Tag Archives: review

What’cha Watching Wednesday #10.1

As I told you, am I trying to get a proper schedule for this thing.
Lately I was more into watching then writing so a lot of stuff has piled up since the last time I did this, but as it is quite a lot I’ve decided to make this the update #10.1 and put some of the stuff – mostly the movies I’ve seen – into the separate post that might or might not be published next week.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every fourth Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the month while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.

Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Supernatural – different episodes

As Unmei was catching up with the series in German, I simply couldn’t help myself to invite her over to watch Changing Channels and The Real Ghost Busters together – from the amount of times I mentioned these episodes it’s pretty clear that I quite like them.
Supernatural is a series that goes to a lot of dark places, so the humour in it makes it even more worthwhile and these two episodes are some of the prime examples for this.

As I wanted to find out something about the table in the Bunker I also re-watched Slumber Party a while back. I never quite understood why they had to include Oz as another dimension and then basically drop the whole concept again afterwards (with exception of a brief mentioning in There’s No Place Like Home) and the story felt a bit filler-ish, but it was interesting enough on it’s own to learn a bit more about the Bunker and it’s history.

Heroes Reborn

When they announced that there would be another dive into the world of Heroes I was both thrilled and suspicious. The latter was heightened when it was clearer and clearer that a lot of the old cast would not return. Still, I wanted to give it a try and checked it out after missing the initial air date…

Let’s say I kind of understand why it was already cancelled after this one Season. It was interesting, but also really confusing at times. If you saw the initial show you’re used to jumping between characters and story lines, but the connections here seemed way more implausible than there.
The characters weren’t as thought through as the initial cast, I missed a lot of actual character background or development and smother bridges between them, not to mention proper motivation.
It felt rushed and without heart.

It didn’t help that the old characters were either never mentioned again (Sylar? Peter?), killed off off screen or turned into side characters and plot devises (Noah, Hero), with Matt’s turn being one of the biggest WTF-moments.

Everything simply felt like: We want to give this one last try, but we aren’t actually trying.
I do believe they tried to catch new audiences with the exclusion of the old stuff, but as a continuation it just felt too distanced from it.

Still, not everything was bad. The whole premise with the solar flare, the time travel aspect and the way the special people were treated after Claire’s declaration felt natural in a very frightening way. The camera shots and the new abilities were interesting and quite impressive – even if they felt a bit too powerful at times.

If you want to visit this world one last time: Check it out.
If you’ve never ventured into it: Stick to the old stuff until you get there.

Agent Carter – Season 2*

Where the first Season of this show was incredible, this one had a few very frustrating additions.
The last few episodes of the previous Season dealt with Peggy’s feelings for Steve Rogers and how she finally let go of him, but that is no excuse to plunge her into a love triangle … though she doesn’t really notice this herself until it’s pointed out to her towards the end of the Season.
But the audiences sees it all, the flirting, the awkwardness, the mere focus on something that should get way less screen time (I do believe I’m not romantic enough to enjoy such things).
The Geekmom’s put it into interesting words in their article: What’s killing Marvels Agent Carter – go have a look at it!
Yet, it redeemed itself when Jarvis and Peggy discussed this matter, with Peggy clearly stating that she didn’t want this.

This Season also had a few more comedic elements in addition to the quite grave story line. My highlights certainly were the interactions between Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis, such lovely and incredible people to have/protect ones back – or deal with your Flamingo. 😉

Apart from the focus on Peggy’s love life was the whole premise of this Season quite interesting. A lethal substance, another hidden organisation and incredible characters doing their best to fulfil their respective plans. Peggy is as charming and amazing as ever and I wouldn’t mind seeing her journey until the foundation of S.H.I.E.L.D. and even then I wouldn’t mind seeing more.
I just hope they don’t let it drift further away from the initial awesomeness of the first Season.

Galavant – Season 2*

As I happened to finish Season 1, when Season 2 was just waiting around the corner it was easy for me to continue with this glorious piece of entertainment. It’s just so much fun…

The narration this time around was a bit weird though. It dragged on until the last few episodes where then suddenly everything happened at once.
Still, it offered a chance for some much needed character development, even though the focus was turned away from the actual titular character onto the former „villain“ King Richard, which I don’t mind, as he is way more fun than Galavant anyway. 😀

I’m not quite sure about the the inclusion of Roberta though, as that part of the story felt rushed and was quite frustrating in regards to her attitude, which basically translated to:
„I don’t want to see you die“, so I’m going to the island of crazy cat ladies instead of fighting alongside you to help you prevent your death…
She was a capable fighter after all, at least that’s what I understood from her introduction.
That’s really a wasted opportunity for a another kick-ass female warrior like Isabella – though that doesn’t mean that I felt more connected with her this time around.

Another down point was also that they changed the actor who played Galavant’s father and it was no longer Anthony Steward Head, but Greg Wise. 🙁
Not that that made the episode any worse, it’s just always weird to exchange an actor like that.

My highlights of this Season were Richard’s displays of his naivety/ridiculousness. I really loved the scenes with the Pony with Horn and the dragon Tad Cooper is an awesome addition to the team! 😀
But there were a lot more great and fun scenes, even if a few were a tat bit too weird and/or weirdly transitioned. And you still shouldn’t think too much about the story itself, as that is basically run of the mill fairytale story telling.

Still, I really hope they’ll continue making Seasons for this one, as it’s simply feel good television at it’s best.
If you feel down, go watch Galavant, it’ll cheer you up! 😀

* I wrote the text for Agent Carter and Galavant before it was clear that both shows would get cancelled, but I didn’t want to edit them.
Let me just say: It’s the first time I was up to date with a show that got cancelled and it feels really strange knowing that you like a show some supervisors in a TV channel don’t like enough to continue investing in. Both shows are amazing in their own regard and it’s a pity we won’t see more of them unless they get picked up by a private channel-thing like Netflix or Hulu.
I certainly wouldn’t mind that. 🙂

Elementary – Season 4

This Season was a bit strange.
After the quite spectacular – for Elementary – finale it seemed like this one dragged on quite a bit.
The  addition of Morland Holmes felt strange last Season already, but now we saw way more of him. Not just because he stayed „because of the relapse“ and doesn’t even mention Mycroft until episode 9, but his story line gets stranger and stranger.
I get that he has a lot of influence and is willing to go to great lengths to get what he wants, but did they need to take up a whole Season to show that and subsequently make him Moriarty’s successor?
They pretty much just wanted Sherlock to have a proper adversary again, but that this would turn out to be Daddy Holmes is quite a far stretch – even if his son is a genius.
I understood why Tony Currans character got jealous and wanted to eliminate his competition.
But the whole thing still felt forced…
Equally forced felt the inclusion of Mittens – Sherlocks new girlfriend.
It’s great that they address a lot of mental problems within the show, but they pretty much want to stir the viewers away from the typical JohnLock that comes with the story – even if in the case of Elementary they turned John Watson into Joan Watson.

All in all a quite strange Season with not really any memorable cases.

Undateable – Season 3, Episode 10-13

For some reason did I think that Undateable was already over in December, but apparently it wasn’t and still had some episodes left, even if SaJaehwa had to tell me that. 😉

I stand by my earlier claim that this is simply is a fun concept show and I wouldn’t mind it being picked up for another Season.

Sense 8/Orange is the new Black – different episodes

Since we decided to now get a proper Netflix account I re-watched a couple of episodes of these two shows that I previously had only seen with missing subtitles. It’s great to now have the possibility to do so. 😉

Daredevil – Season 2

Speaking of Netflix: Of course did I also watch the new Season of Daredevil…

Like Agent Carter this Season wasn’t as good as its predecessor, but it was still well made.

The inclusion of The Punisher made for an interesting addition to the cast and storyline, while Electra seemed a bit out of place, to top that off with all the other stuff going on it just felt like too many topics mashed into too few episodes.

Matt’s character development was all over the place, yes he had to deal with stuff from his past, but did he have to turn ever which way the wind was blowing?
Some of the decisions he made were reasonable – saving people for their own sake – some weren’t – neglecting his duties as a lawyer and bailing during important meetings, regardless of his initial promises.
So this was quite a frustrating turn for a formerly interesting character.

Karen stayed pretty much the same, even if it felt a bit weird that she’d get accepted into Ben Urich’s old job so easily. And the weirdly hinted affection towards the Punisher was strange too.

Speaking of which: He was amazingly portrayed. You could grasp the inner conflict, but also see the blood lust and skill behind his killings. I’d even go so far as to say that his fights were more fascinating than Daredevils, especially, as he so nicely put it: When he knocks people down, they stay down.
The fights of Daredevil are interesting, but it does get quite annoying that his opponents always get up again for another round…

As for other annoyances: The whole hand-thread felt too rushed, too overly complicated and weird. Just as Electra and Stick themselves. I think within the first few minutes of her appearance I was already done with the former. She’s just not the kind of person I’d get along with, so watching her is difficult for me.

The one that surprised me the most this Season was Foggy, but here I’m simply quoting my comment from Geekritique’s Review:

To me it seemed like he was one of the most reasonable people this and the previous Season.
He made his choices – even if they hurt him – to stay away from Matt, but still protect his secret; to choose the law above the vigilantes; to stand up to his best friend and tell him what he thinks of his actions.

Of course he gets back to him or is afraid something happened to him, but you can’t completely erase a bond of friendship like they had in a matter of hours or days.

Yes, he’s the happy-go-lucky comic relief, but he is also a compassionate and caring person that uses his jokes to cheer up other people intentionally.
Yes, he’s afraid to go to court without Matt, but they’ve always been a team and he is used to being the man in the background, so stepping up to the front row was a huge and terrifying step for him – that he mastered incredibly.

And I really liked the “twist” with his meeting with Hogarth.
Maybe through working with Jessica he’ll understand Matt better, who knows?

Eastwick/The Class – Season 1

As I said did I enjoy The Punisher’s portrayal quite a bit, so I looked up Jon Bernthals other acting jobs. Which in turn brought me to the two one Season-series Eastwick (based on the novel The Witches of Eastwick) and The Class (basically a prolonged class reunion sitcom). In both series he was not at all like Frank Castle, he was pretty much the jock that didn’t want to grow up from High School.

The series themselves were (more or less) interesting, especially Eastwick.
Pretty much everyone knows the movie version with Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer, but this was still a refreshing new take on things.
It was also fun to see so many different actors from other series/movies in so different roles. Only now writing this part, did I realize why Rebecca Rominjin’s artistic Roxie looked so familiar, but of course she’s Mystique from the early X-Men movies. Then there is also Kat who is a timid turned confident housewife here and a ruthless Blutbad in Grimm and so forth.
I wouldn’t have minded the series to continue, but it did drag on quite a bit, especially when it came to the women discovering their powers and then rushed into things towards the end without much explanation. A lot of things were quite stereotypical and over the top, but the charm of the atmosphere and chemistry between the characters made up for it quite a bit.

