A Mostly Complete Diary Of All The Media I Consume That I Bother To Write Down And Then Also Post On The Internet 🍽️😋

This cast is too good for this movie to have been this boring and uninspired.

SJP and Pierce Brosnan have no chemistry. Nothing happens or develops between them. They hardly even flirt.

It’s just an entirely boring movie. Nothing really happens. And if you’re going to skimp on the plot, you at least need to have some intrigue or some interesting relationships. But, nope!

Other talent:

• Olivia Mun is at times funny, but doesn’t really get room to shine
• Kinnear is good, but relegated to an almost tertiary role
• Waste of a Seth Myers. (Although to be fair, the only thing Seth Myers is really good at is smirking from behind a desk and staring into the camera with his eyeballs.)
• Waste of a Jane Curtin
• Waste of a Christina Hendricks
• Waste of a Kelsey Grammer. (Whoa, Kelsey Grammer is still alive?)

To be fair, I had kind of already made up my mind to not enjoy before even starting it because of the veiled misogyny of the title and of the premise. “I don’t know how you do it” classifies the role of a working mom, specifically, as something that isn’t attainable by a normal person, and shouldn’t be attempted. It’s a phrase that suggests the working mom is doing something extraordinary, outside the bounds of expectation, and suggests that what she’s doing is too much, and that she would be better off deciding to just be a mom. Better just stick to the woman work.

And sure enough, even when SJP’s character does successfully manage to balance her work, her romantic relationship, and parenthood, her final reward is that her husband discredits her professional accomplishments and admiringly, insultingly, instead calls her “a juggler” as though she isn’t actually capable of having a multi-faceted identity after all.

This is very silly and unserious.

As somebody who was an adult when minecraft first came out, I have obviously only played it as an adult. And I sometimes forget that the target audience seems to be 6 - 8 year olds. That was what this movie felt like at least. I held out hope that there would be something there for adult fans, but it was just really juvenile throughout. Also Jack Black is just kind of scary looking now.

Skip this one unless you have a kid in tow.

This is a story that, whether you know it or not, has penetrated and permeated our collective consciousness. Shadows of it are present in all media. It is consistently rated as one the best movies of all time. It has spawned remakes and countless tributes.

I’ve never seen it before now.

But I just finished reading Stephen King’s Wolves of the Callah which is as clear a tribute to Seven Samurai as there has ever been: a small town is regularly raided by the wolves, and hires the gunslingers to protect them and fight off the bandits. Maybe it’s more accurate to say it is a tribute to Magnificent Seven, which is just Seven Samurai with gunslingers in the Old West.

There was a little bit of technical learning to get this movies. I found it on archive.org but the file I downloaded lacked subtitles. So I found it on opensubtitles.com, and then read the man page of mpv to learn how to load up a subtitle file and sync it up. And then it was all ready to go!

This is the first Kurosawa film I’ve ever seen. I know he’s supposed to be one of the greatest filmmakers to ever live. And I can see it. The framing and lighting is really good.

https://archive.org/details/seven-samurai-1954-1080p-blu-ray-yts.-mx

https://www.opensubtitles.com/en/movies/1954-seven-samurai/

This was a fantastic movie. Really strong ending. “We won! Or did we. And at what cost.”

I picked this up because a game I like, Cloud Empress, calls itself an “expansive Nausicaa-inspired campaign setting” and I didn’t know what that meant. Except now I do.

https://cloudempress.com/

The movie was good!

In retrospect, the poison swamp/jungle from Crystalis (1990) for NES must have been a direct reference to this movie, with its poison plants and poison insects. The final boss, the giant insect, even resembles the Ohm.

Wow Ralphie Glick’s abduction was awesome. Showing Strayker nab him in the woods was spooky. And showing his view from inside the sack was hella spooky. Didn’t get a great look at him, but looks like Barlow is going to be a nosferatu again.

Callahan is cast better than in the 1979 version. I like him a little older and a little more haggard.

The drive-in scene was short but went a long way to capturing the small-town drama that was the backbone of the book. All the little people in their little cars with their little problems.

Most sunsets shown in the film are bright and vibrant. Colorful. The viewer’s eye is drawn to it, to the significance of the coming dark, the coming of the creatures.

Barlow speaks in this film, which is more than he did in the 1979 version. But he’s still kind of a nosferatu monster.

Some of the camera work here is really great.

Oh man the drive-in full of cars because the town has a shortage of coffins. That’s great. In fact the whole final showdown at the drive-in is pretty great.

This was a good, classic vampire movie. It still didn’t hit on the small town cruelty that the novel did, and maybe that’s just not possible in film. And I don’t like Barlow being such a monster. But if you haven’t read the book, you wouldn’t know to miss those things, and I don’t think the movie would suffer for it. 5/5 stars!

Miranda fucked a nun lol. The last thing I saw Rosie O'Donnel in was Meet the Fosters, which was a very different role. And also almost a decade ago. Funny how time changes people. …Wait, that was it? What a waste of a Rosie.

One thing I have long thought about is how when represented in film and television, the male nude form is generally always shown for comedic value or for absurdity, and the female nude form is generally always shown as a sexual object. And one thing I really appreciate about Cynthia Nixon is her willingness to flip that. Miranda doing a naked pratfall out of a tanning booth is not sexy, and is objectively funny. Miranda standing naked in Carrie’s hallway in the middle of the night is not sexy, and is just kind of absurd. This is a novel, reclaimed portrayal of the naked female body. It can be funny, silly, or absurd. It doesn’t have to be just solely about sex.

I don’t mind the ending. I think it’s fine that Carrie ends up on her own. 50 years old is not too late to discover who you are. Everything else kind of ends mid-scene.

It was fine.

Sony Animation is going some awesome stuff, and this is the best of their best. Brilliant color and design. Hella catchy music. Tons of authentic Korean flavor. (Which I know because I watched this movie only after seeing a lecture on its Korean symbolism given by a local museum curator.) And just enough anime absurdity, (chibi faces, etc.) to be funny without making it feel overly anime-ish.

The overall struggle is fighting perfection and loving your whole self as shown in the conflict between Aunt Celine’s “your faults and fears must never be seen” versus the Tonic Man’s “in order to cure a part we must understand the whole.” And Rumi’s demonic heritage obviously.

Killer tunes. It’s just all the way good! 5/5 stars!

Just finished the book and wanted to see what television/movies had to say about the story.

This movie is actually a 3 hour miniseries staring Starsky of Starsky and Hutch.

So far the pacing on this is very slow, but also it somehow doesn’t have the space to include all of ths small town relationships that make the book so good.

Turning Barlow into a mindless nosferatu predator was one of the worst decisions that could possibly have been made.

It was pretty okay! The vampires pawing at windows was a little over the top.

I don’t know if it’s possible for a movie to capture all of the little small town vignettes that are present in the book. Even if it does clock in at over 3 hours.

There are two things to consider here.

First is that this is the story of three generations of women trying to relate to and love one another. And that’s nice.

Second, it feels like a struggle to fit that story into a nostalgic formula. Okay we gotta have ghosts and weird deaths, and we gotta have sandworms, and Harry Belafonte, and we gotta have plenty of visual gags.

It was a little chaotic. There’s the three generations of Deetzes brought together by the death of the family patriarch. (Jeff Jones’s likeness was used several times but Jones himself was, I assume, not invited back on account of being a pedophile and a sex offender and all.) And there’s the teenage love/betrayal story that drives a lot of the plot. And Willem Dafoe’s not-a-cop law enforcement angle that felt simply necessary for plot advancement and not interesting or funny. To say nothing of Dolores, Beetlejuice’s wife, who did …. absolutely nothing? She wandered around and killed ghosts. (Including Danny DeVito.) But she never shared a scene with any other main character until the final confrontation, only to be immediately swallowed by a sand worm. Oh yeah, and the where-is-Astrid’s-dad plot. We never found out why Lydia (and now Astrid) cannot see him when they can see other ghosts. So it was a lot of puzzle pieces that kind of fit together. But again, it’s kind of a lot. It’s been many years since I saw the original, but from what I recall the plot was: dead couple want to haunt the new family who moved into their house; Beetlejuice wants to marry Lydia and get to live in the world of the living. Much simpler.

The most random thing that stuck with me: the cop character at one point says to “comb the sands of Titan” if you need to, and then when Astrid and Lydia land on the sand worm planet, Astrid points out Saturn looming near in the distance and says, “we must be on one of its moons … the afterlife is so random sometimes!” So sand worms canonically come from Titan, Saturn’s largest moon? Random indeed. I don’t know why we needed to establish that so firmly in the lore, but here we are.

Oh and the music. Day-O was a pretty nice hat tip. But the Right Here Waiting For You? And the Soul Train numbers? And the way way way too long MacArthur Park number? It felt like they ran out of movie and had to fill some space. I mean, I guess it’s tribute to Day-O. But that was way better, and this was bad.

I feel like the recurring Beetlejuice infant—especially with it showing up again in the final scenes—leaves the door open for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: Family Values. But, I don’t know if the world is ready for that.

Anyway, it was good! 5/5 stars!

How much lying, cheating, stealing, and murder can you get away with? Can you justify in the name self-preservation and most of all in the name of protecting the ones you love?

This show has always felt like two different shows layered on top of each other: Ginny’s My So Called Life teen drama, and Georgia’s Desperate Housewives domestic murder drama. They’ve been slowly closing that gap, and this is the season that Ginny steps fully realized into Georgia’s world by shouldering responsibility for her mother’s actions and taking extreme measures to protect her.

The whole season I couldn’t wait to see how Georgia would get out of this one. But she did! And it was pretty satisfying.

Max stepped into the spotlight a little more as a more complex character. The one brief scene where we get to hear her inner monologue was one of the best moments this season. We get to see her not merely as an over-the-top dramatic character, but as somebody who cares deeply for her friends and family and struggles with focus and attention and obsessive compulsion. (See: the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it obsessively turning the lights on and off. “Wrong, do it right or everybody you love will die.”)

I honestly don’t know if we need any more G&G after this. Ginny both avoided and embraced Georgia’s life by not becoming a teenaged mother, and by doing dirty underhanded manipulative things to protect her family. She is and isn’t Georgia: she is Ginny.

Meghann Fahy is great in everything she does. As is Julianne Moore of course. Milly Alcock is creepy as hell because she looks like a 10 year old child.

A lot of this show makes more sense if you know it is based on a play. A lot of it is very choreographed.

Michaela was never really a bad guy. Simone kind of was but was also a victim of her fucked up childhood, and was basically groomed for her final role in the show. Devon is complicated. Shackled by her father, recklessly sexual, lonely, can’t accept Simone’s independence.

I don’t like how Peter Kell is basically a minor character until the last half of the last episode, and then decides everybody’s fate. Some kind of god character.

There’s no clear good guy and no clear bad guy here. It’s very muddy and mysterious. Life is unfair.

Phenomenal. Uzo Aduba is great.

Perfect modern cozy closed-room murder mystery with an underestimated, eccentric, savant detective.

Only quibble is with the final episode. The final reveal was a little long-winded, and went on a little long.

I was a little disappointed that the killer wasn’t somebody that I suspected. It’s a super hard line to walk as a writer: if you’re going to have a twist or murder or something, you want it to be telegraphed a little bit because a totally random surprise is not interesting. But you also don’t want it to be too obvious, because that risks being predictable and boring. If you’re going to err to one side or the other though, you should err toward obvious because the viewer wants to feel clever.

It also leaned a little hard on the whole birding thing in the final moments. “You have to ask yourself the question that every birder is obsessed with: WHY!” Mind you, I’m not a birder. But that doesn’t seem like a core quality of a birder. Patience, keen observation, meticulous attention to detail, tenaciousness, etc. These are all qualities of a birder. But unless I’m missing something, I can’t imagine a birder in the field despairing WHY OH WHY … is this bird here? Do I not see a bird?

Al Franken playing a senator is pretty funny.

