...with more modern eyes. In this case, as I am still on my Batman kick, this means the 1989 BATMAN movie, which I saw on original release in theaters (and loved).

( Do I still love it? More than I expected, to be honest. )

* Attempted to buy a house. Did not succeed, but there was a good week or so of emotional roller coaster before that got settled. I am not on enough medication for this.

* Took a Tumblr prompt ('spin this Wheel of Tropes twice! come up with a story that combines them!') and am trying to turn it into an Actual Story. Trying to figure out how much world-building I should do before I just start writing and let it be the tropiest trope ever to trope.

* Tried to read ARKHAM KNIGHT, which I think is an adaptation of a video game? Or is the video game an adaptation of the mini-series? Either way, too much fighting and too little character interaction for my personal taste. (And what character interaction there is...well, this features a version of Jason Todd who's a criminal mastermind before Batman picks him up off the street, and who gets brainwashed by the Joker rather than straight-up murdered by him. Not my preferred flavor of Jason, not nohow.)

* Participated in Knit-a-thon, despite the fact that I do not knit - and got a good bit done on my current embroidery project, so hooray for that.

How about y'all?

Three movies I've watched recently: THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, TOMB RAIDER, and the 2017 MUMMY. ...it's an interesting contrast.

THE MAN WHO LAUGHS showed with Live Music Accompaniment, which meant a band doing a sorta 80s new wave vibe? Which was interesting, but also a little disappointing - there's a few scenes where there's supposed to be live 1700s music, and they could have absolutely leaned into that, but alas, no.

( Do y'all care about spoilers for a film that came out in the 1920s? Probably not, but just in case, behind a cut it goes. )

Next up was 2018's TOMB RAIDER. Which is fun, in a 'please don't think too deeply about this' action movie of its specific sub-genre! A few shots that were absolutely straight from the games, a few puzzles ditto, a few 'whoops, you failed that combo' moments...I have not actually played the game, but it's not necessary to enjoy the film. It was blissfully undemanding.

Finally, we have 2017's THE MUMMY. This contains: several bits which were either an homage to (if you're feeling charitable) or stolen from (if you're not) the 1999 film; absolutely no care paid whatsoever to Actual Egyptian Theology (no seriously, Set is not the god of death) much less Actual Egyptian History; even less care paid to Actual Archaeological Procedure; several bits that I don't think were intended to be funny (but were!), including a heterosexual relationship that is Pastede On Yay (you have known this guy for two days non-contiguous, lady, why are you so invested, the sex can't possibly have been that good); and of course the famous attempt to launch Dark Universe (why not just reboot The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and be done with it). In conclusion, now I desperately want a good Mummy movie with a female mummy. Would settle for a good novel ditto. Suggestions welcomed.

(Y'all can pick more than one. But if they all tie, I will give you the most pitiful kitten eyes ever seen. Just so y'all are forewarned.)

Still not dead!

Am writing fanfic again, for the first time in ages. I'd forgotten how fun it can be.

Also got to see the eclipse! ...mostly. As is the nature of these things, we got a brief glimpse, and then the clouds rolled in. The most fascinating part, for me, wasn't the eclipse: it was the moments just before and just after, when the light shivered and rippled across the ground like water.

All to be found on Crunchyroll. Ready, set -

( Handyman Saitou In Another World )

( Moriarty the Patriot )

( Shadows House )

( RPG Real Estate )

( Laid Back Camp )

( Holmes of Kyoto )

( Chillin' in My 30s after Getting Fired from the Demon King's Army )

I am not claiming these are the best Christmas episodes, just to be clear. There are a lot of Christmas episodes of anime*, and I have not nearly watched all of them. Instead, call this a Christmas sampling, in order from 'do not need to have watched any of the series' to 'you will probably be lost without having watched the preceding episodes beforehand'.

( INITIAL D: THIRD STAGE - no really, I swear this is Christmas related. )

( SWORD ARTS ONLINE, ep. 3: Red Nosed Reindeer )

( CARD CAPTOR SAKURA, ep. 35: Sakura's Wonderful Christmas )

( YURI!!! ON ICE, ep. 10: Gotta Supercharge it! Pre-Grand Prix Final Special! )

( POLAR BEAR'S CAFE, ep. 37: Christmas Planning/Christmas Trouble )

*And by 'a lot', I mean 'a search on Google produced at least one master list of Christmas episodes in anime that has 300-odd series listed. And several of those have more than one Christmas episode.'

I have been on a murder mystery kick, so when Wife suggested that we watch a Silly Holiday Movie, I counter-offered with Silly Holiday Murder. Fortunately for us, Hallmark provided, at least on the front of Silly and Murder. (Sadly, apparently on Hallmark people only fall in love for the holidays, which seems fake, but okay.)

Which led us to the pair of Murder, She Baked movies that we could find on the Peacock app (A Peach Cobbler Mystery and A Deadly Recipe).

( Review under the cut. )

Let's kick it old school! Please note, I am talking about the first series, *not* any of the sequel series or the prequel series.

GENSOMADEN SAIYUKI - 2000-2001 (Japan), 2003-2009 (US), supposedly available streaming on Prime
Amount watched: Full series
Official description: (From Wikipedia) When chaos still reigned over the world, it was a country where humans and demons finally live in peace and harmony. However, somewhere in the west, someone is trying to resurrect an ancient evil demon and all the demons rediscover their warlike instincts by savagely attacking Men. This is where an unorthodox monk and gun enthusiast named Genjo Sanzo intervenes who, accompanied by three half-man, half-demon beings with powerful powers, is responsible for stemming the evil surge, they set off on a fabulous journey to solve this problem.

( Weeb rating )
( Ass rating )
( Shit rating )
( Violence rating )
( Crack rating )
( Actual opinion. Short version: there are reasons why so many yaoi fangirls went crazy over this. )

Crunchyroll has noticed that it's almost Halloween, and so has provided thematically appropriate rec lists for its viewers. Sometimes this works (the Junji Ito Collection), and sometimes it...doesn't (I don't care what the title is, Skull-Face Bookseller Honda-san is not actually Halloween material). Also they toss in Every Single Anime With A Talking Skeleton, which as we just discussed above is not actually always appropriate to the season, and Every Single Anime That Claims To Be About Witches, which honestly any list that includes both PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA and FLYING WITCH needs a tone check.

They also included MUSHI-SHI. ( Have I talked about MUSHI-SHI before? Review/discussion behind a cut just in case either way. )