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Oh hey, I was just about to post this. I completely forgot! Also don't forget about the after-episode podcast - Viet Thanh Nguyen is a guest on a few of those episodes and there's a lot of good insight into his thinking.

This is one of my favorite parts of the book, and I think they did relatively well translating it to the screen. I think it got lost on that Vulture recapper though. Maybe part of it is that we actually know what the Captain is thinking throughout the… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 8:09 AM on May 8, 2024

Came across an interview with John Cho and his reflections on his role as James Yoon:

What I can relate to in the James Yoon character, our connection point, is that he was trying to do the very best with this role that he had. What he wasn’t doing was critiquing the bigger picture. Maybe today I might be more prone to, say, look at a script and go, “Whereas textually this character is not offensive or demeaning at all, in context depicting this person doesn’t… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 7:15 AM on May 9, 2024

I liked the intro of Ms. Mori. Not too crazy about the professor.

The actor who plays Bon is doing some great work there.

I listened to Hoa Xander’s real Australian voice and that threw me so off. He did a fantastic job with the American accent.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 3:57 PM on April 30, 2024

The premiere is very good. I think I saw somewhere where Nguyen said that Robert Downey Jr was the hook to get audiences in, but the real meat of the story is the story of the Vietnam war from the Vietnamese perspectives with Vietnamese actors in almost every single scene. I think Hoa Xuande does an excellent job at least in this first episode.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 8:05 AM on April 17, 2024

I feel like a lot happened in a very short window of time.

And the clone's transformation looked exactly like the Sailor Moon transformation; thought that was hilarious and awesome.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 2:06 PM on March 28, 2024

There's some great stuff in this week's after episode podcast on The Ringer with Bill Hader and Sean Fennessey.

Highlights:

There's a conscious choice not to use music in the episode.

Every time you hear the helicopter, it's Barry.

Ali Wong came up with the title for Mega-Girl (sidebar - her and Bill are currently dating).

The writers fought Bill on what to do with Cristobal.

Worth listening to the whole thing.

The silo thing terrified me so much.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 3:47 PM on May 1, 2023

EmpressCallipgyos, this Twitter thread by Jeffrey Ngo, activist historian on the current Academy president Janet Yang may shed some light on her politics, and also provides commentary on what the Oscars mean for Asians and Asian Americans.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 12:19 PM on March 13, 2023

Oh sorry, I was referring to your earlier comment questioning why Zelensky was not invited to speak. I should have been clearer. I did not mean to say that you had said something inappropriate.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 1:11 PM on March 13, 2023

As I get older the chapter where Anne gets jealous of Christine just gets funnier and funnier to me.

I still don't understand why exactly they decided to send Walter away for Rilla's birth.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 8:41 AM on October 27, 2022

Wouldn't it have made more sense to send him with Jem to Green Gables? I'm so overthinking it.

Also, I never did like Susan claiming Shirley for herself. I don't care, he's NOT your kid!
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 9:23 AM on October 27, 2022

I went through and looked, aside from the Christine chapter, there was also the one where she wrote a poetic obituary for Anthony Mitchell, and where she tries her hand at matchmaking Alden and Stella, who were already engaged to each other. I didn't realize until now that this book was the last one Montgomery had published in 1939, and also how a lot of the stories with the kids centered around them being lied to.

I always really liked the gossipy chapters where Ms.… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 8:11 AM on October 29, 2022

I just added Anne of Ingleside if anyone wants to discuss!
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 8:53 AM on October 27, 2022

I just have a ton of affection for all iterations of this series. I remember watching the original Japanese episodes as a kid (with no subtitles) and having no clue what was going on, but just loving the drama. Anyway, I like how they're making this one more "epic" and grander in scale, and I like all the Iron Chefs they have on. I'll always remember how Ming Tsai brought in the air compressor for his Peking duck! Anyway, I'm still in the middle of this first episode, and I appreciate… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 12:16 PM on June 21, 2022

This conversation was fun and led to a few great Owen Wilson Shakespeare memes.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 7:07 AM on July 25, 2021

This is currently one of the free movies on YouTube, and is also available on Hulu (basic).
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 7:38 AM on May 8, 2021

I finished the American version, and it was mostly fun. I'll try to find the international versions eventually.

