The Masked Singer 4x03

 

It seems like I misspoke last week: it's not yet Group C's turn on The Masked Singer, it's Group A again! Which actually fits me better because, as I said before, if there are too long breaks between two appearances by the same singer, I tend to forget everything about them, including if I even liked them the first time. So hopefully this won't happen this season, and it really shouldn't, now that I have the best documented notes and clues I ever wrote for this show. So without further ado, Group A, Part 2!

The Masked Singer 4x02

Okay so this was uhh... a weird night on The Masked Singer. I don't really want to spoil anything (not that anyone who hasn't already seen the episode would read this... right?) so I'm saving the surprise to the end, and instead I'm just going to say this for now: things have definitely improved from last week in terms of singing talent and quality performances. I know the jury was already in awe of Group A, and Nick Cannon even started this night with telling us that "already our panel is calling [season 4] the strongest season yet!" (which I absolutely called last week, by the way), which is obviously still too early to say, BUT, I enjoyed Group B a lot more than I did A. Why? Read on to find out...

 

The Masked Singer 4x01

 

Oh, The Masked Singer. I know this show has many detractors, with lots of people critizing the judges, the quality of the performers, or the whole gimmick, and even the people who keep watching it often bashfully characterize it as a "guilty pleasure". Well, I don't believe in guilty pleasures. I like what I like without being ashamed of anything, and I honestly like this show a lot - although I will admit that some of the steam has went out of it since it began. The contestants in the first season are still the most memorable for me, and while I understand why they wanted to increase the number of them - more celebrities and more wacky constumes, yay! - for me it killed a bit of my immersion in the show. Last season I stopped writing down clues entirely and by the time the same performers rolled around I completely forgot if I even liked them the first time. So I'm not altogether happy that they decided to keep this format, but hey... more wacky costumes, at least! As for the judges, yeah, they can be annoying... all the "No way!!!" even when they guessed someone right four weeks ago, the fawning over mediocre performances as if it was the best thing ever, Ken Jeong's increasingly terrible-on-purpose first guesses... but you know what, I saw the first episode of the Hungarian version, and the Americans have nothing on them in terms of sheer absurdity and horribleness, so I appreciate the fact that it could be much worse.

Before starting to review this season, it's also important to note that I hardly ever guess any of the celebrities right, in fact, I can only remember two times when I did, and even then only after the judges did first and I started to agree with them. Now the reason for this is twofold: the majority of these contestants I've never even heard of (especially all the athletes and radio hosts and reality stars) and the ones I have, I'm just not that familiar with their personal lives or up to date on celebrity gossip of any kind. I literally have no idea who went through a difficult time recently or had self-image issues as a child or got how many kids, and I know even less about where and when they worn born and how many awards they have, which to me seems to make up an unreasonable amount of the clues we get.

Speaking of clues, I did catch up on a few things over the last three seasons that should make it easier to guess them. Generally speaking, there's two rules I follow while guessing:

1. If they reference some super famous song or movie title in a super obvious way, it has nothing to do with their identity (no, judges, it's not Tom Cruise just because he said "succeeding in this business seemed like a mission impossible"). In a related note, I noticed that if the judges latch on to a particular guess really hard, song/movie titles of that person usually start to appear in the clues to make them think they're on to something, but they're not.

2. The majority of the clues require an insane amount of conjecture to get right, and usually include visual puns or wordplay. My "favourite" was the one where an actual baseball bat in Kelly Osbourne's package was supposed to be a reference to her dad's infamous incident with a real, live bat, and I thought that was just really fucking dumb.

None of this really helps my guessing in any way, so usually the only thing I can really count on is recognizing the voice and then somehow fitting the clues to that person... then again, I did not get Bret Michaels until his very last episode and I actually love Poison and know his voice a lot so... maybe I'm just not very good at this.

