Rufus Wainwright (album)

I'm planning on listening to his entire discography, and taking it slowly, album by album. To that end I need to write down some unpolished thoughts on each song, so I can refresh my memory further down the road. I'm also including a star for whether I would personally earmark the song for repeated listening when I'm done digesting the album. In order:

• Foolish Love - As a debut album opener, this song doesn't really do it for me. It's not quite enjoyable to me to just listen to straight, though I don't dislike it by any means. It just doesn't have a melody that catches me.
• Danny Boy - 1:30, 2:30 are my favorite parts. Like most songs on the album, it smoothly showcases Rufus' awe-inspiring voice. This particular song is very one directional, which is to say forward. I wouldn't count it among my favorites, but it's solid.
• *April Fools - The song that made me sit up and take notice when I was blindly listening to the album for the first time. This one blew me away, both because of its amazingly catchy melody and the sheer gusto with which Rufus sings.
• *In My Arms - Takes a while to get going, but this song is worth it in the end, and notable for it's polymorphism. It's sort of a bad trip of a song, but nonetheless entirely comfortable to listen to just for the melody and silky smooth voice.
• Millbrook - Not quite sure what was going on here. There's no attractive melody and nothing to latch onto to my ears.
• Baby - I'm sorry, I feel bad for not liking this long and thoughtful song, but I just don't get any joy out of it.
• *Beauty Mark - My favorite from this album. Not particularly sophisticated, and on the short side (I believe he was only sixteen when he wrote it?), it nevertheless hits every note for me. There's no message here, just the weird and complicated truth about his relationship with a parent; his line toward the end 'I know I may not be so manly, but still I know you love me...' is particularly poignant.
• Barcelona - Another pious, slow moving dirge to follow up on 'Baby', but this one goes down a lot better for me. I'm still not ready to put it on my list of favorites, but the tune is distinct and beautiful, and it's just a bit on the livelier side.
• *Matinee Idol - Legitimately creepy song. I always mean to give the lyrics a close listen in case there is a cool meaning in them, but get distracted/swept away by the atmosphere created by the instrumentation and singing.
• *Damned Ladies - It took me awhile to like this song. The key of course is being attentive at the point where he hits that glorious low note: 00:58 among other instances. The subject matter is also worth a chuckle.
• Sally Ann - The last two songs on the album don't grab me either.
• Imaginary Love - ditto

Edit: I've listened to this album a lot over the past year, and would now say that Foolish Love, Danny Boy and Imaginary Love, along with all the starred songs, are on my list of earmarked songs from this album.

Madoka Magica

• The storytelling is not entirely sound, and in the same way that much of anime is. Whether for stylistic or economic reasons, a lot of anime suffers from tell-don't-show syndrome, and there are some unbearably long speeches and infodumps in MM. I appreciate that they want to flesh out backstory and introduce philosophical themes, but certain scenes that can take up five minutes at a time of just talking really kill the show dead for me. I'd prefer that someone demonstrate their values with their actions rather than monologue it for me.
• I'm sincerely intrigued by the setting, and I don't mean the supernatural elements. The mundane human world is a truly weird mix of the opulent and the familiar; school and Madoka's home are futuristic and luxurious to a ludicrous degree. I'm not sure what vibe they were going for, but the humongous, sterile environments the schoolgirls inhabit are genuinely memorable and eye catching. Could this be a common idiom for magical girl anime in general? It strikes me that way, but this is the only anime of that genre I've seen.
• Though the plot isn't terribly innovative on the whole, it does contain some interestingly mature decisions at points. The most impressive decision in that sense was to resist ever giving us a no holds barred show of Madoka's potential. When the show started out, I thought it would do the thing where it coyly tells us how wondrous Madoka's powers are going to end up being and then slowly build up to our scene of awesomeness. Instead, due to the turns the narrative takes we never actually witness Madoka turn into a magical girl, and only peripherally glimpse what her fighting style would even look like. This type of restraint ensures that the show can't be construed as kiddie fare.
• Overall I would say it feels relatively padded. I'm aware that there is a re-edited version of the entire show as two 2-hour movies which speeds up the pace somewhat. That's fine and probably as short as they can reasonably get it as long as they're only taking scissors to the existing material. On the other hand, if they were to reboot it or recreate MM, I would prefer to see it trimmed down to the length of a single movie or so. The story they're trying to tell doesn't have enough character development or layers to support a serial television show, so as long as they were going the story-driven route, they should have either made a movie or planned more content.

2/4

State of Play

• Episode 1 is relatively slow to get going and not all that impressive on its own. It sort of comes off as putting a lot of cliched story lines in motion when in reality those same story lines are going to grow and intertwine in surprising and novel ways in the hours to come; however that's not apparent in this episode. It does have a suspenseful scene toward the end that excites though.
• Episode 2 is where the series starts to shine, and it only keep ramping up from there. The reporters' investigation is the focus here, and the boyish young freelance reporter who is introduced is welcome comic relief. I was also entertained by the rather drawn out scenes of sexual tension in the middle, I think they played that quite well. Additionally, the series shows it can pull off the cops versus reporters dynamic without falling into the pitfall of making one side or the other unbearable to the audience. The police chief comes off brusque but has just enough charisma to keep us from hating him. He can fulfill the role of obstacle and pseudo-antagonist for our crusading reporters while remaining a sleeper-good guy that the writers can tap in to escalate the action later.
• Episodes 3 & 4 slow things down again, and honestly feel a bit like padding to me. There are some interesting plot threads here, but I really just found myself yearning for a sooner end.
• With episodes 5 & 6 the series is on the upswing again. The show is able to appropriately milk all the tension that's been building up, leading to two very satisfying climaxes (the reveal of the pregnancy and the final revelation plot twist). I would also pick out as my favorite moment of the whole series to be the somewhat kitschy scene where Collins tells off a senior member of his party.

3/4

How I Met Your Mother S2E12

A rare dud in HIMYM's mostly excellent second season. It's still a fairly entertaining episode on balance since they don't screw anything up in a major way, but there's just one too many jokes that don't land, and the Ted-Lily subplot doesn't satisfy. Even Barney's subplot lacks legs, though NPH of course sells it damn well (particularly the sneeze he does in the hall). Mainly it stands out as worse from the other episodes in this season because it doesn't bring anything new or fresh to the show. Most season 2 episodes either wheeled out a great new character, started a great running joke for the show, or at least impressed with a cool new non-linear storytelling mechanic. This episode lacked any of that and has predictable and cliched plots to boot.

1/4