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Seconding Etrigan - that Charles reveal, of his manipulation of the alpha, was so sly and cool!
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 11:33 AM on August 17, 2021

Keeley is, yet again, making very very sensible sacrifices, suggestions, inferences, and statements -- so admirable!!
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:23 AM on August 15, 2021

"hope the rest of the season really does put the characters through some actual stakes"

Space Coyote: this is a genuine question: why do you want that?

I do not know much about the Iyashikei genre, but I love soothing low-key healing stories, partly because they feel like a breath of fresh air and a relief; there are so many other shows and books and movies etc. where things get tense and stakes-y (including stories that I like or love).… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:53 AM on August 17, 2021

In the She-Hulk comics, there is a moment (while She-Hulk is serving as a judge) where the Watchers are in court against an isolationist species which does not wish to be watched. Solution: that one Watcher is silenced, so he can watch, but cannot speak about what he sees. (I seem to recall it's a he.)
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:41 PM on August 16, 2021

The Holt-Diaz scenes in this episode are SO GREAT; I was happily reminded of Martha Wells's Murderbot books.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:03 AM on August 16, 2021

God, this is a wonderful film. I cry just thinking about it.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:47 AM on August 14, 2021

"Pass the tape, bruv."

SOLIDARITY IS ALWAYS GOING TO GET ME CHOKED UP.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:49 PM on August 7, 2021

I just read and ADORED this. I cried multiple times: Mrs. Mandelstam's speech to Wanda about not abandoning her!! Miryem being told, no, seriously, what you did is magic! And I cannot remember the last time the last lines of a book left me with such a smile on my face. I have read several Novik novels, including "Uprooted", and this is my favorite.

Also, the tsar's point of view kind of reminded me of Wodehouse in a fun way.

miles per… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 11:29 PM on October 11, 2019

I just reread "Spinning Silver" and the second time through I better understand the Staryks' values around debt, negotiation, thanks/gratitude, etc. I'm still reflecting on how Novik shows that demanding what one is owed is part of self-respect, and how finance and writing and math are honored as forms of magic.

And... I am still finding my way through this, but in Miryem's working out how to deal with the Staryks' conception of contract, promise, and… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:47 PM on August 5, 2021

Back around 2004 I became a superfan of a comedian in San Francisco named Will Franken - Franken's comedy style had one-person sketches (in-person as well as self-produced audio) with intensely cerebral and conceptual humor, like an unborn baby asking not to be born so it could remain in a William Blake-described pre-birth heaven.

Unfortunately Franken became a Trumpist and as such Franken's comedy became less enjoyable to me (also, because of a transition and… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:32 PM on August 4, 2021

Oh where was the other Brompton product placement, other than Dr. Fieldstone's usage in this episode?
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 2:15 AM on August 1, 2021

I have been interested in buying a Brompton! What, in these shows, does using/having a Brompton imply about a character?
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 9:28 AM on August 1, 2021

I'm a non-banker in NYC but otherwise probably all of that fits!

What a generous gesture when Dr. Fieldstone allowed him to call her Doc, and shared her favorite book, and made that positive assessment of the team's camaraderie. I am looking forward to hearing more from her and the Dutch guy and from Roy, all of whom are truthtellers...
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 11:38 PM on August 1, 2021

The evil speech! "They don't matter. We matter." Oooooof.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 9:25 PM on July 10, 2021

Oh I just assumed she did a year abroad while in college in the US, as a lot of people do.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:34 PM on July 25, 2021

The people I know best who studied abroad for a year did not just treat it as a paid vacation; they studied intensely, genuinely broadened their perspectives, and so on. Sounds like your acquaintances and friends had different experiences; the world is vast and people differ.

If you want to build up this particular villain's backstory into the most awful possible one, then sure, treat that year as just another particle in it - she did a year's vacation-style study abroad… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:19 PM on July 25, 2021

This two-parter and "Allegiance" are so fascinating in how you see the crew's reaction to a not-Picard captain.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 11:58 AM on July 19, 2021

I described this villain to my spouse as "Martin Shkreli with a single serial number filed off." I think of the high-value card as being like the Wu-Tang Clan album...
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 5:16 PM on July 11, 2021

Ms. "St. Claire" was willing to make racist implications in her dismissal of Chaudhry. That jarred me and reminded me of how ruthless the crew can be. Elsewhere in this season, we see the old-timer Leverage crew dealing with the newcomers' misgivings about the meaner things they do. This is similar.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 9:28 PM on July 10, 2021

COM4R4T reminded me of Tacocat from The Good Place :)
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:54 PM on July 9, 2021

cendawanita: Very glad to!

