoming TV series
io9's guide to sci-fi and fantasy TV
When does [insert show name here] come back in the United States?

SOME NEW SHOWS
Currently watching Agent Carter and Kampen om tungtvannet (The Heavy Water War). The Man in the High Castle had a pilot with potential.
Fresh Off the Boat
Westworld
Humans (might be a better-looking remake than the one for Les revenants)
Jessica Jones
Narcos. Not sure about this but it has Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar (accents?) alongside Pedro Pascal.

READING
The Millions' Great Book Preview
look interesting: Kelly Link's Get in Trouble, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant (though advance reviews say it's just ok), Toni Morrison's God Help the Child, Mark Z. Danielewski's The Familiar, Volume One: One Rainy Day in May, Mia Alvar's In the Country, Mia Couto's Confession of the Lioness.
Io9's 2015 sci-fi and fantasy book preview. I've heard good things about Genevieve Valentine, whose Persona will be released this year, and Porochista Khakpour, whose The Last Ilusion is based on Persian classics. I'd wait on word about Robert Charles Wilson's The Affinities and others.China Mieville also has a short story collection called Three Moments of an Explosion.
Image Comics' 2015 lineup. Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda's Monstress and Darwyn Cooke's Revengeance could be good.

LISTENING
2015 album releases
The Dead Weather might release something more than a few singles this year?

bit late but my favorite movies, tv and music of 2014.

slowly getting back into things after my social network hiatus.

( Episodes watched between October and December 2014 )

Finally changed up some of my icons. I am, at default, an island of frost.

Been busy with retail work (survived Black Friday!) and family. The latter dragged me to the Exodus movie yesterday but at least I was vindicated when everyone realized how bad it was. The most entertaining part was 11-year-old Isaac Andrews' performance as Lil' Punk Almighty.

Frustrated that I might never get into making movies ever with the way life is going, (lol I know I'm only 26 but you don't know my life dude. Maybe I could direct or at least write a better Biblical short than 99% of what is made.) Maybe I'll try and edit some footage I still have, idk.

Catching up on Adventure Time and Elementary and other current watching includes Brooklyn 99 and Key and Peele. aw man Jakob's leaving Kollektivet but I wish him the best. Need to find some time to watch Over the Garden Wall and Blue Blazes (the Japanese live action show about anime creators in college) and other shows and movies from 2014 I can manage to find before the year ends. Anticipating the Black Mirror Christmas Special but I won't get my hopes too high for it just in case. Also cautious about the upcoming Star Wars film, although I like many in the cast.

Music I've been into recently:

Ladytron - "Melting Ice"

Shiina Ringo - "Shuen no Onna (Leading Lady)." I want to make a tribute to '60's Japanese crime movies that is set to this song. I also like how the title and sound contrasts with "Arikitari na Onna (Ordinary Woman)" (great live performance there) from the other album she released this year.

Utopia 2 OST - "To You All Kids Will Come"
Separating this from the events it accompanies in the show, this piece puts me into a state of euphoria. Ecstasy. Maybe just euthymia If I'm not able to play it at its best settings on any media player or in my head.

Music Go Music - "Shine Down Forever"
THE BAND IS INSPIRED BY DISCO AND SIMILAR MUSIC FROM THAT ERA SO THE CORNY LYRICS TOTALLY FIT THIS SOUND OK

Small Faces - "Runaway"
I was looking up covers of Del Shannon's "Runaway" when I found this. Thus, I found out about Small Faces a few days after their keyboardist died. RIP. At least I found out about them?

need to play music to fight the Christmas music mix on loop at the store where I work. Also, my supervisors are pretty good but so many of them are younger than me and this is one of the things (along with current events and family arguments!) that gets me crisis-ing in my mind now and then.

mood: okay
music: Calle 13 - "Cuando Los Pies Besan El Piso"

( TV episodes watched from July through September 2014. )

January 2018

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