Interesting parts: a typhoid epidemic being weaponized. Hello masks in ancient Chinese setting! Communication & bonding via zither playing was fun. The princess warrior/spy was great, and I wish we got to see more of her.

I feel like the battle scenes were somehow both too long and also too abrupt. Also, what happens to the emperor… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 12:20 PM on May 10, 2021

I actually don't think the show is that deep? I think of Peter Chung + the other creators as playing around a lot with the format of animation, and pushing boundaries on what's possible for storytelling, but as depth, it seems to be your basic opposites attract in a sci-fi universe.

I actually came into the series without any idea of what it was about, and all the kinkiness of everything really threw me for a loop at first. I really like the same kind of writers Chung… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 1:15 PM on November 25, 2020

Here's a pretty recent Vogue interview with Peter Chung: “As an artist, what you find is it’s actually very difficult to draw realistic clothing, and even if you do it, your drawing then becomes more about what the character is wearing rather than the character itself,” says Chung. “It’s also another reason why you see, for example, in superhero comic books they wear skin-tight outfits. It is to show off the form of the body.”
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 1:18 PM on November 25, 2020

I didn't notice this earlier, but it seems like the girls are having to call 911 a lot on their baby-sitting jobs.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 6:47 PM on July 16, 2020

I dunno, I kinda liked Dawn's characterization; a lot of it seemed to me to be the writers poking fun at themselves, but still completely earnest. Anyway, I loved this episode; I also liked how everything wasn't completely resolved at the end of this one - there are still tensions in the next episode.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 11:40 AM on July 12, 2020

To tell you the truth, this book taught me a lot as a kid about diabetes, which helped me understand when one of my best friends told me she had diabetes. Also, I tried to make my own kid kits, but I was too lazy to commit. :P

Also, does anyone wonder how much the adults are supposed to be paying the 13 year olds to babysit their kids on this show? In the books I remember it was somewhere like $3 an hour, but there's no way people are still paying that little for… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 10:19 AM on July 11, 2020

Since we are talking about Claudia, we can't talk about her without talking about all the girls' outfits and costuming. I only wish I were ever half as fashionable and self-confident as these kids.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 12:15 PM on July 6, 2020

In my previous neighborhood, there was a middle school girl who very obviously loved babies and kids and would play with all the kids in our little area. If I had needed it, I would have totally hired her.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 8:50 AM on July 5, 2020

I actually had mixed feelings about this movie. Things I liked: the actors - Tzi Ma has been around for as long as I can remember, and the actor who played the young version of him, Hong-Chi Lee, was just great. Couldn't take my eyes off of him. Loved the atmosphere of it, the homages to In the Mood for Love, and the visuals.

What I didn't like: the dialogue. Even given my own difficulty with the language, I didn't feel any of the Mandarin/Taiwanese dialogue seemed… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 9:02 PM on April 15, 2020

I just finished reading this. That was pretty hilarious.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 3:10 PM on January 1, 2020

Could someone please explain what was up with Miss Cornelia's prejudice against Methodists? I have been baffled by this my entire life. Especially since everyone else in the book seem to have been fine with them.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 3:51 PM on October 22, 2019

bq, thanks, that would make sense. For some reason I thought there was a more elegant, refined logic, but I should have known better.
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 12:10 PM on October 23, 2019

I just read this yesterday: Aunt Philippa and the Men - one of those early L.M. Montgomery short stories where you see her figuring out where to put things. In this one "Aunt Philippa" is a Miss Cornelia figure who rails against the men and Methodists, and eventually helps her niece get married (reminiscent of Rilla's wedding scene) by a Methodist minister. It's not an amazing story, but has a lot of familiar themes - impulsive anger and stubbornness wrecking a romantic relationship,… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 3:24 PM on November 13, 2019

LMM also seems to have had a thing about how disciplining boys is completely different from raising girls. In this one, she doesn't get on Anthony Pye's good side until she properly hits him with a switch, and then that seems to earn her respect.

I think there was another short story in which two single women try to raise adopted boy(s) and everything's a disaster until the male love interest uses the switch on him (them). Can't remember which one. I think the big joke… [more]
posted to FanFare by toastyk at 2:24 PM on September 16, 2019