nausicaa83 | Entries tagged with tv: netflix

First, obligatory rant about the heat. It sucks, it's going to last until friday, it's unbearable, I found myself hyperventilating five minutes after leaving the house and had to forcefully slow my breathing. Stupid humidity. Stupid global warming.

Now that that's out of the way, here's a new Reading Bingo entry!

For the "A Book That Is More Than 50 Years Old" I read S.E. Hinton's classic The Outsiders.

To be fair, the more than 50 years old thing isn't actually correct. This book was published in 1967, but written and set in 1965. So it would be exactly 50 years old to the day. But it was the only square that sorta fit, and I really wanted to include it in the bingo. ^^

The author was only 17 when she wrote this groundbreaking novel about teenage gangs in her hometown of Tulsa. The story covers two weeks in the life of a young Greaser, and it's a very beautifully written message against violence, of overcoming differences and hate towards a future of empathy and compassion for all young people. I read it all in one sitting, it's really gripping, and while it can be truly depressing at times it's ultimately full of hope. It's easy to see why it's a classic.

It was also one of those cases when I truly felt the cultural differences coming from living in a different continent. The slang is dated, obviously, but it constantly brought to my mind images of Jets and Sharks. Apparently "greaser" is a real word and it's not a nice thing to be. It was a very instructive book for me, because it turns out everything I know about this time period and subculture comes from musicals. My bad.

Yesterday I also watched that new Netflix documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?. I highly recommend it to any fan of Nina Simone, but beware because it can make you feel like being punched in the stomach at times. The director chose to focus on only certain key moments of Ms Simone's life, and there's no narrator, which I appreciated. The story moves from interview to interview, to friends and family, and there's some pretty terrible things being revealed. Not an easy viewing, I have to say.

In other news, during the weekend I've started doing some minor physical exercise again. Just the fact that I could finally do it, as my back has stopped hurting only fairly recently, left me ecstatic. It'll take me some time to get back in shape, but I'm feeling very optimistic!

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: challengers - the new pornographers

A lot of fandom news, because there's not much real life news going on.

First, damn Netflix for releasing new series just before the weekend. Every single time. This particular weekend was cannibalized by the third season of Orange Is the New Black. Did I learn my lesson last year, when I devoured two seasons in three days and then got sad because I had to wait a whole year for new episodes? Evidently not, because I didn't even try pacing myself, and I finished the third season on Sunday morning. Oh well. Spoiler-free review: I loved it, as expected, and even more than the second one. I truly hated Vee and what she had done to some of my favourite characters, and her absence meant those same characters went back to having proper stories and character development, instead of being henchmen. I loved all the back stories, and even the main theme of the season, Faith (as not-so-subtly hinted by all the promos and posters from the past few months). It was all beautifully done. Great acting all around, as usual. And a strong soundtrack again!

The worst flaw is, at least for me, the main character, Piper. I sort of liked her in the beginning, when she was the stand-in for the audience: as she learned, we learned. But it slowly became obvious she was a selfish, weak, manipulative character with the spine of a jellyfish. I find Alex to be a much stronger character on her own, but who gets sacrificed for the soap opera that is her relationship with Piper. And even if we're finally rid of the awful boyfriend storyline (I can't believe we spent so much time on that), now that Piper's backstory is over, there is absolutely nothing left for her character to do, except for being annoying, and making weird faces. They even introduced a new character, the Aussie girl, in the laziest way ever, just to give her something to do, and yet I was still oscillating between being bored to tears and wanting to smother our protagonist with a pillow. Considering she got significantly less screentime than before, and that most secondary characters had much more intriguing storylines than her, I still found myself scoffing everytime we went back to her. I just can't stand her.

Anyway, great cliffhanger there, wonderful ending, and now it's back to waiting (and hoping against hope they'll kill Piper off next year - yeah, as if that would ever happen).