The Class was one stereotype after the other as well and while it had a few good jokes and a few nice characters the overall story line was quite obvious and boring at times. Still, as the episodes were only ~20 minutes long it’s one of those easy watches no one really cares about. Plus-side: Sean Maguire was incredible as Kyle.

Moone Boy – Season 1-3

I’m not sure how I discovered this one, but it’s really funny.
I knew (and liked) Chris O’Dowd from(/in) the IT-Crowd, so I couldn’t help myself checking it out as the series sounded fun.
The story is set in the 80s/90s and follows young Martin Moone throughout is everyday adventures in a small town (Boyle) in Ireland which aren’t as normal as this sounds. Quite the contrary. Martin is the youngest sibling in an otherwise all female household (except his father, whose opinion doesn’t matter as much as he’d like to think), with three older sisters that couldn’t be more different (the Goth, the church-goer, the chubby one) and has a lively imagination and view on things. So it doesn’t come with a surprise that he has an imaginary friend called Seán Murphy (portrayed by O’Dowd) that does not always manage to stop him from doing extraordinarily stupid things.

It’s strange, it’s weird, it’s funny and you’re pretty much grinning throughout the whole episode. It doesn’t always take itself seriously, but that it is capable of doing that is brilliantly shown in the Season 3 finale.
It’s a lot of fun even if it is sometimes quite hard to understand the Irish accents of the actors – at least it is for me.

Many of the adventures are supposedly based on O’Dowds own experiences growing up in Boyle, so I’m not entirely sure what to think of that. 😀

Lucifer – Season 1

Somehow I got my hands on the trailer for this series and as soon as the Pilot aired I couldn’t help myself but to watch it three times.
It was just that good.
Unfortunately could the Season not uphold the standard they set up with this episode and it tuned down from „wow“ to „okay“ quite soon.
The characters were interesting and Lucifer himself fits easily into the line of characters I prefer watching (see here), but their actions soon became repetitive and it dabbled on like that until three quarters into the Season.
Then finally came the twist and the story picked itself up again, pushed the cop-show aside and gave us something interesting that makes you want to see how the story will continue with the next Season.

Even with the sometimes rigmarole story the actors played their parts quite well. I tried to remember what Tom Ellis was like as Robin Hood in Once Upon A Time (the first one, before Sean Maguire took over the role), but I failed because I was pretty much taken in with his charisma, snark and darkness that brought the childish, but devilish character to life. He did a fantastic job at that, even if some of Lucifers antics were quite annoying, but I don’t blame such things on the actors portraying them. Just as I wouldn’t blame Lauren German’s (I’m still not over her surname) for Chloes antics and wide-eyed reactions, but with a character like Lucifer you hardly can do anything else but stare in disbelieve.
The other characters didn’t really get that much screen time, but used what little they had quite well (I still can’t believe Amenadiel is played by the same guy that played Robin Wood in Buffy – I remember him looking different o.O ).

The highlights certainly were the moments Chloe and Dan’s daughter Trixie appeared, but Mazikeen and Dr. Linda were quite great too.
And not to forget: This show has an interesting sound track (devil-themed) and a really cool opening, even if it is quite short.

Some things were easy to see through (Lucifer’s only vulnerable while Chloe is around), others were a bit more complex (Dan was behind the shooting), but the strangest turn of events was that the angels have a mother that is/was locked up in hell. >_<
I don’t know the DC/Sandman-lore enough to know what that is about so that at least leaves me curious (and confused).

But it did make me do two things:

#1 I started reading the Sandman comics (currently at Chapter 41, which means I’m done with Fables and Reflections and A Game of You)

#2 I watched

Constantine

I do consider myself a Marvel-person and don’t really have that much connection to DC except an occasional watch of a movie or episode, so I was quite surprised to find a character like John Constantine amongst their roster.
It’s been years since I watched the Constantine-movie with Keanu Reeves, so I had pretty much a clean slate again in regards to the character.
Not that Matt Ryans portrayal of the character had anything in common of what little I remembered from the movie.

His Constantine was dark, witty and didn’t give a damn about most of the things he had to face and it was fascinating to follow. Though I do admit that some of the stuff didn’t really sit well with me.

It was weird that the character introduced in the pilot wasn’t seen afterwards, her replacement Zed felt like a mix between wannabe doe-eyed love-interest, damsel-in-distress and something that could have become an incredible psychic force. Could have been, as this was again a series only lasting one Season, though I wouldn’t have minded a couple more as it was a nice, darker alternative to other series.

Even in this short amount of time her male counterparts were better formed, had deeper backgrounds and were easier to connect to – especially Chaz (who falls again into the category „Oh, I like him“ – „And he’s dead“, but luckily with a twist 😀 ). I don’t know if this would have changed with the story lines they wanted to tell with upcoming Seasons, but well, we’ll probably never know…

I’ll probably also never know why I expect the character to be pronounced „Constantin“ (tin as in teen) and not „Constantine“, but that might have to do with my own language background – and possibly the movie where they used the German pronunciation…

As I quite enjoyed Matt Ryan in the role I looked a bit into his IMDB and Constantine’s Wikipedia page and soon found that there was a Constatine/Arrow Cross-Over episode (Haunted) which of course I then watched. He felt different – more tired – in it but it was nice to see that they bothered to bring him back instead of giving someone else the role. Maybe through this we’ll actually see more of him (even if it was said that it was a one-time-thing)?

I also watched the Torchwood episode Meat again, as I couldn’t remember seeing Ryan there, but of course, if you’re used to seeing someone with dyed blond hair and only saw them with their natural dark hair colour briefly that’s to be expected, I guess. It felt that his accent was even thicker in Torchwood than it was in Constantine, but Welsh is still a bit more understandable than Irish…

Criminal Minds: Red Team/Criminal Minds (The Fight)

Another thing I watched was the Criminal Minds spin-off Red Team, with Ryan as one of the major side characters. It was an interesting twist to the cases and procedures I knew from the „mother show“, but at the same time a bit more repetitive.

A lot of either series is done through talking, but I never noticed this much re-talking through a case in the other series. I never really connected to any of the characters, they didn’t only distance themselves from each other, but also from the audience and that’s not really a good premise to keep going (which they didn’t as the series was done after one Season as well).

I liked that they added Garcia from the original series to the mix, yet it felt a bit strange that there was otherwise no connection to them – though it was also weird that she was the only one suitable for their needs and had the time to help them anyway.

All in all: Interesting concept, mediocre realization.

Misfits – Season 1-5

As I said did we get a proper Netflix account so I had the chance to watch the five Seasons of Misfits. I had heard good things about it from Black Kat, but never got around to watch it.

It started off as a quite interesting twist on the whole „accidental superpowers“ thing and I really liked that the powers reflected the different personalities of the characters, but it drifted off into banality and who-is-shagging-whom, climaxing with a guy that could literally fuck away other peoples powers (and yes, that pun was necessary…).

The initial cast was entirely switched out by the fourth Season (similar to what happened with Being Human), but they never really build up the new ones and just added one after the other in addition to many new side characters.

They made a few strange choices (the time-travel-love-thing between Simon and Alisha), had lot’s of dirty humour (especially when they switched from Nathan to Rudy in the role of the annoying side-kick), but still managed to get a few interesting story lines (The Guy in the Mask, the Lactomancer, Rudy’s third personality).
And of course the „running gag“: The killing of probation workers.
Though by the time they got to the fourth one it was weird to see how cold and apathetic they handled the whole killing and burying bodies thing … It was also strange that they buried their own loses amongst the other people and didn’t give them a proper funeral.

Lot’s of stuff was left unexplained (Were Jess‘ and Finn’s powers still their original ones and what character trade made them get those? What did they and Rudy actually do to get into community service? Most of all: What the hell was that storm? … ) and there was only one time where they had to actually face consequences, but still got away with it.

As time travel is involved it also had the obligatory „I’m going to kill Hitler“-episode and while it was interestingly executed, I do have to say that I do not believe the British Isles would be allowed to keep speaking English … (and lay off on the Hails). But that’s a topic for another day.

The acting was incredible. Simons change from creepy kid to decent hero felt a bit rushed at times, but still natural, as if he had had it always in him. Rudy’s split personalities were also easily to distinguish by mere body language and way of talking and that’s just the best of them.
What was funny for me was my first encounter with Kelly.
My first thought when I heard her was „Heh, she sounds like Tom“ (Tom being Michael Socha’s Werwolf character from Being Human), followed by „wait a minute – did that just say Socha?“ when the amazing intro played. That made me look her up to see if they were related (as she also looks a lot like him) and yeah, now I know they’re siblings. 😀

Long story short: The first Season is good, two and three are okay, the rest is meh.
You can watch it, as it still has a few interesting things (and Rudy Two is frankly adorable), but the overall story is boring.

Different movies

The different movies I’ve seen will be covered in a separate post.

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the different stuff I watched throughout the last months.
Fingers crossed I’ll manage to put this out more regularly, it’ll be much easier that way.

See you around,

PoiSonPaiNter

Kai Meyer: Die Seiten der Welt

Last year I read about Die Seiten der Welt (The Pages of the World) over on Weltenwanderers Blog. It just sounded interesting, so when I saw it on one of the shelves in our local library I picked it up and took it with me.
With the third part of this book published soon and the second one waiting for me to read it, I decided to give you a little look into part one of the trilogy (I won’t mention that I originally wanted to publish this review back when part two was released, no, I’m not going to tell you that…).

What is it about?

4 of 5 stars


The world of the young Bibliomancer (Bibliomant in German) Furia is turned upside down when a book-collecting trip with her father goes awry. Now she has to free her little brother Pip from a dangerous assassin, while also fleeing from her into the hidden refuge Libropolis. In this magical city filled with book stores, Bibliomancers and creatures that fell out of books, the Exlibri, she finds unexpected help from rebels and soon gets involved in their struggle against the Adamitic Academy (Adamitische Akadamie), who control everything concerning  Bibliomancy (Bibliomantik).

