{"id":3997,"date":"2017-07-08T16:07:51","date_gmt":"2017-07-08T14:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/?p=3997"},"modified":"2017-07-09T11:43:18","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T09:43:18","slug":"mixed-media-saturday-8-july-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2017\/07\/08\/mixed-media-saturday-8-july-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Media, Saturday 8 July 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/tv\/master_of_none\/s02\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2017\/master-of-none-season-2-v2.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"427\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>TV:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/tv\/master_of_none\/s02\"><i>Master of None, season 2<\/i><\/a>: Just like season 1, I loved this. Funny and touching, with a difficult love story threaded through it all. It&#8217;s not &#8220;heartwarming&#8221; &#8212; it just feals real.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/tv\/orphan_black\"><i>Orphan Black<\/i><\/a> (seasons 1 and 2 so far): Just amazing. It&#8217;s a clever thriller series about human cloning, but its greatest trick is making you forget that all the clones are played by the same actress. Tatiana Maslany inhabits them all <em>perfectly<\/em>, and the show is completely matter-of-fact about it. It is never (or at least, <em>very<\/em> rarely) self-indulgent about getting multiple clones in the same shot. They do it when it is necessary for the plot, but otherwise it&#8217;s NBD. The story has to be good in its own right, and it is.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/tv\/archer\/s08\"><i>Archer, season 8<\/i><\/a>: the first couple of episodes spent a lot of time establishing the new setting, and felt weak as a result of not being able to play on established relationships between the characters. It picked up after that, but was more restrained and less irreverent than earlier seasons.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Films:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/mississippi_grind\"><i>Mississippi Grind<\/i><\/a>: Good film, but <em>very<\/em> hard to watch. I found it agonizing to see the characters induldge their self-destructive impulses, wanting them to stop, knowing that they wouldn&#8217;t or couldn&#8217;t.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/la_la_land\"><i>La La Land<\/i><\/a>. Undoubtedly beautifully shot, but I found the characters bland, the story lacking in conflict and narrative drive, and the songs and dance routines weak. I hated the sound editing \u2014 some of the songs felt natural and embedded in the scene, whereas others were obviously lip-synced and jarringly artificial. Overall: disappointing. Bear in mind that <i>Singing In The Rain<\/i> is my all-time favourite film, and my standards for cinematic musicals might be unrealistically high.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/wonder_woman_2017\"><i>Wonder Woman<\/i><\/a>: Good, but disappointing that it ended with such a conventional &#8220;two dudes punching&#8221; superhero boss battle climax. (Even though one of the dudes is a dame.) I had hoped they would find a more interesting way to resolve the conflict. Still by far the best DC film since Christopher Nolan&#8217;s Batman run.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/burn_after_reading\"><i>Burn After Reading<\/i><\/a>: A perfect <a href=\"http:\/\/bullypulpitgames.com\/games\/fiasco\/\"><i>Fiasco<\/i><\/a> scenario, and would probably have been more fun played that way. Watching it as a film: meh.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/xxx_return_of_xander_cage\"><i>xXx &#8211; The Return of Xander Cage<\/i><\/a>: I have no idea what that was all about, but it <em>looked<\/em> amazing.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/spider_man_homecoming\"><i>Spider-Man: Homecoming<\/i><\/a>: Much less angsty than the previous Spider-Men, partly because with this reboot we don&#8217;t have to go through the whole origin story and Uncle Ben thing again \u2014 that&#8217;s taken as read, and we can move on with a real story. Tom Holland captures the perfect amount of sassiness and immaturity I expect from Spider-Man. Just as importantly, Michael Keaton as the Vulture is one of the most relatable antagonists the Marvel Cinematic Universe has provided so far, and he is rewarded with a suitable ending. The action is mostly low-key, rather than cosmic, which suits the characters. The only thing that didn&#8217;t work was the boat scene. I think that could have been much more effective if didn&#8217;t wrap up as cleanly as it did. Still: excellent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Books<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Runaways-Complete-Collection-Brian-Vaughn\/dp\/0785187847\"><i>Runaways, vol 2<\/i> by Brian K. Vaughn, Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa<\/a>: Less impactful than the first collection, but still good. It has settled into more of an ongoing groove now.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Mockingbird-Vol-My-Feminist-Agenda\/dp\/1302901230\"><i>Mockingbird vol.2: My Feminist Agenda<\/i> by Chelsea Cain, Kate Niemczyk et al.<\/a>: After the <a href=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2016\/11\/13\/mixed-media-sunday-13-november-2016\/\">extraordinary first volume<\/a>, this was a disappointment. I knew that the series had been cancelled and that this volume only contains its last three issues, plus two issues of New Avengers filler, but the three-issue story arc on board the cruise ship was terribly weak. Not quite as weak as <a href=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2017\/01\/05\/mixed-media-thursday-5-january-2017\/\">the last volume of Howard The Duck<\/a>, but I don&#8217;t enjoy comic writers bringing themselves or their friends into the story with a knowing wink.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Music<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/iamhalsey.com\/\">Halsey &#8211; <i>Hopeless Fountain Kingdom<\/i><\/a>: OK\/Good<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/maximopark.com\/\">Max\u00efmo Park &#8211; <i>Risk To Exist<\/i><\/a>: OK\/Good. Looking forward to seeing them live again in September.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imaginedragonsmusic.com\/\">Imagine Dragons &#8211; <i>Evolve<\/i><\/a>: Good. For an album called &#8220;Evolve&#8221; it sounds awfully similar to their first two, though. That&#8217;s not a bad thing. I like this sound.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/chairlifted.com\/\">Chairlift &#8211; <i>Moth<\/i><\/a>: Good. There&#8217;s something I like about a boy\/girl duo. Chairlift remind me of all the things I enjoy in bands like the Ting Tings, Wye Oak, The Bird And The Bee.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Chairlift - Crying in Public (Video)\" width=\"525\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VQ3h0ZA3FQ0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TV: Master of None, season 2: Just like season 1, I loved this. Funny and touching, with a difficult love story threaded through it all. It&#8217;s not &#8220;heartwarming&#8221; &#8212; it just feals real. Orphan Black (seasons 1 and 2 so far): Just amazing. It&#8217;s a clever thriller series about human cloning, but its greatest trick &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2017\/07\/08\/mixed-media-saturday-8-july-2017\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Mixed Media, Saturday 8 July 2017&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3997"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4005,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3997\/revisions\/4005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}