Read and Watched in 2021
31 Dec 2021 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimorene This list excludes Youtube stuff, including binging QI, Would I Lie to You, and Only Connect.
Point Break. lol. This was a stellar beginning to my plan to fill in my missing knowledge of iconic silly 80s and 90s movies. Very gay, very baby Keanu and Patrick Swayze.
The Client. A good time. Not exactly silly, but still a film of an airport book.
The Man Who Knew Too Much (eh.) Old, black and white. I was trying to find more old movies, but this wasn't what I wanted!
Truth Seekers (tv) - this was good. Nick Frost and some other guys with a ghost-hunting kinda thing.
Triple Frontier - Oscar Isaac, Pedro Pascal, Ben Affleck. Hated it
Charlie's Angels (blah)
30 Monedas. Spanish tv about Satan. Incredibly stupid.
Curón. Italian. Horror with doppelgangers that come up out of the ghost town under the lake to kill you. And it was bad, and the reason it's bad isn't even the premise, the execution is also stupid.
Muerte en Buenos Aires. um... colorful
Baztán trilogy, Spanish. EUGH! Although the lead actress and some of the other actors were good, but the direction of the plot ultimately made me want to throw the whole thing in an empty oil drum and set it on fire.
Tiny Pretty Things (Wax). SO BAD LOL
Twin Murders - the Silence of the White City WEIRD AS FUCK
Top Gun. lol. So gay! Most of this was way more boring than I expected though. Val Kilmer was a revelation.
Legend. Tom Cruise. SO BAD and WACK. I think I posted a ranty blog post because this movie was so fascinatingly terrible in so many ways.
Palm Springs. 4/5
White Lotus. Good, hilarious. A tour de force of different comedians in one of those clusterfuck situations.
The Chair. Pretty good... although the downside was that I hated all the main characters you were supposed to like
Robocop. 4/5. lol
Men in Black: Int'l. Polished but stale. 3.5
Interview with a Vampire. 5/5. lol
Midnight Mass. lol wut.
Ted Lasso. Unfortunately (because it involves sports), I love it
The Lost Boys. Hahahha. My sister was obsessed with this when I was a teenager and she would get it from Blockbuster and play the VHS and then just rewind it and immediately watch it again, but I was so busy talking on the phone to my friends that I never actually saw it until now. Classic film of this era. Ah, nostalgia. Ah, the horrible clothes. A+
Blade. Funny and pretty good
We Are Lady Parts s1. Love it!
Ghosts s3. Still loving it.
Dune. Mostly understood the assignment, but the lack of Arabic/North African and Muslim people in it is ... bad
Babysitter's Club s2. not as good as s1, but still pretty good
What We Do in the Shadows s3. Loved it. I think it's getting better maybe?
The Suicide Squad. Loved it
Wheel of Time. Ongoing.
Misbehaviour. Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha Raw. Pretty good.
Shang Chi. Enjoyable, well put together, good action scenes which is pretty rare, and it's good that it has so many Asian people in it at least.
The Witcher s2. Better than s1 but still bad.
Roswell: NM (Wax). BAD
Most of these are classic murder mysteries, typically from the golden age and in the public domain, because I spent a lot of the year trying to fill in my knowledge of that area. So I'll have to note the things that aren't with asterisks. Also I'll note the ones that are American, because almost all of them are British.
***Asimov, Isaac. Foundation. Classic SF. Some very yikes bits, holy shit. So yikes. And a lot of unintentionally hilarious retrofuturism. Better than the show though!
". Foundation and Empire. A lot less engaging than the first one for me. Didn't finish it.
Austen-Leigh, Lois. The Incredible Crime 4/5 minus points for added romance and classism
Bell, Josephine. A Pigeon Among the Cats. Good.
". Bones in the Barrow. Really gripping and memorable, esp the beginning.
Bellairs, George. The Dead Shall be Raised. Hilarious hyphen hyperactivity - see blog post
Berkeley, Anthony. The Poisoned Chocolates Case. 4.5/5.
Trial & Error. 5/5 sendup, inverted style (planning and commission of murder). Twist ending is 2/5 but the rest of the story is a great time. See blog post.
Brand, Christianna. Buffet for Unwelcome Guests. V. enjoyable short story collection.
