Snow is coming down. It will come down all day. Tomorrow there will be a lot more. I won’t be able to leave the house between now and Thursday at the earliest (probably Friday). So I need amusement.
Tell me what books, TV, and film I should check out. It must be available on cable or via Amazon or Netlix. I can’t watch Apple or Hulu stuff on my big-screen set up, and I hate watching on my desktop monitor. I don’t have an iPad and the phone is too small.
For an idea of things I like see the, ah, List of Things I Like. (Must get around to turning that into a proper blog post one of these days.
Last night I watched Contagion: recommended by many people. But, damn, Soderbergh doesn’t know the meaning of the word ’emotion’. Like Ocean’s Eleven or even Sex, Lies and Videotape, it was a cool, keep-the-viewer-at-arms’-length piece of work. Not my cup of tea. At all.
I love escapism. Filmwise, the latest reboot of Star Trek is practically perfect. Galaxy Quest and Die Hard rock the Thunderdome. TV-wise, my favourites are things like Merlin, Downton Abbey, Sherlock, Trueblood, Buffy, Highlander, Firefly, etc. I loved the first season of Deadwood, but then it lost itself in its own mannerisms. I thought the first season of The Sopranos was a blast, but then it dissolved into nothingness. I thought Lost sucked after about four eps. Stuff like Breaking Bad is too grim. I just don’t care about ordinary life, don’t give a damn for realism.
In terms of novels (I’m not interested in non-fiction right now), I like well-written story. I don’t much care for delicate examinations of the meaning of life. I don’t object to it–I just don’t want it to be the point. Angst, in fiction as in real life, pisses me off. I find it self-indulgent.
So: help! Save me from madness and eating the neighbours!
Nicola Griffith 
I highly recommend “Dead Like Me” if you haven't seen it yet. “Pushing Daisies” is like watching the Roald Dahl novels of your youth, although the plot lost me in the second season, it was still worth it for the visual gorgeousness. I'm fairly certain I watched both on Netflix. Alas I can't check because I'm stuck behind my work firewall which blocks Netflix but not Facebook leaving me to wonder what is wrong with our IT guys.
If you like comedy/horror mixtures, try Trollhunter, a Norwegian film of the Blair Witch category — supposedly lost film that's been rediscovered. Beautiful scenery.
Based on your listings – Netflix has 3 I think you'll love:
Primeval – a bit campy, but a good heart and some great character dev over time. Also? Dinosaurs.
Slings & Arrows: wonderful scripts, wonderful actors – only 18 total episodes (6 per season) and a great deal of fun.
Forever Knight: The grown up version of all those fun vampire shows – and predates them all. Launched in 1989, Garaint Wynn Davies (Canadian) makes a great 800 year old protaganist and the “supporting cast” is brilliant!
Cabin Fever!
Have you seen Being Human? I watched the BBC version. Friends watch the SyFy version and say it's good too.
Recent reads that I liked include The Night Circus and the Karla triology from John le Carre (Tinker Tailer…, the Honorable Schoolboy, and now Smiley's People). I'm torn on the novel Zoo City. I liked the premise and almost everything about the story up until the climax, at which point I don't know if she lost faith in her vision or if I did.
Sorry that was anonymous – for some reason, it's not accepting my LJ creds!
~Twilight2000
Ooh, I like the BBC “Being Human” too, haven't seen the US one. The UK “Life on Mars” is also fantastic (the US one not so much).
On Netflix: “Avatar: The Last Airbender” animated TV show, 3 seasons. Took a few episodes to hook me but then became one of my favorite TV shows of all time. Great plots and characters, lots of adventure, lots of jokes, amazing (animated) martial arts.
On Netflix: SyFy's Warehouse 13 and Eureka for mindless, silly geek indulgence. Both require a few episodes. I found season 2 of Warehouse 13 much better than season 1. I'm also enjoying Haven on SyFy, but I'm not sure if that's streaming yet.
Anime: Just started watching Moribito (female bodyguard!) and Samurai Champloo and am enjoying both so far. I don't watch anime in general.
How Moby Dick on Netflix? I haven't watched it yet, but it's in my queue – looks promising…
Are you watching Lost Girl? http://www.syfy.com/lostgirl/ It's a Canadian show about a bisexual succubus called Bo who finds her self caught between the Light Fae and the Dark Fae, very much urban fantasy, and you can see the makers love their genre. Very Buffyesque without the highschool, though it'll never be as deep as Buffy. It's a fun show, and it's partway through the second season in Canada, but just started playing on Syfy in the US last night.