I was shocked to learn that the original actor portraying A. B. Wynter died irl halfway through shooting and had to be recast. Talk about life imitating art.

The final scene was especially mystifying. I guess Jane Curtain was just entitled to a few more seconds of screen time. There’s no other reason for that to have been the season closer.

I caught a couple of easter eggs and hat tips. Such as Cupp referring to the “curious incident” of the dog in the nighttime. I’m not a huge mystery buff so I’m sure there were plenty of others that I missed.

Anyway this show was fantastic. Highly recommend. 5/5 stars!

Tina Fey’s television adaptation of Alan Alda’s 1981 film.

Practically perfect.

It is very funny and very tragic.

The last and final season of the series.

I’m sure Penn has mixed feelings about this. I think he has long been flummoxed by fan support of Joe. “No, he is the villain! He is a terrible person!” Allegedly he almost declined the role in the first place because he didn’t want to glorify stalking and, you know, murder.

Bronte’s turn was awesome. I think it was telegraphed a little bit, but it was still done really well and I liked it.

Six episodes in currently, and I don’t think we’re done yet with Maddie and Rae. I expect there to be another twist with them at some point.

Uncertain so far whether Joe will kill Katie (and maybe Teddy?)

Also curious about the ending for Joe. Killed? Life in prison? Escapes to the Caribbean with Robin Lord Taylor?

Okay, second half of the season: episodes 7 - 10.

7 - 9 keep up the pace and the tension and the suspense. It’s a little over the top as Joe Goldberg is kind of a global phenomenon at this point, and there’s more than a couple killers on the cast now.

Joe is calm and controlled in the first four seasons. This season he is prone to fits and outbursts as he hurdles forward toward the conclusion. I think we are meant to see the bestial side of him, the vampire Ezra from his writing. Him losing his son’s affection is kind of hamfisted in delivery, but no less heartbreaking.

Anna Camp as Maddie and Reagan Lockwood is the breakout star of the season. She is at turns believably vile, hilarious, and tragic.

Madeline Brewer as Bronte / Louise is fine. She’s kind of nervous and weird with a tinge of terror, which is what you want from the character.

Episode 10, the finale, is disappointing and a shift in tone and content from the rest of the season. It’s like the writers hand-wave a bunch of stuff so that they can tee up a genre shift (survival horror slasher flick) and a final confrontation (final girl in the cabin in the woods). I would have let Kate and Joe both die in the fire, and let Bronte have chosen for it to happen. That’s nice and tidy and satisfying. Instead Bronte is shot, drowned, throws herself from a second story window, and then shoots Joe in the dick. Ridiculous.

The final scene is Joe in a box (prison) which is satisfying. And the final lines are certainly just a self-insert for Penn as he looks at the camera and addresses the viewers, “the problem is you.” But here’s the thing. Penn would be right if he was addressing people idolizing and fawning over some kind of actual serial killer. But Joe Goldberg is a fictional character who is designed to be engrossing enough to sell seasons of television. He is captivating by design. Yes he is a villain. But also, yes we love to watch him.

It was fine!

This show is a consistently good thriller. Season 1 is possibly must-see television, and it possibly peaks at Season 4. You can honestly skip season 5. 5/5 stars!

Oh I didn’t know Connie Britton was in this. The one true scream queen. This, and American Horror Story? C'mon.

Excellent reboot. Dark and scary. Hits all the right notes.

Leans really hard into the child molestation, which I know is what Wes Craven wanted for the character originally. Everything was tinged with sexuality which, though uncomfortable, I think hits all the right notes.

The thing about sleep overcoming you against your will, and your body betraying you, just fits with this particular predator. And I feel like it justifies and avenges Freddy II honestly, which seems to mostly be about awakening to an unwanted truth about ones sexuality, being betrayed by ones own desires.

This also does the creeping horror correctly, and is why Freddy will always be a better monster than a Jason or a Michael. He stalks you like sleep, and the longer you avoid him the more bewildered and wild and jumpy and untrusting you become. Just like you become when you start to break down after sleep deprivation. When done best, it’s a slow burn.

Gratuitous cash grab with very little to redeem itself.

Just a straight up monster movie, kind of a disaster film. Just slashing and murders and explosions. Not much “there” there.

Fantastic!

A good breath of fresh air and a return to form after the cartoonish, idiotic buffoonery of Freddy’s Dead. A darker, meaner Freddy. No quips or one-liners this time.

Not since the first Elm Street have we had such a taste of creeping horror and slow madness.

We don’t even see Freddy properly until an hour into the movie. He’s just always creeping and lurking in the background.

The writing is literally on the wall from the first moments when the wall splits during the earthquake leaving claw-like slashes.

The meta-story is fun. Heather and Joe and Robert playing their true selves. Several call backs to the original movies. “You’re all my children now.” The phone tongue haha. Babysitter Julie’s death is pretty much an exact reenactment of Tina’s from the first movie.

The layers of inception get deep by the time they’re playing themselves in a movie about making a movie, and find themselves trapped in / living out that movie’s script and also reliving the first movie. Nested dream logic.

It was all kinds of funny when Julie punched out the nurse and then Heather later elbowed her in the gut and knocked her down again.

We kind of already had the creepy kid trope in Dream Child, but it still works. Potentially better than Dream Child.

The descent into Freddy Hell or whatever it is at the end is totally mind blowing.

The most disappointing thing is Freddy’s makeup. He looks weird. Kind of clean and symmetrical.

It was super good! Contender for best in the series.

This is hands down the worst movie in the franchise. Worst characters, worst acting, worst dialog, worst premise, worst story.

Worst cameos. (Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold.) (Okay Johnny Depp was alright.)

It opened with a strangely video game intro: ten years from now Freddy has killed every child and teenager in Springwood, Ohio.

Stuff just happens: I don’t know why they go to Springwood. I don’t know how they learn about Freddy in the first place. Tracy can just dream master + dream warrior because of “concentration and meditation?”

Carlos’s death was pretty stupid. Kruger is over the top campy with his nails on the chalkboard. Just really of painful to watch.

Spencer’s video game scene and death was elite mega advanced stupid.

The ending was filmed for 3D and was full of so much gimmickry that it was hard to watch.

Freddy is a buffoon. Long gone is any semblance of the creeping horror of the first movie, or the psychosexual tension of the second movie, or the coherent storytelling of the third and fourth movies. This is just a campy parody, and an embarrassing ending to the franchise.

The experience is as though the director had a couple of good storyboards but couldn’t really combine them into a coherent movie. The aerial shot in the opening scene in the asylum (and seeing Robert Englund out of makeup for the first time), and the Mc Escher geometries of the final confrontation were both neat. But they don’t make a movie. The death scenes were edited / censored so much I wasn’t even really sure what I was watching half the time: I still don’t really know what happened to Danny on the motorcycle; I would have missed what happened to Gretta if I hadn’t read wikipedia. There was the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it story line of the medical doctors and Danny’s parents colluding to prove that Alice is unfit to keep the child, and must therefore surrender it to Danny’s parents. That never went anywhere but I guess did establish that Alice is super protective of the baby and wants to keep it.

The theme of motherhood and growing up kind of meanders and doesn’t really land. Freddy being born of Amanda (what a nasty little fetal Voldemort puppet he was), and then symbolically born of Alice, and then un-born back into Amanda again was kind of.. I don’t know what. Time traveling unborn Jacob was just a little bit interesting. Didn’t land the spook factor the way he could have. And when he turned into Freddy Jacob, I just laughed at the absurdity.

Anyway, I guess the point is that the Elm Street kids are grown up now. I know Freddy kind of dies at the end of every movie, but this one really felt like a finale. This could have been the final movie in the original series. But there is one left!

Watched a couple episodes of this, and thought it was really fun! Never made it too far into it though. It’s fun.

This is the first NOES that I actually remember. Not that I ever watched it. Rather, I remember seeing the cover of the movie at Movie Gallery or some other movie rental place and being mesmerized by the image of Freddy combing through the strings of his ground beef face, and his one big disembodied eye. I was six years old and had never seen a horror movie, or anything like this.

So here we go!

First of all, everybody from the first movie dies. Kincaid’s up first. Wait why did his dog piss fire on Freddy’s grave in the junk yard? Now Joey. Wait isn’t this the second time that Freddy tricked him by pretending to be a hot naked lady? C'mon Joey. Then Kristen. Sad!

Now all of the new kids die.

So here are some things that are interesting about this movie.

1. Alice being set up early on in a very subtle way to be the Dream Master because she often gets trapped in DAY dreams of her own making.

2. The mirror motif feels cool, but also like something somebody made up when they were like, Let’s have Freddy be killed by looking in a mirror and being destroyed by a reflection of his own evil. And then trying to weave mirror symbolism back throughout the film. Alice refuses to look in the mirror but eventually gains strength by doing so. And when Freddy looks in the mirror he dies. Also strong Alice Through The Looking Glass vibes.

3. Alice slowly absorbing the powers of her friends is also a direct mirror to Freddy absorbing their souls. She is really meant to be a mirror image of him.

Debbie’s transformation into a cockroach is probably the most gruesome death in the entire series to date. Big yikes.

I also think this is a turning point for Freddy’s character. Early on, his motivation can be explained as killing the original Elm Street kids, the children of the adults who murdered him. But in this film, he finally kills them all, and presumably cannot enter anybody’s dreams any more. Hence needing Alice to pull people into her dreams for him to kill. So there is no longer any justification for his kills other than that he loves killing. There’s no more revenge to be had.

Also, good job incorporating a time loop. Love that.

Soundtrack:

• https://youtu.be/yFhx6FLxGxQ

Wait why didn’t I review this earlier? This was my second time watching it.

That opening scene with Freddy making the glove is in retrospect absolutely iconic.

Check out baby Johnny Depp in his first film role!

Can’t stomach how Nancy keeps calling her mother “mother” over and over again.

Actually I think I remember, I think I mostly stopped watching this the first time after Tina got killed because I deemed it too violent and misogynistic.

Anyway, this is a good enough movie to kick off the series.

Hey look it’s Laurence Fishburne!

Hey look Nancy’s back from the first movie! It’s like Wes Craven it trying to estblish a continuity between I and III, and pretend II never happened.

Freddy’s a huge snake! Freddy’s a claymation doll, a puppeteer! Freddy’s a television! Freddy is a sexy nurse! (The first nudity in the franchise was the gym coach’s naked ass in Part 2. This was the first “sexy” nudity in the series.) Freddy is a spooky skeleton!

I feel like Fishburne’s is the only good acting in the movie, the only performance that feels natural. But that might be some kind of bias because I know that he goes on to be successful in tv and film. I’m sure a bunch of others are fine actors, but just young. Johnny Depp wasn’t that good in the first film after all.

Oh shit Freddy origin story: Amanda Krueger got raped by a hundred hundred crazy inmates.

The dream warrior concept is really cool in theory. I want to see the modern action / fantasy version of this movie.

Oh shit Nancy dead.

Oh shit the nun was the ghost of Freddy’s mother.

Okay so there’s a lot to love about NOES3. There’s the return of Nancy, Freddy’s origin, the dream warriors, an FX budget. Big fan. Best line of the movie: “What’s the matter? TONGUE TIED?” 5/5 stars!

This is without a doubt the most homoerotic slasher film of the 80s. It is truly glorious.

Allegedly the slasher film that started it all. Or at least, that introduced the hulking silent stalker archetype that we would later see further developed by Halloween and Friday the 13th.

There’s something about Leatherface though. He’s not a supernatural threat. He’s just a guy, and I don’t think he has much innate killer instinct as much as he’s either carrying out instructions from his hillbilly cannibal family, or freaked out by trespassing teenagers invading his home. And he doesn’t have the mental capacity to question the instructions or manage his fear in a way that doesn’t involve chainsaws.

Put it this way: Jason and Michael are supernatural incarnations of evil. Leatherface seems like a tool that can be manipulated. Much like a chainsaw.

I like how the hitchhiker got brought back in. Chekhov’s Little Weirdo. The ending was chaotic.