". Death in High Heels. Apparently her best known novel, also very good, 4/5.
". Death of Jezebel. A memorable variant on locked room murder.
Bude, John. The Cornish Coast Mystery. 3/5 An enjoyable story in workmanlike prose and utterly charming setting, with meticulous plotting.
". The Cheltenham Square Murder. His style is a little low/workmanlike but the plotting is interesting.
". The Lake District Murder. Same quality as the others. Charming plotting, blah prose.
Burton, Miles. Death in the Tunnel. Rather interesting premise (murdered in a moving train during the blackout in a tunnel) with an extremely fiddly solution.
Carr, John Dickson. Castle Skull: A Rhineland Mystery. Poirot ripoff with ridiculous goth setting investigating the disappearance of a thinly-veiled Houdini. It's wack. See blog post
***Chambers, Robert William. The King in Yellow. An iconic and seminal work in the horror genre, but the stories in the collection sort of range from dark fantasy to just... romance... to... fantasy romance? LOL. Glad I get the references now, but some of the stuff in here is really just wack. And some of it is funny. Unintentionally so. I definitely understand why this is a seminal classic, though - those few bits that became iconic.
Crofts, Freeman Wills. Antidote to Venom. Mostly entertaining, but the POV jumps are eh, and then at the end it all finds religion which was a huge buzzkill and is why I won't read anything else by this writer.
Edwards, Martin, ed. Serpents in Paradise. Antho.
". Capital Crimes: London Mysteries. Antho.
". Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries. Antho. (Skipped some)
". Crimson Snow: Winter Murders. Antho.
". Murder at the Manor. Antho.
Footner, Hulbert. Madame Storey. Set in NYC, but the author's Canadian. These are all books about his dashing lady sleuth, who is a beautiful famous socialite, private detective, practicing psychologist, and polymath genius. And she's a contemporary creation! The writer himself was highly unusual. One wonders how much the Phryne Fisher books might owe to her. Here's my rec post.
". The Velvet Hand.
". Easy to Kill.
". The Viper.
". The Doctor Who Held Hands.
". The Casual Murderer.
". The Under Dogs.
Freeman, R. Austin. The Mystery of 31, New Inn. 1912. These are all further books in the Dr Thorndyke series.
". Helen Vardon's Confession. 1922. (This one was the yikes antisemitic one.)
" . A Silent Witness. 1914.
". The Cat's Eye.
". The D'Arblay Mystery.
". As a Thief in the Night.
Gilbert, Anthony. Death in Fancy Dress. 3/5
Gilbert, Michael. Death has Deep Roots. 4/5. French resistance, ww2.
Green, Anna Katharine. The Affair Next Door. American. (19th century?) A little tough going at times but an engaging narrator. 4/5
Gulik, Robert Van (trans). The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee. Chinese murder story collection set ca. 6th century CE, but written later. Very interesting! Has elements of crime-solving but, obviously, entirely without the trappings of western detective (or storytelling) convention.
***Herbert, Frank. Dune. It's Dune. I guess I'm glad the movie came along; I wouldn't've reread it otherwise and I couldn't remember it well.
Hull, Richard. The Murder of My Aunt. 5/5, and the twist ending also 5/5
***Jansson, Tove. Farlig Midsommar.
". Trollkarlens Hatt.
". Kometen Kommer - begun but not finished bc everyone is more annoying and I just wanted to dropkick Sniff into a volcano.
Jefferson Farjeon, J. Mystery in White. 4/5. American, early 20th c. Pretty gripping, but some extremely hokey reliance on the supernatural that ultimately made me hurl it across the room (figuratively speaking) and is why I won't read anything else by this writer.
Lorac, ECR. Fire in the Thatch. 4/5
". Murder by Matchlight. Memorable Blitz blackout bicycle murder case! Enjoyable investigation. 5/5
". Murder in the Mill-Race. Devon village setting. 4/5
Melville, Alan. Quick Curtain. More a theater comedy - the mystery parts are extremely thin. 3/5.
". Weekend at Thrackley. Fun, very original.
Pérez-Reverte, Arturo. The Flanders Panel. 1990. A fun read of art history and chess but the twist is both stupid and homophobic. Yuck. Translated from Spanish and set in Spain.
