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ranaloreSo yes, I am the last person in fandom to see Inception. I feel moving cross-country is justification for missing...well, just about every media event, really. Anyway, I see why Arthur/Eames seems to be where it's at (the Arthur/Ariadne kiss was a lovely visual, but neither of them seemed terribly invested in pursuing anything), but my brain's still stuck on deconstructing all the ways the plot is the myth of Ariadne and her brother, the Minotaur. I mean, the Arthur/Eames makes me happy, but there's not much there for my brain to poke at, it plays as such a given. Which does not mean that I won't be wandering around looking at everybody's recs, but yeah.
I've also been watching some old TV. I have thoughts on Relic Hunter and the way the Sydney Fox character plays, the contradiction between her dialogue, which often sounds like un-deconstructed Western White Male Imperialistic Authoritative Outsider Archaeology, and the way the camera and action of the show generally objectify her as a chromatic woman. Unfortunately, thoughts does not mean coherence nor articulation, so that sentence right there is probably all the articulating I'll be doing. And actually, that's it for the old TV. Otherwise, it's Midsomer Murders, Castle, and I have a backlog of Bones, Undercovers, and Fringe to eventually catch up on. Fringe, at least, has got to wait until I'm not knitting like a fiend in order to finish a very large, very complicated project to send a friend for the holidays.
In conclusion, have JYJ's first English-language video, to a song I frankly hate a lot (but I can see why it's the big single, featuring Kanye West and all), but the visuals are pretty.
I've also been watching some old TV. I have thoughts on Relic Hunter and the way the Sydney Fox character plays, the contradiction between her dialogue, which often sounds like un-deconstructed Western White Male Imperialistic Authoritative Outsider Archaeology, and the way the camera and action of the show generally objectify her as a chromatic woman. Unfortunately, thoughts does not mean coherence nor articulation, so that sentence right there is probably all the articulating I'll be doing. And actually, that's it for the old TV. Otherwise, it's Midsomer Murders, Castle, and I have a backlog of Bones, Undercovers, and Fringe to eventually catch up on. Fringe, at least, has got to wait until I'm not knitting like a fiend in order to finish a very large, very complicated project to send a friend for the holidays.
In conclusion, have JYJ's first English-language video, to a song I frankly hate a lot (but I can see why it's the big single, featuring Kanye West and all), but the visuals are pretty.
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Date: 2010-11-06 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-07 12:49 am (UTC)Writing-wise, I can definitely see the urge to do something other than Arthur/Eames, though even going through recs from trusted sources, I'm having a hard time finding stories that replicate the dynamic I saw on-screen. I think I need to hunt up more teamfic, where Arthur/Eames is a given in the background.
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Date: 2010-11-08 02:35 am (UTC)Teamfic's definitely the best stuff I've read, except for this awesome AU-ish story from Mal's perspective.
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Date: 2010-11-06 11:07 pm (UTC)Relic Hunter is frustrating, but at this particular point in time, I'm happy watching a kick-ass female lead, so I'm mostly enjoying my rewatch. It's either this or one of the Police Women of... reality shows. :\
I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the JYJ MV. I don't loathe the song as much as I did on first listen... but that's not saying a lot. :( I've been afraid to watch the video because Junsu's apron-thing makes my eyes bleed. You're the first person I've seen mention the MV who didn't hate it, so now I'm curious.
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Date: 2010-11-07 01:31 am (UTC)Relic Hunter is frustrating, though less so, I think, for its age. I sometimes wonder if the character was written to be white and male, and if so, how it came to pass that Tia Carrere ended up playing it. I suspect the character was written that way because "That's How Archaeologists (Were)," and it may not have occurred to the creators that race and sex would have an impact on the character's perspective. I feel like there's an essay on the colonized mind in it somewhere, but I don't have the background or education for it, so all I can do is have vague thoughts while watching.
The MV...hmm. I actually find a lot of Junsu's costuming for the concept fascinating, as high fashion interpretations of various types of armor and mail. But then, I dug Junsu's costuming for Mozart! both as emphasizing the tribal, ethnic nature of an era and place in history the Western mind generally doesn't view as tribal or ethnic, and as a great mashup of the modern concept of Mozart as rock persona with his family-enforced presentation of himself as a fashionable gentleman of eighteenth-century Vienna, while a lot of fandom was bemoaning his hair and the juxtaposition of torn jeans and frock coats. I watched the MV from the perspective of seeing how it ties into and references their work as DBSK, which is a thread I've noticed JYJ seem intent on carrying through their work, and also from the perspective of wanting to see how their team intended to officially introduce them into a Western audience's conscious. I don't think the result is a great fit with the song, even accounting for how often MVs have little to do with the song in Western media. The choreography is, by DBSK standards, unimpressive, but then, JYJ only have one of DBSK's strong dancers, so. The cinematography is well-done, the setting picturesque, and the boys are indeed pretty, which is not the worst it could be. Plus, like I said, there's the place it occupies in the public narrative of the boys, so it's interesting for that. I'd like to hear your take on it, when and if you can stomach it.
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Date: 2010-11-07 06:34 am (UTC)I watched the MV and it's nowhere near as bad as I was expecting after the pile of hate heaped upon it over on dbsg. The guys are very pretty in it -- Yoochun!! ♥ -- and I like the sort of mythical/post-apocalyptic setting with the lightning. As for fitting with the song, well, yeah... *sigh*. There's just not a lot that can make that song work. I like the MV better than the song.
It strongly reminded me of the MV for Tri-Angle, which has to be deliberate. And some of the clothes remind me of the Mirotic look. I appreciate these hints of visual continuity.
Junsu's white butcher's apron-thing wasn't quite as bad in the MV as it has looked in still photographs. I like his other looks for this concept -- it's just the white apron I'm not liking because I don't think it's flattering on him. Hmmm, I also didn't like the fur hat in the CD booklet (IMO, it's hard for anyone to make a fur hat sexy), but Junsu wore it as well as he could.
I *loved* his Mozart! look. Yummmm, a concept like that for all of them would be awesome. *fantasizes*
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Date: 2010-11-07 06:47 am (UTC)You're welcome! She seems to have mostly left the fandom at this point, but if you check her recs: inception tag, she collected a whole lot of good links while the love was strong. Oh, and it's her LJ, since I think the icon is a DW one. I'm not sure if she has a DW account.
You picked up on a lot of the stuff Cass and I saw and liked. It's clear that, though their current group name makes no reference to gods, their team still means them to have that image in this new market. The video really seemed less about showcasing the song (which I can only view as a good thing), and more about establishing the iconography right off the bat. Of course, the very fact that the imagery does evoke MVs for songs like "Tri-Angle," "Rising Sun," "O," and "Mirotic" means that "Ayy Girl" only suffers more by comparison, but new fans aren't really going to have that problem (until curiosity compels them to search DBSK on youtube and they find those MVs, anyway).