5/5 stars!

This show is so not good that it is actually bad!

The original series was barely good, and this one has none of its charm.

The lead is uninteresting and not compelling. The sexual tension with the girl lawyer upstairs is awkward. McDermitt looks like a fucking idiot with his beard and haircut. You get whiplash from all the flashbacks because they are not distinguished enough from the current timeline; not enough sepia. Introducing the ghost of main guy’s little brother as his conscience or whatever is interesting enough, but then he never shows up again for the rest of the show? The opposing lawyer is comically evil. And when the good guy wins his closing argument is shockingly all about what a good lawyer he is.

Rubbish! 5/5 stars!

Watching this movie on the amtrak bus going from Atlanta to Birmingham.

It is a disaster / action movie.

Here is how you enjoy this movie: if all you want from a movie experience is to see people fall down and buildings to explode, then you will like this.

If you want anything else from a movie such as character development, plot, etc. Then you will not like this movie.

It made me think a lot about genre fiction / movies. This is probably a varietally correct disaster movie. If it was a comedy you would need madcap mayhem and wacky misunderstandings. If it were a romance you would need longing and bad timing and wacky misunderstandings. But this is a disaster movie. All you need is explosions and people falling down. So it’s probably fine. Just not my jam.

Also, Helicopter Pilot is a funny choice for action lead vocation in this film. Because it’s just a lot of shots of Dwayne Johnson dramatically sitting. And of dashboard gauges going too high, or too low.

5/5 stars!

I just found this movie after just reading that Hunter Schafer was issued a male passport after Donald Trump issued some kind of transphobic executive order. Ain’t that some shit.

The movie was good. The screaming woman was appropriately spooky. The little sister was really good. The scientist bad guy was kinda meh.

5/5 stars!

What is up with people (men) who want to have sex with other people (women) who are childlike? Max and Duncan both immediately want to get with that idiot babywoman and it’s kinda gross! I guess it’s about control and wanting to own and dominate innocence. Some kind of sexual god complex. (See Hot Frosty for a gender-swapped example of this trope.)

This movie is visually arresting. the scenery on the ship, right before bella discovers unhappiness, is almost painfully surreal.

It’s interesting to me to think about why this story is novel and interesting. Growing up from childhood/infancy into adulthood is something everybody does. I guess it’s more of a fish-out-of-water story. Bella could just as easily have been an alien from outer space or something, unaccustomed to your fleshy human bodies and your confusing rules of human society. Or an unfrozen caveman lawyer or something. She is the mirror reflecting ourselves back to us.

Anyway it was great! 5/5 stars!

It was okay!

Renee Rap leaves early on and then we don’t talk about her any more.

In exchange we get two new girls: virgin stereotype Kacey and gay British alcoholic Taylor.

Lila gets to have some great moments this season.

Kimberly gets a lot of spotlight with Tig Notaro and the nude pic scandal and then the protest at the finale.

Bela just kinda Belas around, dates a slut shamer, and comes out as bisexual.

Whitney’s sports scandal could have been a lot worse. When she got the steroids in her knee I was like, this is literally the beginning of Friday Night Lights.

It was solid medium okay! 5/5 stars!

This is season 2 of Legion

Starts with a dance off between David and Oliver and Lenny which is really fun to watch. I feel like there is a lot of dancing and music to enjoy in this show. There’s Lenny’s big number. Oliver has a little dance sequence in the ice cube. Dancing (and not touching) is one of the first activities that Syd and David enjoy together.

This season is really great but stops just short of being magnificent. The introduction of the narrator is fantastic, explaining how neuroses and bad ideas happen and take hold and spread. I feel like it’s trying to do for mental health what, say, The Good Place did for ethics: uses the show as a vehicle to show and explain why people act irrationally and what can happen when they are motivated by fear. It’s not afraid to really take its time and dive deeply into the minds of its characters and turn them inside out, into case studies, on the way to resolving the plot.

Visually really fun to watch. Mind bending, surreal, dreamy, and trippy.

Jermaine is low key the highlight of the show. Anachronistic, in this world but not of it.

Dan Stevens’s David might be the worst part of the show. I just hate the way he looks when he does his evil HERE’S JOHNNY face, or his stupid overpowered Aphex Twin face. So cheesy.

I kept waiting for something a little bit more to be done with the Mi-Go monk beyond just being a monk with a secret. Because Mi-Go are an alien horror from the lovecraft mythos.

Anyway, it’s great! 5/5 stars!

Why not a new super hero show?

This is Legion, the son of Charles Xavier who has dissociative identity disorder, and every personality has a different super power. Which means that this kid is Crazy Jane from Doom Patrol!

Kind of an interesting trope really. We don’t really see too many other mental disorders glamorized to the point of creating super heroes. There’s nobody on TV so autistic that they become a superhero. There’s nobody with so much anxiety that they solve crimes. Actually I guess there are some high anxiety ASD detectives. Like Monk (never watched) and Morgan from High Potential (just watched Season 1)

But off the top of my head, with DID there’s Crazy Jane, Moon Knight, and now here’s Legion.

Whoo hoo mental illness!

UPDATE:

Just finished this season.

So they changed David’s character to have paranoid schizophrenia instead of dissociate identity disorder. Which is okay I guess. They still stay close to the original characterization by giving him a headmate. So it’s not like he’s the only personality in his head after all.

Sidebar: closer to having DID is Loudermilk. Two people sharing one body. They made a point of identifying Kerri as native, which makes me wonder whether they were trying to evoke any kind of two-spirit association since the two of them are different gendered. I don’t know enough about that tradition to make a guess though.

Anyway, it really does feel like a season of Doom Patrol with all of the trippy reality warping and memories-within-memories and astral selves and stuff. But a much more serious Doom Patrol with much less haha.

I like the story and the effects.

David’s tantrums and his overpowered glower were unpleasant to watch. Jermain’s Oliver is a wacky stuck-in-time Austin Powers-esque sort of deus-ex-machina thingie but still very fun to watch.

All in all I like it a quite a bit. There are only two more seasons and then it got canceled. So I think I’ll finish it! 5/5 stars!

It’s Sandra Bullock being all southern, and Mae Whitman being a little baby.

I was very disappointed to learn that Sandra Bullock’s character is named Birdee and not Hope. But I guess you can’t call it Birdee Floats. Although they do. Haven’t you ever seen a duck?

At home we had a pet skunk. Mama used to call it Justin Matisse. Do you think that’s just a coincidence? All day long she would to scream, “You stink Justin Matisse!” Then one day she just picked up a club and killed it.

Mae Whitman’s Bernice was kind of the star of this show I think

Beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up.

You have to wrap the movie with this quote in order for it to make sense or to be tolerable, really. Because it’s all middle. It ends right at a new beginning for Birdee and you don’t get to see what happens.

It was pretty good. Good soundtrack. 5/5 stars!

This is a very scary show!

It is just chock full of ghosts!

I got to around episode 6 and thought to myself, this must be about finished. But no! Six more episodes to go! How much more can this family take?

The answer is: not much. The house broke them. But then they kind of had a weird, twisted happy ending anyway?

Violet’s reveal threw me. Did not see that coming!

Can’t tell if I’m supposed to feel sympathy for Tate. Dude is truly a monster I think. A sad, lonely monster. But a monster nonetheless.

I’d watch another season! 5/5 stars!

David Schwimmer!

Little tendrils growing out of Planthony’s arm is nightmare fuel. In fact I cannot tell you how many times I had dreamed about exactly that.

https://tilde.team/~dozens/dreams/15.html

Surprisingly more scary than I thought it would be. Thought it would be a little more campy and a little more juvenile.

Did a real tour of the classics. I feel like I kind of sort of recognized several different classic stories from the story.

Love how it started off with a small, local mystery and quickly escalated during the last 2 episodes to fighting aliens and saving the planet. In fact, that’s actually how I think the perfect ttrpg / D&D campaign should go: try to solve the mystery of the missing kids / the weird plant, encounter a swamp thing and a ghost car along the way, and then ultimately save the world from being destroyed by an external threat. Call it a day.

Cruising movies on archive.org

This is an exploitation B Film. A variety of the Women In Prison subgenre, except all the women are in a mental asylum.

This is mostly nudity and strangulation and knife fights.

Here are a couple of the random plot elements that don’t really go anywhere:

• MacGuffin: There’s some doctor who has some incriminating “papers.” The heroine and her mom have these papers I guess? They could put the doctor away, which brings us to…

• The Killer: Shows up and kills the mom. Then poses as an orderly at the asylum to keep tabs on heroine and finish the job

• Amnesia: After witnessing her mother’s murder the heroine loses all her memories

• Hideous Medical Experiments: a doctor experiments on the patients trying to perfect a chemical lobotomy. It leaves most of the women crazy, or dead. Which brings us to…

• Necrophilia: Mentioned a couple times but mostly glossed over. But the doctor gets really turned on when the patients die.

It was not really worth the time I guess. Not that great. 5/5 stars!

https://archive.org/details/hellhole.-1985.1080p.-blu-ray.-h-264.-aac-rarbg

Learned of this movie from mastodon:

https://polymaths.social/@solusspider/statuses/01JKH9QKD8K5RJKZ37TDH59AFT

The special effects for magic include: zooming in on somebody’s eyes while a high pitched buzz plays; and some glowy hands / eyes. And Strange’s trip to the astral plane was super trippy and kind of like the Dr Who title sequence? Morgan Le Fey and Wong have a force lightning battle; that was pretty cool.

This was definitely a made-for-TV movie meant to be the pilot for a TV series. Which means that there’s no real resolution.

Le Fey passes up several opportunities to take out Strange because she has a gentlemanly lady boner for him. And Strange manages to accidentally defeat her by accepting his place under Lindmer which shoots him back through time I think? Le Fey is defeated but immediately comes back and is established as the antagonist for the show. And Strange is like, aw shucks I know magic tee hee.

It’s corny and it doesn’t deliver on its promise, and it’s a shame the TV show was never picked up because it could have been real good. 5/5 stars!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077469/

https://archive.org/details/doctor-strange-1978

This is basically Castle meets Psyche: a tagalong consultant with super Noticing powers baffles career detectives with her unorthodox but highly effective work.

I think the hook is supposed to be that Morgan is a single mother with three kids who is looking for her lost lover, the father of her first child. This is the overarching plot that ties the episodes together. Otherwise it’s a Mystery Of The Week kind of format.

The episode where the terrorists take over the police station is a radical break from the otherwise lighthearted tone. It was scary!

In general there are sometimes some holes in the writing, or they try to gloss over or refuse to elaborate on something obvious, and that’s annoying. But yeah it’s fun! 5/5 stars!

This is a movie with Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau about pregnancy and having babies

it is pretty funny!

we watched it because Library Bingo had a square for streaming a movie on Kanopy, so that’s what we did

i recommend it if you want a story about two ladies being best friends and trying to define what family is and what motherhood is. it is very much Ilana Glazer humor so if you liked Broad City then give this a go and you will like it! 5/5 stars

Started watching this because we just finished Good Trouble. It’s okay! Pretty cute, pretty sappy. Can’t really make myself believe that Callie is supposed to be this real delinquent. She looks young. Marianna looks exactly the same. The moms are fun to watch.

Watched the first couple episodes last night. Callie, Marianna, and the moms are little baby people!

Waiting for it to hook me. It’s not very interesting yet. Just a very 00s/10s teen high school drama.

Update: stopped watching. It’s a little too Teen Drama, and the writing is sparse, full of holes. Pass!

Davia is still kind of annoying, and so is Dennis.

Gael is still trying to figure his shit out.

Luca is still a wee little baby.

I still love Mariana and Evan.

Okay so I’m pleased with the resolution of the current story lines.

But I HATED the expository dinner scene where everybody just goes around the table and tells us how their story ends. Except for Kelly. She doesn’t get an ending, because she never got her own story line to start with. But yeah, what an insult of a wrap. I don’t know what else the writers should do when they suddenly find out the show is being canceled. I almost wonder whether it would feel better to just end on a dang cliffhanger. But I doubt that would feel super good either. Maybe better than this weaksauce ending though.