Peters, Ellis. Monk's Hood. (Cadfael #3) 4.5/5. Can't remember why I failed out of the 1st book before.
Postgate, Raymond. Verdict of 12. 4/5. Twist ending.
Rogers, Joel Townsley. The Red Right Hand. 1945 classic thriller/murder mystery, 5/5. American (I think?)
Sayers, Dorothy. The Documents in the Case. Epistolary, very gripping. 5/5 but not her best.
Sprigg, Christopher St John. Death of an Airman. Good.
Symons, Julian. the Belting Inheritance. Comparatively little murder, mostly just return of the long-lost war hero. 2/5.
Wallace, Edgar. The Guv'nor and Other Stories. American.
". The Mind of Mr JG Reeder. These are quickly and sloppily written but some of the short stories are quite fun.
". Red Aces.
Wilkinson, Ellen. The Division Bell Mystery. Parliament. 4/5
Wilson, Barbara. Gaudi Afternoon. This is very lesbian, on the plus side, but it also has a real like... 1990s lesbian Culture vibe, that thing where if you don't hang out in Queer Spaces you don't get all the references and it all seems weird, especially all the subculture signifiers getting confused by the subculture members with queerness itself. Anyway, this was kind of fun, but there are no actual murders, and the mystery doesn't get very suspenseful or interesting. American characters, but set in Spain. 4/5, would not try another by her.
Wynne, Anthony. Murder of a Lady. Interesting but sexist.
And now most recently I've been in the process of rereading CJ Cherryh's Foreigner books, from the beginning. That's:
1 Foreigner 2 Invader 3 Intruder, 4 Precursor (♥) 5 Defender 6 Explorer (♥), 7 Destroyer 8 Pretender 9 Deliverer, 10 Conspirator (♥) 11 Deceiver 12 Betrayer (♥), 13 Intruder (♥) 14 Protector (♥) 15 Peacemaker (I accidentally skipped this one and didn't notice until I was almost done with #16!), 16 Tracker 17 Visitor... there are about six more I think.
Point Break. lol. This was a stellar beginning to my plan to fill in my missing knowledge of iconic silly 80s and 90s movies. Very gay, very baby Keanu and Patrick Swayze.
The Client. A good time. Not exactly silly, but still a film of an airport book.
The Man Who Knew Too Much (eh.) Old, black and white. I was trying to find more old movies, but this wasn't what I wanted!
Truth Seekers (tv) - this was good. Nick Frost and some other guys with a ghost-hunting kinda thing.
Triple Frontier - Oscar Isaac, Pedro Pascal, Ben Affleck. Hated it
Charlie's Angels (blah)
30 Monedas. Spanish tv about Satan. Incredibly stupid.
Curón. Italian. Horror with doppelgangers that come up out of the ghost town under the lake to kill you. And it was bad, and the reason it's bad isn't even the premise, the execution is also stupid.
Muerte en Buenos Aires. um... colorful
Baztán trilogy, Spanish. EUGH! Although the lead actress and some of the other actors were good, but the direction of the plot ultimately made me want to throw the whole thing in an empty oil drum and set it on fire.
Tiny Pretty Things (Wax). SO BAD LOL
Twin Murders - the Silence of the White City WEIRD AS FUCK
Top Gun. lol. So gay! Most of this was way more boring than I expected though. Val Kilmer was a revelation.
Legend. Tom Cruise. SO BAD and WACK. I think I posted a ranty blog post because this movie was so fascinatingly terrible in so many ways.
Palm Springs. 4/5
White Lotus. Good, hilarious. A tour de force of different comedians in one of those clusterfuck situations.
The Chair. Pretty good... although the downside was that I hated all the main characters you were supposed to like
Robocop. 4/5. lol
Men in Black: Int'l. Polished but stale. 3.5
Interview with a Vampire. 5/5. lol
Midnight Mass. lol wut.
Ted Lasso. Unfortunately (because it involves sports), I love it
The Lost Boys. Hahahha. My sister was obsessed with this when I was a teenager and she would get it from Blockbuster and play the VHS and then just rewind it and immediately watch it again, but I was so busy talking on the phone to my friends that I never actually saw it until now. Classic film of this era. Ah, nostalgia. Ah, the horrible clothes. A+
Blade. Funny and pretty good
We Are Lady Parts s1. Love it!