Before I get into the actual recap of this episode, I feel obliged to address one more thing - that is, the whole Nick Cannon of it all. To start with, I'm not in the least a fan of what in recent years came to be known as "cancel culture". I really don't think people should lose their jobs and have their reputations ruined by something dumb they posted on social media, especially if said posting happened years ago and the person hasn't actually exhibited behaviours reflecting it in real life. This goes for ordinary everyday people, and celebrities as well. Obviously if it's something more serious like actual, provable domestic abuse or child molestation, then go for it. Now, what Cannon did falls into the first category, so I don't think he should have been fired (not that he ever was in any danger, I mean, he's a black man who tweeted about white people being subhuman savages, when has that ever bothered anyone in Hollywood). That said, from the moment I read about his true opinions, I knew I would never be able to take his friendly banter with any of the white judges or contestants seriously ever again... or with his favourite joke-buddy Ken Jeong, for that matter. I'm not sure how black supremacists feel about Asian people, but it can't be good, right? Also, if I was Robin Thicke or Jenny McCarthy, I would probably feel really awkward making nice with this man from now on. But hey... I'm not a Hollywood person whose whole livelihood depends on pretending, so they'll probably be fine.

Alright, now that that's all over and done with... how did Group A fare this week?

Oscars 2019: Photo Recap

Welcome to my first ever Oscars recap! I've been planning to do this for years and what do you know, I finally got over my laziness this year and actually did it! Took pictures and everything! Hopefully it's not going to be a complete drag to read, and maybe my shameless attempts at trying to be funny will embolden some readers to share their own thoughts in the comments below. Also, forgive me for cutting out a good chunk of the winners, like most of the techincal categories. I'm just really not a good judge of those, you know? I still have no idea what's the difference between sound mixing and sound editing, for example, and let's be honest, as important as all these people are in making movies, their acceptance speeches are rarely among the more interesting ones. Right, here it goes!

WWW Wednesday 02.13.

 

February started out pretty miserable for me: I welcomed it by lying in my bed for a week, trying to get rid of a nasty flu. But hey, at least I got to read a lot while I was home, provided I could find the one position where my back wasn't killing me from all that lying and coughing. Good times, but thank God it's over now. So let's see what I'm reading this sunny WWW Wednesday now that I'm back on my feet and have less time but slightly more enthusiasm for new books!

Recently finished: Just a couple days ago I finished Women Who Dared by Jeremy Scott, a book that promised to be extremely interesting and right up my alley, but which ultimately proved rather disappointing. I guess morally questionable con artists and downright abhorrent socialites are not the kind of "strong women" I am looking to learn about. No offense to poor Mary Wollstonecraft who somehow ended up in this book and was basically its saving grace.

Currently reading: The book I picked up instantly when I realized I was sentenced to rest and read all week was The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, a book I started years ago but put away when it got too much, and which I made tremendous progress on while I was sick. Then I started King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo, which I thought was going to be smooth sailing since I loved all the previous grisha books so much, but unfortunately it didn't quite grip me as much as its predecessors. I was actually supposed to finish it yesterday but then I found myself not at all in the mood for it, so I started Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett instead. It's the first book in my "Books adapted into movies or TV shows in 2019" challenge, and I love it so far! And then there's the previously mentioned The Dark Ages by Sir Charles Oman, which I'm trying to read at work whenever I get the chance. So yeah... I got a little carried away again with all these books. Let's just hope I can actually finish all of them at some point.

Next read: Of course, the one book I should be reading is none of these. It's Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, the February choice in my reading group. Hopefully I can finish Good Omens in a few days and get started on this one.

Now tell me, what are YOU reading these days?

Women Who Dared - Jeremy Scott (2019)

Having recently suffered through one and a half other books that promised to teach me about interesting women I've never heard of but which were, in reality, 60% Tumblr level "lol men are the worst am I right?" kind of jokes, 20% obnoxious pop culture references, 10 % insinuating that literally nothing has changed since the 19th century and women are just as oppressed as ever thanks to Trump obviously, and maybe 10% relevant information, I was excited for Women Who Dared because I really, really love to read about groundbreaking, trailblazing, amazing historical women, and just once I would like to be able to do so without straining my eye muscles from rolling them too hard.

Unfortunately, this book is also not the answer I was looking for, but this time it's harder to put into words why. Certainly it was not too political, which I appreciated, but it had numerous other problems. I couldn't entirely get behind the writing style, for one thing. Colloquial in certain places, pretentious in others, it was as if the author couldn't decide whether he wanted to write a serious, informative non-fiction book, or a gossip column-worthy, flippant account of the lives of these women, full of rumours told as facts, possibilites presented as certanties, and blatant misinformation.

And oh, these women. I can't for the life of me understand what possessed the author to choose these six women in particular for his book. Certainly they all fit under the "women who dared" title, and it's probably my fault that I expected to find actual role models in here instead of con artists, barely important socialites, and women whose only claim to fame is their messy divorce and all the men they fucked. And just to show that I'm not kidding or exaggerating about any of this, let's take a look at the book chapter by chapter.

