Monday Media Musings - 1/11/21

[owlmoose]

It seems the secret to keeping this feature going is to write my summary, or at least take notes, on the day I finish the thing I want to write about. Good information for myself.

Outlander, Season 3: This is the last season currently available on Netflix, so I'll have to wait a bit to continue. And I will, although I continue to be less than thrilled with the changes from the books. I suppose it's just as well that they added the bit about the sapphires, ridiculous as it was, since the concept of Gellis trying to harvest gemstones from young men is pretty gruesome. But I am quite bitter that they cut the sequence of Claire meeting Lord John Grey on the Dolphin. I adore Jamie and John's friendship -- and overall I found the depiction of their relationship satisfying; I'm sure they've found their share of 'shippers -- and I found it interesting when Claire developed an independent relationship with John before she discovered his connection to her past and his feelings for Jamie. Other changes that didn't work for me: all the tweaks to the Dunbonnet story; losing much of the framing device of Claire, Brianna, and Roger's research in the 20th century, and cutting the bit with Jamie's fake tombstone (which among other things makes Frank more sympathetic); the viewers finding out about Jamie's second marriage before Claire did. I continue to enjoy the casting; John Grey is just about perfect, and I look forward to continuing to see him in later seasons.

The Half of It: The trailers promised a teen romcom inspired by Cyrano de Bergerac and with a queer protagonist, and that's more or less what we got, although it was more a coming-of-age story than a romance -- ultimately I would say that the relationship between Ellie (the Cyrano of the piece) and Paul (the Christian equivalent) was more important than their relationships with the object of their mutual affections. It's set in a small town in rural Washington; I did a little research afterwards and learned that the setting was eastern Washington, which is more conservative than the Seattle area; since most of the town seems to attend the same small church, this makes a lot of sense and adds to the feeling of Ellie as an outsider: besides being a lesbian, she's Chinese-American, and she and her father seem to be the only non-white, non-Christian people in town. (When I discussed the movie with friends later, and raised this point, a couple of people mentioned that there's a scene where Aster's family is speaking Spanish, suggesting that they are Latinx. So that point might not be as strong as I'd thought, since I didn't pick up on that.) There are some sweet and funny moments, but it's not a straight-up comedy, more a balance of comedy and drama. Overall, I enjoyed it, and would be happy to see more films like it, especially with more realized f/f romances.