The reading experience

Hard cover editions are usually unwieldy and this one is no exception and even the lovely cover art cannot distract from that.
The story is fluently written and even with some explorations into details it was never boring. Though I would have liked some things to be explained a bit more thoroughly than others. The world Meyer creates in this book is just so fascinating that you just want to continue to learn more about it. The fact that there are also some murders, intrigues and dark secrets in it makes it even better.
It has a lot of really interesting concepts. The whole idea of the Bibliomancy is fascinating, but it doesn’t stop there. To even be able to perform Bibliomancy you need a Soulbook (Seelenbuch) to which you have a natural bond, much like Wands in Harry Potter does the book choose you and not the other way round.
(Powerful) Bibliomancers are able to create kind of bubble rooms that they can use as hideouts or refuge and jump from one place to the other through two books of the same edition. This destroys the book you used, but it’s still a great idea. The energy emitted from the usage of Bibliomancy drags characters out of their respective books (Exlibri) and is strong enough to regrow trees from destroyed books, which in turn have bookmark leaves. Then there are the Beakbooks (Schnabelbücher), which are semi-conscious beings usually used similar to roosters that have a whole concept of illegality behind them.
And then there is the Unwriting (Entschreibung) the big threat lurking in the background causing everyone to wonder: Is Bibliomancy possible because someone wrote it existed that way or was that someone able to record the happenings because Bibliomancy was possible?

The characters

Unfortunately the characters were a bit superficial. I never quite connected to any of them, as it felt like a lot of stuff was left out in their stories. This might change in the sequels, but in this one I missed that certain spark that creates a connection to a character.
I usually struggle with main characters and while Furia isn’t one of the bad ones, she is not one of the good ones either. She barely knows her own powers, but is still able to accomplish unimaginable things, that’s always a bit weird to me. Well, she did overcome enough obstacles to make it at least worthwhile, but some of her reactions did seem a bit too calm and collected for a 15-year old girl, given the circumstances.
While you read a lot about Furia’s fear for her family (her brother in particular), you don’t really learn much about them and therefore the impact of their respective fates isn’t as strong as it could have been.
A bit more focus was put on the rebels Cat and Finnian, but their run of the mill relationship undid the liking I had for them a little – even if it was quite cute at times it was annoying in other moments.
For quite a while you never really knew who the bad guys really were: The Exlibri presented by Ariel and Puck (yes, the guys from Shakespear) or the Academy and their assassin? Though there was a stronger impact to the fate of one of them then the others. Whereas the punishment and revelation concerning Siebenstein and the Entschreibung where not that surprising and rather boring.
My favourites and highlights certainly were the sassy Reading Lamp, the cranky Chair and the cheeky Beakbook who made for some great comedic relief in an otherwise quite serious narration

General Opinion

For a Young Adults‘ novel I really like it.
Though which Bibliophile wouldn’t like a book about people being capable of using the magic of words to do sorcery-like things (the aptly called Bibliomanten – Bibliomancer, I’d say, judging from the translation of Nekromant to Necromancer)? Especially if there are such things as living letters and Origami and most of all a cranky arm chair and a sassy reading lamp? 😀
All in all a lot of really interesting concepts that were covered far too little in one book (imagine my relief when I discovered there would be sequels!). The characters might not be that impressive but the overall story still keeps it interesting and worth reading and hard to put down.
I’m curious how it will continue and can’t wait to launch myself into Furia’s world again.

Stuff I’d like to add

Some of the thoughts in this review are re-used from my Reading Together about it.
From what I can see there is no English version(, yet?).
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the cover belongs to its rightful owner.

Knights of Badassdom

As fourth part of the Nerd-Week I present to you a review for Knights of Badassdom. You can’t compare it to Mara, but it’s nerdy, so it fits the theme. 😉

I first heard about this movie when we watched the Wacken 3D movie in the cinema and they showed the quite epic trailer. Still, our local cinema did not even play it, so we couldn’t watch it on the big screen.

Last year, when I was in Cologne with Unmei for our visit to the Harry Potter Exhibition we had some time to kill and spent that – amongst other places – in an electronic retailer where my eyes fell upon the DVD and I couldn’t resist taking it with me.

What is it about?

The official poster

Joe just broke up with his girlfriend so his friends Eric and Hung decide to kidnap him and bring him to the LARP-battle Fields of Evermore. The newbie LARPer is at first utterly unable to cope, but upon seeing female LARPer Gwen and hearing what would be in store for him, he at least decides to give it a try. When Eric tries a ritual on Joe in his attempt to finally level up his character and uses a real spell book, instead of the in-game ones, he ends up summoning a Succubus from hell.

Now they have to find a way to get rid of it before it kills every participant …

The watching experience

While watching I was torn between laughing, trying not to think too much into what was happening and wondering what the hell was going on…
Fast cuts make it hard to follow the Demons‘ activities at times, jumps between rarely introduced characters don’t really help either.

This movie plays a lot with stereotypes, but in a fun and not insulting way and that’s refreshing. It also comes along with a pretty cool soundtrack – if you like Rock/Metal – and a quite epic boss battle …

Still, I feel the need to mention: Watch with care if you’re not a fan of splatter, as a lot of people get torn to shreds throughout the movie.
I don’t mind that kind of stuff (heck, I went for Pizza after District 9 …), but some things were quite disgusting.

The characters

As it is common with Horror movies there is not much time spent on actual character development. They are introduced and someone rises up to the challenge of defeating the big bad. In the context of this movie that’s not a bad thing, as it does focus more on the jokes and action.

Seeing as this is a movie about LARPer/LARPing you also get a look at different types of characters within the game, but the focus soon diverts from that and you rarely get any nods to their in-game characters.

Though it still felt as if every character had something unique about them. Everyone is enthusiastic about the world of Evermore in their own way. Though describing them more would take away the fun of getting to know them through the movie.

General Opinion

Please don’t take this movie serious, I’m not sure it even does so itself.

It’s fun to watch and has some quite good gags and as I said the soundtrack is pretty cool, but that’s about it.

The storyline, while different and probably innovative, isn’t really followed through as it is buried in crude jokes, splatter and male fantasies.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the movie as a whole and it’s a great way to shine some much needed light onto a much disregarded sub-culture, but you simply shouldn’t focus on the little things, because then it gets pretty frustrating.
And to be honest: Supernatural’s Larp and the Real Girl did a pretty good job at portraying a similar storyline without those things mentioned above…
(Or if you are more a fan of Pen&Paper make sure to check out Zombie Orpheus Entertainment/Dead Gentlemen Production’s The Gamers movies, where the whole „stay-in-character“-thing is used way more often and in quite hilarious ways)

Stuff I’d like to add

Apparently the version that got released was not the one the director Joe Lynch created, but a re-cut from Wade Bradley, after internal differences. So maybe that’s why it had those issues I mentioned. Unfortunately can I only give an opinion for this version and don’t know what the difference between them is…
So, simply see for yourself if you like or dislike this version.

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the poster belongs to its rightful owner.

What'cha Watching Wednesday #9

As part of the Nerd-Week I present to you the ninth instalment of the What’cha Watching Wednesday, which again obviously covers more than one week.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.
Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Supernatural – different episodes

Since the last time I guess I watched a few episodes, but I can’t really find them in my chronic…what I do remember is watching Tall Tales and The Monster at the end of this Book in German with Unmei. Both episodes are amongst my favourites, but it’s still weird to hear Sam and Deans German voices…(Chuck’s, Gabriel’s and Cas‘ aren’t that strange, but those two definitely are…)
A couple of weeks ago, Wren and I discussed me watching a couple of episodes in German and to pay closer attention to the translation. I didn’t manage to do much in that regard, as I was far too busy with my Advent Calendar, but I did find a few interesting changes in those two episodes above, but I’m nowhere near completing anything. When I do, it’ll probably be part of the Lost in Translation-series.

Doctor Who – Season 9, Episode 4-13 + Christmas Special

I don’t really want to go into too much details regarding the different episodes. In a way they were all incredible and I partly discussed this over at Geekritique, so to quote myself:

[T]hroughout the whole series I was torn between enjoying the episode and wondering what was going on, so the final[e] was both satisfying and utterly frustrating. 😀

Why was I frustrated by the finale?
Well…I for one enjoyed Clara’s death in Face the Raven. It was great closure. She finally overdid it, all her yearning for adventure and not caring for the consequence had finally brought her into a situation that was out of her hands.
And then The Doctor had to go spoiled child on the whole thing, go back and save her. As that was one of the topics of this Season, we more than once learned that that too has consequences. E.g. saving Caecilius – the one that frowned him his face – caused mayhem in Torchwood, saving Ashildr created another immortal (seemingly even a more powerful one than Jack Harkness) and now, through saving Clara he nearly caused the end of the universe.
So in a way I’m frustrated that he was so obsessed with her to even go down that road, but relieved that he now shares Donna’s fate regarding his memories.
Personally I do not want to see a Spin-Off with Clara and Ashildr.
The Husbands of River Song on the other hand was quite a great Christmas Special. It had a lot of laughs, a lot of emotions and was a great closure to Rivers storyline (like Last Christmas and Face the Raven could have been for Clara). The interaction between River and The Doctor was great and I wouldn’t have minded to see more of it, but that is probably quite unlikely.
All in all did I enjoy the Season. The topics were darker (and there was quite a high death-count) and it was a bit annoying that pretty much every episode had a life-or-death-situation, but it was still interesting. Now I’m curious what the next Season will bring.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Season 3, Episodes 2-10

I’m not entirely sure what to think of the Season so far. It was thrilling, exciting and a lot more, but it still left a bitter taste.
Why? Because after finally killing off Ward he is brought back as new vessel for Hive (if I read that correctly). I really hope that thing didn’t take up his attitude, as that would be really frustrating…
It was great to see some character development for Coulson, though it is a drastic change, but a welcome one. Every character – except Ward, who simply walks in circles – has had some development this Season and that’s great. I’m just afraid that the story line with the Inhumans and everything goes too fast before the actual MCU movie will air in 2019(?)…

Deadbeat – Season 2, Episode 7-13

Sooo…I’m caught up with this show now and I have to say the ending was kind of surprising. Though it seems that he will have a new ghost that will be following – tormenting – him next Season…
I’m still not sure what to make of it, but I liked how there at least was a bit of character development in the last few episodes.

Undateable – Season 3

A Season full of Live-Shows, there is only one thing I can say about this: Justin credible, I mean just incredible – sorry couldn’t resist the pun. 😉
But seriously a bunch of comedians and actors performing live in front of an audience is just a lot of fun to watch. The jokes and the story might not be the best, but the whole package is what makes this show enjoyable.
And there are a few gems in the jokes, especially when they mock each others projects. Or when they mess up and try to work their way out of a fiasko of sentence. 😀
One of my favourites from A Box of Puppies walks into a bar is definitely:

Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring. I just hope we get to do this for a few more Seasons.