It was okay!

It seemed like this is supposed to document the transition from the 80s to the 90s or something. It came out in ‘93. They make a big deal about him being out of the dating scene for what, nine? ten years? Things are different now!

The most remarkable thing is that Annie (Meg Ryan) is such a creep! Total stalker.

More remarkable than that though is the fact that for the entire movie, the romantic leads never share a scene opposite each other until the final moments of the movie. And then it ends. Right at the beginning of their relationship. Neat writing, that.

Recurring references to An Affair To Remember makes me want to see that.

Having now seen both classic Hanks/Ryan 90s romcoms, I gotta say that they’re both a little disquieting. This one because Annie’s a stalker, and You’ve Got Mail because Hanks’s character is a gaslighting tool.

Okay here we go.

The first two seasons of Killing Eve are some of the best television out there. You should absolutely watch them.

The show starts to lose its way in Season 3, and Season 4 is an absolute travesty.

Season 3 is nice enough. You can take it or leave it.

But seriously don’t even watch Season 4.

Eve is practically relegated to a secondary character as the focus shifts to Carolyn and Konstantin. And the finale, Villanelle’s fate, is an absolute slap in the face, and one of the most egregious instances of the Bury Your Gays trope that I’ve ever seen.

When I learned after the fact that there is meant to be a Carolyn spin-off series, Season 4 made more sense to me: it was just a long ass pilot episode, and a disservice to a show that soared so high at its beginning.

This is weird. It’s as though Apple wanted to create a flagship show for Apple TV and threw as much money as it could at this. It’s kind of distracting how many people are in this. It feels like they wanted to write a Sorkin-esque behind-the-scenes show about the morning news, but didn’t do it as good. I’m sure it gets better. We’ll see.

Update: Didn’t care to finish it before canceling my Apple TV subscription, so I guess we’ll never know!

This was so good!

It took at least an episode for it to expose itself for what it really is: a nearly slapstick funny (very) dark comedy about a series of failed attempts to murder a man whose sadism and cruelty start out a 10 at the beginning of the show and only take off from there.

It is so very Irish. I don’t think I would have caught all the dialog without captions.

The ending was great! No reason for a season 2 as far as I’m concerned. Any subsequent episodes are non-canon.

weird, sparse, creepy, roomy, expansive

only got 2 episodes in before canceling Apple TV, so didn’t get very far into it. I liked it though. It was captivating and arresting.

maybe i’ll come back to it one day.

This show seems to just keep getting better and better.

Segel is still a joy. Ford seems to be loosening up and getting more comfortable in his role. Williams still makes Gabby feel like the breakout character in this show.

Surprise cameo by Colby Smothers was a delight!

This season revolves around Alice seeking out a relationship with the guy who killed her mom, and then absolutely insisting that Jimmy have a relationship with him as well. Which is entirely unreasonable! I didn’t like this thread.

5/5 stars!

Final entry in this year’s Crappy Holiday Movie series.

This is the one with Heather Graham and Brandy. It was pretty good!

The funniest part of the whole movie is how the husband’s big, dark secret is that he has been secretly sending out tacky christmas letters every year, even though Heather Graham hates those things. Hilarious!

They tried to write the children as funny, precocious, and cute. But they were just really annoying.

You can watch this and have a good time. 5/5 stars!

Out of this world.

For some reason I was skeptical of Ariana’s Glinda going into it, but she absolutely killed it. Her scooting around on her back during Popular absolutely floored me for some reason.

I had no prior familiarity with Cynthia and was super happy with her performance.

Visually stunning. They didn’t have to include all the little details and embellishments, but they certainly did.

“One Short Day” was so over the top surreal and psychedelic I honestly wondered whether I had taken a gummy and had forgotten about it.

Looking forward to part 2!

Second entry in this years Crappy Holiday Movie marathon.

A surprise hit! This movie succeeds where others fail because it goes really hard where others don’t: it is so stupid, but also fully embraces the fact.

Here’s the premise: a lonely, small town shop owner puts a magic scarf on a ridiculously hot snowman, and it comes to life. That’s it! Hijinks ensue. It is, as I said, so stupid. And totally cute! It absolutely works!

The sheriff and deputy were comic relief in a movie that doesn’t really need any comic relief. But again, it works somehow.

The only really negative thing I’ll say is that Hot Frosty has the outlook and reasoning of a small child. And the romantic lead for some reason is really into that. And I’m sitting here like, please do not bang the magical come-to-life snowman who has the mind of a child. That seems really inappropriate.

Anyway, this is fun. You should watch it. 5/5 stars!

First entry in this year’s Crappy Holiday Movie series!

Lindsay Lohan and Kristin Chenoweth are an instant yes. Too bad they cannot transcend the genre: it is still so bad!

There’s really nothing memorable or redeeming here. Total snoozefest. Which is too bad.

I’d skip it if I were you. 5/5 stars!

This is going to sound silly, but I didn’t really realize until recently that TV shows are meant to be merely an approximation of real life. They’re not meant to be like the real thing. That’s why a character can walk into a bar and say, “Gimme a beer” and the bartender will act like that’s not a ridiculous thing to say. And that’s why nobody says goodbye when they hang up the phone. It’s really obvious, but it never really clicked for me until I heard somebody say it that succinctly.

Anyway, I just watched The Dark Tower (2017) and as a huge fan of the books I have to say: it was alright! By no means is it any kind of acceptable adaptation of the seven (eight?) novels. It is an approximation: it contains elements of the Dark Tower. And for that it was enjoyable. But it certainly wasn’t the real thing.

Furthermore I can’t imagine trying to watch this without knowing about the series. It hardly stands on its own as a film. There are a couple of amazing moments: Roland shooting a taheen without looking from 100 yards away? Awesome. Roland’s final shootout at the Dixie Pig? Amazing. That’s kind of all we get though.

Anyway, it was pretty bad and I liked it!

Why is this so good!

Jason Segal is good when he’s big and sad and goofy.

I haven’t really enjoyed any latter day Harrison Ford. He only has one expression (stoney), one tone of voice (growl), and one attitude (grouchy/exasperated). And that is true here. But I can also tell that they’re working really hard on getting him to break out of that on this show.

Jessica Williams’s Gaby is the breakout role in this show. She’s so good.

How stinking adorable is this?

All I want in life now is for Coach Lasso to show up and and give me pep talks every now and then.

Can’t believe Nate’s heel turn! What a tool.

5/5 stars!

This season was pretty good. Adam Brody was great. Kristen Bell was okay. I can’t tell whether she was flat or her character was flat. At first I thought the “loser siblings” getting together was pretty cliche. But then I liked it.

Just started watching. Always wanted to see this. Sounds like modern day Lord of the Flies?

Everytime the creepy vocalization happens, it sounds to me just like the opening of Mount Wittenberg Orca by Dirty Projectors and Bjork.

Oh noooo why did I start this not knowing that season 2 isn’t streaming anywhere yet???

I cannot believe how much happened in the last 10 minutes of the last episode.

Welp I will anxiously be waiting to find out what happens next.

5/5 stars!

This show was medium good. It probably should have been an hour and a half movie instead of a 6 hour miniseries. I know that in the book, nobody outright kills Merrit, but everybody plays a hand in her accidental death. This is much better than what happens in the show. There’s a little too much of Amelia just staring off into space. And a little too much is supposed of her relationship with Shooter: it is portrayed as a thing that never really happened, but also as a deep connection. The funniest and weirdest scene is when Greer (Kidman) starts awkwardly and desperately dancing along to Never Gonna Give You Up when Tag is ruining her book release because she is otherwise powerless to do anything about his going off the rails. It was a little hard at times to keep track of what was a flashback and what wasn’t.

I didn’t realize it until this episode, but I’m really rooting for Eve to snap. Kind of like rooting for Joe in You. Oh snap, Eve stabs Villanelle at the end of Season 1 so V shoots E at the end of Season 2? Damn. Also V crossing the line with Gemma and Niko. Also E going Jack Nicholson on Danny. V vs Peel felt like a weird fugue. Big ole season!

This is really funny. Some of the best television I’ve seen. Sandra Oh is really good. And Jodie Comer? I can see why she got an Emmy for this. Mercurial. Equally hilarious and terrifying in equal measures. Can’t look away from her. They’re walking a fine line with Fiona’s Carolyn character: her alienlike aloofness borders on the terribly absurd. The intimacy and the violence of the season finale was perfect.

let’s goooo

I ended up really liking this. I love the six episode structure: one episode for each of the 5 characters, plus one finale where they all finally come together and team up. Super (supa) cell is an evolution of sickle cell that give black people super powers. This is kind of like Misfits but if it happened to people with real lives and real problems. Struggling with family and obligations and work and money. Revealing Krazy as a traitor at the end was really cool, and I was surprised they (allegedly) killed him off; he could have been a great Season 2 villain. And then also with introducing “the boss” at the end. Before we even got to see the director be a proper villain either. I assume they know what they’re doing, but getting rid of both of the main bad guys at the end of the season before we even really got to see them do their thing seems a little rushed to me. Ultimately, a really good “regular folks get super powers” show a la Misfits and Heroes. But again, more serious and dramatic.

I stopped watching Greys Anatomy and started watching Suits because I don’t have the appetite for a medical drama when my life is suddenly a medical drama. This show is deeply unserious. I don’t actually really like it that much; I basically jeer all the characters all the time. Except Lous Litt. All he wants is a friend, but he’s so unlikable and everybody just shits on him all the time. He’s the only character on the show who is ruled by his emotions. Except maybe for Rachel Zane. The premise of the show is a joke: Mike Ross could do almost anything with his brain powers. Or, maybe the whole point of season 4 (Investment Banker Mike) was to show that having a super brain doesn’t mean you can’t fail. Harvey and Donna’s relationship is very Sorkinesque a la Joshua and (his) Donna. I basically don’t pay attention to the arc plot at all because I can’t keep up with the nuance of the legalese and the double crossing and backstabbing. And the great part is, as long as you can keep up with the “Uh oh, Louis did something stupid and now Harvey’s pissed” bits, then the bigger plot elements don’t matter. It’s all about how the characters react and relate to each other. The particulars of the legal proceedings behind those actions and relationships is less important. I’m going to have Bingo squares made for this show: “You think I can’t x?” “You think I don’t know how to y?” “Don’t my name me.” “Why the hell not?” “I’m gonna goddamn x.” Donna reads somebody. Rachel is annoying.

Wow, I didn’t realize I never watched the final season of Doom Patrol! Let’s go.

I could never really get into Cyborg in this series. But he really shines this season. Big welcome back to Danny, Dorothy, Maura Lee Corrupt, and Candlemaker. Welcome to Casey Brinks. They are really rushing Jane + Casey as we get close to the end. Bored with the musical episode, but good to see Brendan actually make another appearance. And Larry’s actor can really sing! And I did crack up when they started onomatopoeia acapella singing the title song. Okay fine, the musical episode was good lol.

At first I thought this season was pretty formulaic: a minor crisis of their own making is escalated to earth-ending proportions due to their own faults, flaws, and ineptitude; but then they get their shit together act like a family and solve the crisis kind of on purpose kind of on accident. But weaved throughout the tapestry of this tried and true formula is a thread of vulnerability, finality and mortality, and healing and acceptance. The ending does feel rushed, but it’s not weak: the last fifteen minutes are a sort of epitaph for each character, and Cliff’s ending definitely brought a tear to my eyes.

Series review: four seasons of spectacularly fun, top-notch, irreverent and exciting, emotional superhero drama. 5/5 stars, do recommend. It’s tempting to say that peaks in Season 1 with Alan Tudyk’s Mr. Nobody. But in actuality, the first season merely sets the stage for the surreal and absurd antics of the following seasons.