Watching you eat the neighbors would be so much more fun! BBC News says this could be your biggest storm in a generation. Take lots of pix! Hmm, 2 feet expected. Is that a lot for you?
Oh, I should have kept reading: “equivalent to the city's annual snowfall in one day.”
I've heard good things about Lost Girl too.
willamettestar, I couldn't abide Pushing Daisies!
Twilight2000, I absolutely adored Slings & Arrows. Watched all seasons twice. Forever Knight sounds nifty. Ta.
Jenn, I liked the first couple of seasons of Eureka but now…not so much.
Jennifer, which version?
Aquila, huh, hadn't heard of Lost Girl. Might check it out. Ta.
ElaineB, I'm going to go bugfuck crazy…
Kathleen, oops, missed your comment there. I think I watched the first ep of Being Human (US version) and didn't like it. But perhaps I'm thinking of another show. For some reason I haven't been able to bring myself to read Zoo City… Hmmn.
Have you seen “Glorious 39”? It's a small film that got no hype, as far as I can tell, about the last summer before WWII broke out. It is very creepy and well-acted. It deals with a lord of some kind who is involved in something nefarious and the attempts of his adopted daughter, Glory, to figure out what's going on.
We're watching “Rome” again and still find it magnificent. Bloody, but magnificent.
We recently rewatched the original “Thomas Crown Affair” with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. It's still damn good and it was amusing to note how much of this film was used in the update—dialogue transplanted verbatim, but with ever-so-subtle shifts in emphasis. (Which, speaking of Steve McQueen, have you ever seen “Bullitt”? One of the best all-time car chases in cinema.)
Fun books of the recent past. Paul Malmont's “Chinatown Death Cloud Peril” in which famous pulp writers are the heroes. I have the follow-up, “The Astounding, The Amazing, The Unknown” but I haven't gotten to it yet.
I stumbled on a mystery series by Cara Black all set in Paris featuring P.I. Aimee Leduc. All the books are from Parisian neighborhoods—Murder In The Marais, Murder on the Ile St. Louis, etc—and the setting it wonderful evoked. For detective fiction, I recommend Ross McDonald—old but superb. And Christopher Fowler has a series of a pair of real eccentrics, the first of which is called “Full Dark House.” Set in London, it bounces back and forth between the present and the Blitz.
(I've been reading a ton of detective/mystery this last two years. Writers who I go back to willingly—Laura Lippman, Tess Gerritsen, Margaret Maron, Charles Todd.)
Hope that helps.
I like MSG when I eat my neighbors. It brings out the essential piggyness of long pig.
2010 version. Actually it turns out it's a mini-series with William Hurt.
chado, I'm guessing our neighbours eat more like venison :)
jennifer, huh, never heard of that one…
American Gothic?
Space: Above & Beyond?
Firefly?
Clatterford/Jam & Jerusalem?
Have you seen Insomnia? I haven't but think it might be perfect for someone going “bugfuck crazy.” :-)
I totally second Slings and Arrows. Some of the funniest, most intelligent tv ever made. Of course, you won't get the local references (it's a take off on the Stratford Festival, just up the road from Little London), but it won't matter in the slightest. And there's 18 hours of it, counting all 3 seasons, so it should fend off quite a bit of boredom.
Nicola, I am having trouble with your blog. I get your blog post and current comments, but when I try to go to prior posts, I can't get any comments. My fucking security system, which I never asked to be installed, may be interfering. This sucks!
Anon, tried the first two: not my thing. Love Firefly (rewatch it periodically), never heard of Clatterford.
ElaineB, I think that's one of the films I gave up on in disgust after about eight minutes.
Wendy, I've seen every single Slings & Arrows ep at least twice. Love it.
barbara, I'm sorry to hear that. I wonder if it's a browser issue on your end…
I don't know what is on Netflix, Nicola, but if you can get either “Save the Green Planet” (sf/comedy/horror) or “The Host (ditto, but less of a roller coaster ride), it sounds like they're the kind of thing you'd like. Unless I've recommended them before. Both had US DVD releases.
Did you see “Cowboys and Aliens”? It is just pastiche, but not bad, certainly better than I expected from the terrible reviews. Worth a look, I'd say.
Promiscuous, I watched Cowboys and Aliens. I found it confused. B- maybe.