From what I know they get the storyline and a few additions the others don’t know, but everything else is improvised. I think that is a great concept that very well should go on for another few Seasons. 😉
Though it does remind me a little of the Schillerstraße a German comedy-show that put different comedians into a situation before a live audience and while they played out the rough plot (there was no script and they all had to improvise) a game-master gave them instructions that they had to include into their play like „hug that person without warning“, „imagine there is something in your shoe“ and lot of way more ridiculous stuff. Ah, I miss that show… had to watch an episode after writing this back in December, but I wont go into more detail.

Reaper – Season 1/2

For quite some time now I wanted to finally watch this show that I enjoyed watching when it first aired in Germany. Well, after finishing Deadbead, I just went for it.
It has a lot of ups and downs, open story lines (whatever happened to Cady? Did she really just went to New Mexico and never returned?) and quite misogynistic plot lines, even if a lot of it was used as obvious clichés that was disappointing.
The show walks on the thin line of being utterly ridiculous – over the top acting and plots – and being incredibly dark, while dabbling more into the former than the later, but those dark moments are what make this show special. I can’t really describe it, but the characters grow on you, even the minor ones like Gladys and Tony – who are pretty cool.
In the two Seasons Sam had the most character development and part of that was quite, well, scary the more the Devil tried to pursue him and drive him towards the dark side. Though I really didn’t like the Sam is the son of Satan storyline – see Cady – and am glad to read that the producers had something else in mind. Check out this interview from 2010 if you don’t know yet: How Reaper would have ended.
I certainly wouldn’t have minded a continuation.

Jessica Jones – Season 1

Describing what it was like watching Jessica Jones seems difficult. I do get why people call it feminist or even go as far as to claim that it’s sexist towards men, but it’s so much more than those labels put onto it. It deals with many important topics in incredible ways, has many great characters and their interactions are natural and understandable, though for me personally a few things went too fast, but I guess that’s life. I also couldn’t care less about the different sex-scenes, but I always consider those to be annoying as they don’t really get the story forward, even if they – as they do in this case – advance the characterization.
(VERY) Unusual for me is that I like the main character, especially because she reacts so understandable and normal. She’s not over the top, she’s not able to solve stuff because she’s the main character, no, it’s because she’s determined and willing to do whatever is necessary so other people don’t have to suffer like she did. And that is awesome.
If more series and movies followed the example of the storytelling done in this Season we’d have an incredible change in the industry, though I guess that’s more or less wishful thinking.
I enjoyed the nods towards the larger MCU and Daredevil and I’m curious how it all will continue.

Galavant – Season 1

As you know have I joined Twitter recently and there I saw stuff regarding this show that I hadn’t even heard about before. So I watched the trailer, couldn’t stop grinning and had to check it out. What can I say? Who could resist Timothy Omundson as singing King Richard in a ridiculous „comedy extravaganza“? 😀
No seriously, about half of an ~20 minute episode is taken up by musical numbers, but they’re not always light-hearted numbers. Oh, no, no, no… I think my personal highlights were two peasants (Chef Vincenzo and handmaiden Gwynne) singing about their horrible lives and short life expectancy and deciding to spent the rest of it together and squires singing about their masters, but the guest-songs by Ricky Gervais‘ and Anthony Stuart Head’s characters were also quite fun. Or other really fun numbers where the characters tell each other what they actually think.
I guess the weirdest thing is that everyone is so okay with people randomly starting into songs – though some complains are made. 😀
The characters might not be the most creative ones, but they’re fun and not always entirely what they seem to be and that’s enough for a serial like this.  They’re enjoyable and dorky and fun, so what else do you want? So far the Chef, Gareth and of course Richard (it’s in the name, really) are pretty much my favourites and Galavant himself and especially Madalena quite on the other side, though I’m not so sure where to put Sid and Isabella… We’ll see if that’ll change with the new Season….

Once Upon a Time – Season 5, Episode 1: Dark Swan

At some point I tried catching up with OUAT again, but I kind of didn’t get past the first episode. I liked the twist that the Dark Ones dagger is the tip of Excalibur, but it is also a bit disappointing that they included yet another connection. Just as they re-used the whole „we get back to Storybrook and don’t know what happened“ – though I enjoyed that even the characters commented on that. Still, I’m curious how Dark-Emma actually came to be and stuff, but I still haven’t gotten around to watch it.

Psych – different episodes

I really felt like watching Psych again, especially after watching Galavant and reading about the connection from one of the movies I’ve watched.
Psych is simply one of those shows that you can watch time and again and it remains funny. The characters and the interaction between them, the stories, basically everything. It’s a pity the show is over, but it was an incredible ending. Besides not many shows can pull of a Musical Episode like that (even though that was a Season prior to the series finale). 😀

Sherlock – The Abominable Bride

This was an incredible special, especially as from all the promos you’re made to think that it solely takes place in 19th century London, but no, we get titbits that actually move along the current day story line and that is just amazing.
I enjoyed it greatly – even though I should probably re-watch it due to the lags in the stream – and it was great seeing all those characters again and this time in a new, but still similar setting and way.
I really liked the underlying storyline with the women of the show and Molly Hooper posing as man was a really interesting addition that nearly had me fooled as I wasn’t sure if it was her or not. And of course Moriarty and the whole explanation of how he survived ingrained into the old case.
I just really liked this special…

Different movies

I’m not sure I’ve watched that many movies these past few months. If at all.
I know I re-watched Mara, but I’ve told you about that one on Monday.
After the last HGWAnime we watched About a Boy and were quite fascinated by the fact that Nicholas Hoult’s face didn’t really change that much during the last 10+ years. 😀 It’s a fun movie, a bit weird at times, but still quite fun, but that’s British humour for you I guess.
Well there also were the Christmas movies – I tried finally watching The Grinch in English, after only knowing the German version, but simply didn’t feel like it -, but I don’t really want to got into details here, as there were too many. When I’m at my Dad’s place I watch WAY more TV then when I’m in my own flat (like 90% more, as I rarely even turn it on).
Aside from that did I check out Lars and the Real Girl after reading that the titles of Supernatural’s LARP and the Real Girl and Psych’s Shawn and the Real Girl derived from it. It’s quite an interesting piece, calm and slow, but a good pace for the topic. After Coming Down the Mountain it’s another piece that deals with mental illness in a sensitive way. It’s well-played and one can only hope that in real life people would react like the family and friends of the titular character in helping him overcome his delusion instead of condemning him.
For some reason I also decided to watch Revenge of the Nerds Quadrology with Curtis Armstrong, but I guess that was mostly due to the title, this is Nerd-Week after all…
The whole thing kind of left me with mixed feelings. Though that might be due to the fact that being a Nerd has changed over the decades since those four were created. The portrayed characters were awful (embarrassing) stereotypes and each movie followed the same pattern and frustratingly one of the main characters (Lewis) always goes back to his mindset from the beginning of part 1 – except for the last movie – and denies what he actually is. Some of the character concepts were quite advanced for that time, but still not fully fledged and that’s quite unfortunate.
Somehow I believe that you couldn’t make movies like that these days, but I guess that’s what makes them so unmistakably retro – or whatever you want to call it.
Still, I’m not entirely sure, but I might have seen one of the movies before – especially the second one seemed familiar at times – as I’m not entirely sure if they aired in German television. Though from the titles you wouldn’t even be able to recognize them as sequels (<translated> German titles: Die Rache der Eierköpfe/<The Revenge of the Eggheads>; Die Supertrottel/<The Supermorons (?)>; Operation Kleinhirn/<Operation Cerebellum>; Chaos Kings). From what imdb tells me they went straight to VHS and the first was released in 1986 in Western Germany – which means I didn’t have a chance to watch that one back then, because even if I had been born, I would have lived in the GDR. But one can never be sure what some channels dig up…

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the different stuff I watched throughout the last months. Maybe I’ll get around doing this more frequently this year, who knows.
See you tomorrow,
PoiSonPaiNter

Felicia Day: You’re never weird on the Internet (almost)

As second part of the Nerd-Week I want to present to you a review for Felicia Days‘ memoir You’re never weird on the Internet (almost). This book has a little tale of my own attached to it, so bear with me for a moment, before I get to the interesting part. 😉

When I first read that this book existed – or was going to be published at the time – I was curious and excited as it sounded really fun. Then I was frustrated and sad when I realized it would take me ages to even get my hands on it as I generally don’t like buying stuff over the internet in a different currency as that usually includes having access to a credit card that I do not own right now – too lazy to get a new one after mums expired. So I put it on my to-buy list for when I get the chance.

Fast forward to September 25th 2015:

SaJaehwa and I were on a stroll through Old Town Stockholm (Gamla Stan) and we had just decided to visit at least ONE book store when my eyes fell on a dragon, then on the rocket beside it and then finally on the sign „Science Fiction Bokhandeln„. Needless to say we knew what book store we wanted to visit …(I’ll tell you a bit more about this store on Saturday).

Looking through the many, many wonderful shelves I found The Guild Companion and had to ask if they have this book as well and of course they did. So without second thought I took it with me.

But what is it about anyway?

4 of 5 stars

From home-schooled weirdo to successful creator of the web series The Guild and producer of Geek and Sundry, this book tells the story of one Felicia Day and her endeavours to become the person she is today.

The reading experience

As soon as we got back to our Hostel I read the Foreword and the Introduction, if we hadn’t been in the middle of exploring Stockholm I probably would have finished the book way earlier as it was hard to put it down, but Stockholm was the priority that weekend, so the book had to wait.
Exhausted from all the running around we decided to take a break on our last evening and found ourselves in a secluded place beside one of Stockholm’s many river-arms to read. Though as the sun didn’t really reach that place and the wind made us shrink into our sweaters, we soon got back to Hostel.

As I said was I barely able to put the book down, so it’s probably not surprising that I finished the last pages before our ferry even reached the German shore again … (I also wrote the first draft of this post afterwards on a very confusing piece of paper, but that’s a different story).

The format of the book is a bit unusual. It’s quite large with large letters, but it’s still easy to read and full of funny pictures. Though quite often I had to take a pause from reading, laugh and tell SaJaehwa about what I just read – fortunately without having to translate it first.

The read was a bit jumpy at times, as it felt like the narration followed thoughts instead of time line and therefore the tale went from childhood to adulthood and got back to childhood again for another topic.
Still, that seems to be Felicia’s way of telling stuff, at least from what I can gather from what I read here and saw of her in other places.

