MUNCLE reviews, part whatever.

[kleenexwoman]

We've been watching more Man from U.N.C.L.E. on drworm's computer, and he has been very active in persuading me to write more little review blurbs for them. So here are some review blurbs.

Terbuf:
I liked that they had Gypsy characters and portrayed them as actual people with their own political problems and distinct cultural groups instead of curse-casting, fortune-telling plot devices (like they did in The Bow-Wow Affair. So classy). Also, the half-Gypsy guard? Also played two different THRUSH agents, Oregano in The Hula Doll Affair and Eddie in The Dippy Blonde Affair. Rex Holman. Blonde. Hot. Was in a ton of old TV shows. We notice these things.

Concrete Overcoat:
Fucking A+++. Cute old Mafia guys! Napoleon concerned about the societal standing of a girl everybody thinks he fucked! Janet Leigh as a hot psychopath! Incredibly cheesecakey catfight! THRUSH officials gettin' their freak on in a totally upper-middle-class fashion! Humorously repressed villain! (This was where Seth observed that all the villains have more consistent character development than the main characters. This is true. I would totally watch a Hitchcock movie about Miss Diketon.)

Mad Mad Tea Party:
Really cute for a first-season episode. I mean, come on, guppies! What better way to test a security system than with children's toys and tiny pet fishies? Had they been able to work puppies in there somehow, it would have been completely perfect. I even actually enjoyed the plot thread with the "Innocent" (Alice? IDK); she was cute and had an interesting voice and seemed fairly realistic about being pulled into a depressing underground facility and having to be interrogated by a scary blonde.

Adriatic Express:
Felt longer than it was, much like most New Year's Eve parties. The fights were actually sort of lame, but I almost like that more than well-choreographed fights in this show. Seems more realistic. I liked that THRUSH was apparently started by the aging lead lady; explains their equal-opportunity employing policy in regards to women. (Sisters gotta stick together. Except when they're tarting up their teenage girltoys to throw at enemy spies, who are like, "Oh, girlfriend, that color is all wrong for you.")

Deadly Goddess:
Illya doesn't like girls. Napoleon doesn't like the idea of matrimony. There's a guy with Alzheimer's. The "Deadly Goddess" is a little piece of mud and it's basically a huge rip-off of a title. Come on, where are the human sacrifices? Where are the scary people in robes? Where are the hundred-foot-tall Venus of Willendorfs with teeth where teeth should not be? MUNCLE fails at pulp.

Cap and Gown:
Okay, the teaching machine? We have that at CMU. Every year, a couple of profs decide that it would be easier to use it for some lecture hall class, and every year it doesn't work very well, and every year a few hundred students get graded on a malfunctioning curve and get poison gas squirted into their faces. Technology >:(

Green Opal:
I loved this episode. I had absolutely no idea what was going on at any given time, but it completely did not matter. Illya trying to kill Napoleon with a blade-covered spinny block! Napoleon as a prissy nerd with a bowtie! Cheetahs! Archie Bunker in a wheelchair! GUN AIMED AT THE AUDIENCE OH NOES! :O

Finny Foot:
I actually really liked the beginning of this one. It was very Andromeda Strain. But mostly what I liked was baby Kurt Russell! The last time I saw him in anything his character was getting stomped to death by some girls he tried to kill with his car. drworm and I were making bunny noises after this one. All, "EEE, he has a daddy-crush on Napoleon! And he has an awesome little box with a hand!"

Dippy Blonde:
The titular character was so awesome. IDK why, but I like female characters who are petty criminals. And she was very cute about it. Also, I liked the emphasis on the THRUSH characters, partially because MORE REX HOLMAN and partially because, well, I like watching bad guys do their thing behind the scenes.

Deadly Games:
Angelique is way too hot for Napoleon, and he knows it, and she knows that he knows it. Is there, like, an edition of "She's Not That Into You" for guys? I mean, it isn't even the spider in the carnation (it's, like, everything she says to him), although that's definitely something you'd do if you were a hot lady spy and trying to passively get rid of a guy who kept hanging around. I've thought about doing that to some guys and I'm not even a hot lady spy. Also, she has a fucking sexy car and I don't know why she lets Napoleon drive that baby. So far as I've seen, he can't drive for shit.

I kind of think Angelique would be one of those straight-esque girls who are like, "Oh, men's bodies are so boring, penises are so ugly," but then are inexplicably still straight and still go out with guys and have sex with them and things of that nature. ...yeah, we were hanging out with Sammi and had this bizarre discussion on body image and attraction (bizarre because Sammi was drunk, I was half-drunk, and Seth was still completely in control of his faculties), and I discovered that some women think that way and that it's apparently a popular opinion with straight women. I do not comprehend this. ¿PATRIARCHY?