My Top Ten of 2018 - Books

It's that time of the year again when I try to think back on all the media I consumed in the past 365+ days, and select ten of each as best of the best, and let me tell you, this is one of my favourite times. True, it's incredibly hard to make a selection when there's so much good shit coming out, but I love talking about things I love and I love making lists too, so why would I complain? I don't. Except about my own performance when it comes to books, because you see... you can't really make a list of the 10 best books released in 2018 when you've only read 15 of them, and only about three of those can be deemed amazing. I promise I'll try to do better next year and read more new releases, but for now, I'll have to contend myself with a list of the 10 best books I read in 2018, regardless of release date. Oh, and in strictly chronological order because I don't want to play favourites among my favourites. Right, here it goes! 

1. I, Claudius – Robert Graves

I've been meaning to read this for a while now and I honestly don't remember what prompted me to finally do it, but boy am I glad I did! It was slow going because I read it on my work computer whenever I ran out of actual work to do, but I enjoyed every second of it. Graves' Claudius is now one of my favourite fictional renderings of any historical character, but all the others are written brilliantly too. It induced me to do tons of research and I subsequently learned a whole lot about this era of the Roman Empire, which is what I love the most about reading historical fiction: it always makes me want to look up the actual history behind it. I also love drawing the family trees for myself to keep track of all the characters and how they're related to each other, and this book has a hell of a crazy one:

From the distance of a year even I can't make sense of some of this. 

2. Queen Victoria - Lytton Strachey 

I actually had this bookmarked for years on my laptop at home, and I opened it so many times with the intention of reading it that I actually memorised its first line: "On November 6, 1817, died the Princess Charlotte..." But then one day I finally had to admit it to myself that I will never actually take the time to read it at home, so maybe I could just... open Gutenberg.org at work and have it bookmarked for reading there? Yeah I'm dumb sometimes. But I did it and I read it and I loved it so much. I said it before that I will never tire of reading about the Victorian era, be it fiction or non-fiction, and that's obivously true for the Queen herself too. I actually have several more Victoria biographies added to my TBR. Nevertheless, I think this one will always hold a special place in my heart. 

3. Crooked Kingdom – Leigh Bardugo

I'm actually so damn proud of myself for finishing all five grisha books in a relatively short time, instead of my usual routine of reading the first one and then abandoning the series for years. I loved Ruin and Rising too but I wanted to choose just one of these books for my list, and in the end I went with Crooked Kingdom because it was the more daring and unusual of the two. It took risks that paid off in full, went to places I never expected it would, and in the end still managed to be satisfying. I can't wait to see Nina's story continue in King of Scars. 

4. Nevernight – Jay Kristoff

This was definitely one of the most unique and innovative fantasy books I've read in recent years, and for that alone it deserves to be on my list. The worldbuilding is so rich and extensive that I was almost convinced to start taking notes about halfway through, which is always a good sign, and the characters were all incredibly vivid and interesting. It's especially noteworthy that the author managed to take the often-told story of "main character has to win a competition to achieve their goals" and managed to make it not only entertaining as hell but actually suspenseful. Even if you're pretty certain that she's gonna be one of the winners, you can be certain about absolutely nothing else, and other books with a similar premise (*cough* Throne of Glass *cough*) could learn a lot from Jay Kristoff. 

5. The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry (review)

I already sang odes about this book elsewhere and I'm not sure what else is left to say. Beautiful writing, haunting atmosphere, wonderfully unique characters, a story that I can't quite put my finger on but which grabbed me nonetheless and still hasn't let go. If only the author's 2018 followup, Melmoth, was half as amazing... still, I'm eagerly waiting fo her next book. 

6. Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking – Deborah Cadbury (review)

Oh how I loved getting lost in this wonderfully twisted, continent-encompassing, royal-imperial family tree. Some of the featured historical figures and their fates were already familiar to me, but others were new, and I would gladly read full biographies on any single one of them, they're just that fascinating.  

7. The Gown – Jennifer Robson (review)

Next to The Essex Serpent, this was the other book that most defined my 2018 reading year, one that I will definitely find myself thinking about for years to come. Again, I think I said everything I possibly could in my review. I adored this book.  