Ghosts s3. Still loving it.
Dune. Mostly understood the assignment, but the lack of Arabic/North African and Muslim people in it is ... bad
Babysitter's Club s2. not as good as s1, but still pretty good
What We Do in the Shadows s3. Loved it. I think it's getting better maybe?
The Suicide Squad. Loved it
Wheel of Time. Ongoing.
Misbehaviour. Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha Raw. Pretty good.
Shang Chi. Enjoyable, well put together, good action scenes which is pretty rare, and it's good that it has so many Asian people in it at least.
The Witcher s2. Better than s1 but still bad.
Roswell: NM (Wax). BAD
Most of these are classic murder mysteries, typically from the golden age and in the public domain, because I spent a lot of the year trying to fill in my knowledge of that area. So I'll have to note the things that aren't with asterisks. Also I'll note the ones that are American, because almost all of them are British.
***Asimov, Isaac. Foundation. Classic SF. Some very yikes bits, holy shit. So yikes. And a lot of unintentionally hilarious retrofuturism. Better than the show though!
". Foundation and Empire. A lot less engaging than the first one for me. Didn't finish it.
Austen-Leigh, Lois. The Incredible Crime 4/5 minus points for added romance and classism
Bell, Josephine. A Pigeon Among the Cats. Good.
". Bones in the Barrow. Really gripping and memorable, esp the beginning.
Bellairs, George. The Dead Shall be Raised. Hilarious hyphen hyperactivity - see blog post
Berkeley, Anthony. The Poisoned Chocolates Case. 4.5/5.
Trial & Error. 5/5 sendup, inverted style (planning and commission of murder). Twist ending is 2/5 but the rest of the story is a great time. See blog post.
Brand, Christianna. Buffet for Unwelcome Guests. V. enjoyable short story collection.
". Death in High Heels. Apparently her best known novel, also very good, 4/5.
". Death of Jezebel. A memorable variant on locked room murder.
Bude, John. The Cornish Coast Mystery. 3/5 An enjoyable story in workmanlike prose and utterly charming setting, with meticulous plotting.
". The Cheltenham Square Murder. His style is a little low/workmanlike but the plotting is interesting.
". The Lake District Murder. Same quality as the others. Charming plotting, blah prose.
Burton, Miles. Death in the Tunnel. Rather interesting premise (murdered in a moving train during the blackout in a tunnel) with an extremely fiddly solution.
Carr, John Dickson. Castle Skull: A Rhineland Mystery. Poirot ripoff with ridiculous goth setting investigating the disappearance of a thinly-veiled Houdini. It's wack. See blog post
***Chambers, Robert William. The King in Yellow. An iconic and seminal work in the horror genre, but the stories in the collection sort of range from dark fantasy to just... romance... to... fantasy romance? LOL. Glad I get the references now, but some of the stuff in here is really just wack. And some of it is funny. Unintentionally so. I definitely understand why this is a seminal classic, though - those few bits that became iconic.
Crofts, Freeman Wills. Antidote to Venom. Mostly entertaining, but the POV jumps are eh, and then at the end it all finds religion which was a huge buzzkill and is why I won't read anything else by this writer.
Edwards, Martin, ed. Serpents in Paradise. Antho.
". Capital Crimes: London Mysteries. Antho.
". Resorting to Murder: Holiday Mysteries. Antho. (Skipped some)
". Crimson Snow: Winter Murders. Antho.
". Murder at the Manor. Antho.
Footner, Hulbert. Madame Storey. Set in NYC, but the author's Canadian. These are all books about his dashing lady sleuth, who is a beautiful famous socialite, private detective, practicing psychologist, and polymath genius. And she's a contemporary creation! The writer himself was highly unusual. One wonders how much the Phryne Fisher books might owe to her. Here's my rec post.
". The Velvet Hand.
". Easy to Kill.
". The Viper.
". The Doctor Who Held Hands.
". The Casual Murderer.
". The Under Dogs.
Freeman, R. Austin. The Mystery of 31, New Inn. 1912. These are all further books in the Dr Thorndyke series.
". Helen Vardon's Confession. 1922. (This one was the yikes antisemitic one.)