This movie is about how America is addicted to consumerism. It’s not that great. But it’s pretty okay. The best part is maybe how Abe Vigoda and the Where’s the beef? lady make a cameo together in a tv commercial for The Stuff.

This is a movie where Sandra Bullock blindfolds 2 five year olds and yells at them for two hours telling them they’re going to die. Malkovich was fun to watch but when is he not. The ending was kind of convenient, but didn’t detract from anything. I enjoyed it quite a bit! 5/5 stars!

This movie is one part very silly and one part very cool because we get to see Michael Keaton reprise his role as Batman. And we get to see a bunch of cgi supermans: George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Adam West, even Nicholas Cage who didn’t even get to be Superman because Tim Burton’s Superman was never made. (Which is actually a very clever way to demonstrate the whole “all possible worlds” thing.) Without all those cameos I don’t think this would have been much of a movie. The Flashpoint Paradox arguably did this story better. It was especially distracting watching Ezra Miller knowing what we know now.

I really am not that into “superhero” as a movie genre. But I’ve always had a soft spot for the Flash because I used to watch the 1990 television series when it was on. So I’ll probably always watch any Flash series or movie that comes out. This one was enjoyable because of references and nostalgia. It is the Ready Player One of its genre.

WARNING: this film is 1960s sexploitation / softcore pornography.

There’s nothing in the world Vixen likes more than fucking. And there’s nothing in the world she hate more than black people. That’s pretty much it! That’s the whole movie. She has sex with her husband, her husband’s client, the client’s wife, and her little brother. All for no real apparent reason but for fun, power, and to fuck with and or manipulate people. Also she’s suuuuper racist. It’s really uncomfortable. This was allegedly the first film to receive an X rating. So it has that going for it.

https://archive.org/details/vixen-1968

I thought Natasha Lyonne was doing a bit when she played Nichols on Orange Is The New Black, but apparently that’s just who she is. And it’s kind of a lot! But this show was good. Like Groundhog Day but a lot darker. The premise started out kind of dark, then got funny, then got really dark by the end. The ending was particularly satisfying. 5/5 stars!

I started this show as something to watch in the background while working on something else. But then I had to stop doing that because the show was so good and so compelling that it demanded my full attention. It’s about family and relationships, and how hard it is to really connect with somebody. And how precious it is once you finally do. Emma Stone is of course insanely watchable in everything she does. What i did not expect is that Jonah Hill is insanely watchable in this as well. Surreal and ridiculous. There’s no telling what time this is supposed to be set in. There are anachronisms all over the place. Funny nod to Quantum Leap when they’re at the taxidermy shop trying to save Wendy. It must have been so fun for Stone and Hill to get to play so many different roles. 5/5 stars!

Edit: Here’s the thing. Maniac’s low-key, background, 1970s retro-futurism is uncommented on and unexplained, but it’s actually what makes the whole thing work. Consider the Ad Buddy. Consider the Proxy Friend. These are the artifacts that make this show work. People are so desperate for a genuine connection but relationships are so superficial they’re literally commoditized. And it’s normal. It’s unremarkable. I think the rest of the retro tech in the show—campy, delightful, and glorious as it is—is just a happy accident that we get because the story required normalized and widespread, over-the-top, crushing loneliness, without it seeming too alarming or out of place. And so the creators were like, “Let’s just distract the viewer with a bunch of weird stuff and pretend it’s normal. So that when the truly sad and awful bit comes along, we can just portray it as part of the background weirdness they’ve already accepted.”

It’s pretty okay! A band of misfit kids solve supernatural mysteries for Dr. John Watson. Good spooks. The first half is a good monster of the week kind of show. The second half is kind of weird family mystery. The weak point was the irregulars themselves. The two sisters are the main ones. Leo makes sense as romantic interest. But Billy and Spike a lot of the time were just kind of, there. They were all good archetypes. There was the leader (Bea), the weird (Jessie), the muscle (Billy), the outsider / brains (Leo), and the face (Spike). Some of the twists are predictable, some aren’t. Anyway it was pretty okay, I enjoyed it. 5/5 stars!

Really neat movie about a Bad Guy who is traveling backwards through time killing people (with some kind of gruesome brain melting injection) and the cop who keeps encountering her every ten years or so. Very mysterious, good action, good drama watching the cop slowly descend into obsession and madness in his single minded pursuit over the decades. Very interesting, very entertaining. 5/5 stars!

The second installment in the Unbreakable, Split, Glass trilogy. The first “stealth” sequel I’ve ever seen, where you don’t know until the last 60 seconds of the movie that it is actually a sequel to a previous movie. Tremendous acting props to McAvoy who not only had to play half a dozen or more different roles as Kevin, but also at one point had to play one personality playing a different personality. Lots of tension, plenty creepy. A lot left unresolved. I preferred his portrayal in Glass where the question of whether the Beast is really super powered or just a deranged man is definitively answered. Major points off for spectacularizing and villainizing dissociative identity disorder. 5/5 stars!

1. Night Shyamalan presents … Glass! The final installment of the … I don’t know what it’s called, the superhero trilogy? Pretty good build up with Dunn / Unbreakable and the Hoard focused on each other while Mr. Glass masterminds the whole thing. It’s Shyamalan so you know there’s going to be a twist, but I think he did a good job at having three twists, one for each character: the reveal of the ancient secret society of superhuman hunters, the fact that Glass was (predictably, but not expectedly) playing at a whole nuther level, and finally the death of all the main characters. Bold, that. This works 90% as a standalone movie, but works better if you’ve seen the previous films. Having not seen the 2nd film at this point, I was left wondering about some of Crumb’s personalities and their relationships with ATJ’s character. 5/5 stars!

meandering. web’s precognition was pretty fun to see play out, but after the second or third time you really lose all investment in anything that happens and instead expect the cosmic rewind button to kick in and save the day. it was especially poorly executed in the final, climactic scene in the abandoned warehouse where nothing really happened. this was definitely poised as an origin story for a series of movies that we are certainly never going to see. But hey it had sydney sweeney in it? 5/5 stars!

Best movie I’ve seen in recent memory. Absurd, surreal. All about the relationship between a mother and a daughter, and how love is the only thing matters. If I hadn’t already known Jamie Lee Curtis was in this movie I would never in a million years known that was her. 5/5 stars!

My first godzilla movie! Deeply symbolic and metaphorical. All about trauma and how to survive and overcome it, and chosing to live. Very bleak, very sad. 5/5 stars!

What good fun! I really liked it. I enjoyed the Dead Boys' first appearance on Doom Patrol. And this was a great world for them to “live” in and inhabit. Great secondary and tertiary characters. Can’t wait to see what becomes of them all.

Uncomfortably good. Infinitely quotable. Could easily have ended after episode six or seven. I liked it a lot. An incredibly Shondaland cast of actors, which made it feel comfy and familiar. 5/5 stars!

This was roughly half as good as Amazing Spider-Man 1. They just tried to cram too much in. There’s no excuse for having the Crocodile AND the Green Goblin be the main villain AND ALSO managing to slip in the guy from Sideways as the Rhino???? Too much man, way too much. The death of Gwen Stacy was too sad. 5/5 stars!

I’ve never seen the Andrew Garfield spiderman movies. Only ever watched the Tobey Maguire ones. Delighted to get Martin Sheen and Sally Field as Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Martin Sheen is so great. He didn’t get to deliver the iconic Uncle Ben line. But instead said something like, “If you have the ability to help somebody, you do it. Responsibility!” Emma Stone was pretty good as Gwen Stacey. Couldn’t stand watching Dennis damn Leary as the police chief. I wish there was a little more to bridge the characters of Peter Parker and Spider-Man: Spidey was so confident and wise-cracking and kind of egotistical, and Peter was such a mumbling, unconfident kind of character. The villain (The Lizard) was pretty good. Sympathetic to a degree. It was good! I’d watch the sequel.

this is a fun and silly show! total fluffy, guilty pleasure. big old nothing burger. lovely sets and outfits. here’s the royal pains drinking game: 1) somebody passes out, 2) “CFO of Hankmed”, 3) Divya says something sassy or withering, 4) “Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz”, 5) awkward Dieter, 6) Jill’s bad/awkward acting

This show is really silly and fun. I started watching it because Alan Tudyk. And I think because I read somewhere that the alien alphabet used in the captions is a tranliteration of poorly spelled Esperanto, written backwards. This season is cute. I chuckled. It started to drag in the middle a little bit, but then it picked up again for the season finale. Tropey, but entertaining.

Put this on for a Valentines Day watch. It was not really what I expected. I found it hard to believe parts of it. Like when Paige initially believed there was no evidence of her and Leo being in love, when there was in fact an entire house full of their life together, including a video of their wedding. I was pretty sure about halfway through that Paige had left her previous life to find out who she is on hew own, and that she would do the same to Leo. But what brought her back to him was that he gave her space to find out who she is on her own. It was cute, and sad. Not a straightforward, stereotypical, formulaic romance. 5/5 stars! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606389/

Ten short episodes of varietally correct teen mutant superpower drama. It was super fun and I liked it. Rhys Nicholson as Alex Sarkov was really good for the first half of the season when he wasn’t in the show that much. You get to have a little Sarkov as a treat! But then when he was back as a main character again, he got to be a bit much. But then I adjusted to his over the top presence, and grew to really like him again.

It wallowed quite a bit in the waters of “What makes us monsters, vs. What makes us human?” and “Would you give up your powers to be Normal again, or are we meant to embrace our gifts?” but stopped just short of overdoing it.

Tilda really started to outshine the other two “imperfects” by the end. But maybe that’s appropriate because she was the only one who embraced and really turned toward and tried to explore her abilities. I liked the end where she left the gang to basically go be a solo superhero on her own. The final five minutes of the last episode were obvious Season 2 teasers, but they were so fun and entertaining. I wouldn’t mind a Season 2 to explore these cliffhangers, but I also wouldn’t hate it if it ended here. 5/5 mutated DNA sequences!

Started watching this on my local library’s instance of Kanopy after it was recommended at book club. It is super intense, very violent and disturbing. But also very compelling televison. Watching Catherine’s slow burn spiral is captivating. Definitely have to watch with the captions on. Their accents are so thick! Kanopy dropped it before I could finish Season 1, so now I need to rent it I guess if I want to find out what happens.

i can’t believe i haven’t logged Ragnarok seasons 1 and 2! this show is awesome! I’m excited about season 3. there’s only 6 episodes i think? Loki is Really good in this show.

This was an odd little movie! Cher was pretty good in it. Nick Cage was pretty good in it. It was all about people being in love and not in love and crashing into each other and being afraid of death. It was very bizarre and chaotic.

Okay hella good. This is one of my favorite series. Based on one of my favorite comic books. But I did not remember enough about Season 2 to understand what was going on in the first part of this season with Harlan. And I did not understand the beef between Alison and Viktor. Truly enjoyed how Eliot Page’s character changed genders and everybody was just like, that’s cool. Nice to see Klaus come into his own. I think this is supposed to be the final season which is sad.

Hot damn this was good! Better than the original even!

this was as good today as it was back in the day! so good.

the taylor swift movie was pretty good! i enjoyed watching it!

I watched the Barbie movie! It was hella good.

This one was hella bad! No chemistry. No tension. Total snoozefest. 0/5 stars!

Did not finish at ~1:30. Why is this movie three hours long??? I’m super glad that they scaled back the stupid Christian Bale batman voice. Just one small step in a series of decisions that made batman seem more vulnerable and more human: give him a normal voice. Also enjoyed seeing Bruce as kind of traumatized and vulnerable. HATED the character design of the riddler. He was basically an original character the way he was designed and portrayed. Ultimately just didn’t care enough to put in another 1.5 hours.

A Christmas musical! Christine Baranski is the villain who is evicting the whole town right before Christmas, but is there some secret in her heart that she’s guarding? And Dolly Parton is a magical angel. At first I was utterly delighted by this movie. But the pacing is way slow. Too many musical numbers. And also verrry Christian. It was cute though! 3/5 stars!

maybe i was in a Mood while watching this one, but this was the worst of them all so far. most of these so far have been so-bad-it’s-good, or at least fun to watch in some way. this one wasn’t interesting enough to even elicit any negative opinions. just a waste of time. -1/5 stars!