Cho tweeted:

My third novel, Black Water Sister, is out in the US today. It's a book about which I simultaneously feel vulnerable, because it's so personal, and secure, because it's good. I did a good job with this one.

Black Water Sister is about a young woman called Jess, who exists in that strange space between cultures that so many of us know. "Neither here neither there.… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:46 AM on May 18, 2021

I saw this set of GIFs clipped from the film on Tumblr and it convinced me to give the movie a try.

Oh I teared uppppp at the reveal about the cabin and the origin of the little moose toy!

A surprise: the Poseys never get a "oh they live imperfect lives actually" reveal/comeuppance!

The animation style, where you see the action sort of emotionally annotated with additional animation effects from the main… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 4:31 AM on May 7, 2021

Alan Hawkins's tool broke the animation pipeline! (that's so coooool)
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 6:58 PM on May 8, 2021

A friend of mine just saw this ep and appreciated how, even without their memories, the crew sees that supposedly they are meant to attack an enemy with massively overwhelming force, destroying something that has no substantive means of defending itself against them, and just says: no, this feels utterly wrong, what's going on here?! It speaks to their deep-set morals, their character, in a way that reflects the TNG spirit.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 4:17 AM on May 7, 2021

The only Trek episode that I have ever watched for a college-level philosophy class!
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 9:00 AM on April 29, 2021

I also laughed at the summary - thank you!
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 12:57 PM on April 22, 2021

At the end of "I'm Tex Richman" the backup dancers go back into a tiny side room, visibly bored, and just as the door closes, you see one of them start to eat some SunChips. My spouse finds SunChips very boring and thinks this detail is perfect and hilarious. I love it because he loves it.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:50 PM on December 17, 2020

I am so proud that, when we got to zoom in on the lower left corner of the back page of the newspaper, and we were trying to work out what writing system it was, I said "Vulcan?" and my spouse pulled my Star Trek Encyclopedia off the shelf (got it for my 13th birthday) and confirmed that. Yup! That's Vulcan.

Also proud that, as we were speculating about Carl's and the door's whole deal, I said "Guardian of Forever" which then got shout-outs in the… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:42 PM on December 12, 2020

I LOVED this episode -- the various plots (Adira and Michael, the crew as a whole, Detmer, Stamets and Tilly) all being INCREDIBLY TREK in this core theme: you have to face your pain, and connect with others, to move through and past it. You can't deny and clench your way through recovery from trauma. It was like the TNG ep "Family".

You know that bit from Enterprise?

the most profound discoveries are not… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 5:42 AM on November 8, 2020

I ..... in what way is the symbol of yin and yang a "karma symbol"?! Also, the name of Linda's showstopper. Am I missing something about the British context, or should the editors have found some ways around some of this stuff?
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 7:00 PM on October 25, 2020

I have now finished this and liked it a lot! The journeys each of the main characters take, the design fiction of the various apps and events, the view into why people do the things they do, the relationships and the hope.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 4:06 AM on July 26, 2020

The music at the end, all the way into the credits, was The Mamas & the Papas' "Dedicated to the One I Love", and I sat up straight because another Canadian series, "Every Frame A Painting", used it kind of the same way.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 7:46 AM on July 17, 2020

Mr. Bad Example, thanks for the personal experience! It's funny how I think any future production will now seem weird to me if Oberon's character speaks what were originally Oberon's lines, etc.

Some questions:

So, at the end, Demetrius just never gets un-hypnotized, and will remain in love with Helena for the rest of his life?

What's the deal with the "Indian boy"? Is this a character who is literally from… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 12:53 PM on June 28, 2020

happyroach asked:

OK, leaving aside the whole antisemitic stereotyping, is anyone else going to tackle the elephant in the room? The hyper capitalist approach of the Ferengi doesn't work in a world with replicators.

