There probably won't be any opera reviews this season -- I may try to get to Aida in the spring, but I didn't subscribe. One of the reasons I love opera is the connection with the historical, and I'm put off with the number of avant-garde (or would be) productions. Also, there are no more opening Saturdays, just opening Fridays. Ugh.
I'm so opinionated, though, I couldn't help myself but review other things in my life, so here's a smattering of my recent diversions.
Wives and Daughters (DVD). I enjoyed North and South (the book) and bought Wives and Daughters (the book) in the hopes I'd get around to reading it. I didn't, but I also had the DVD set, so over the course of a couple of nights, when I was feeding Eden, I watched all 300 minutes.
There's no unifying theme to it, say like Pride and Prejudice, but it has a similar classic chick lit appeal. In a nutshell, a young woman gets an evil stepmother and a scheming but charming stepsister, and there are love interests and secrets and missteps along the way. It's Elizabeth Gaskell, which means it's on the syrupy side (none of the biting social commentary of Austen - Gaskell is kinder and gentler), but for all that, I enjoyed it. Eden seemed to. A
How Doctors Think. I've been wanting to read this for months, ever since I heard an interview with the author on some NPR show (Fresh Air, maybe) and I read the first chapter online. I heartily recommend it to anyone who, like me, is spending a god-awful amount of time with specialists and having dozens of tests performed. It's somewhat chilling -- I didn't really want to know just how often radiologists screw up -- but very practical. For example, "I'd like to see X sooner -- maybe in two weeks instead of four weeks," is pediatrician talk for, "I'm quite concerned about your child, but am using soothing and neutral language so you don't get alarmed." (And now I'm not annoyed that the doctor doesn't want to see Eden very much -- the first month she was followed closely, but now we just go in every couple of months, like normal. It had bothered me, but no more!) A-
Intervention. I watched this show on A&E yesterday. I don't go in for reality
TV (other than "Who Wants to be a Superhero" - at least the first run), but it was on and I was interested. I watched an episode with a narcotics drug user and an episode featuring a woman with a severe eating disorder. The narcotics boy was sad and predictable. The eating disorder girl bugged the hell out of me -- whiny and insecure and bitchy. I couldn't stand to watch it to the end of the episode -- hopefully someone put her on an SSRI. C+
Das Leben Der Anderen. I'd been wanting to see this since it first came to Portland, but life interfered. Finally out on DVD, Matthew and I got it through Netflix. It was fascinating for a number of reasons - for one, I really enjoyed seeing Matthew go down memory lane (his father was Army Intelligence in W. Germany and they lived there during the 70s). Second, the similarities of the Stasi then to the American intelligence complex today - well, it was impossible not to draw the comparison. Third, it's simply a damn good film. Fourth, I studied German for five years, and enjoy any opportunity to listen to it spoken.
And finally, it was the most upbeat German drama I have ever seen. Only two suicides! Das Happy-End, indeed. A
The Blighted Cliffs: Book One of the Reluctant Adventures of Lt. Martin Jerrold. I'm usually pretty skeptical of age of sail naval fiction. For one, I'm a detail freak when it comes to both historical fiction and the age of sail, and an error or two will ruin a book. Also, I'm familiar with the lives of "real" naval heroes of the era, and can't stand it when events in those lives are blatantly ripped off and called fiction. My experience has usually been that if the details are right, the novel is dry and dull, or if the writing is good, the details are spotty. I don't bother most of the time.
This series -- written by someone younger than I, which I found disconcerting but cool -- was different. For one, there's humor. For another, the hero is a scapegrace. There are some weaknesses -- I felt the author tried too hard with some of the humor (a bit too Fry and Laurie), the female characters were two-dimensional, and I wasn't entirely happy with the way the hero interacted with those female characters. But the story was compelling and historically accurate, and most of the characters were intriguing. I'm hoping the weaknesses are resolved in later books. B+
Eureka. Matthew and I have been following Eureka from the beginning, but it's declined this past season. Our take is that the show went from quirky to grand far too quickly, and once a show has gone there, well, there's no going back. The same two scientists work on whatever random problem appears, in every episode, while good ol' Sheriff Carter (with his 111 IQ) always suggests some folksy remedy that the two brilliant scientists somehow managed to overlook, but is always the key to the problem. B-
House. The first episode of the season was lame. I can't believe I'm dissing a House episode, but there it is. Who cares if he "needs" his team or not? I'm not sure why the writers keep belaboring this issue, but just get them back ASAP. (Last season's opener completely dispensed with the previous finale with little to no denouement - annoying at the time, but this time it was like watching that eating disorder girl on A&E.) C
Scrubs. Matthew and I have recently watched the first two seasons. Entertaining, quirky, but am I the only person in the world who doesn't like Zach Braff? The guy bugs me. We watch it for the secondary characters. B+
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