The characters

Usually I talk about the books characters in this section, but as this is a memoir I’d be judging a real person and I’m not going to do that.

I’ll just say that I can relate to a lot of stuff she talked about.
Like always being the weird one out until I found amazing people that enjoyed similar things as I do with the help of the Internet. Knowing them makes you realize that you’re not alone and reading that a successful (business-)woman like Felicia experienced similar things and rose from them makes you want to overcome your own insecurities and strive to accomplish great things as well.

So basically the „character“ of this book is a very incredible, relateable person.

General Opinion

With the funny, entertaining and witty way Felicia tells her story you soon forget that those are things that actually happened to someone.

I really enjoyed this book for many reasons, some of which I’ve already mentioned, others I feel like I shouldn’t as those would be too personal and you simply have to read the book yourself to figure them out. 😉

This book is not just a memoir, that tells you things about an Internet Celebrity you know and like, it’s also inspiring and motivating if you yourself have projects that you would love to see recognized and loved by others.
While reading this book my perspective for certain things shifted. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to create something others like, but reading about the creation of The Guild made it even more clear to me that I had a bumpy road ahead. But at the same time it showed me that conquering that road is worth it and that giving up along the way might seem like the easy route, but that you shouldn’t take it and instead reward yourself with finishing your projects.
At least that’s what I got out of it. >_<

Long story short: I laughed a lot, could relate to several things, thought about others and took a lot from it for my own projects and endeavours.

Stuff I’d like to add

I’ll probably read it a few more times and recommend it to people who come from a nerdy background as well. Though I probably have to translate the good stuff for the people not so fluent in English, as it so far doesn’t seem like there will be a German version.

If you ever read this, Felicia: Thanks for sharing your experiences with us!

See you tomorrow,

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the cover belongs to its rightful owner.

Mara und der Feuerbringer

As start into the new year I decided to make another special week of posts. You might remember the Book-Week, now you get the Nerd-Week with seven nerdy posts ahead!

As first part of the Nerd-Week I’d like to introduce you to this gem of a movie: Mara und der Feuerbringer or in English: Mara and the Firebringer. Based on the first part of the book trilogy of the same name by Tommy Krappweis this movie is one of the few German Fantasy movies and I simply want to give it a bit more – much deserved – spotlight.

What is it about?

The official poster

15 year old Mara Lorbeer only wants to be a normal teenager, but with a weird Wiccan mum and the fact that a twig told her that she was a Nordic-Germanic Seer (Spákona), chosen to stop Anorak, uhm, Ragnarök that is not an easy feat.

Burdened with visions of the Norse half-god Loki breaking free from his bonds she soon realises that it’s not just her imagination when she actually stands right in front of him and is tasked with the rescue of his wife Sigyn.

Still, she struggles with her fate and takes up the help of Norse Mythology expert Professor Weisinger, as she doesn’t have a clue about Anoraks, Norse gods or the whole having-to-save-the-world-business.

The watching experience

I told you a bit about this movie already here: What’cha Watching Wednesday, so I’m lazy and just quote it:

At first I thought I wouldn’t manage to see Mara und der Feuerbringer (Mara and the Firebringer), due to some scheduling issues in the marketing, but then I found out that it was screened in Greifswald and I took Schmusi and Anna from the HGWAnime with me to see it and we had a lot of fun. Finally a German Fantasy movie that isn’t as stoic and flat as German movies tend to be, has interesting characters, an interesting plot and funny dialogues. With songs like Echter wahrer Held/True Genuine Hero by Schandmaul it also has a nice soundtrack. Schmusi first thought it was [actor] Jan Josef Liefers doing the singing until I told her it was the singer of one of the bands that first got me hooked on Metal. 😀

That is a pretty good summary of what I like about this movie, but let me expand on that a little.

The marketing for this movie was pretty screwed up as the German cinema wants to put things into a category, but Mara can’t be put into the existing ones, so the one that was chosen turned out to be the wrong one (if your German is good enough, you can check out this comment by Tommy Krappweis for more information). Barely any cinemas even played the movie, others played it once or twice, then dropped it (like the one in Neubrandenburg) and a few ones kept it a bit longer (like Greifswald). So when I first saw the times it would air, I didn’t think I’d be able to see it in the cinema, but then I found the viewing mentioned above and simply wanted to use that chance to see it.

Schmusi, Anna and I had the cinema for ourselves, so I could tell them a bit about the pre-story and the fact that I personally met one of the extras.
Short version: The books were read and even beta-read with a few selected users from The Forum and one of those users (Simon the Sorcerer) managed to participate in the filming. So when his scene was shown I was a bit side tracked from the actual story line, ups… 😀
But as soon as I got the DVD I re-watched it and figured out what a certain Hobbit-extra had to say about wanting to got to the Oktoberfest. 😉

Basically: It’s a lot of fun to watch, even during a re-watch. 🙂
(Unless you’re like my Dad, who has no connection to stuff like this at all…)

The characters

Mara isn’t your typical main character, far from it. She struggles with her destiny and the powers Loki gives her to save Sigyn. At some point she basically gives up, because she’s afraid to become someone like Darth Vader or Voldemort and thinks through this in a very funny way. Still, she overcomes this fear and gets back to saving the world in a witty and clever way.

As the movie is only an adaptation of the books, you only get to see glimpses of the other characters. Professor Weissinger is a man in his mid-forties(?) ready to jump at the chance to experiences all the stuff he’d studied and so far only encountered in books and relics, but he is also a great support for Mara, as it is his knowledge that helps her understand the mess she was dragged into. With his curiosity and awkwardness he creates a few very funny scenes.

Speaking of awkwardness: Mara’s mum, she’s wonderfully awkward and it doesn’t seem overblown, but very natural. She’s one of those Wiccan’s that take themselves far too serious and it’s great.

Loki, Sigyn and the others rarely get any screen time, but they make the few times count. E.g. do I really like the way those two talk – especially Loki’s way of thanking Mara… 😀 Though it is slightly irritating that they use the „Loki is Thor’s brother“-narration for the movie. It’s either because they decided to make it more relateable for the audiences due to the success of the Marvel-approach or they found something that actually makes them brothers in the myths as well, as everything else is in the movie is well researched.

[Edit: Tommy actually answered this question in a Tweet around the time of the TV-premier of the movie. He wrote (translation): According to the Edda one could also proclaim: Odin is the Father of Gods and therefore also Loki’s father.]

Special about all these characters is that they don’t talk the way that is usually used in German movies and television and that is really refreshing and great. 🙂
But not just that is a realistic display:

  • Mara falls asleep at some point from exhaustion
  • You can see wounds, water, dirt, sweat and ashes on the characters clothes and bodies, not everything is magically clean
  • A lot of attention was paid to historical correctness, like the clothes and settings for the Norse characters
  • …

General Opinion

I really enjoy the eye for details, the languages used, the way the characters interact so normally. It’s a refreshing way of storytelling.

Or to quote myself again:

If you get the chance: Definitely check this one out!

Stuff I’d like to add

Interesting for English readers: The DVD/Blu-Ray comes with English subtitles, I don’t know if there will be an English version – and I didn’t dare to ask Tommy, even though he seems to be someone who wouldn’t mind answering questions from his viewers…

Why did I chose this movie as opener for my Nerd-Week?

Short answer: Because I can. 😀

Long answer:
Apart from the Fandom-references mentioned above there is a lot that went on behind the scenes, starting from Reeanctors/LARPer participating as extras in both the movie and the music video, over Cosplayers providing costumes and the song being based on a version from an old webseries about dimensional jumps through sneezing, up to the fact that a lot of fans from all kinds of Fandoms promoted the movie.
As I said did a lot go wrong with the marketing, but fans wouldn’t back down and organized additional screenings in cinemas or at conventions and attended them in full periodic outfits.
Then there is the fact that it was planned to be played only a couple of times at the RPC (Roleplay Convention), but ended up being played in a loop (and also received an award as Best German Fantasy Movie in the last 30 Years).
As soon as someone got wind of the project and its failing success due to the horrible screening times, those who liked it passed it on in their respective Fandoms and I believe that’s what being a Nerd is about: Enjoying something and sharing it with your friends and in this case even helping out a great project that would otherwise go completely unnoticed [Edit: (a German documentary about all this and more can be found at Rocket Beans TV) [/Edit].

So here I am continuing that and sharing it with you. 🙂

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the poster belongs to its rightful owner.

Re-Wri-Day: Supernatural Summary

Some time ago I got the chance to write for THE EXTREMIS REVIEW, but I only re-blogged the posts I wrote. So as I wanted to get a some distraction from the Advent Calendar, you get another one of these. 😉

ReWriDayWhat is the Re-Wri-Day?

Inspired by EdMooneyPhotography’s Re-Work-Wednesday and based on the fact that my writing style for this Blog has changed over the past years, I kind of created my own version of this.

But why the strange name and what does it mean?

I’m awful when it comes to puns and I couldn’t help myself but to turn re-write and Friday into one strange word: Re-Wri-Day. Sorry…
But in conclusion: These posts are supposed to be always published on a Friday, but not necessarily on every Friday, just the Fridays when I feel like editing an old post beforehand.

And what am I doing with this?

I am taking my old posts from the beginnings of writing this Blog or just former posts and read them again to see what things I can change or add. They wont necessarily be actually re-written, but some changes will be made.
In the Re-Wri-Day post I’ll also give you a couple of thoughts on why I had chosen the topic and stuff you might be interested in.

So, let’s have a look at the pages I changed: Supernatural Summary – Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3

Recently I decided that I want to have the Supernatural Summaries I wrote for The EXTREMIS REVIEWS completely on my Blog as well and not just as a re-blog, so I thought about it for a while. It’s fun to summarize and look into the different Seasons, but as I don’t get Feedback as to how often my posts are clicked I wanted to bring them home. Of course I will also leave a link to the existing post on the other page, but that goes without saying.
That said: I have not changed that much and basically just copy&pasted the posts. Though I did change the titles, removed the pictures Julian used, formatted the headlines and took out some spelling mistakes I found in a read through.
And I created a new Category for Supernatural posts: Supernatural.
Still, this way, I have those posts on here as well, in case anything happens to the other side. 😉
Now I just have to find all those broken links to the old re-blogs…
PoiSonPaiNter

Supernatural Summary – Season 3

Welcome back to the overview of Eric Kripke’s Supernatural; the monster-of-the-week mystery drama series about the Winchester brothers Sam and Dean.