Speaking of endings, yesterday they aired the final episode of the fifth season of Game of Thrones. Now, save for that awful thing they did back in episode 6, I have to say I really liked this season. It should be noted that the fourth season featured something that triggers me into awful panic attacks, over and over again. Not their fault, because it's not something that ever comes with a warning, and I'm used to being slapped in the face randomly with it, but it was so great to be rid of it, it finally felt safe to watch this show again, and it made me approach my weekly viewings with a clear heart and a happy mind, such a priceless feeling. I bit my nails, cried a bit, made wild theories, it was just like the first season all over again. And I cried out in shock at the ending, great job there. I didn't see that coming at all, holy shit.

They did a beautiful recap of the episode here on RollingStone, and it sums up my thoughts on the matter quite brilliantly. Speaking of, from what I read we have finally reached the books, so from now on it's uncharted waters. Well, at least I won't have to worry for book spoilers anymore (for those of you just tuning in, I read the first two books, didn't like the writing style at all, and dropped them there).

Oh, and Gravity Falls is coming back on July 13th, while Steven Universe has a new marathon week starting tonight. I'm so excited! \o/

Also, the new case and cover for my phone arrived:

Aren't they cute? I bought them both on Etsy! ^^

Current Mood: content
Current Music: knocking on heaven's door - antony and the johnsons

For the first time ever, the other day my therapist was so tired she gave me the wrong day for our appointment, and I found out only when I got there. The worst part wasn't the useless trip, as it was a pleasant walk, and I even got a little bit of tan on my arms, but the fact that she feels so guilty about it she's just spent the last two days apologizing to me! Plus yesterday there was some kind of huge emergency at the clinic, and we had to cut our session super short. Today I'm finally getting my whole hour, yessss. And I'm also going to start using sunscreen: the first couple of days of summer heat it's when I get my healthy tan, for vitamin D purposes, and the rest of the summer I always wear sunscreen walking around Venice, otherwise I'd end up as a burnt burrito in no time at all. My dermatologist once told me I have the skin of a redheaded person, and have to act accordingly. Ever since I've started carrying sunscreen around, I've stopped getting awful burns. ^^

In fandom news, yesterday we had a wonderful announcement, as Matthew Vaughn confirmed he's working on the Kingsman sequel! The movie was a commercial success and all, so a sequel was to be expected, but it's so wonderful to have a confirmation! And we're going to meet Kingsman agents from across the pond too, I can't wait. :D

And they just released the third season of Orange Is The New Black on Netflix: watch how I say I'm going to savour it, without rushing it, and then binge watch it all in one night. I'm so predictable. And I still remember how mad I was at myself last year when I watched it all in two days and then complained I had to wait a whole year for new episodes! I never learn. ^^"

Only a few days left until the Square Enix conference at E3: there's going to be Kingdom Hearts news, and I'm so excited I'm doing a happy dance just thinking about it. *______*

And now lunch, therapy, and then I'm going to buy all the ingredients to make Gazpacho, and properly celebrate the summer. ^^

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: together in electric dreams - the human league

Another review for you! I'm starting to regret that Netflix subscription, as it's cannibalizing my precious free time. Although, seeing that today's real life time was spent on doing my taxes, hurrah for free time. Even when it keeps me awake until 2 am because I'm binging a new series. :D

Today's tv show is Sense8, a Netflix series by the Wachowskis. It's twelve one-hour-long episodes about the lives of eight different people across the world who one day find themselves telepathically connected. It's sci-fi that can be appreciated by fans and non-fans of the genre.

Why it is awesome: the eight sensates are four men and four women. Half of them are POCs, one is a gay man in a committed relationship, another one is a lesbian trans woman, played by an actual trans woman, whose girlfriend is played by Freema Agyeman, which is the reason I first checked this series (lesbian Martha Jones? sign me up!). The connections between all of them are played beautifully: by feeling each other's thoughts, they instantly love each other, and wish to protect the rest of the group. It's a story of love and acceptance, of empathy in its purest sense. The sci-fi aspect is really intriguing, and the villains are some of the scariest I've ever seen. There's also Naveen Andrews, who is even handsomer than I remembered. The Sensates are from the USA, Korea, Germany, India, Kenya, Iceland, England and Mexico, and all the scenes are shot on location. There's a profound respect for each and every culture, even when describing their problematic aspects. And they turned most tropes on their head in a wonderful way: Kala is an awesome scientist, but she's also girly and sweet, which is something you don't see very often. While the fact that Nomi is trans is an important part of her storyline, it's not the main focus: Nomi is primarily a badass hacker who fights the Feds with the help of her awesome girlfriend. These are all layered characters, who are never reduced to one single aspect of their personality.