Much more cute and adorable than.. good. There was really no reason for Jennifer Coolidge to be in the movie at all. Except that she directed it. And to get people to watch it. Pete was clueless, Nick was adorable. 3/5 stars!

It was kind of cute? They oversold the kiwi joke at the beginning. Jimmy O. Yang was good. The Die Hard + Love Actually mashup at the end was satisfying, but the ending overall fell kind of flat I think. Quirky grandma was obnoxious. 3/5 stars!

On the tin, this looks exciting! Brooke Shields! That guy from The Princess Bride! But it took less than 10 minutes for me to utter the Eight Deadly Words: I Don’t Care What Happens To These People. It just didn’t pick up any drama or intrigue. The main characters had zero chemistry. The plot wasn’t interesting. The ending wasn’t satisfying. -1/5 stars!

This one was actually pretty damn cute. It has Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms. It is a self-aware Freaky Friday alike. (They 4th-wall mention Freaky Friday, Big, and 13 Going On 30.) They struggle to fix their family relationships while learning about themselves and each other, bla bla bla. Formulaic. But varietally correct. 3/5 stars!

wow how did this movie even get made in the year 2021. the filmography looks like it was shot on a couple of iphones by some art school students. the music is a bunch of mouth noises that jerk the watcher away from being able to pay attention to the scene. the writing is ridiculous: the entire plot revolves around which song the cousins will sing at their grandmother’s funeral as though you can’t sing both silent night and also amazing grace. also it should have been called 4 cousins and a funeral because it could have happened in the middle of july because the fact that it’s christmas is mentioned maybe 0.5 times and it has no relevance to the movie whatsoever. it’s not a christmas movie, it’s … i don’t know what it is. it’s like if a high school freshman attempted to deconstruct the family comedy drama movie genre and then a million years from now the apes that inherit the earth found that script and tried to reconstruct not just that genre but motion pictures altogether as a medium. all of the things that are supposed to come together to create an enjoyable cinematic experience? each one of them independently fails in its own spectacularly in-your-face way and the result is a disjointed mosaic of discomfort and unease that should never have seen the light of day, but instead is inexplicably a featured hulu holiday movie. 0/5 stars!

this was a weird quasi knock off of you’ve got mail. the big box bakery comes in and tries to put the small shop out of business that the baker just inherited from her grandmother. she was like, Why are you trying to put me out of business?? and then she was like, I hoped it was you!! the funny parts are: 1) the entire town randomly did a bowling tournament together for some reason. like the entire town. and 2) wendy “from the news” showed up and kept introducing herself as Wendy From The News. 2/5 stars!

this movie was boring! i feel like cameran diaz and jude law were the main story line, and kate winslet and jack black were just kind of intruding on it. i guess i feel like that because cameran and jude were falling in love since the beginning, and kate and jack didn’t really get together until the very end. not enough time for either storyline to really launch i feel like. i expected more from a major motion picture holiday movie with an all a-list cast. but this was kind of hallmark tier instead.

this is a movie about a rich white guy who bullies a small business owner out of a job, and then gaslights her into falling in love with her. and dave chapelle was there too. 1/5 stars.

this show was deleriously unfunny and boring until the final four episodes, when it suddenly got kind of funny and interesting, and then the series was canceled forever. oh well! victim of the writers strike?

watching buffy! never watched this show thi first time around. i know it’s a whole THING and it starts out really good so i get it. funny seeing sarah michelle geller and allison hannigan, such babies. dialog is kind of heavy handed. trying to be super teenager socal. oh, they just fixed their mouth prosthetics halfway through season 2 so luke can actually talk without lisping now lol

gay icon and embodiment of mental illness, Mr Babadook, stars in his very own movie, The Babadook! This was a great psychological thriller about how the mom’s grief and depression isolate her and her son and wreak havoc on both of them. The trick to mental illness is to not deny it, and to feed it worms every day. Probably the best horror flick i’ve seen this year

Spectacular! The lack of dialogue felt gimmicky only once or twice. The rest of the time, I feel like you barely noticed it was missing. Good action, good scares, good monsters. Good heroine. Excellent ending! 5/5 spooky aliens.

The premise was interesting and the trailer looked good, but uh oh! all the reviews are really bad. So we’ll see what happens.

… so it never quite, stuck the landing.

it was okay. but i never really understood what the hacker kid had to do with anything..

Second Peter Straub flick after Ghost Story. Although this one came first chronologically. It was Straub’s first movie adaptation in fact. Starring Mia Farrow as Julia. She gets haunted!!

kind of a snoozer this one. neat seeing fred astaire in a modern movie. i can never imagine him outside the 30s/40s. the reveal/ending/climax was very anti-climactic

Film number 2 this spookerween. A monster story, a haunted house story. Pretty spooky! Pretty scary! I feel like we’re meant to be sympathetic to the monster, and ultimately by the end I am. But the origin story flashback in the middle, while establishing who the real monster is, seemed mostly to just mess up the pacing. What a very abrupt and final ending!

But wait who was sending the people to the airbnb in the first place?? was it bonnie? was bonnie in on this??

Last year around this time i got covid, and laid in bed for a couple weeks watching scary movies.

This year i will repeat this tradition, minus the covid (I hope!), starting with Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). Which I’ve never seen. And which I will be liveblogging here.

This season was maybe overall better that season 1. But the ending was hot hot garbage. FIVE YEARS??? seriously wtf

i just really love this show. it’s so funny.

it’s trash and i love it

slow burn but what a hoot! everybody DIES and then comes back as ZOMBIES and michelle gomez is amazing in everything i’ve ever seen her in. i feel like we’ve been waiting for like 2.5 seasons for larry to figure his shit out. and giant robot cliff! lol

scissors for the drifter!! kind of over charlie’s constant old guy young guy transformation. i get it, he literally preys on youth. now just keep him zach quinoa aged. EDIT: Wait WHAT, I cannot believe that Scissors For The Drifter was not the season finale, there are three more damn episodes?

could not be more excited for this. I thought Dream was a little too young and handsome, but he really grew on me. Wowzers the whole scene with Lucifer was magical. John Dee is really growing on me. can’t waeit to see the diner scene.

started the original series. now i know who penn badgley and blake lively are. surprisingly funny. penn is especially fun to watch.

dnd sesh turned into movie night when chaz unexpectedly dropped out. super entertaining!

season 1 = good as hell. season 2 = also good! loving this.

the final season! ended on a good note i guess.

what a trip! first half, was rooting for joe. 2nd half, madness madness!

finished the series! good run. the ending was dumb

an ensemble feel-good holiday movie that i’d rather be poked in the eye than watch. we literally skipped the entire middle 60 minutes.

total agony. just broken people being broken, hurting themselves and hurting each other. exploiting and being exploited. exploring the violence inherent in imbalances of power. it was beautiful.

Just browsing movies on archive.org, and popped this one on in the background while working on other things. I don’t know if it’s just the part of the collection I’m browsing right now or what, but there seems to be a lot of low budget Australian horror. The opening ouija board / seance scene was good and spooky, but then a whole heck of a lot of nothing happens for the next hour. Not even in a building tension / suspense kind of way. The ending is actually spectacular, but it all comes to a head in the last 15 minutes which, for a 95 minute film, is not really enough pay off. Great first 15 minutes, great last 15 minutes. With an hour of ho-hum in the middle. https://archive.org/details/alisons-birthday-1979

wow this show has really been on for six seasons now? this season is much better than last season. last season was fucking weird. this one has interesting work drama. surprise teenaged children. the angry one’s anger issues. the “other one” has a lot of story line this season. which isn’t interesting. she’s cut off from the other characters so much. like, why do we have her? super sad that kate and anne had a friendship breakup. i expected anne to flip out way more at the crazy lady stalking her daughter. also, did crazy lady murder anne in the last scene????

a whole lot going on this season. I feel like they tried to pack too much in. It was good, but kind of scattered and unfocused. Lots of meta self-references. Funny though! Do recommend!

tried to get phoebe to watch this with me because i remember adoring it the first time i watched. I did not remember how weirdly scary the first episode is though with the woodcutter and the dog with the saucer eyes. they did /not/ like it. The episodes are only 10 minutes long!! gonna finish this one by myself.

settled on this trying to find a halloween movie we could both watch together. first part is boring. but it has a baby Mark Feuerstein for like 2 minutes before he gets killed off. and more importanted 1998 Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, and Stockard Channing? What’s not to like!! Later: finished it. It was … not good! But a nice waste of time if you want to eat popcorn and sit on the couch.

i didn’t know there were a bunch of sequels to the original movie! the aftermathematicians were streaming it this afternoon. Perkins plays a very watchable nervous, fidgetty norman bates. (later..) Okay yeah this is maybe the best horror/suspense movie i’ve ever seen. slow burn. plots within plots. crazy norman is a show stealer. “That’d be a great load off my mind” had me rolling.

I didn’t know this was a show! Read the book a long time ago and thought it was weird and fun. There’s 2 seasons on hulu. So let’s check it out! followup: that was cool! i like seeing zach quinto back in a villain role.

delightfuly quirky and violent. can’t stand how out of sync the subs are though

kind of a closed room horror, where people slowly lose their minds. The opening scene when they all walk into the bathroom like players walking onto a stage was kind of brilliant. In fact, this whole thing could have been a theater production. So very very much happened off camera: the end of the world, the monster whatever it is, the death of the would-be savior, the mom’s infidelity and cheating, the dad’s entire fatherhood apparently. the whole thing was kind of amazing.

Okay this movie is basically “Nicholas Cage stars in Five Nights at Freddy’s” and I was really excited about it, but it was in fact the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t even good in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way. Just bad. The only funny part was the janitor walking away from the chameleon fight because it’s his break time. 0 out of 5 stars, do not recommend.

the 2022 Spookerween Horror Fest continues with Books of Blood! Books of Blood is the collection of short stories by Clive Barker that Hellraiser comes from. And this movie is an adaptation of sorts about the core framing story, which is a variation on Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man. In this case, the one who bears the stories of the dead carved into their skin is the eponymous Book of Blood. I’d say I’m a Clive Barker fan. I read Imajica recently and really liked it. Thief Of Always was a favorite of mine as a kid. So I was stoked to check this one out. It’s one of those stories that is three different interconnected stories, and you get to find out how they’re related as the story goes on. I enjoy this format. Ellie’s garden was uniquely creepy. Simon’s ultimate transformation into the book was satisfying. Probably the most entertaining and engaging horror movie I’ve watched so far this season.

a monster movie staring Keri Russel and some creepy kid about the WENDIGO. very good! interesting watching this one right after Evil Dead, which was all effects and no plot. This one is all plot, with sparce—but excellent—effects. and this was better. It was weird seeing little Felicity pulling the beating heart out of a beast and then murdering a little kid. Whatever actor played her cop brother … I don’t know if he was perfect, or completely miscast. Kind of doofy and ineffectual. Also the abusive father plotline was … important because it gave Keri’s character a motivation and a way to bond with the abused kid. But they explored it and showed us just enough that it was like, either take us there or don’t. Either establish it as background and then build on that, or spend ample time exploring what that was like, but don’t do something weirdly inbetween those. the monster was great. I liked watching the transformation from meth head dad to fucked up dad to wendigo. not positive about the token Wise Native American. felt tropey.

