we watched The Marvels last night and maybe the plot was a bit thin and we had not seen Invasion or whatever it is called because I didn’t enjoy the first episode… but that cat and the song made it all worth it. I’d watch a whole movie with only stuff like that. I like absurd. I think the Dude would approve
4 Likes
Binged Blue Eye Samurai, because everyone was talking it up, and it was good!
Makes me wonder what the Japanese dub sounds like.
4 Likes
I watched The Marvels last night and yes, it was full of plotholes and seemed to have been edited by a committee of executives, but the actors were all great and the comedy was nicely absurd.
You don’t have to have seen Secret Invasion (I think it comes after The Marvels and also it’s the worst show Marvel have made by a long way) but the movie is a reminder of how good the Ms Marvel show is, and Iman Vellani is an instant star.
4 Likes
Every time I read Ms Marvel here, I think of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel and how good that show was! 
2 Likes
It was good fun though. I enjoyed the switching… and the fan-girling and well the cat. I was sure this was going to be the Tribbles episode from Trek. I mean why is that happening? But who cares because tentacles!
And I got to tell my partner sometime towards the end: “believe me she will get caught in the closing of the thing, because in Malazan when someone does that it always happens that way.”
5 Likes
That is a good way to put it. I think it was enjoyable, with good effects, and a tad too predictable. But still enjoyed it.
I finished the second season of Yellowstone last night, and boy was that a good ride. Also, we started watching the Alexander documentary on Netflix.
I am enjoying it but I cannot avoid thinking why Oliver Stone movie had the battles so well done and this has the typical Hollywood melees where battles seem like a mess, with a few horses thrown around for good measure. Three episodes in and I still haven’t seen a phalanx, let alone a single sarissa (the Macedonian long pike). Come on, I know they are not easy to find, but the 2000s movie must have had some discards, or at least contact re-enacting associations…?
3 Likes
3 episodes into Domino Day on BBC iplayer. It’s a decent story of witches in today’s Manchester, but it’s not as immediately gripping as Being Human was.
This was the last nudge I needed and so we began on Friday…
and finished watching on Saturday. It was really good.
For reasons I cannot quite fathom, my brain made a weird connection and I’ll never look at Princess Peach the same way.
5 Likes
Watched the Time Traveller’s Wife. It was rather bizarre that they chose to produce it as a musical, and I felt that it’s much better if it is not. It was still a good time.
3 Likes
On Monday the film society kicked off its 2024 season with Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and the theatre was literally full – a number of people had to be turned away, which is the first time that’s happened (or even come close to happening) since the FS shifted to this theatre several years ago.
~750 bums on seats to see a 3 hour period drama from 1975, of all things. Not that it didn’t warrant the audience – the film was superb – but I would never have predicted this as the one which would pack the place out.
The unanticipated attendance seemed a bit stressful for the FS team at the time, but apparently they were able to arrange an additional screening so that those who missed out could get to see it, so that’s excellent.
8 Likes
My partner wants to watch the new Netflix Avatar show.
But I have only ever seen a season or two of Legend of Korra (and barely understood what was going on) and I had never seen the original Avatar: The Last Airbender show … I mean „it‘s just a show for kids“
So this week-end, when I needed to be resting on the couch anyway (reasons), we watched the first 1.5 seasons of Avatar.
That was just the perfect thing for how I was feeling this week-end. And I also feel like I am closing a huge Bildungslücke 
Can‘t wait to see the rest.
I wish I had seen this when I was my nephew‘s age. (He just turned 12).
4 Likes
My partner also wanted to watch the new Netflix Avatar show. We’ve been a bit disappointed by it. I was hoping they would change more; instead they seem to be slamming as much of the original show as possible into as short a time and as little a budget as possible and as the characters really don’t have much room to breathe. There are a lot of things I think are not being done very well–and while I could point to how they are done well in the original, I don’t think the issue is that things are different. It’s that they’re taking a lot of shortcuts without compromising by streamlining the plot and removing beloved moments and minor characters.
The moment at the end of the first episode where Aang pulls himself up by his emotional boot straps and speaks an extremely expedited character arc to camera really cemented what the show was for me. There’s another moment (when Aang escapes from Zuko’s ship) where not just in the original show, but in any drama worth the time without some pretty remarkable exceptions, Aang and Zuko should have had a confrontation, conversation or interaction to highlight their antagonistic relationship and set up their characters more firmly. And that just doesn’t happen.
There are things to like and I think a lot of people will enjoy those enough not to mind, but I think overall it is quite perfunctory and sloppy.
Appa is wonderful and fluffy and I want to hug his nose.
2 Likes
The original A:TLA just keeps getting better right to the last episode, it’s incredible.
My partner has an Appa plush and it may be one of their favourite items.
2 Likes
I’ve decided I must use this word as a pun in my RPG game somehow. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is packed with dodgy German puns - might name a character something like it, one who has a vital clue or something!
5 Likes
Oh boy.
I didn’t watch Foundation or The Peripheral, how did they turn out?
3 Likes
The Peripheral was great, or at least I thought so. No second season though.
4 Likes
I really enjoyed Foundation. 3rd season seems to be coming.
Beware though if you recently read Foundation… the differences to the books are huge and in some cases might be seen as turning the “message” of what psycho history is on its head. It’s a fun show though …
I would totally watch Neuromancer. And if it’s different from the book (which I adored way back when) that’s probably a good thing because on a “recent” reread I found the plot meandering and confusing…
5 Likes
My 2017 re-read review includes in part:
Except for Molly, the razorgirl with permanent mirrorshades and blades in her fingertips, who comes over as the epitome of cool but she’s all vulnerable and emotional really. And she’s happy to sleep with Case but doesn’t hang around and get all clingy, so that’s all right. (One can see the genesis of a thousand half-arsed Strong Female Characters right here.)
Apart from that I enjoyed it, but that “apart” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
3 Likes
Yeah, it didn’t age that well.
William Gibson himself aged much better At least from what I’ve seen him write on social media before I left twitter.
Badly aged book doesn’t matter all that much to me personally. Book is still a cyberpunk icon. The world it evoked remains hugely influential on so many other works.
And I can’t repeat reading this in the 90s at the cusp of the modern internet. Nobody can.
4 Likes
The Peripheral was awesome. In the top 3 shows of the year for me.
2 Likes