In August 2000, I was reading someone's blog and I saw that he'd asked that question -- specifically, he asked:

On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, did they ever deal with… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 4:10 PM on April 21, 2020

Oh NO. I am so sad to hear that. The music he worked on for CXG was such an integral part of what I loved and what so many of us loved in that show. I mourn our loss.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 6:54 PM on April 1, 2020

The Blade Runner/Battlestar Galactica tropes jumped out at my household as we were viewing.... in particular there are some interesting similarities with the pilot of the BSG reboot (things happening on an anniversary date, the revelation of a twin, an old Admiral getting pulled back into action).... but hey, Ron Moore was a Star Trek dude first! So it's all full circle.

On how those two Romulans came to be… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 7:29 AM on January 27, 2020

(When he said "Dunkirk" my subconscious expected a BWAAMMMMMM on the soundtrack because I saw so many trailers for the Christopher Nolan movie Dunkirk that had a BWAMMMMMMM sound. Am I alone?)
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 7:31 AM on January 27, 2020

My spouse and I are partway through Season One and it's so heartwarming and nice. And it's moved us to get some half-broken stuff from our closets and fix them up or get them fixed!
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:07 AM on January 14, 2020

Content note for the Holocaust, Season 2, Episode 1 (one of the heirlooms was owned by an ancestor who had and used it while interred in a concentration camp).
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 12:17 PM on January 22, 2020

Thank you Aznable and lampoil for the test subject collections!

And it made me SO HAPPY to see Ambedkar on that list. More people should know about Ambedkar!

Glad to learn about more people who did very good things. Toyohiko Kagawa has a great quote:

"I read in a book that a man called Christ went about doing good. It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about.… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:47 AM on January 17, 2020

What is the book Jason read that told him about the Montagues and Capulets? Perhaps a novelization of the Baz Luhrmann film?

And Michael's struggles teaching the Bad Place architects probably echo past conversations Michael Schur has had with writers or network executives on his shows, right?
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:49 AM on January 17, 2020

I haven't seen this yet. Quick question: the main character's a programmer. How much does actual programming, making technology, etc. matter in her interior life? Does it seem like there are going to, for instance, be any songs actually about what it's like to make software? Because that is what I am incredibly interested in.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 1:25 PM on January 10, 2020

(My interest in theater/song about programming.)

Thanks for answering my question. I will hold out hope!
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 6:36 AM on January 11, 2020

I'll come back later - I have a conspiracy theory I don't want to detail in the very first comment, among other things I still want to squeal about later.

I wanna hear it!

I enjoyed Knives Out a lot -- stylish, funny, cutting. I'm thinking about this movie in connection with Get Out, Arrested Development, Gosford Park, and other films/TV about rich white families, their houses, and their entitlement.
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:39 AM on November 29, 2019

(In actual fact, this film is one reason I have finally started reading Gravity's Rainbow. I am on like page 54.)
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 5:51 AM on January 9, 2020

My spouse and I just watched it. Agreeing with you exceptinsects about how great those potatoes were. Her piece actually reminded me of Ursula K. Le Guin's essay on the carrier bag theory of fiction, in a way I have a hard time articulating.

Also -- and this is very minor -- it was really fun/funny to see host Nick Uhas ask the futurist (Jesse) "Is this the future?" about the artists' pieces. My spouse suggested a one-hour show where the two just walk around… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 6:03 PM on January 6, 2020

As for this being shown as part one on its own rather than as a single hour: I figure NBC made various decisions based on the rest of its Thursday night lineup, and I figure the second half of the ep will be good and will answer some more questions.

My household did not suspect Linda! We were thinking that Linda would be a chance for us to reflect on people who are neither virtuous nor wicked, just apathetic..... perhaps who have no particular desires. My spouse heartily… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 9:59 AM on September 29, 2019

Oh, and: I believe the book Chidi chooses to summon into his hand is Kant's Critique of Pure Reason!
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 10:02 AM on September 29, 2019

I got to see this at a local Queens screening event a few days before the TV premiere! Penn was there and answered some interviewer and audience questions after the showing. I was so happy when he referenced Head of the Class and answered my question about immigrant experience among directors and writers (answer: yes, they've been strongly seeking out writers, directors, and actors who are immigrants, are the children of immigrants, or otherwise have a lot of experience with… [more]
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 8:21 AM on September 27, 2019

It's neat to reflect on how punk rockers and punk fans show up prominently as collectors and commentators here -- punk's interested in marginalia, found art, and critiquing capitalism, after all...
posted to FanFare by brainwane at 5:16 AM on July 10, 2019