I thought Evil Dead movies were supposed to be kind of funny. This was just gore and blood spatter. The plot was … not really there. Young adults go to a cabin in the woods, release an demon, and get picked off one by one. It was literally all just gore factor. Not that impressed

spookers! I recognized that Pinhead was Nomi from Sens8 by her voice. that was cool. Not jump scare scary. But lots of gore and body horror that made me kind of squeamish. The story itself was okay. Classic hellraiser stuff. Kind of a buddhist parable isn’t it? Desire and longing leads to suffering.

okay as soon as i finished writing the last entry about B&PC (#133) stuff did get a lot more meta arc. AND IT WAS GREAT. i loved getting to see the warlocks. Mouly coming back was really neat. finally getting to see some Space Outlaw (and Violet and … Baby?) was rad. (Cardamon = Baby?) Still don’t know what Bee is. Maybe the ship itself? Like the ship’s AI? and who is her dad?? Cannot WAIT to see more of this weird ass story.

a couple of my friends always reference this show. popped it on hulu after Paper Girls ended and I didn’t have anything else i was watching. It is funny! Fast, quick, witty. I shall continue to watch it.

okay so Felicity got canceled and they rushed the ending like mad. The result was a kind of stupid episode that was really unsatisfying because the friends all break up, Ben suddenly has a baby, they get engaged and then they split up. And then he magically shows up in Palo Alto. There was a lot of satisfying symmetry between the finale and the pilot. But the writing was rubbish. SO NOW WHAT HAPPENS is that the show gets extended for another couple episodes after the finale, and the writers go OH SHIT and try to squeeze a few more drops of content out of an already wrapped up show. I’m told there is time travel involved lol. can’t wait.

If season 1 of B&PC was a cozy nap, then season 2 is a hectic fever dream. Totally surreal, much more “anime”. Very random. Glad we got to see more of the wizard family. Toast is actually funny this season. Being spoonfed tiny portions of the meta stories, which I am sooo curious about. Can’t wait to see how this ends. I wonder if we’ll get a tight conclusion, or whether it will continue to spin off. The racetrack planet and the vacation coconut planet are two temp jobs that are satisfying at face value, and which are also rich with meaning and nuance. Especially racetrack planet.

Well that ended stupid. I didn’t even know it was the end of the season. No rising action, no tension, no climax, no nothing. If the entire show is about time travel, you can’t have the “cliffhanger” ending for the season be that they time traveled. No duh.

i really enjoyed the book. and the show is also really damn good. I like all the time travel shenanagins

this is a really good show

IS THIS THE BEST TELEVISION EXPERIENCE THERE IS? update (finished): it was okay lol

meh glenn close was fun to watch way early 90s period piece. lots of pre-iphone cellphones (which I love). but also the opening scene had 2 musical montages. just kind of dated romcom adjacent. the boyfriend said it: the real relationship was between andy and miranda. no real romance to be had took her way too long in the ‘search’ phase to get to the ‘find’ phase. ‘return’ and ‘change’ were smooshed together in the final 15 minutes. honestly the whole movie was watching andy adapt to this world that she didn’t want and that didn’t want her. honestly glenn carried the movie. she was fascinating to watch. little nuggets like, “I’ve only ever seen her smile once,” and then her smiling in the final scene. That made the whole movie. and her varied delivery of “That’s all”, from dismissive and condescending to her wrapping up her own fucking marriage.

it was good. after re-watching the alternative ending, i really don’t think they needed to kill the mother probably won’t ever watch this one again, despite how hilarious it is. Too fatphobic, transphobic, misogynist, and all around problematic

hell yes, good show, would watch again, can’t wait for season 2

caught up! the last two psyche ward episodes were sensational. lots of feels. potential best line of the series: “Did Mark create Steven to protect him? Or did Steven create Mark to punish the world?”

okay that was fucking cool

always surprised to see who all is on this show. this time, martin short! okay also with the return of victoria comes the return of ted and victoria’s theme song, spit on a stranger. it’s a beautiful rendition, but that doesn’t change the fast that SOAS is a song about a relationship turning into bitter hatred, and it is super duper distracting for this to be a sweet song about their breaking up because it’s supposed to be a sweet and tender moment of understanding and regret, and here’s this song about growing to hate the person you were with.

countdown to the series finale! feel like we’re rocketing towards it. Wrong Hordak is really stealing the show. Much more interesting than actual Hordak at this point okay listen i’m not “into” anime like that but the episode where mermista and perfuma and scorpia dressed up like dames from the 1930ss and went to a speakeasy was something really special at first i wasn’t sure that spinnerella and netossa should be these super powerful adeversaries, but on the other hand they were the only active members of the princess alliance for a long time, and probably the entirety of their field agents

okay i feel like i’ve been kind of binging this lately because i want to see the part where adora and catra get together, and it used to feel like it was going to take a long time to get there, but now it feels like we are rocketing in that direction. now they both have feelings and are doing crying, and catra is like, I’m sorry for everything, waaaah! entrapta getting to go to spaaaaaaace was fun hordak prime has a crazy messiah cult thing going on, but also is the most messed up looking of his ‘perfect clone’ with his random mutated eye holes

hate watch is not remotely the correct word because i love this show, but also a small piece of me is only watching so that i can see adora and catra profess their love for each other, like c'moooon.

Finished it up! Again, I know nothing about Critical Role. I think I listened to 3 or 5 episodes. But I always considered Percy the least interesting character. Well no more! That story was cool as hell! I like it. Makes me want to maybe go listen to the podcast. Hope they make another season.

super spooky vampires, percy is spooky. I wonder whether they were unable to make a deal with Wizards because Pike worships the everlight and Scanlan casts Scanlans Hand.

Forgot to mention we did a rewatch of all of Pushing Daisies a little bit ago! Still one of my favorite shows. Very pretty, very fun to watch. Forgot how boobtastic it is at times. Ended way too soon. tragic.

Never really got that into Critical Role. This show starts off irreverent and crass to show that it’s not a kid’s animated show, I guess? In the first two episodes they summarily slaughtered an ancient blue dragon, which is a legendary achievement. It’s fun. I’ll keep watching it.

a new kind of reboot of How I Met Your Mother? It doesn’t really bring the funny.

started a rewatch of HIMYM. this show starts off so good. It knows exactly what it is, and so many great gags and scenes start right off from the beginning right in season 1. That said, a lot of it does not hold up. Kind of fatphobic, transphobic, misogynist, homophobic. That was 2005 I guess?

this is wacky tobacky. what is up with Donna’s bad girl transformation?

cooper said, “as long as you can keep the fear from your mind” at 16:00 which is a brilliant parralel to his character in Dune with the mind killer litany lucy: leo was shot, jauc was strangled, the mill burned, shelly and pete got smoke inhalation, catherine and josie are missing, nadine is in a coma. cooper: how long have I been out?

45 min this was a tough one. lots going on. oh no cooper got shot!

can’t believe Leo shot that bird!

They broke down the wall to the old hang out room and there was a huge poster of the cover art of Radiohead’s The Bends What if you took out your fear? What would you do.

power corrupts: kinsey being vengeful, kids finding a memory of their dad clubbing somebody. mama starting to notice weird stuff: keyhole scars starting to see the teen drama stuff mentions on tildes. The school bully really kinda came out of nowhere. We haven’t seen her in several episodes, and when we did she seemed like a really minor character, and also like she was not a high school cliche but just a throwaway character.

wonder if Tibbetan Buddhism was just a more alien concept in the 90s. They’re kind of making it a huge part of Cooper’s quirkiness The Meals On Wheels scene was Eraserhead levels of surreal THE OWLS R NOT WHAT THEY SEEM that “just you and I” song was sweet

I never knew that Sabrina the Teenage Witch was part of the Archie and Jug Head universe. I only knew the MJH show on Nick. Fuck I love this intro

I just love the aesthetics of this show. Adore the intro. Love Michelle Gomez

anti-bullying episode! No Harrowing didn’t know Prudnce is the ~principal’s~ High Priest’s daughter really cool cliffhanger with the sleep demon

Watched the 1st episode of The Magicians! It rocked. The introduction of the Big Bad was awesome. He reminded me of somebody from American Gods, or the man with the cloak (briefcase?) of flies in Welcome To Nightvale, or I think there was a guy in the Sandman comics whose face was always obscured. Quite liked it altogether. watching S1E2 now. it’s like if Shaggy and Velma have their own spinoff series

kind of rage quit Twin Peaks the other night. Even anger posted on masto. It’s just too much. Too hokey, too campy, too much.

This is still a fun silly good little show

I think I’m watching the season finale right now. It’s intense!

This show is fucking dope! I’m on episode 5 or 6.

Still watching magicians. in the middle of s1e10. Still enjoying it a lot, but the novelty has started to wane a little bit.

Elton John, the movie! Okay so far. Kind of watching it 20 - 40 minutes at a time. Didn’t expect it to be such a musical. It’s kind of like Elton John’s Greatest Hits, with a little bit of biopic movies thrown in. Lots of cheese. When he first named himself and saw a photo of John Lennon, shining, with strings in the background, like he was the damn messiah, I almost threw my laptop.

Ugh, I said I wasn’t going to watch this show any more after the horrifically horrific first half of the first episode. But logged into prime video and there was the unfinished first episode just a-taunting me. I hear that all the villainous heroes get their comeuppance at some point. Well, I finished episode one finally. Only margainly interested in watching more.

3 episodes in. what a weird, delightful little headtrip. The process of converting a podcast into an animated show means that the dialog is upfront and constant, and is the main dish here. And it kind of weaves in and out of actual relevance to what’s physically happening in the show. And bodies and identities and life is so ephemeral and so easy come easy go in the simulation. It’s a trip. Episodes are short at ~20 minutes and highly consumable. 5 stars, would recommend. So delightful. Simultaneously whimsical and also incredible earnest in discussing the nature of life and death and existence.

Watched all of the new season of The Good Fight. What is memo 618! WTF at Jeffrey Epstein’s penis floating in a jar! what was with that finale!! Apparently there were going to be another 3 episodes but they had to shut down filming because of covid. Shame! I guess I’ll give them a pass

also finished the 1st season of The Magicians. Feeling kinda eh on continuing. Sudden time loops, sudden goddess turned mass murder + rape scene. yikes. and now julia just kidnaps the BBEG and kind of blackmails him into working with her? At Chuck E. Cheese? Weird. What is even going on here with the writers.

finished The Midnight Gospel. Phenomenal! That last episode with his mom was a real tear jerker.

Kinda sorta lost interest in season 2

Imma watch this because A) Netflix is shoving it down my throat (along with Warrior Nun whatever the shit that is) and B) it’s a dope looking fantasy series with a woman lead. So, in the name of feminism, why not? update: wow they really buried the lead that this is a King Arthur story. I almost quit out of boredom until I heard the words “Uthur Pendragon”

Big news though: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse! Possibly the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen. Super entertaining, super fun to watch. The color and the animation, and the incorporation of comic book frames. And Jake Johnson really stole the whole show as Fat Old Peter B. Parker. Super great all around.

Did I tell you I gave up on Rocketman? I gave up on Rocketman. It’s boring as hell. I wanted an Elton John movie. Not a musical of Elton’s Greatest Hits, with little bits of biopic interspersed.

well that was certainly quite the descent into madness. left me in a weird mood.

Going back to Cursed now that Umbrella Academy is done. It’s like spooky good fairey tale fantasy.

Kind of have given up on Magicians. Started reading the book. Enjoying it.

The totality of the second season. It was so friggin good! Diego and Klaus and Alison looking so good with long hair. Vanya grappling with her memories and coming into her own. Cool time travel shenanagins. Expanding of powers: vanya, hello. The season long promise for No. 5 to learn micro scale time jumps. Hated Lila when I met her, but ended up being a delight. Hargreaves. The Swedes. Carmichael. The Handler. Just all so, so good.

Finished Cursed the other night. Outstanding final scene. Coudn’t hate Iris more. The most petulant, punchable face. Started to see some leadership from Arthur the conman. Merlin getting his magic back was as epic as I had hoped it would be. Didn’t really feel Nimway’s corruption that much, but her fall was tragic. Loved the final seen between Gawain and Percivel. Powerful. Five stars.

