psocoptera

Rhinoceros at the ART. A deeply weird play by Eugène Ionesco about, I guess, the seductive power of animal transformation as a metaphor for fascism. Two hours of fast-paced shouting, notably John Turturro and Paul Giamatti shouting at each other and Tatiana Maslany not getting enough lines, Giamatti absolutely owning his rhinofication, Tatiana Maslany getting more lines but them not making a lot of sense, and John Turturro trying to find the emotional beat that will finally let him get off the stage. (No, I mean, he was great, the last act in particular just felt like a speedrun of maybe too many different things for them to all land.) I thought they did a better job making the rhinoceroses feel present in the theater than their Moby Dick did with Moby Dick, which I think was the last play I saw involving a threatening large animal just offstage.

Sublimation, Isabel J. Kim, 2026 sff novel. Excellent and recommended. Not to pit brilliant Asian-American short fiction writers who recently expanded a story into their first novel against each other, but this is how you get a whole novel out of a short story! (And I'll put everything else behind a spoiler cut, while avoiding specific spoilers.) ( Read more... )

Hugos! Between family travel and the start of school I'm a little behind the times but here are my thoughts (or see all the results and stats in the stats pdf here plus the admin report here). I did actually watch some of the ceremony live (on my phone, on silent, while at a family gathering) but have now also watched the whole thing here on YouTube.

Behind the cut, my thoughts. ( Read more... )

Moana 2, 2024 animated movie, on an airplane (note: JetBlue has a much more limited media selection than Alaska). Fine, unobjectionable, a little choppy as it jumped from bit to bit, a couple of fun songs (I liked "Get Lost" and "Chee Hoo"). Nothing near as catchy or moving as in the first one but did exactly the job I needed it to of entertaining me with pretty colors for awhile. Making the magical island that connects the world and brings people together recognizably the sandcastle version of the classic Disney castle logo (with the tunnel and the tallest tower on the right) was definitely a choice but I'd like to imagine someone had fun pitching that at a design meeting and is super on-brand for Disney so... sure.

Platform Decay, Martha Wells, 2026 science fiction novel in the Murderbot series. I continue to tear gleefully through all the library holds I had frozen for months. This was a very enjoyable installment of a very enjoyable series with lots of great moments and action sequences. My favorite not-too-spoilery detail was that, like in previous books, Murderbot again alters its appearance by lengthening its hair two centimeters and thickening its eyebrows. It must look like Groucho Marx by now and I can only hope this is a very slow-building gag that pays off someday :)

A Long and Speaking Silence, Nghi Vo, 2026 fantasy novella, seventh in the Singing Hills Cycle. This one is set earliest in time of all of them so far, which was sort of interesting, but I thought it was maybe the weakest story-wise. I might have hoped for a stronger installment being the one that puts it over the Series-eligible wordcount (which I think this one probably does?) but I suppose we can go again when the eighth (and last??) comes out next year.

Yuri!!! On Ice, 2016 animated series, temporarily available for its 10th anniversary. I was pretty familiar with the show from having been on Tumblr in 2016 but had never actually seen it. It was fun! I enjoyed trying to think about who was skating in the 00s-10s who various characters might be somewhat based on, and the skating animation was neat, and it was fun to see all those gifs in context. Possibly some of the cringier bits would have felt less awkward in a sub rather than a dub - I think I'm more willing to buy certain kinds of exaggerated emotional portrayal as genre-normal when the language is emphasizing the genre - but there didn't seem to be a choice, just the dub, so, dub it was. Of all the movies and shows in the world this probably wasn't the one I would have called my absolute top priority, but there is also something satisfying about occasionally indulging in some random thing I was curious about, like, it makes my brain feel like there is hope I might eventually get around to more of those things.

Radiant Star, Ann Leckie, 2026 science fiction novel, in the Radch universe but more or less a standalone. (I'm not sure how well this one would work if you tried to start with it though.) Connects with Subtle Art of Folding Space (by chance) by also concerning end-of-life decisions for parents and questions of care vs exploitation, although that's just one thread in a book with a lot of things going on. (Reminded me a little of Among Ghosts that way.) I liked it a lot - it concerns some awful events (uh, content note for famine) but wasn't awful to read. I expected maybe one to two more reveals than we got but what we got was satisfying and Leckie is so good at worldbuilding and character moments.

I needed to watch three movies this weekend even less than I needed to read nothing but KJ Charles a few months ago BUT I have decided that every time I have to have more dental work I will be observing a sort of carnival holiday in which normal priorities are suspended and I can indulge in whatever random nonsense amuses me. Thus, a Wang Yibo double feature:

One and Only is a dance movie about competitive street dance in China. For a dance movie, I felt like it could have used a little more dancing - a lot of the dancing is shown as fast cuts in montage, with a lot of frantically-moving camera at weird angles, and I feel like I might have gotten a better appreciation of it with longer takes and steadier cameras. Plus there's a big moment in the climax that (spoilers) involves a solo routine that has integrated elements of the specialty moves or styles of the whole team, and I felt like if those moves had been introduced more clearly in the build-up, it would have been more satisfying to see how they turned up again at the end. But the climax was funnier than I could have possibly imagined.

Born to Fly is Chinese Top Gun about test pilots trying to develop the next generation of fighter planes so they can stand up to border-ignoring security-threatening Americans. I don't think I could stomach an American military puff piece right now but there is something relaxing to me about somebody else's jingoism - not that I think the Chinese military is any better, but they feel like not my problem? Like I guess as citizens of the world we are all responsible for everybody but I don't feel complicit in Chinese crimes the way I do in, like, all those American military murders of fishermen in the Caribbean (my tax dollars at work!). So, this was fine, planes go fast, uniforms sexy, sure whatever. Could have used some homoerotic volleyball but what couldn't. (Actually I was struck in both these movies by how the romance consisted of people smiling at each other while never making physical contact (I guess in One and Only there's a high-five) - obviously different cultures are going to have different standards for what is appropriate or enjoyable to show onscreen, like I have the impression people don't kiss in Bollywood but they do embrace with both people facing the same way, so I guess maybe for Chinese cinema it's enough to be like "here are two attractive young people who would make a nice heterosexual couple at some point in the future".)

I also interrupted Born to Fly to watch Bill and Ted Face the Music with Q, having previously shown him the other two. Q didn't think much of it but I am deeply interested in the project of revisiting childhood narratives to explore adult or middle-aged concerns, and they really went for it! Not all of which landed, but I enjoyed it, and thought some of the gags that were lost on Q (like some highly referential costuming) were pretty funny. (Although... the soundtrack wasn't very fun or interesting?? But maybe that makes sense, like, the "God Gave Rock and Roll To You" credits montage at the end of Bogus Journey is so good, and then this movie is about not getting that, so I guess it's fitting to spend the movie wishing, like Bill and Ted, for better music.)

High time to get this done.

( Read more... )