There being 8 main characters who all need the same screentime, it takes a couple of episodes for the story to start making sense: at first it's basically a series of vignettes of their individual lives, and it takes some patience on the viewer before we can see them truly interacting with their psychic powers. It's so worth the wait, believe me.

I'm hoping we'll get a second season soon, because it's a beautiful, beautiful series and judging from the ending this is just the beginning of these characters' adventures. And the cast is so diverse and wonderful! ♥

Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: what's up - 4 non blondes

I'm finally feeling better! I had an awful two-day-long headache, because of the sudden and repeated changes in the weather; ever since the surgery back in 2007 I get an headache everytime the weather changes, but this past few days it's happened drastically every six hours (humid hot to rainy cold and back), and my head kept reacting accordingly. That also meant nausea, and a constant grumpiness on my part with every person who crossed my path. Yesterday the painkillers kicked in, and I'm finally pain-free. What a lovely sensation!

Some of you may remember my quick guide to Netflix for users outside the USA that I wrote a few months back: today I have an amendment to make. When I wrote it back then I suggested Zenmate to use as a proxy. Sadly during the last few weeks they implemented a premium service, and the normal service became slow and broke down repeatedly. The other day I finally got fed up with it and looked for alternatives. I quickly found a much better extension called Hola. It's much faster, completely free, and it works a lot better. Hola lets you choose a different country for every website you visit, and then saves that preference: this way, for example, you can open a tab to watch a movie on Netflix with a USA proxy, while checking your email on another tab with a German proxy. Plus, it's really, really fast. It's absolutely wonderful, I can't recommend it enough!

EDIT: Yeah, forget about all that. Two days in, and this shitstorm happens. They just found out that Hola was selling IPs and bandwidth space to, simply put, criminals. And since it's your internet traffic that's being used, legally you're responsible. Terrific. So I deleted the whole thing, cursing and swearing, and started looking for an alternative. I'm testing AnonymoX as we speak: it works fine, although it's a bit clumsier than Hola, and it doesn't do anything criminal, so that's a plus. Netflix works perfectly, although I would recommend not to have other tabs open, as it slows the whole thing down.

I'm only testing free options for now. If I ever decide to spend money on it, I'll probably use Hide My Ass: it was featured in a BBC News article, so at least there's some solid research there that they aren't doing anything horrendously illegal.

So um, carry on as normal. ^^

Current Mood: refreshed
Current Music: take this waltz - leonard cohen

I know it's only 3 pm, but today has been so awesome that it already deserves its own entry!

The main cause of celebration is that that real life business that had me so worried for the last two weeks got solved quite splendidly in less than two minutes, mostly because the person I found in the new office was a wonderful and nice woman who helped me a lot with solving my problem, and then we found out we both have cats, and from the usual depressing legal tutor obligatory conversation we went on to happy cat appreciation society. It was great!

And this morning I finally made a Netflix account. Apparently all it took was installing ZenMate on Chrome, which I had already done weeks ago, and then set it to USA. I entered my credit card on the website, and two minutes later I got a call on my cellphone from the credit card company, asking me if it had indeed been me who had used my card on Netflix. I told them yes, and then thanked them a lot for being so quick and thorough. The woman on the phone sounded startled at hearing me thank her, and then she honest-to-god giggled and thanked me back and we talked a little about Netflix and how it works. I'm equal parts happy at having made someone's day at work a little better, and appalled that she hadn't obviously ever recieved a word of thanks for her job before. What the hell, humanity.

Then I finished setting my account, and lo and behold, it works! I installed the plugin on my laptop as well, and I spent half an hour compiling a list of shows I want to watch. And the best part is that it's legal and I'm paying for it, so I won't feel guilty anymore for downloading stuff I want to see but that isn't available in my country. \o/

Current Mood: productive
Current Music: I and love and you - the avett brothers