We last saw them closing a Hell Gate and killing their longtime foe in Season Two; now let’s take a look at what’s in store for them in:

Season Three

Storyline

With thousands of Demons up and about on Earth and their only weapon being a Colt with no bullets left, the Winchesters and their friends/colleagues/surrogate family Bobby, Ellen and Jo don’t really stand a chance against them. This is until the Demon Ruby decides to switch sides and help them by not just using a Demon killing Knife, but also by helping Bobby to make more bullets. However, the Colt gets stolen by con-artist Bela Talbot, who is more then a thorn in the eyes of the brothers. They soon discover  she has a similar problem as Dean: A Hellhound is on her heels to collect her debt for a deal she made. Resentful of her actions they, however, refuse to help her, even though she reveals to them who holds Hell’s contracts. Finally able to track down that Demon, Lilith, Dean’s time runs out and he meets his demise at the claws and fangs of the invisible beast, while she tries and fails to kill Sam.

The Monsters

For a Season after the release of thousands of Demons one would think the brothers’ cases this Season would mostly deal with them, but far from it. Right in the first episode they jump into a case where we meet seven Demons representing the Seven Deadly Sins and learn about the Knife. Other than that are they mostly figuring out and looking for demonic signs (cattle death, freak weather), but are faced with lots of other stuff instead, as this Season has a variety of foes.

They reprise the appearance of vampires with a turned Hunter set on killing Sam, that uses his new abilities to attack them. Needless to say he fails.

But there are also some new additions.

We have energy sucking Changelings, name calling Crocotta and the first appearance of – easy to kill – Pagan Gods, though they don’t say which ones. Even Spirits get a twist, as the spirit of a dying girl causes Fairy Tales to come true.
There also is a Witch coven out for blood and the Trickster from last Season returns for a time-loop episode and of course the return of the (to humans invisible) Hellhounds.

Plot Points

From this Season forward the Colt is more or less shelved and the Winchesters use the Demon killing Knife instead, after they take it from Ruby that is. Relevant for the following Seasons is the introduction of Lilith, whose powers do not work against Sam and it is a bit foreshadowing of what is to come of his abilities.

One of the themes of this Season was: What should one do with the knowledge of the supernatural? So besides monsters we can also see the results of using mythical artifacts. With Bela we have someone selling those to the highest bidder. Twice the Winchersters thwart her plans, once with a Lucky Rabbits Foot, that is not so lucky once you lose it – and you will lose it – and the other a Hand of Glory, where you drown after seeing its original owners’ ship. It shows that these things are not to be messed with.

Not addressed for the first time, is the fact that one brother cannot be without the other.

“Mystery Spot” plays with the thought: What if Dean died before his time is up and Sam cannot do a thing to stop it.  It gives us a look at how Sam would cope and it shows that he has the same narrow-minded tendency as his father, when it comes to tracking down the one that killed a family member. It is discussed more than once this Season that the brothers are each other’s weakness and this theme will continue to be explored throughout the series.

Minor plot points are the introduction of the Ghostfacers and the re-appearance of the Trickster. One is a parody of the Ghost hunting part of the Winchester’s life, where they bring back two guys that created a creature called a Tulpa through the common belief of their website followers last Season and now attempt to turn their Ghost hunts into a reality TV show – all with hand camera filming. The other likes fooling the brothers and teaching them lessons. In Season Two the Trickster showed them how easy it is to pit them against each other. This time around his illusion lays out another theme – and problem: You can’t escape fate.  The Trickster traps Sam in a time loop and makes him witness Deans’ death over and over again to get his point across. Though seemingly his work and all their struggling is in vein as the Winchesters do everything to escape their destiny either way. Though in this Season this is shown as a failure, as Dean does indeed die in the finale and Sam is left on his own.

Pro’s and Con’s

Season Three was a better one in regards to the variety of topics covered. While there was only a small continuation of the Demon story line, the things that were explored were quite interesting.

The episodes never drifted into repetition and some new and funny concepts were added. I cannot say if this was thanks to the briefness of the Season (only 16 episodes, due to the strikes of the Writers Guild of America back then), but I clearly enjoy the result.

As for the funny concepts: I like it when a show doesn’t take itself too seriously and with the episodes “Bad Day at Black Rock” and “Ghostfacers” we get some comedic relief from the seriousness of the overall Season. I believe the Christmas special (“A very Supernatural Christmas”) can be included in this count as well, as some things were rather ridiculous.
It is also nice to see some repercussions again, as one of the Hunters they had worked with and got into jail last Season is now on their heels to kill Sam, as he considers him an abomination due to his powers.

In contrast to this did we also get some questionable choices. With Bela an interesting and different character is introduced. She uses her knowledge of the supernatural for profit instead of becoming a hunter herself. But instead of expanding on her characterization, of her crossing paths with the Winchesters more often, she is reduced to just another deal victim with barely any background info and killed off within the Season.

An entirely different thing is the introduction of the Pagan Gods. This Season it is shown that they can be killed quite easily by using – in their case – an evergreen branch as stake. It is said that they lost the majority of their powers when people stopped worshipping them, but I still think this is way too easy.

Another thing that isn’t understandable is the introduction of Dean’s ex-girlfriend Lisa and her son Ben(,who is implied but denied to be Dean’s). It’s nice in a what-he-could-have-had-perspective, but in regards to the story line this Season it makes little sense.

In conclusion: Thanks/Due to its briefness this Season didn’t have much time to toy around, so it focused on the important things. Some of those turned out to be fun diversions (Ghostfacers), some disappointing (Pagan Gods) and others not quite clear (Ben).

All in all is this an enjoyable Season.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Until next time

PoiSonPaiNter

Originally Posted on The EXTREMIS REVIEWS: Carry on our Wayward Sons: Supernatural Season 3 – Poison Breaks Down The One Where Dean Gets Bitten

What'cha Watching Wednesday #8

I actually wanted to write a review for Felicia Day’s „You’re never weird on the internet (almost)„, but then I noticed it’s Wednesday and I haven’t done this thing in a while. So I present to you the eighth instalment of the What’cha Watching Wednesday, which again obviously covers more than one week.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.
Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Supernatural – different episodes (Watch Date: 24./31.08. – earlier last week?)

Wren again inspired me to watch at least one of the following episodes. So thanks, I guess? >_<
I started these random re-watchs with It’s a terrible life. It’s an interesting what-if episode, but as  someone working in IT and fan of the IT Crowd my personal highlight was Sam sitting in IT support and asking the caller: „Have you tried turning it off and on again?“ I grinned like an idiot at that. This episode was also the introduction of Zachariah whom I had previously – knowingly – only seen as coroner Woody in Psych. I have to say: He does a great job at playing the creepy angel. 😀 I also liked that they turned their names from „Winchester“ to „Smith“ and „Wesson“ and of course the inclusion of the Ghostfacers. Another episode that I watched after I’ve noticed that I messed up their appearances in my Season 3 summary. Through this I finally remembered to check out why Ed (AJ Buckley) looked so freaking familiar to me: He played a minor role in one of the movies that influenced me quite a lot in my teens (see movie part). Oh, and it was quite confusing to find out what he looks like by now, though I’m still trying to figure out what the movie is called where he looks/dresses like the singer from Korpiklaani…
Anyway, in another sitting I checked out As Time Goes By as a reminder for the whole Henry Winchester/Men of Letters story line. I kind of enjoyed this episode and I really like the Bunker. So as they hadn’t opened it I had to watch Everybody Hates Hitler again as well. The general story line of the episode is interesting and it is generally quite fun. I like the rabbi and the golem and would have liked more information on them, but I’m just generally quite tired of movies/series restoring to use Nazi-themes for their narration… (We had an off topic discussion about this on wren’s side; starting about here)
Well, as I already watched a time-travel episode, I decided to take another look at The Song remains the same and even though my earlier question about this episode cleared up by now (it was revealed that Cain had offspring) there is now a new one. At one point Michael discusses Lucifer and mentions that he „practically raised him„. Soo… were (Arch)angeles created as babies or is he talking about the time after they imprisoned The Darkness and were starting to form their own personalities after simply following orders? I hope its the latter, as otherwise this would be another case of forgotten continuity…
I actually wanted to watch a different episode but ended up watching Pac-Man Fever. It was a Charlie episode and I liked it, except the ending, I’m not that good with mums currently… So, I needed something good and positive to cheer me up and took another look at Hibbing 911. I just really like Donna and Jody and I’d be more than thrilled if the Fandom plans to make a spin-off with them would become a reality.
For some reason did I want to check out the Metatron and Kevin episodes so The Great Escapist and Reading is Fundamental were next on my list. With them the tablets were introduced as well and I think those are quite an interesting concept. In a twisted kind of way do I like Metatron’s appearances, I can’t really explain it…maybe I just enjoy his conflict of – I don’t want to get involved in this – I want everyone to do as I say or maybe his snark, I don’t know. I liked Kevin, too, though I felt sorry for him a lot of times. And I think it’s a pity that they didn’t explore on the whole prophet thing more…
At some point I wanted to watch one of the Benny-episodes again, so I picked Citizen Fang. A very mean episode, with a quite creepy Jon Gries as Martin. I like Benny…
The last one on this list was a very strange watch for me, as Unmei and I watched Changing Channels in German the other day (It’s by the way called „Wie im Himmel, so auf Erden“, a shortened quote of Gabriel’s line: „As it is in Heaven, so it must be on Earth“).
It was really weird… I mean, I started watching the show in German back when it first aired, but I did not remember it like that…
I especially did not remember that Sam was voiced by the voice actor of Dragonball Z’s Krillin – which caused me to randomly exclaim „Krillin!“ at some point during the episode, yes, I do stuff like that, when I remember from where I know an actor or voice… – and Dean by Tenshinhan (or Tien Shinhan in the English dub), that I suspected before checking out. Castiel had too few lines to let me recognize, that his voice usually is heard with Jude Law, though it did sound extremely familiar. Interestingly his voice actor also voiced Curtis Armstrong (Metatron) in a different role, just like Gabriel’s voice actor, who also happens to be the father of Germany’s (possibly) most used, all-round voice actor David Nathan (Armstrong was also voiced by Spongebob Squarepants‚ for two roles). Okay, I’ll stop now… It might be apparent that I enjoy talking about voice actors… (Charlie’s does a lot of Anime stuff, by the way)
Aside from that is this episode one of my most-watched ones. I just really like the humour and the big reveal and stuff. Simply one of my favourites. 😀
Though Gabriel probably didn’t get that good of a face-change if Cas still recognized him…maybe it’s the soul he can’t change or something like that…
Oh, and one more thing: To get the quote right I looked at the transcript and discovered this funny comment from the transcriber:

The fire goes out; apparently in this world water extinguishes grease fires instead of spreading them. – 5.08. Changing Channels Transcript

Grimm – Season 4, Episode 15 -20 (Watch Date: 16./17.09.)