Comments

[anivad.livejournal.com]

I DON'T COMPREHEND IT EITHER.

A few days ago on IMDb this female person was going on about how girls are cuter than boys, and I went "Lesbian?" and she claims that she's very straight. But that she prefers looking at female bodies because apparently she finds them prettier or something.

Weird.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

A lot of people seem to feel this way, orientation notwithstanding. Pretty sure it's because women's bodies tend to be pushed in media as standards of sexuality, men's bodies not so much. We get conditioned to notice women's bodies and not men's bodies. :/ media >:(

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

My dear . . . human genitalia is ugly all around. Interesting, and of course useful, but not pretty at all. (Georgia O'Keefe [rhymes with "queef", I just realized] and the universal appeal of porn/erotica be damned.) There's a reason most of us require alcohol and a lack of harsh light to get into the sack.

I'm quite impressed however that you managed to character-map the upside-down question mark while unsober and giggly.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

But vaginas look like beautiful flowers! And cocks just look sort of, idk, ornamental. Like things you'd put on Christmas trees. Anyway, most human bodies that aren't up to porn-star Ken/Barbie standards are kind of pretty. Check this (http://humanvariation.blogspot.com/) out.

I'm quite impressed however that you managed to character-map the upside-down question mark while unsober and giggly.
¿alt-168, it is your friend?

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

I have a pornographic ditty that I could sing right here, re: Xmas . . .

I'm going back to basics here, but think of people being born all yellow, and being sludgepressed out of a Pla-D'oh factory, and et cetera with Mr. Groening (YELLOW!). Common clay or what have you.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Suddenly, all is explained!

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Austin Powers: "Wallet, watch, spectacles, testicles."

[benprime.livejournal.com]

inexplicably still straight and still go out with guys and have sex with them and things of that nature

possibilities:
1) it might not look that good but it might feel/smell/taste/sound/think/speak/sing good? (I am starting with the most charitable explanation, you'll notice) Aesthetics is not all about looks.
2) masochists?
3) maybe she likes the _power_ over men she would not have (so much) over women? somebody once said "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac". Liz Taylor? Corollory/tangent: maybe those women prefer to feel they are the better looking partner.. maybe it is charity, or maybe they can think about their own body less because they feel more secure about it in the presence of less good-looking beings?

and then you do have, like you say, media, brainwashing, habit, convention, money and so on.
Dylan Moran (of Black Books fame) has a good standup routine in which, at the end, he talks about the aesthetic differences between male and female bodies. (If I tell you here I will spoil it)

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

1) it might not look that good but it might feel/smell/taste/sound/think/speak/sing good?
Granted, although the idea of not finding someone or a category of someones you're sexually attracted to aesthetically pleasing, even in a very subjective sense, doesn't really make sense to me. (There may be something that I'm missing in that assessment; one of the people involved in the discussion mentioned that women tend to find people more attractive as they started to personally like them more.)

maybe she likes the _power_ over men she would not have (so much) over women?
Lesbians who have internalized the heterosexual standard. :(

Black Books! Is that a good series, btw? I hear it spoken of favorably.

[benprime.livejournal.com]

I liked Black Books. I thought it was good. I think there is a fair chance you may like it... although I have just rewatched the first episode on YouTube and.. it is not a continuous riot of subtle and clever wordplay... so "It has its moments, 3.5/5".

[neverreal.livejournal.com]

I don't think men's privates are particularly attractive, (neither are women's, really, but at least they're not so...oh, what's the word. They're generally more 'hidden' I suppose) but I think men's bodies are much lovelier to look at than women's. (Depending on the man, of course).

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Your icon is so pretty. But y, women's genitals are kind of...a surprise--nothing much on the outside, lots of things on the inside. It's an interesting dichotomy.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

This is an almost total nonsequiter, but from your description, I think we can safely say that vaginas and donuts are polar opposites. Or are they? How do we love them both? Let us count the ways. (And be wary not to slop jelly all over our chins.)

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

:/

One is a pastry. One is a human reproductive organ. They're not polar opposites or polar anything. Even polar bears.

Feel free to compare the liver to, like, a grapefruit or something.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

I will! Liver (chopped) and grapefruit sound like a delicious Saturday-morning dish at a deli, and it should be named after celebrities, as all good bad-for-you sandwiches are. Therefore I declare that dish to be the Weisserwald. Alka-Seltzer comes 79 cents extra.