Went back and finished up season three. It was okay. Billy was a great villain. I liked how they sniped El’s powers so she’s not such a deus ex machina all the time. The entire Russian thing was so over the top 1980s red scare that is was kind of farscical and distracting. Weirdly nationalistic. Crazy that Hooper dies at the end. It was pretty good, nothing sensational. I don’t know if I’ll go out of my way to continue watching season 4. Season 1 was a watershed. Season 2 struggled to compete. and Season 3 was just pretty good.

Good season. Kind of a spotlight on Jared, which I like. The final scene (in which Richard loses the thumbdrive) was out of character in how unsatisfying and unresolved it was.

Penultimate episode: we were the real monsters all along! Ultimate episode: the real treasure is the family we choose along the way

seasons 1 and 2. binged it. Season 1 was fantastic. Season 2 was also good. very watchable. I like their unique spin on lycanthropy. Kind of sad they dropped the Good Will Hunting kind of vibe of “unexpected boy genius” after the first two episodes. The cliffhanger at the end of season one was amazing. The Season two ending was more divergent, less convergent, but also really good. Really enjoyed watching Vera’s character evolution. Super hate the head of the council. Glad Randall took her out. Super hate Gabrielle Dupris. I think her channeling of Midnight was really dumb. Jack wore Midnight and didn’t get all super crazy. If that’s the direction they wanted to go they should have made the Midnight vs. Silverback fight over Jack feel more personal. Also the show was really funny. Overall 5/5 stars, would recommend.

The year Netflix won its first primetime Emmy for an original online program, it won three of them: House of Cards, Arrested Development, and Hemlock Grove. Never heard of Hemlock Grove, but it keeps good company! I’ll give it a spin! Episodes 1 and 2: - Visually appealing. Good colors. - Twin Peaks levels of dramatics and overacting over cheesy music. Very much a spiritual successor. - Am I missing somthing or was the jump to “Can I Watch?” out of absolute nowhere? Are we doing chaotic leaps forward? Does the plot advance off screen when the viewer isn’t watching? - Was that the best werewolf transformation of all time? Yes, perhaps it was. Episode 3: - They keep calling this kid hirsuite and he is practically smooth! - the music on this show is really quite something

Ended up finishing Season 2 after all after raging against the misogyny. I ended up kind of liking it after all, which I kind of hate. There’s a not so subtle connection drawn between Homelander’s nationalism and actual, living, breathing Nazis, which I kind of love. Love Howie’s commitment to Billy Joel. The “Girls Get It Done” bit was unfortunately steeped in homophobia (or maybe just blackmail? Which only works because of homophobia) and, again, literal naziism. Only Starlight was left as the normal one, and while she fights against fascism and tyranny in general, there’s no denouncement of the rampant misogyny and no real redemption to be had. The whole thing continues to create a feeling of helplessness and powerlessness and frustration in the face of overwhelming odds. But Queen Maeve taking out Black Noir with an Almond Joy? Slapstick.

Visually great. Orlando Bloom! Fanciful. Narnia meets Jack the Ripper. Can’t seem to really get into it :(

Haha. Lol. Lulz. Liked that they gave us 0.5 seconds of SPOOON. Arthur’s character was redone and good. I liked how in the 1st 2(?) episodes we were lead to wonder whether the Tick was real or a hallucination.

Holy shit, timely zeitgeist much? So good. I adore a show that is not afraid to land its punches: killing a main character, torturing and disfiguring another. Rainn Wilson + John Cusak are super watchable. Plus the reveal of Mr. Rabbit’s motives was great because, while I may not agree with the means, I super agree with the end. The tie in of that reveal and his catchphrase, “What have you done to earn your place in this crowded world,” was also super satisfying. My least favorite part was Jessica Hyde herself. She sucked

Half way through episode 5 of 10. After having played Call of Cthulhu with the gang. I like how it goes back and forth between “The real monsters is racism!” and “The real monsters is MONSTERS!”

watching a couple episodes with D as she’s rewatching it. Teddy Altman is good. And, Brooke Shields! I’m curious about the story of how Teddy Altman and husband were having mutual affairs and then the pregnant mistress marched in and demanded compensation. I don’t imagine I'de be a fraction as charitable to her as Teddy Altman ended up being. body: Also Teddy Altman was on Sesame Street??

Finished this show btw. Amazing middle game with Hippolyta’s adventures in space and time, and Topsy and Bobspy = supremely creepy. The ending is wild, with cutting off magic from all white people, and then Diana’s birthright = Bionic Commando + Lovecraftian beast tamer. wuuuuut This is a show by black people for black people, more unapologetically so than I’ve ever seen. A lot of the comments on reddit were super distateful, crying out about reverse racism and moaning about how every white person had to be evil, while missing the fact that not only is This Is America but this is America in the 20s - 50s where sunset tows and segreation and lynchings were actually real and so by taking part in the system, yes, all white people were somewhere on the spectrum between implicit and actively awful. So in conclusion those commenters can fuck off with their white fragility Anyway, good show. 10/10. Would recommend. Would watch again. Anxious so see a Season 2, but sadly doubt it will happen.

Absolutely stunning. The actress who plays Beth Harmon has the most expressive eyes I’ve ever seen. The show is gorgeous. It’s making me feel really romantic about the game, and it makes me want to play more. I can’t believe the kid from Love Actually is some Johnny Depp cowboy chess pirate.

Watching episode 1. I’ve already watched it once. Still enjoying it nonetheless.

Suuuuper intrigued so far. Didn’t realize this was made by the Wachowskis. Would have started it long ago had I known. Mel played this funny game during the first 30 minutes where she tried to guess the dialog based on the watching the scenes with no sound. She was correct 80% of the time.

Finished ep1. Great! Half watched Ep2 Meh.

Done. Amazing. I’m pretty sure this is required viewing for all people. Simply gorgeous. “I loved bisexual recovery chess rocky” Interesting shots. So much silence and heavy looks The lady who played Beth Harmon is so wildly expressive and was just perfect for this role My favorite part was how Beth’s mom, right before she died, said something about “I’m fine as long as I’m playing for fun” in regards to her playing piano. This was interesting to me because Beth never played for fun. Until she was able to free herself from having to prove herself by becoming the world champion. Which, you know. Is one way to free yourself from having to prove youself. It was great

Literally Feris Bueller’s day off with zombies. Cute show.

Story time! Once upon a time there was a tumblr blog of pictures of celebrities eating food, and Arnold always looked fuckind stupid/hilarious eating food, and the author of the blog alwas gave him funny captions that usually involved him saying, JINGLE ALL THE WAAAAY as he scarfed down a burger or hot dog. Anyway this movie was crap. Arnold sucked, Sinbad sucked, young Anakin sucked. Phil Hartmon was barely good, and Rita Wilson was the only sans character there. Weird trivia: this was apparently the last movie Phil was in before he was murdered.

Finished this at some point. It was hella good. It was sexy and beautiful.

Okay newer show in my lineup. It’s artsy. Non-linear storylines, creative framing, fake starts, sudden overdubs. It’s all really fancily done. And the story is good too. Intersectional pay gap in the tech industry. Racial justice. Etc.

Watched the 3rd season after the 2nd ended fucking weird with an extended prolonged penis joke. This one hit really heavy with expendible black lives during covid, and political correctness making it so that jokes are commodities. Dianne’s white guilt is a recurring theme as is the idea of neighborhood courts: where does justice actually come from?

Definitely loving this show. Its artword is very eastern meets western. It’s a little bit Steven Universe both in style and animation, and in subject, in the sense that I’m looking forward to some LGBTQ+ subject matter come up, and am already enjoying some body positivity via Glimmer.

The final season came out just recently. So I’m watching it from the beginning now. On Season 3 now. Zombies are funny because they are such a blank slate of a metaphor. They can stand for literally anything. Collapse of society, disease, fear of the future, fear of being forgotten, loss of control, seeing your loved ones become something else.. I think there was a good Mixed Taste about Slavic Zombies on the subject.

This show was great. It packed a whollup of nostalgia feels. My favorite part was the big switch-a-roo in which He-Man basically wasn’t in the show at all. It was in fact the Teela show. I was worried that Alicia Silverstone was going to ruin the show because she has a distinctive “Clueless” voice, but she did pretty good after all.

Just watched the first 3 episodes. I love it! The casting is amazing. Nobody has tugged on their braid once. Padan Fain looks like he will be terrifying later. Hate the look of Thom Merrilin. He’s supposed to look more like Mark Twain than like … some sexy country rock star. Visually it’s amazing. Love the trollocs and the magic of the Aes Sedai.

I usually watch an episode or two of She-Ra after Walking Dead as a pallet cleanser. Loving this cute show.

Let’s see, they survived the Governor, the cannibals at Terminus, the cop hospital.. Taking the mullet to DC was a weird sidequest. Can’t believe that’s how Beth goes out :(

The new Sex and the City where everybody is 50 years old and problematic! Very compelling and kind of a hate-watch. Miranda having an ongoing illicit affair is bonkers nonsense after almost breaking up with Steve for having a one-time fling in the first movie. Also Steve is such a muppet, they really did him dirty. Didn’t know (actress who plays Che and Callie from Grey’s Anatomy) is non-binary IRL.

Finished it. Super great, loved it.

The Alexandria story arc is actually pretty great. It’s an effective kind of time travel: what if the Atlanta crew finds survivors who are experiencing the pandemic for the first time? Rick’s descent was hard to watch, but well done. Carol going Stepford Wife mode is creepy. She’s stone cold. This is the person who single handedly liberated the prison from the Governor’s goons. The monk called her out on it too: “Were you a cop? You’re always watching. Ready.” “Tee-hee, I’m just a girl.” That scene was great. Finding the herd at the beginning of this season is good writing. Small to medium groops of zombies aren’t dangerous or interesting any more. Now we need an army. Glen redeeming Nicolas is fun to watch. Edit: fuck I can’t believe I just wrote that and Nicolas literally got redeemed and also got Glen killed anyway 😭😭😭 That was one of the worst, most needless deaths thus far.

Just finished it tonight, and I gotta say, it was crap! Miranda is a joke. Steve is a joke. I don’t even want to talk about them. Total bullshit. Charlotte’s storyline finally makes sense at the final moment when she finally “becomes a woman” but–and this is the problem with the writing the whole season long–the writers never at any point bring the story. In retrospect, sure. She has allowed herself to be defined by those around her. Her daughter gets her period and becomes a woman. Her other daughter rejects womanhood and is instead non-binary, but also comes into their own adulthood. So Charlotte’s journey is all about rite of passage and coming into your own. Which she finally does at her own bat mitzah. She also creates some distance between herself and Harry by whooping his ass at tennis and refusing to apologize (a scene which at first I hated) and possibly also, though it wasn’t by her choice, by failing to give him a blowjob in the bathroom. (That episode was weiner-tastic. Two dudes showed peen, and for some gratuitious reason they decided to give Harry a horse cock.) Carrie’s storyline was satisfying. She put Big to rest. She got to reclaim her brand and return to Sex and the City, literally and figuratively. She’s juggling two boyfriends.

a disappointing series starring Kristen Bell that was not good. Supposed to be a parody of the “Lonely woman who is a shut-in who thinks she sees a murder but doubts herself and also nobody believes her” trope. But it doesn’t go hard enough. There’s one or Police Academy style gags throughout the series, but again, they don’t go all in. A couple episodes they just don’t bring the funny, and when a parody fails to satirize, it’s just a lame imitation. There are two good parts of the show: the over the top way in which Bell’s character’s daughter died (killed and eaten by a serial killer in the middle of a maximum security prison) and during the finale when the real killer is revealed (the sweet 8 year old girl next door) and the physical struggle that ensued. The finale specifically almost makes it worth it, but not quite.

I might be done with this show. I feel like it just jumped the shark with Daryl fucking destroying an entire biker gang in one hit with a bazooka. And with showing Glenn getting ate not once but twice. And Rick and the gang deciding to just go outside and stab the horde to death. Like, what? The death of almost the entire (kid Sam’s) family was heartbreaking and bold. I feel like W’s redemption was half-assed. I just don’t know if I have 4 more seasons of this left in me. It’s getting really repeditive.