" . A Silent Witness. 1914.
". The Cat's Eye.
". The D'Arblay Mystery.
". As a Thief in the Night.
Gilbert, Anthony. Death in Fancy Dress. 3/5
Gilbert, Michael. Death has Deep Roots. 4/5. French resistance, ww2.
Green, Anna Katharine. The Affair Next Door. American. (19th century?) A little tough going at times but an engaging narrator. 4/5
Gulik, Robert Van (trans). The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee. Chinese murder story collection set ca. 6th century CE, but written later. Very interesting! Has elements of crime-solving but, obviously, entirely without the trappings of western detective (or storytelling) convention.
***Herbert, Frank. Dune. It's Dune. I guess I'm glad the movie came along; I wouldn't've reread it otherwise and I couldn't remember it well.
Hull, Richard. The Murder of My Aunt. 5/5, and the twist ending also 5/5
***Jansson, Tove. Farlig Midsommar.
". Trollkarlens Hatt.
". Kometen Kommer - begun but not finished bc everyone is more annoying and I just wanted to dropkick Sniff into a volcano.
Jefferson Farjeon, J. Mystery in White. 4/5. American, early 20th c. Pretty gripping, but some extremely hokey reliance on the supernatural that ultimately made me hurl it across the room (figuratively speaking) and is why I won't read anything else by this writer.
Lorac, ECR. Fire in the Thatch. 4/5
". Murder by Matchlight. Memorable Blitz blackout bicycle murder case! Enjoyable investigation. 5/5
". Murder in the Mill-Race. Devon village setting. 4/5
Melville, Alan. Quick Curtain. More a theater comedy - the mystery parts are extremely thin. 3/5.
". Weekend at Thrackley. Fun, very original.
Pérez-Reverte, Arturo. The Flanders Panel. 1990. A fun read of art history and chess but the twist is both stupid and homophobic. Yuck. Translated from Spanish and set in Spain.
Peters, Ellis. Monk's Hood. (Cadfael #3) 4.5/5. Can't remember why I failed out of the 1st book before.
Postgate, Raymond. Verdict of 12. 4/5. Twist ending.
Rogers, Joel Townsley. The Red Right Hand. 1945 classic thriller/murder mystery, 5/5. American (I think?)
Sayers, Dorothy. The Documents in the Case. Epistolary, very gripping. 5/5 but not her best.
Sprigg, Christopher St John. Death of an Airman. Good.
Symons, Julian. the Belting Inheritance. Comparatively little murder, mostly just return of the long-lost war hero. 2/5.
Wallace, Edgar. The Guv'nor and Other Stories. American.
". The Mind of Mr JG Reeder. These are quickly and sloppily written but some of the short stories are quite fun.
". Red Aces.
Wilkinson, Ellen. The Division Bell Mystery. Parliament. 4/5
Wilson, Barbara. Gaudi Afternoon. This is very lesbian, on the plus side, but it also has a real like... 1990s lesbian Culture vibe, that thing where if you don't hang out in Queer Spaces you don't get all the references and it all seems weird, especially all the subculture signifiers getting confused by the subculture members with queerness itself. Anyway, this was kind of fun, but there are no actual murders, and the mystery doesn't get very suspenseful or interesting. American characters, but set in Spain. 4/5, would not try another by her.
Wynne, Anthony. Murder of a Lady. Interesting but sexist.
And now most recently I've been in the process of rereading CJ Cherryh's Foreigner books, from the beginning. That's:
1 Foreigner 2 Invader 3 Intruder, 4 Precursor (♥) 5 Defender 6 Explorer (♥), 7 Destroyer 8 Pretender 9 Deliverer, 10 Conspirator (♥) 11 Deceiver 12 Betrayer (♥), 13 Intruder (♥) 14 Protector (♥) 15 Peacemaker (I accidentally skipped this one and didn't notice until I was almost done with #16!), 16 Tracker 17 Visitor... there are about six more I think.
(no subject)
Date: 31 Dec 2021 04:38 pm (UTC)I really need to get around to watching Interview with a Vampire (especially since I have a DVD copy of it from a library book sale).
(no subject)
Date: 31 Dec 2021 05:48 pm (UTC)