Rome: For Brutus is an Honorable Man

[lesbiassparrow]

Rome: how I do love you. Except that you have made Cicero all squirrilly and that's rather sad.



Poor Brutus: no idea what he's getting into with Antony and trying to retain his honour, although he doesn't realise no one else has it. Antony was a right bastard he was, but he knew how to revenge friends. It might have been one of his redeeming qualities. The other was probably his willingness to be made fun of (according to Plutarch, at any rate).

I really like the way Octavian is so cold in this (it reminds me of Syme's portrayal of Augustus as an icy, efficient politician). I suspect he will end up killing Pullo as a liability because he's that sort of person. I wonder how they will handle the Antony-Octavia thing and how that will pan out.



And for a bit I have not been filled with glee, but I decided to focus on the positive and think about shiny happy things. Like the fact that I recently had a lovely lunch with someone I haven't seen for a while and she was a lot of fun and we bitched about my horrible colleagues and mad people in general. And on Saturday I went to hear Ray Wylie Hubbard twang his guitar in McCabe's and HE WAS AMAZING. It wasn't just the music - he told these hilarious stories about living in Poetry, TX and goats wandering in the yard and him thinking they were the devil and writing songs about it. This is not the sort of music I normally like and it was prefaced by a rather odd band who sang songs with horrid lyrics but he still made it all wonderful.

Also I just bought Season One of Veronica Mars on DVD. I have never seen it but everyone says it is great and so I look forward to it. Yay for things to watch!

Um. One last thing. I have recently gotten interested in Star Wars (the prequel) again. To the extent that I have actually rented 'The Phantom Menace' to see if it as bad as I recall. It can't honestly be, can it?

Comments

[tavella.livejournal.com]

I remain defiantly non-conformist: I quite liked TPM. I'm not even bugged by Jarjar; he strikes me as pretty much the same as Threepio in goofiness. And I really, really liked the way the good guys essentially fuck themselves over, with the best of intentions.

Plus, Qui-Gon is a delight.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Qui-Gon is quite smashing. I rewatched and kept thinking that if he had survived it would surely have turned out completely different with Anakin. Because Qui-Gon would have had some space for emotion which the rest of Jedi lack.

This just solidified my belief that the Jedi Council should be named 'Group of Moronic Wankers.' They should have it printed on their cards.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I think that is part of the point; the Jedi fall because they have ossified beyond any ability to deal with the unexpected. It's a different kind of decadence then wine and naked concubines, but it's still a decay.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I can buy that...but the only problem for me is that Yoda survives and he's among the worst of them. He's always muttering that things are a bad idea and then making them worse.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but do we end up viewing Yoda as entirely right in the end? Luke retains his compassion for his father against Yoda's advice, and that's what turns the tide; it's Vader that destroys the emperor, not Luke.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

That's true: I hadn't actually thought of that. Hmmm...but the wee bugger still gets to swan off into the sunset.

It is interesting how much Lucas took an axe to all of my beliefs about the Jedi and the characters in the prequels. The more I think about it, the bolder I think he was.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

That's exactly it; I'm not going to argue that the dialogue is not often stiff, and I'm not going to argue that Lucas an actor's director.. but there are moments as when Palpatine turns away after the vote and we see just the beginning of a smile, and you realize that the revered and dead heroes of "A New Hope" were the ones who fucked themselves and the Republic over... bits like that were pretty freaking brilliant.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I also like the snowball effect: if any one of these things had been different maybe the story wouldn't have turned out that way. Every single person nudges these things further along down the path to doom. And the good things that people do are unravelled by the actions of someone else - either maliciously or with the best of intentions.

And Palpatine is one of the best things about the series. I don't know how his acting survived Lucas' dead hand but the actor does an amazing job of being creepy and paternalistic.