verushka70

I think Jane Campion was more visually inventive with her earlier directing; her later stuff is less so, and the writing hasn't been as good. Definitely not that approachable. I barely made it through An Angel At My Table, and I *wanted* to watch and like it.

Haven't listened to Janelle Monae's stuff, yet. I've had so many migraines in the last week I haven't really listend to anything, and I've been offline/away from screens almost as much as possible. Plus incredibly busy with family/holiday... and then I got the stomach flu from my youngest nephew! little germ farms, those kids.

It's true, Sherlock has intimated, in the past, a determination to be brutally honest (with himself as well as others), and I'll buy that that's like 80-90% of his failure (or refusal) to follow social cues and niceties. Yes, Joan did call him out on it more, earlier; he's clearly capable of being more and less discreet at will. But I still feel like at least part of him is so ridiculously intelligent and savant like, it must be somewhere on the spectrum.

Or maybe it's some kind of synesthesia? In the recent AI episode, the wheelchair bound villain suggested that Sherlock's sensory sensitivities might have required some kind of blunting (which, along with Sherlock being off the radar for six months rather like a long, expensive rehab stint, was why he suspected Sherlock wouldn't be able to turn in his addict brother in order to blackmail him to admit to what he did). But I guess synesthesia wouldn't explain his blunt honesty/rudeness...

I dunno, Sherlock's emotional makeup and compartmentalization is "a puzzle wrapped in an enigma inside a conundrum" for me: sometimes I think I'd like to be like him: everything pretty cut and dried, physical needs met but no emotional entanglements. Other times I think that would be *terrible*.

Yes, that's true... they have made Kitty rather sympathetic at this point. I think they obviously intended that with her victim backstory, but I dig her more for her investigative chops, occasionally ninja-like perceptiveness, and rather snarky attitude, than the reasons she was *supposed* to become sympathetic. And I am also worried she'll be a one-season character like Irene/Moriarty or Mycroft with some kind of less-than-happy outcome -- or an outright bad one. I will be especially pissed if she betrays either Joan or Sherlock, but even a bad outcome for Kitty herself is something I kind of fear and dread for her. Fingers crossed it doesn't turn out that way...

There *was* a lot of Sherlock hype, but I was offline so much back when it debuted I missed a lot of it. But I'm willing to watch almost any version of Holmes/Watson, so I thought I'd give it a go. I liked the inventiveness and 21st century update; didn't like Sherlock much at first, though. He was kind of a jerk but without the sympathetic qualities of Elementary's Sherlock -- although BBC Sherlock does describe himself as a high functioning sociopath, iirc. And you're right, initially the ensemble characters were more interesting and likeable than the two main characters themselves. (Side note: the original Conan Doyle John Watson was also a veteran of the *original* British Afghan war. Ironic, huh?)

Can't say I had any head!canon, other than the original Conan Doyle canon, but that's been f-ed with enough over the last century that it's kind of more like a framework than a slavish devotion (though I am delighted whenever there is congruence of present-day versions with original canon, however slim... and yet the mashup side of me likes the way they've messed with the canon on both the BBC and CBS versions, like adding all the texting and social media to BBC, and moving them to NYC and making Watson female on CBS).

I agree -- I found neither of them initially attractive. However, I'm slash slutty that way... if there is discernible slash, I start to see the slash leads with slash colored glasses that somehow make them more attractive, lol. But wrt Martin Freeman as Watson, I was just coming off the Lord Of The Rings movies... so I kept seeing a Hobbit instead of Watson in the first season.

Yeah, the kind of rabid fandom response and hype I read about later was sort of a shock to me. By the time I was looking for Sherlock slashfic, the majority of it was OOC dreck and I was like, well, ok, I'm done. I never read it now, unless it's written or recced by someone I know whose slash tastes run generally in the same direction as mine.

Yeah, the whole lesbian dominatrix thing of Irene Adler was so "look at us get all edgy!" Kind of lame.

wrt Hemlock Grove, yes, ridiculous gore, eye candy young dudes (I can be very shallow too, *g*), plus knockout evil Famke -- what's not to love?

I mostly dug The Knick mainly for two reasons: (1) Clive (though I haven't seen everything he's done; I'm not a completist, lol) and (2) I love the history of medicine, because early medicine and surgery was. so. BARBARIC. (Some would argue it still is...)

Haven't read the True Detective fic yet but have started it. But then I had to avoid lights, screens, etc. for so many days off and on, due to migraines... I'll hopefully finish it in the coming week. I really liked what I read so far; you were right, the author seems to have nailed Rust and Marty's voices really well!

Re: upcoming True Detective -- I'm cautiously hopeful? I know nothing about Taylor Kitsch; my 17 yr old nephew recced FNL to me, so it's in my Netflix queue but I haven't watched it yet; I kind of can't relate to small town rural jock stuff. My nephew says it transcends its genre; I'm hoping he wasn't just full of silly youthful enthusiasm. IIRC, it got pretty good reviews from TV critics.

Vince Vaughn I can tolerate in most things; wouldn't say I love him, though I've found him good in some stuff. He's quite hysterical in some stuff, which might work against him in a crime drama like True Detective. But he was both funny and menacingly creepy in a movie I saw years ago in the late 90s: Clay Pigeons. It was dark and twisted and quirky and funny, plus Janeane Garafalo was in it; I really liked it. So I'm trying to keep an open mind; Vaughn *might* work for True Detective.

Colin Farrell is weird. Sometimes he does these really great performances in certain select roles (I really liked him in In Bruges) -- other times he does this complete utter one-dimensional blockbuster crap. He kind of strikes me as like a cross between an Irish Jake Gyllenhaal and an Irish Tom Cruise (but with more acting chops than Cruise): capable of Jake's range, but settled into typecasting for the money, like Tom. He's attractive (at least I've always found him so) (plus as he's aging, he's less boyish and more mannish, which I find more attractive as I age, lol).

To be perfectly honest, the bar was set so damn high by the McConaughey/Harrelson first season that I fear any second season of True Detective will have to work twice as hard to be half as good. The writing and directing team will be the same as season one, so I'm hopeful, though I'm not convinced the combo of Farrell and Vaughn can pull it off.

But then prior to Dallas Buyers Club and Killer Joe, I wouldn't have thought McConaughey could have done a role like Rustin, either. And I saw both of those *after* I saw TD, not when they were in theaters.

The plain truth about why I watched True Detective at all is this: in the fall of 2013 before my ex and I split up, I was getting Boardwalk Empire off bittorrent for us (because we'd gotten rid of satellite TV the year before). After the "Next week on Boardwalk Empire" preview at the end of each ep, we saw trailers/previews for True Detective.

The previews looked really dark: like a gritty, noir cop drama about corruption and conspiracies and the personal demons of the detectives involved. From the very first preview we saw, my ex and I were like, "We TOTALLY must watch this!" Then after the second and third previews, we were like, "Wait, is that Woody Harrelson... and *Matthew McConaughey*??" Well, I admit, I too am that shallow: MM sealed the deal for me. *g* But I had planned to watch it anyway because the previews we saw pushed all my dark, broody, noir buttons (and my tortured anti-hero buttons, too).

Ironically, my ex tried watching it after we split up (we were no longer together when it started), and he couldn't get into it. Whereas I fell in love with it and even ficced (though instead of slash, what came out was angsty, porny Rust/Maggie).

So, here's hoping for season two. Even if it isn't as good as season one, I'm *fairly* confident that with the same director and writer, it should be pretty good.