8. Babel – Gaston Dorren (review)

If there's one thing I love more than learning languages, it's thinking about learning languages. This book provided me with ample material for my "will learn one day" list, as well as some wonderful bits of etymological trivia. Highly recommended for any wannabe polyglot!  

9. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

Me and Dickens have a relationship that has so far rested on a pretty contradictory statement: I love his writing style, and yet I've never managed to finish any of his books. Not his fault, to be fair. It's just that so far I always tried to read his books while I was already reading twenty other books, and they always lost out to something else in the end. The idea that I should remedy this has been on my mind for a long time, so I was pretty thrilled when just as I decided that it was finally time for me to stop lurking in this one Goodreads group and start to actually participate in their challenges and discussions, they announced that their December group read would be A Christmas Carol. What an opportunity! So I devoured this wonderful little story in no time, and crowned a new favourite.  

10. Legendary – Stephanie Garber

Caraval was one of the best books I read in 2017, and the sequel definitely lived up to my expectations, even if I didn't necessarily agree with the direction it took in the end. I enjoyed being in Tella's shoes this time and all the lore-building that brought with it - God I wish I could have that pack of cards, magical or not. The new characters were fun to read about and the book even managed to manintain the same sense of suspense and feeling of never quite knowing what's going on that made the first one so enjoyable, and that's why I'm choosing to believe that even with the big revelation at the end, things are still not quite what they seem, and there will be more twists, turns and shocks to come in Finale. This is honestly the only thing I can believe because otherwise the answer to the question of Legend's identity is pretty lousy, and I refuse to believe that.

All right, so that was it for 2018! Please share in the comments YOUR favourite reads of the year! 

Golden Globes 2019: Wishes and Predictions

Here's something of a confession: I love watching award shows. Since I don't base my interest in movies and series on whether they've won any awards, my enjoyment of these shows is 70% the beautiful dresses, and 30% the acceptance speeches. Plus, when it comes to the Golden Globes, I love seeing those little interludes between presentations when you can get a glimpse of celebrities you'd never guess even knew each other have fun chatting and joking away. It's so much more relaxed and light-hearted than the Oscars, and no amount of political grandstanding is going to ruin it for me, dammit! That said, I would prefer if they didn't do it, but since nowadays you can get the biggest cheers and social media buzz just by saying "lol fuck Trump am I right?", can I really blame these actors for trying? Anyway, here are my wishes and predictions for this year's Golden Globes! Only the movies this time because I can't believe this but I only managed to watch maybe like three of the nominated TV series, so I don't feel comfortable commenting on any of those categories.

Best Motion Picture - Drama

I feel like this one could go two ways: ridiculously transparent with Black Panther winning, or still predictable but at least making sense with Blackkklansman winning. To be clear, I liked both of these movies, but only one of them is acually award-worthy, and it's not Panther. I don't care how "important" a film you think it was because I guess it's not my place to discuss that, but skin colours notwithstanding, it was exactly as good as any other Marvel movie that came out in the past ten years, and you didn't see those winning any Globes, did you? This one shouldn't, either. Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born were both stunning movies too but sadly I don't think they really have a chance in this category.

 
Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

I will never understand what's the big deal about Crazy Rich Asians, because apart from the whole diversity angle, it has absolutely nothing more to offer than any other romantic comedy out there. You know, the kind of which at least a hundred comes out every year and you never even hear of them. I'm afraid it still might win thanks to the hype alone, although I personally am rooting for The Favourite instead.

 
Best Animated Feature Film

I'll admit I've only seen one of these nominees, Isle of Dogs. It was pretty great and definitely the most unique of them all in terms of art style, but those few minutes I've seen of Into the Spider-Verse after the credits of Venom convinced me that it would deserve to win too. It looks beautiful, creative and very funny, so I'm all for it.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama

Rami Malek should be a shoe-in for this one, although Bradley Cooper was great in A Star Is Born, and John David Washington just as great in Blackklansman. In the name of fairness, I think Rami should win this, Klansman the best movie, and Bradley the one for directors. He might actually be prouder of that, too.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama

Many people are saying that this was Glenn Close's best performance she ever gave, but I wouldn't know about that because I only really know her as Cruella de Vil (shame, I know). She certainly was fantastic in The Wife, but I just couldn't relate to her character at all, which usually coloures my impression of any performance, however unfair that is. Anyway, I don't really want to comment on or make predictions about this category, since the only other film here I managed to watch was A Star Is Born, and however great Gaga was in it (and she was), looking at the other names and titles I don't think she should, or will, win.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

I haven't seen any of these movies yet so I'll pass this one.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Either Olivia Colman or Charlize Theron need to win this, because both of them were just WOW in their respective movies. Constance Wu is a terrific actress too, but as I said, Crazy Rich Asians did nothing to showcase that. Hopefully she can get a real meaty role one day and finally win herself an award, because unfortunately it doesn't look like she will be recognized for Fresh Off the Boat any time soon, even though THAT is a fantastic comedic performance. Every week, no less.

