2020 media consumption
31 Dec 2020 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneTV
What We Do in the Shadows s 1-2 5/5, love it
Treadstone, a mediocre and silly Bourneverse spinoff with a couple of cool bits, 2/5
The Stranger, with Richard Armitage. Laughably silly. 2/5
The Name of the Rose (2019), 5/5, would watch twenty or fifty more hours of it
Locke & Key, a silly Joe Hill horror adaptation, completely terrible but occasionally amusing, 1/5
The Rook, very silly but a pretty good time. 3/5
The Outsider, Stephen King adaptation. Actually AMAZING. 6/5
The Babysitters' Club, 5/5. A great job with the adaptation.
The Good Place season 3. 4/5, still fun but not as good as seasons 1-2
October Faction. terrible writing on a good idea. U tried (deformed star). 2/5. Would speedwalk out of the room to avoid.
Criminal UK, an enjoyable watch but forgettable, 3/5 extremely side-eyeing an apparent cumulative theme of bad women
Dark, a bonkers German timetravel series, fun ideas, dank mood, goodish design, boring bits. Half-watched, lolwtf, 3/5
Devs, lolol. 2/5 Half-watched
Avenue 5, funny but pissed me off. Stopped after a couple of episodes. Can't remember why. 4/5
The Umbrella Academy s2. Same as s1, not perfect, but enjoyable, 4/5, still suffering from irritatingness of characters & my desire to hit them all over the head
Lovecraft Country: fantastic and amazing, with a strong caveat about Ruby's story. 6/5
The Haunting of Bly Manor, half-watched. Interesting ideas, low-mediocre writing, very stupid, 2/5
The Queen's Gambit, 6/5, would watch another several weeks' worth, visually stunning
Raised by Wolves, 3/5. Interesting but suffers from some dodgy ideas and pacing, with some boring bits given too much screentime
Bridgerton, LOL/5. Kidding. 6/5 for direction and visual and audio design but 2/5 for the underlying writing and a major demerit for failing to get an adequate dialogue polish on their mega budget. Cumulatively 4/5 but I will definitely continue watching.
Movies
Little Women 5/5, very satisfying adaptation and visually beautiful
Jumanji 2 - not as fantastic as the first one but still outstanding, 5/5
Emma, refreshing and fun and rather novel Austen adaptation, 5/5
The Vast of Night, fascinating and really fun, visually fantastic. 5/5
Hustlers, 4/5, a good movie and a fun time
Detective Pikachu, 4/5, a great time
Birds of Prey, 4/5 but a great time
Personal Shopper, WTF, 3/5. Also lol
Enola Holmes, the first really interesting and good and original Sherlock Holmes-based film fanwork I've seen in a while, but very definitely YA and not perfect. 4/5
Underwater, a stealth-Cthulhumythos horror movie that was very well shot and pretty well directed but a bad script and it stumbled and fell on its face over the line between reference and derivative. 2/5
Books
William Morris, the father of the Arts & Crafts movement and designer of glorious wallpapers and textiles, also wrote a number of pseudo-medieval romances which form a pre-Tolkien building block of the modern fantasy genre: The Wood Beyond the World, The Well at World's End, The Water of the Wondrous Isles, A Dream of John Ball, Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair. (Posts from early this year to be found in my books tag)
Victoria Helen Stone - Jane Doe. An engaging female revenge airport thriller. Low danger. Sociopath narrator. Decent. 3 or 4/5
Josephine Tey - Miss Pym Disposes. Typical golden age of British detective fiction, typical -ism warnings but an engaging protagonist. 4/5, would have read more if she'd written more but she didn't.
James Thurber - The 13 Clocks. Delightful children's fantasy. 5/5
John Crowley - Little, Big. A modern fantasy classic dealing with fae. 5/5
John M. Ford - The Dragon Waiting. High fantasy. Wales. 5/5
Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination. A classic of science fiction. Should've had trigger warnings. Well enough executed, but do not recommend at all.
Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels (all of them), 5/5
Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone. Well executed, but not as exciting as I remember being by The Woman in White, which also coincidentally didn't look as good on rereading
Tom Holt - The Portable Door. Modern fantasy, humor. Enjoyable, but has sexism issues. Would go out of my way to avoid this author's work for that reason.
Catriona McPherson - A Step So Grave (last published Dandy Gilver mystery). 5/5
Ethel Lina White, 1920s-40s English mystery and thriller writer: The Wheel Turns (The Lady Vanishes), The First Time He Died, The Man Who Loved Lions, The Elephant Never Forgets (unfinished), Fear Stalks the Village, Put Out the Light. Overall 4/5, but variable. Some yikes bits, some sexism and racism, some incredibly bonkers hilarious bits.
Fanfic
As usual, I read more fanfic than anything else, but in the absence of any fandom to really belong to, my reading was even more eclectic and multifannish than usual, pretty random. But there are a couple of standouts.
