Random Sunday Notes

[rozk]

Picked up from supergee this heartwarming story of superdykery against the Nazis.

I am feeling so gloomy about the state of the world that I am amazed at how much cheerfulness creeps in, thanks to the showing of I, Claudius which everyone has to watch, from the beginning. When Brian Blessed shouts 'Is there anyone in Rome who has not slept with my daughter?', he is so clearly a man on the brink of insanity, and you suddenly realize that he has been there for a long time. And that his wife's endless murders and his suspicions about them have driven him there.

It really is one of the hundred television shows to see before you die, and probably one of the ten.

I did the Penguin list of great books and am deeply torn. Everything that was said about the nature of the list, and its biases, was absolutely true, and I could compile a much better list. Or rather lists, because on the one hand the selection of dead white males is not my selection of DWEMS and on the other, I would favour a more multi-cultural, gender neutral list anyway.

On the other hand, I have read about eightyfive of the hundred and, when I haven't, tend to have chosen to read other books by the writers in question. The really worrying thing is how many of them I read before I was twentyfive.

Given that I have also read most of the classic sf and crime novels, and a lot of comics, I wonder what I have done with my life apart from read. And look at the list of things, and realize why I sometimes feel quite tired.

Tired enough to fall asleep this afternoon in Miami Vice for about 40 minutes in the middle and still not feel I missed anything very much.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend is one of those films which ends a minute before it gets seriously slashy. It also has one funny line, and I don't know why it is funny except for its delivery by Eddie Izzard as the supervillain archnemesis. Trying to inveigle the hero into co-operating with him in a scheme, he hands him his card and then says 'or you could e-mail me...www.doctorbedlam - all one word-.com.' I have repeated it to several people and they have all laughed, so it can't just be Izzard.

It goes on my list of things that are funny and I don't know why. Like the thing in Spaced about 'She's really vain, vain like Cordelia. Who is a character who used to be in Buffy and is now in Angel. Which is a spinoff series and set in LA' - which is a completely neutral statement which in context sets me off giggling helplessly every time.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

'As for being "half-witted", what can I say, except that I have survived to middle age, with half my wits, while thousands have died with all of theirs intact!'

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

(I really really need to get I Claudius on DVD.)

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Mark and I had a tradition of watching all of I, Claudius at New Year's, just to start the year off with gratitude: "Yeah, my family is dysfunctional, but my grandmother never painted poison on Granpa's figtree...".

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Brian Blessed is vastly underrated, not least by himself. We're very fond of him.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

I adored I Claudias. Yes, Brian Blessad won my heart doing that series.

As for Izzard. I will see anything he is in. (Even if the lines are funny no matter who says them)

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I, Claudius is in my Netflix queue. I've seen it before, but it was so incredible that now that I can see it again, I must.

And Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore are too cool for words. I love the fact that they managed to convince the Nazis that there was a resistance organization of several hundred people on the island when, in fact, there were only the two of them.

[thehornedgod.livejournal.com]

I'm a little dubious about I, Claudius after the first episode but I'm not sure if that's having read the book recently or if it's a post-Rome thing, like watching old Doctor Who after the new series. I'll give it a chance, anyway.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Me too - don't even have it on tape any more, my old video chewed it up.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I am glad to see the back of video-tape technology. The number of tapes that got chewed up, or stretched, or otherwise ruined.

I Claudius

[dmsherwood53.livejournal.com]

REALLY Liked the 1st half of the series & liked 1st quarter of the rest .At the end it got EVERYBODY DIES HORRIBLY like a bad slasher film. I know Iknow it actually happened that way but onlt God can gety away with plotriing that way.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember that Dr. Sam: Johnson is reported as having said something like "Sir, it is a sad fact, but a true one, that I read more books before I was sixteen than I have in the [c. 35] years since then". It's my Theory that most people who Read much read more (and maybe the most important) books when we're very young (and yes, 25 qualifies). *sigh* The worrying thing (for me) is that I'm sure that if I read them today, they'd be different books, and probably even more important than they were then -- not to mention, of course, the many I certainly should have read.