After quite some time did I take another try at watching Double Date to catch up with Grimm. I still don’t like the sub-plot with Adalind, with the episodes so far the one with Juliet looked better, but I unfortunately knew about the final outcome of that one. 🙁
So knowing the remaining episodes now there are a few things that bugged me about their strange narration.
Juliet’s turn from good to bad is way too fast and too weird. The characters that are usually so open to new things, that accepted supposedly bad Wesen into their group (Blutbad/Fuchsbau), now, when Juliet needs them most, despise her and want to change her. They don’t even give her a chance to adapt or help her in any way. All they want to do is make her go back to the way she was. I can totally understand why that frustrates her, still don’t get much of her choices, but still. It could have been good. It could have been so much more than that. Instead they turn Adalind into a semi-human again, she is still pregnant and for some reason everyone jumps on the bandwagon to help HER. I really don’t get it…
They also could have done more with the new royal – instead of letting him kill Kelly and then killing him off. He was fun…
With Juliet and Kelly dead, I kind of feel bad for Nick, though part of me wants to tell him that the whole thing is his fault, for not helping the woman he said he loved…
And what was up with the Jack the Ripper-Ghost hijacking and the devilish arms? That didn’t make a lick of sense. Why did he kill Wesen? Why did he kill Henrietta? Why was this story involved anyway? o.O

Doctor Who – Season 9, Episode 1-3 – (Watch Date: 19./30.09./3.10.)

Season Nine has started!
I was curious what this Season would bring as it would mostly consist of two-parters, but I kind of like the pacing. It reminds me of the few old episodes that I’ve seen by now. It’s really something different and takes a little getting used to, but still enjoyable.
In The Magician’s Apprentice The Doctor has one of his most epic entries: Riding a tank into a medieval axe-fight, while playing an electric guitar. That really reminded me of the guys from Sabaton and their stage decoration. 😀
I also enjoyed the Davros-dilemma of the episode – Note to self: Finally watch the one with the Fourth – and of course Missy was quite fun again. The first part had an interesting cliff hanger, but I didn’t fear for Missy and Clara. The Witch’s Familiar then finally explained how Missy escaped, which is quite a neat trick she has there. For a short moment I really pitied Davros and wanted to believe him, while something in the back of my mind screamed: They wont kill him like that! Well, that voice was right and I enjoyed the solution to the dilemma that seemingly created the Daleks ability to beg for mercy. Still, a lot seems to be left unexplained and that’s just unfortunate… (How did Davros survive? Is he even the Davros from Stolen Earth/Journey’s End? How did all these different Daleks come together? And why do they just dump the old ones into the sewers? What’s with the other planet from Asylum of the Daleks? What’s Missy’s plan with the Daleks? What did Missy want to gain by making the Doctor kill Clara?)
Under the Lake had a weird start, as I really didn’t understand Clara’s enthusiasm and was right there with the Doctor when he asked her to get a new boyfriend. She’s using these trips to distract herself from mourning and in the long run that’s not a good thing…
I liked that they included a deaf character/actress in the cast and the story so far seems interesting, even though I hope the theme of everything being a life and death situation will cease soon. It’s kind of annoying as you know there are still a couple of more episodes to go and they won’t kill of the main character before that – besides there aren’t any news on Capaldi already being replaced – so the shock factor is way off in those episodes.
Oh, and I kind of like the Sonic Sunglasses, miss the Screwdriver a bit, but they look cool. 😀 And I really like the Doctors new dressing style, I like the hoodie/jacket…

The Musketeers – Season 2, Episode 8: The Accused (Watch Date: 22.09.)

I’m confused…the break was too long.
Mark Warren is creepy…no comparison to his role in Doctor Who.
I liked Porthos and was annoyed by Aramis.
And why did I expect Rochefort to still be in the room and make a snarky comment when Athos and Milady left the hidden cupboard? o.O

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Season 3, Episode 1: Laws of Nature (Watch Date: 30.09.)

Confusing yet somehow satisfying start into the new Season. They showed Jemma! And Fitz was amazing. And I’m really curious how this Season will continue…

Deadbeat – Season 1/2, Episode 1-6 (Watch Date: 4.-6.10.)

Like Undateable I am not entirely sure what to make of this show. I saw the add for the German version, checked out the English one – as it stars Tyler Labin from Reaper – and half into the second Season, I still think this is a very weird series. It’s still fun, though. And Lucy DeVito is soo cute… Still, twenty minutes an episode are far too short to get some actual grip on the characters and the world. It got better by now, but it’s still quite lacking and very random…

Different movies

I felt in the mood to watch Midnight in Paris again. The first time I saw it, I went to the cinema in Uetersen with Janzy for special English screening, I gave her as a birthday gift. We both like movies and with Tom Hiddleston as one of the side roles and the story sounding interesting and the whole setting in Paris with all the old writers, we quite enjoyed it. Though watching it again I realized that I seemed to have known Woody/Zachariah (Kurt Fuller) before I saw him in his TV roles. 😀 I really like the atmosphere and narration of the movie. It’s not just some story that focuses on one thing only, no it takes you on a ride through Paris, it introduces you all these talented people (I probably would enjoy this part even more, if I actually recognized them), it shows the struggle of an aspiring artist, the downsides of a relationship with someone very different from yourself and it gives you something to think about, regarding everyone’s „Golden Age“. Just a wonderful movie.
As I’ve seen a lot of positive comments regarding Jensen Ackles in Ten Inch Hero I thought I might as well check it out. It was a fun watch and explored some unusual topics. Half way into the movie I recognized Adair Tishler (Molly from Heroes) and she was just as cute a kid, as she is in the series. Still, there were a few weird choices: Last time I briefly discussed the whole changing yourself for someone else thing. In this movie it wasn’t the girl who got the change, but the boy. All throughout the movie he ran around confident in his appearance with mowhawks in different colours (I’m not entirely sure what the pace of the movie was, so it seemed, like he changed them daily…) and styles, piercings and everything. But to get his love interest he cut his hair short and took out the piercings and put on some „proper“ clothes. It’s just so frustrating. If she loves him, she loves him with the hairdo and piercings and everything, not because he somehow discovers to dress „decently“. He looks so uncomfortable…
They also had a sex-scene that let to a brutal boyfriend-theme, but I think it would have been enough to show less of that part and still get the story across.
And what’s up with the naked wedding?
As I wrote earlier did I discover in which movie I saw AJ Buckley before: The Forsaken (the German title also includes „Die Nacht ist gierig“/“The Night is Voracious“). It’s an old vampire hunter road movie thing, that isn’t even well done, but it’s still special to me. I do believe this is one of the first movies I’ve ever watched in the „horror“ genre and I think I was still about fourteen when watching this PG 16 movie late at night, hoping that my parents/my mum wouldn’t come in and ask me what I’m watching. In a way it shaped my interests quite a bit. Besides Buffy it took part in creating my interest in vampires (and other creatures) and their different backgrounds. The characters I liked most can somehow be found again in later favourite characters (Pen and Nick if anyone is interested >_<) and the title even became a reference for the family name of a branch of characters from Michael’s story. When I watched it again, I feared I wouldn’t like it as much as I did back then, but I still did. It’s fun in a weird kind of way. Pretty trashy, with lots of weird camera movements, but still great in a way.
Towards the end I had this memory that one of the characters would start singing „Enter Sandman“ by Metallica any moment now and put it aside, but then he ascended the stairs and the scene actually happened and I was happy that I remembered that correctly. So the soundtrack is also part of why I like this one so much. 😀

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

As I also found out that the actress of Becky from Supernatural played Brigitte in the Ginger Snaps-franchise I decided to re-watch those movies again – or finally watch the third part, that’s been lying around for ages…
Well, we’ll see when I’ll get around to do that and write another one of these…
PoiSonPaiNter

What’cha Watching Wednesday #7

I didn’t really feel like watching any series and focused more on old movies in the past months, but I still want to present you the seventh instalment of the What’cha Watching Wednesday, which again obviously covers more than one week.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.

Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Supernatural – Season 2, Episode 15: Tall Tales (Watch Date: 11.06.) and others

While writing my Season summary for Season Three, I came across the Trickster again and decided to re-watch his episodes(, but I didn’t feel like changing the title much more than adding „and others“ as I had included a date on the other episode). I really enjoyed this character and his episodes were quite fun in a weird way. He really had had potential, but then again, so did many characters on the show…
I just really like the struggle the Trickster/Gabriel portrays, he claims to not want anything to do with Lucifers and Michaels fight, yet he does everything in his powers that Sam and Dean accept their roles in it and shows them time and again that some things just need to happen. He’s great and as I’ve discovered recently a lot of fun to write, which might explain that my simple One Shot idea kind of turned into two Multi-Chapter stories…

Incidentally I couldn’t get myself to watch The Hammer of the Gods, I just couldn’t…apart from the fact that there is so much wrong with that episode, did I just not want to see the outcome of it again…

I also watched several other episodes, though I can’t remember which ones, Season Four/Five stuff with Lucifer, Chuck and the Horsemen I believe. I also took some suggestions from wrencollins in this matter and just watched whatever I felt like.

Outlander – Season 1, Episodes 1-7 (Watch Date 6./7.6.)

As it was about to air in German television I felt like checking this one out. We’ll it is an interesting concept, the characters aren’t bad and somewhat interesting, but as you can see from the watch date, have I not gotten myself to continue since June…

My dad has probably seen more episodes in German than I have in English…

Sense8 – Season 1

I let myself be goaded into watching another series again. And I do not feel bad about it.
This show is incredible.
Actors from the actual countries the story plays in, with the actual accents, filmed in the actual locations. Really great.
And the switch between the Sensates, when they changed the perspective in a conversation or one took over and handled the situation of the other, was quite interesting, especially in the finale. I really liked the finale, though I’m afraid it’s hard to top.

I can’t even say who my favourite character is, I kind of liked all of them…Riley and Capheus are just incredibly adorable and cute, Lito and Will have quite hilarious moments, whereas Sun and Wolfgang show their badassery and Nomi and Kala, just show off their smarts, not to mention Freema Agyeman and Naveen Andrews, who made for interesting side characters.
I like the whole pretext of the show, its realization, the characters, pretty much everything…I can’t wait for Season 2 to be completed.