(Notable) fandoms read this year:
New material read at multiple points/tags checked or monitored:
The Witcher
It (movies)
Shetland (TV) (albeit not that much of it to be found)
What We Do in the Shadows (TV) (albeit not thhat much of it to be found)
The Old Guard
Extensively reread in binge periods:
Highlander
Sherlock (Mycroft/Lestrade)
Star Trek: DS9 (Garak/Bashir)
What We Do in the Shadows s 1-2 5/5, love it
Treadstone, a mediocre and silly Bourneverse spinoff with a couple of cool bits, 2/5
The Stranger, with Richard Armitage. Laughably silly. 2/5
The Name of the Rose (2019), 5/5, would watch twenty or fifty more hours of it
Locke & Key, a silly Joe Hill horror adaptation, completely terrible but occasionally amusing, 1/5
The Rook, very silly but a pretty good time. 3/5
The Outsider, Stephen King adaptation. Actually AMAZING. 6/5
The Babysitters' Club, 5/5. A great job with the adaptation.
The Good Place season 3. 4/5, still fun but not as good as seasons 1-2
October Faction. terrible writing on a good idea. U tried (deformed star). 2/5. Would speedwalk out of the room to avoid.
Criminal UK, an enjoyable watch but forgettable, 3/5 extremely side-eyeing an apparent cumulative theme of bad women
Dark, a bonkers German timetravel series, fun ideas, dank mood, goodish design, boring bits. Half-watched, lolwtf, 3/5
Devs, lolol. 2/5 Half-watched
Avenue 5, funny but pissed me off. Stopped after a couple of episodes. Can't remember why. 4/5
The Umbrella Academy s2. Same as s1, not perfect, but enjoyable, 4/5, still suffering from irritatingness of characters & my desire to hit them all over the head
Lovecraft Country: fantastic and amazing, with a strong caveat about Ruby's story. 6/5
The Haunting of Bly Manor, half-watched. Interesting ideas, low-mediocre writing, very stupid, 2/5
The Queen's Gambit, 6/5, would watch another several weeks' worth, visually stunning
Raised by Wolves, 3/5. Interesting but suffers from some dodgy ideas and pacing, with some boring bits given too much screentime
Bridgerton, LOL/5. Kidding. 6/5 for direction and visual and audio design but 2/5 for the underlying writing and a major demerit for failing to get an adequate dialogue polish on their mega budget. Cumulatively 4/5 but I will definitely continue watching.
Movies
Little Women 5/5, very satisfying adaptation and visually beautiful
Jumanji 2 - not as fantastic as the first one but still outstanding, 5/5
Emma, refreshing and fun and rather novel Austen adaptation, 5/5
The Vast of Night, fascinating and really fun, visually fantastic. 5/5
Hustlers, 4/5, a good movie and a fun time
Detective Pikachu, 4/5, a great time
Birds of Prey, 4/5 but a great time
Personal Shopper, WTF, 3/5. Also lol
Enola Holmes, the first really interesting and good and original Sherlock Holmes-based film fanwork I've seen in a while, but very definitely YA and not perfect. 4/5
Underwater, a stealth-Cthulhumythos horror movie that was very well shot and pretty well directed but a bad script and it stumbled and fell on its face over the line between reference and derivative. 2/5
Books
William Morris, the father of the Arts & Crafts movement and designer of glorious wallpapers and textiles, also wrote a number of pseudo-medieval romances which form a pre-Tolkien building block of the modern fantasy genre: The Wood Beyond the World, The Well at World's End, The Water of the Wondrous Isles, A Dream of John Ball, Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair. (Posts from early this year to be found in my books tag)
Victoria Helen Stone - Jane Doe. An engaging female revenge airport thriller. Low danger. Sociopath narrator. Decent. 3 or 4/5
Josephine Tey - Miss Pym Disposes. Typical golden age of British detective fiction, typical -ism warnings but an engaging protagonist. 4/5, would have read more if she'd written more but she didn't.
James Thurber - The 13 Clocks. Delightful children's fantasy. 5/5
John Crowley - Little, Big. A modern fantasy classic dealing with fae. 5/5
John M. Ford - The Dragon Waiting. High fantasy. Wales. 5/5
Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination. A classic of science fiction. Should've had trigger warnings. Well enough executed, but do not recommend at all.
Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels (all of them), 5/5
Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone. Well executed, but not as exciting as I remember being by The Woman in White, which also coincidentally didn't look as good on rereading
Tom Holt - The Portable Door. Modern fantasy, humor. Enjoyable, but has sexism issues. Would go out of my way to avoid this author's work for that reason.
Catriona McPherson - A Step So Grave (last published Dandy Gilver mystery). 5/5
Ethel Lina White, 1920s-40s English mystery and thriller writer: The Wheel Turns (The Lady Vanishes), The First Time He Died, The Man Who Loved Lions, The Elephant Never Forgets (unfinished), Fear Stalks the Village, Put Out the Light. Overall 4/5, but variable. Some yikes bits, some sexism and racism, some incredibly bonkers hilarious bits.
Fanfic
As usual, I read more fanfic than anything else, but in the absence of any fandom to really belong to, my reading was even more eclectic and multifannish than usual, pretty random. But there are a couple of standouts.
(Notable) fandoms read this year:
New material read at multiple points/tags checked or monitored:
The Witcher
It (movies)
Shetland (TV) (albeit not that much of it to be found)
What We Do in the Shadows (TV) (albeit not thhat much of it to be found)
The Old Guard
Extensively reread in binge periods:
Highlander
Sherlock (Mycroft/Lestrade)
Star Trek: DS9 (Garak/Bashir)