Best Supporting Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture

Again, only seen Blackkklansman, but based on that, Adam Driver would definitely deserve it. Then agian I love Sam Rockwell getting so much recognition lately, so I'm kinda rooting for him too.

Best Supporting Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture

It always makes me anxious when two people from the same film get nominated in the same category, regardless of whether I liked the film itself or not. But I did like The Favourite this time, and I think both Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone have an equal chance to win, unless Amy Adams beats them out both. Honestly I would be okay with any of them, they're all pretty amazing.

WWW Wednesday 01.02. - January reading plans

I was thinking about getting back to the habit of writing by talking a little about what I've been reading lately, and what I'm planning to read for the rest of the month. So this here is my first WWW entry! I plan to make a regular feature of this, maybe not every week but whenever I stumble onto some particularly interesting new book. So let's see what Janury has in store for me so far!

Recently finished: I completed my 2018 Reading Challenge on the 26th of December by finishing Queen of the Conqueror by Tracy Borman, a pretty excellent biography of not only Matilda of Flanders but also William the Conqueror and their entire family. It was a worthy last read of the year and I didn't want to add any more books to the challenge so for the last few remaining days I was reading The Dark Ages 476-918 A.D. by Sir Charles Oman, whose title is pretty self-explanatory. It's a good read but so freaking detailed that I can only manage a few chapters at a time, so I'm still only halfway through it. 

Currently reading: I will eventually finish The Dark Ages, but for now I put it away in favour of a book that's been marked as "currently reading" on my Goodreads for three years, along with several other books I started and never finished. No wonder I no longer use this feature: these books haunt me every day and I swear I will finish all of them eventually... but I really don't need to add more to this cursed list. Anyway, the book I took up again after so much time is Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, third in the Outlander series. My relationship with this series is a bit complicated, I don't love it as much as I expected I would but I still enjoy reading it a lot. I think I might elaborate on this later in a separate post. So far I'm making good progress on Voyager. I completely forgot how absolutely engaging and readable these books were, and it's nice to be back in their world a little bit, even if I probably won't pick up Book 4 immediately after this.

Next read: While I would love to finish Voyager by the end of January, this time I decided that I won't fret it. No one's rushing me (not that anyone ever was), and I have a couple other books I want to pick up this month: Ready Player One for my Reading Challenge group, as well as a couple new titles whose releases I'm eagerly awaiting: The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden, and The Wicked King by Holly Black.

Now tell me, what are YOU reading these days?

Legends of Tomorrow 4x01-05

I don’t think I’ve ever written about Legends of Tomorrow before, so let me start this review with a little confession: it is my favourite Arrowverse show, and no one is more surprised by that than I am. For starters, I only started watching it for two, maybe three reasons: Arthur Darvill, Sara Lance, and to not miss out on any lore-building or continuity nods to the other shows (which, back then, were only Arrow, which I loved, and The Flash, which I liked quite a bit, but not enough to get all the hype for it). What’s more, I couldn’t stand Ray Palmer on Arrow (seriously, I even listed him as one of the many things that ruined season 3 for me), and I wasn’t at all interested in Captain Cold or Heatwave either: they were, in my opininon, unfairly lauded boring, one-note villains, just like every single other villain of the week on The Flash. So pretty much EVERYTHING was against Legends when it started, and season 1 didn’t inspire too much confidence either. But along the way, things started to shift imperceptibly. Ray became insanely likable, Snart and Rory were expanded and built upon as characters I could actually care about, and when season 2 got rid off all the deadweight and introduced Nate and Amaya to the cast, well, that was pretty much it. Couple that with Arrow’s increasingly dark storylines and stagnating quality, The Flash becoming pretty repetitive, as well as Supergirl’s subpar debut season, and Legends quickly became one of the shows I most looked forward to every week.