I am fairly certain that I might have a separate post for my Lost in Translation-series about Wolfgang – even though I have to say that they picked one of the most horrible sounding names here…
In German Wolfgang is fine, but in English? Just no. This is one of those names that, as a German, you don’t want to hear pronounced in an English way…

Speaking of translations…well…let’s say: I didn’t watch it directly on Netflix, therefore a lot of stuff is lost to me, as it did not have the translations with it, especially the Sun-focused episode, which was a pity.

Orange is the New Black – Season 3

Same problem as above, a lot of it was lost, as I didn’t have any subtitles. This was quite frustrating in the background episodes for Gloria, Chang and Leanne.

The overall storyline of this Season was a bit disappointing and boring – especially everything that concerned Piper. I just can’t stand her.
I really enjoyed the looks at the different inmates pasts again, I feel like this is always the most interesting part of the show. It was also fun to find out that another character spoke German, even if it was an Amish variation of it, that I didn’t really understand – though I believe it was the bad quality of the stream and my head still being stuck in English-mode…
The thing that bugged me most was probably Red. She was one of my favourites in the previous Seasons, but now, I’m not so sure any more. I also didn’t really understand the whole thing with Norma…

So in conclusion: This Season wasn’t as good as the others, but it was still fun.

Merlin – different episodes

I felt like watching a bit Merlin again and I think Gwayne and Servant of two Masters are my most watched episodes of the series by now. Another one is The Once and Future Queen that I this time even watched in German with Fairy during my recent stay at her place. I just love Merlin’s rant in that episode and wanted to see how it was done in German. This show is just always fun to watch.

Lasko – different episodes

For every non-German: Lasko – Die Faust Gottes (The Fist of God) is a German show from 2009/10 about a secret organisation of fighting monks (Pugnus Dei – hence the title) that fight another secret organisation Ares and other people who want to do nasty things to those who can’t defend themselves. As this show was produced by a station known for its love of scripted reality and casting shows, you might imagine the seriousness of the production. Lasko is a totally ridiculous show, with the titular character constantly loosing his Habit to fight the foes showing off his muscular chest. He has a chubby side-kick that is good for quips and wordplays and there are so many tropes and what not, that it gets fun to watch because of its terribleness.

The show started shortly after we started writing Warlords and Fairy and I made it a tradition to watch each new episode together and discuss it directly via ICQ. We had a lot of fun doing that and we still have fun watching the show now and giving off the same comments we used to make. We just love Gladius. 😀

Buffy – different episodes

Just as the ones above: I just felt like watching some episodes of Buffy and I do believe I even caught some I haven’t seen back when it was still on television. Well, it’s also interesting to re-watch it in its original language and not in the translated version I grew up with. Does anyone else consider Tabula Rasa one of the shows most hilarious episodes? 😀

Different movies

As I said in the beginning did I feel more like watching movies than series in the past few months and I came across several quite interesting pieces and some really weird choices…
As I don’t want to go into that much detail I’ll simply make a name-dropping description here and say a few things about them.
One last comment before I start: When I consider actors to be interesting, I like to check out their other work, so some of the choices came from that perspective and I probably forgot to add some of them.

Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) and Castiel (Misha Collins) in the same movie? Of course I had to check out Moving Alan, though I’m not entirely sure, what exactly I watched there… It is a weird mixture of Weekend at Bernies and other things I cannot name, just with two girls, a dead-turned-paralysed husband and an insane actor in the middle of the desert… it’s just weird…

Not much better is Par 6, another of Collins‘ older movies about a family obsessed with golf, though it has some more fun scenes than the other one. Downside for me: Their accents were hard to understand sometimes.

As it was in his imdb list as well I took a look at Girl, Interrupted, his role here was only a minor five seconds part and the focus was on the main characters played by Winona Rider and Angelina Jolie. I don’t really like Jolie as an actress, but in this role she was quite creepy, well, the whole film is strange and creepy, but still interesting.

What I, however, noticed is that Collins‘ minor or side character roles seemingly often include being the love interest or some kind of random hook-up for one of the main character. Which is kind of best shown in Over Her Dead Body, were he really is just that – same in Girl, Interrupted. Makes you wonder about his role in Supernatural… 😀
Anyway, that movie was quite fun, the idea wasn’t new – ghost fiancé stalks her ex and tries to convince him to not fall in love with another girl -, but doing the whole thing through a medium made for some quite funny scenes. And Paul Rudd did a good job at playing the confused and torn ex, but I think I have yet to see him in a role that I didn’t enjoy watching, which is in stark contrast to Jason Biggs, whose role choices I do often question, guess someone just has to do those things as well…

One of my, if not the, highlight/s of this watching streak was 3 Blind Saints, with Richard Speight Jr. as main character. This movie is hilarious and if you haven’t seen it, you should totally check it out – if you did, you should watch it again. It has a lot of slapstick and situation humor, but here are some of my favourites:

  • Several people try to get an out of jail free card, by claiming that they were saved by God – one of them is an atheist
  • The main characters end up having to pretend to be ministers in the local community with the atheist having to fill the role of the pastor.
  • Some very strange argumentations and utterly ridiculous prayers and sermons.
  • A very strange meeting with God
  • A couple of guys in drag – one of them unwilling to shave off his beard – trying to get a confession out of a bad guy, with a kink for girls in short skirts, who knows its them in drag and plays along.

I watched it for a second time on Sunday and I could watch it again, it’s just so much fun. It’s far from being perfect and has a lot of flaws (e.g. a missing and re-appearing beard/stubble), but it’s just one of those funny feel-good movies.

I grew up with the Harry Potter movies, so when I got the chance to pick up Driving Lessons
 with Rupert Grint, I didn’t hesitate long. This movie has an interesting take on different things: The protected life of an only child, the downsides of growing old alone, growing up and being an artist. It’s a nice watch. Emma Watson’s The Secret Life of a Wallflower on the other hand took a more depressing turn. It shown some light on different usually left out problems (depression, suicide, homophobia, …), but it felt like they still left out things that would have made it more clear and more rounded. That’s a bit disappointing for an otherwise good movie. Though I somehow can’t remember the ending or I am at least not sure that what I remember is the ending…

On a similar depressing note was Coming Down the Mountain with Nicholas Hoult, but here I really liked the conclusion, even though some of the things that happened throughout the movie were quite creepy. It’s an interesting take on the struggles to live with someone who suffers from the Down Syndrome.
For some reason I decided to watch What’s Your Number? with Chris Evans and I’m still not entirely sure why I did. The movie isn’t totally bad, but it has some quite strange moments. Though not as bad as Totally Blonde, where my memory kind of betrayed me… I remembered it as a fun movie with singer Michael Bublé, but it turned out to be something entirely different and I’m not sure how I made it through the movie, as some decisions by the main character were utterly frustrating to say the least. Speaking of frustrating main characters: The Devil Wears Prada. I really don’t get the appeal of these kinds of movies where a woman with a totally okay style and personality changes everything in order to become the „better“ person for someone else (here: her boss) and loses herself in the process. Not my type of movie, but I like Anne Hathaway and Glen Close and felt like watching this again…

Tumblr is a great what-to-watch source when it comes to their favourite actors. So I checked out The Losers, with Chris Evans, Zoe Saldana, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Idris Elba in main roles. It turned out to be one of the DC-adaptations that I actually enjoyed. It was fun, had some good action and a lot of logical flaws, but still a nice watch.

Before we went to Fairys place we stayed at her parents place and watched a French/German version of Beauty and the Beast from 2014 with her boyfriend and Fissel (her sister) that just aired on television, though we kind of missed the beginning of the movie, twice. We still had a lot of fun watching it and commenting on different things, but the whole experience could be summed up in this quote from Fairy, that we put on our Facebook-Page:

The movie is fun, but I don’t think it was planned to be a comedy.

More quotes (including stuff about beagles and rose tendrils) can be found there, though they are in German, if you’d like a translation, let me know.
We did consider, however, if we should record ourselves watching movies, so that other people can be part of our ridiculous conversations. 😀 Would anyone be interested in such a thing?

I also re-watched the Underworld movies with Unmei. We are three movies in and the fourth, The Awakening, would then be new for me as well. In the first three films it is nice to follow the different connections among them, but we kind of had large pauses between watching them, so some things weren’t that easy to recognize. It doesn’t matter how often I see these movies Lucien is still my favourite character of the four parts. Still, I don’t get how Michael Sheen could agree to betray the Lycans and become a sparkling vampire. o.O

Also on Speights list I found Noobz a movie about a Gaming Tournament and it’s participants. It took me a while to recognize Jon Gries beneath that god awful mullet, but it was indeed him who had a very strange and short conversation with Speights character and later on a tiny bit larger role in the overall storyline…
The movie is a very strange look on gamers and they used a lot of stereotypes and weird characters, but it still was somewhat fun. The effort in showing this kind of subgenre reminded me a bit of Knights of Badassdom, which is way more fun as it has a quite awesome soundtrack, that Noobz can’t compete with by having only two rock numbers. Still, when it comes to movies/series depicting gamers and nerds do I prefer Felicia Day’s The Guild and Zombie Orpheus‘ The Gamers– series. They feel way more accurate and genuine than the other stuff out there, which is kind of obvious as they are made by and for gamers…

Well, I didn’t only watch old stuff, I was also in the cinema a couple of times.
At first I thought I wouldn’t manage to see Mara und der Feuerbringer (Mara and the Firebringer), due to some scheduling issues in the marketing, but then I found out that it was screened in Greifswald and I took Schmusi and Anna from the HGWAnime with me to see it and we had a lot of fun. Finally a German Fantasy movie that isn’t as stoic and flat as German movies tend to be, has interesting characters, an interesting plot and funny dialogues. With songs like Echter wahrer Held/True Genuine Hero by Schandmaul it also has a nice soundtrack. Schmusi first thought it was Jan Josef Liefers doing the singing until I told her it was the singer of one of the bands that first got me hooked on Metal. 😀
Anyway, if you get the chance: Definitely check this one out!

I also saw Melissa McCarthy’s latest flick Spy and laughed a lot, though we were wondering if the age level was appropriate for that movie, as it did have some nasty sequences. I went to check out Mad Max: Fury Road after all the praise it got on Tumblr and I wasn’t disappointed. The strange and staccato like cut of the movie was a bit confusing, but it was still fun to watch. More fun, however, was Ant-Man that I originally didn’t even want to see, but went along when Fairy and her boyfriend asked if we’d go and see it. After the changed tone in Age of Ultron this one was more focused on the humour than the seriousness of it all. I don’t regret seeing this one after all.

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

We’ll see when I’ll write another one of these…

PoiSonPaiNter