Lois bujold mcmaster, miles vorkosigan? Or her Chalian series? Keep waiting for the Bastard God book. Mira grant's Feed? Julie Czerneda? Iain Banks Culture books? Different directions…Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams? Or Prodigal Summer? Larry McMurtry's Cadillac Jack? Craig Johnson's Longmire series?
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AND Dead Like Me is set in Seattle! It's pretty funny and a bit snarky. Good stuff, I agree and recommend as well.
Being Human, the US version, is good over time. I didn't mean to get caught up in it but, well, now I am! Stories are not what I would suppose them to be and they sometimes completely surprise me! That rarely happens, so it's worth a watch to me.
The IT Crowd, which is really funny esp. if you work in an IT or tech department. Don't really like the main woman character but… some good funny stuff.
White Collar, first couple of seasons.
Psych, first couple of seasons.
Leverage
of course Monk… OH@ John from Cincinnati – very weird but made me think! Surfing and very hot surfer girl.
still wish there were more BSGs, I miss Starbuck!!
The Sara Conner Chronicles was way good! Two great looking women kicking ass every week!
The 4400
For books: Anything by Laurie King, Carol O'Connor has a great mystery series. Craig Johnson's Longmire series, all of MZB's Sword and Sorcery books, anything Charles de Lint which is all urban fantasy, so good! The Mystery of Grace and the Painted Boy are two of the newer ones.
Movies
Tank Girl with Lori Petty, yum! Good music too. Point Break.
Alright, I'll stop now! I'm in Seattle too so I'm reading what folks write to you and stealing liberally. Of course, I'm set up to work from home so… bleh
Just read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. That was quite a ride and time commitment. Have you watched any/all the films based on Sarah Waters books?
Marisa, I've read Bujold, and Banks (though not the Culture novels), and Kingsolver (though liked Prodigal Summer less than earlier work). I've also read MZB, O'Connor, de Lint, and King.
Of the video you mention, I loved the first couple of seasons of BSG–but then they fell into the sfnal trap of mysticism, sigh. I thought Point Break was excellent.
Hayley, for whatever reason, I just can't bring myself to read Mitchell. I'll figure out why or get over it at some point.
And yes to Sarah Waters–books and TV.
I enjoyed your typo of “Netlix”. Thanks for that. I've been watching asian fare, Beat Takeshi et al and found a film called “Jade Warrior”, a story from two cultures, Finnish and Chinese, actually told in both languages in which a young man incarnates as a blacksmith in modern times and is the hero of a myth from both Chinese and Finnish lore. Nice, dry martial arts effects, elegant evil. I think you'd like it. Good with popcorn. The pacing is great for snowfall, too.
Barba, sadly I can't eat popcorn at the moment. So I need a movie that fills all senses at once.
Well then, the pacing of this film is contemplative, so it can help you enjoy your asceticism as well as allowing you to appreciate the cross culture leaps and not click off half your brain to enjoy doing so. Or you can munch on aluminum foil while raking your shaved head with a cheese grater for that seared tuna-brain effect so sought after by martial arts affectionados. It is momentarily, a free country. Enjoy!
if you enjoy reading screenplays, here are some links to this year's Oscar contenders:
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/awards/contenders/oscar-predictions/best-original-screenplay/
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/awards/contenders/oscar-predictions/best-adapted-screenplay/
Barba, ah, I remember that feeling :)
Dianne, thanks for the links.
B- for Cowboys and Aliens sounds about right. But the reviews I saw rated it much lower, so I was pleasantly surprised.
Try the others I suggested if you can find 'em. “Save the Green Planet” especially is a fusion of demented drive-in-movie trash and sublime bodhisattva-like compassion. It seems confused at first, but at the end you find that its heart was in the right place all along.
A novel I read an liked recently (apart from your Ammonite, which is how I found this website) is China Miéville's Embassytown.
Lost girl captured my heart largely on the strength of the manysplendored beauty that is the Bo/Kensi friendship. A strong girl/girl friendship, which even manages to avoid being shippy despite the fact that Bo can, and on occasion does, seduce anyone at all.
New doctor who? The 2005-> revival is very good and it is in several ways unlike anything else at all in the SF TV gengre. – for one thing, it is a largely contemporary show that is *not* a secret history. When a spaceship gets shot down over london, the press is all over that.
Sci-fi, hopeful, imaginative, books that make you want to go live life: Sheri S. Tepper, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Hobb. Have fun!
Sci-fi, hopeful, imaginative, books that make you want to go live life: Sheri S. Tepper, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Hobb. Have fun!