We just finished Hawkeye last night ourselves, and think it is certainly the most fun of the Marvel Disney+ shows. Definitely had both of us cracking up at the owl and the van scene. That was comedy gold!
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Muppet Christmas Carol.
It transpires that Iâve never seen this all the way through. Itâs magical. I cried. Lots
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Michael Caineâs career highpoint.
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How dare you ignore his fabulous turn as Sherlock Holmes in Without a Clue!?
OT: Over the past couple of weeks, we have caught up on the last three Marvel films. Shang-Chi was good, though went a lot weirder than I expected at the end.
Eternals ended up being much better than I expected, but that may have been by comments around the internet leading me to not expect much.
Then yesterday, we saw Spider-Man: No Way Home and it was excellent!
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I love Muppet Christmas Carol so much!
Watched the finale of Wheel of Time season 1, and it was baaad. Iâve really liked some of the earlier eps but todayâs was just poor. I get that they want to make a GoT/LotR rival, but this was like sending only two of the LotR Fellowship to Rivendell, and then Rivendell turns out to be the Helmâs Deep siege instead of a meeting, and then Gandalf decides to leave for no reason instead of facing a Balrog. Just nonsense.
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Just finished The Matrix Resurrections. Meh.
The first 30 minutes is a bit heavy on self-aware meta references that were both too blatant to be insightful and too earnest to be funny (like how The Simpsons would rip into Fox). Once you get past the setup and the plot starts, it is a Matrix movie. Not as good as the first. Not as bad as the prequels. It continues the trend of taking an interesting premise and turning it into a shootâem up spectacle that washes over you in a hum-drum haze of action. I felt that same way about Tenet (and other Nolan films), to give you a baseline. Itâs a knowing retread rather than than an exploration of the concepts and characters.
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Watched Die Hard on Christmas Eve (as it is not Chirtmas for me until Hans GrĂźber falls from Nakatomi Plaza) and last night, after 2 non stop days (we were 4 familias in my house in Christmas Eve and 5 at a friends of Christmas Day), we watched the last episode of WoT season 1. I must say, the opening credits should have a warning on any episode other than 1, 4 and 7, where a warning like âany resemblance to the original books has been accidentalâ should be included.
Way to gut a series, hats off to the creators. On the other hand, my OH had no clue about the books and said that she enjoyed it. Even with all my gasping and sighing. So thereâs that.
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Watched Matrix Resurrections last night on the cinema. I agree, is way better than the sequels, but not as good as the original. But I wasnât expecting it to be better than the original. Very few movies are.
Definitely great was Neil Patrick Harris. He has the best lines in the movie. I enjoyed most the first half of the movie, then it kind of goes a bit undercooked towards the end. Still very enjoyable for a Boxing Day evening.
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In the end, they had 8 hours to tell the entire of the first book (in the main) - it was always going to be drastically different. If itâs regarded as a success, they may get longer order session to tell the story
Courtesy of a weeks holiday with my Mum and grandparents, got through a number of series and Christmassy movies, the highlights were:
The Queens Gambit, Iâm super late to the party on this one, having watched the first episode ages ago but not finishing the series until now. Anya Taylor-Joy was a joy to watch, definitely need to keep an eye out for things sheâs in. Well put together and satisfying ending that gets the joy of games in a delightful way.
Blown Away: Christmas, this one was a pleasant surprise to stumble upon on Netflix! I really enjoyed the first two seasons and bringing back past contestants was a great idea. And was thrilled to see Cat get the win, Elliot was also great in Season 2, but I was rooting for her to win and she really deserved her win this time around imo.
Die Hard, always a great watch around Christmas (though am I the only one who roots for Hans? Little bit at least - Alan Rickman is such a delight to watch, I want to see him win!)
The Muppet Christmas Carol, love seeing Michael Caine playing Scrooge completely straight, as though he were in a legit serious production of this story, irrespective of acting across from puppets.
Hawkeye, another pleasant surprise here! Together with Loki and Wandavision, seems like Marvel have generated a number of rather good, unique limited series of late. Hawkeye might be my fave actually. Hailee Steinfeld is a great addition to the MCU and Iâm looking forward to seeing more of her in the future.
The Martian, yeah not particularly Christmassy but I hadnât got around to seeing this one yet (somehow). Was a lot of fun, glad to see a survival movie that isnât all doom and gloom for 2 hours⌠Am rewatching it with my wife at the moment, as she loves survival movies but also hadnât got around to watching this one.
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We watched Zoolander, because itâs been too long since we watched Zoolander.
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La Reine Margot. Itâs one of the few things that overlap in mine and my dadâs tastes, and a hugely costumed epic of massacre and poison is ideal for boxing day.
A long time since I saw that! Great movie
Donât Look UP. Amazing. Great cast, great delivery, the world we live in is sooo mad. Very recommended, probably the best movie I have seen this yearâŚ
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Finished Ted Lasso Season 2.
Not quite as strong as Season 1, but how could it be? But still dang good. And Sam is a great character. Plus the villain story arc is done particularly well⌠painfully believable.
Highly recommend if you liked Season 1. The Coach Beard episode alone was almost worth the price of admission.
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I read that Apple asked for 2 more eps at the last minute, so the xmas and Coach Beard self-contained episodes were done separately. I think the Beard one is genius!
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I also very much enjoyed Donât Look Up. Itâs getting a kicking in the press though. Too obvious and misanthropic? It didnât feel excessively so to me after the few years weâve had. Itâs true, climate change isnât quite equivalent to a meteor destroying all life on Earth, but I thought it was funny, depressing and no more stupid or obvious than our politicians have been of late. Plus, Jennifer Lawrence, therefore good.
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The other day, I watched a testimony, captured on CSPAN, from Carl Sagan to a Congressional committee about the Greenhouse Effect⌠in 1985.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?125856-1/greenhouse-effect (starts at 19:10)
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I really enjoyed Donât look up.
Yes, it was a little over-long, but it passed the six laugh test with Ron Perlman alone!
My biggest problem was laughing at something and then going âYeah, but thatâs believableâ and then sighing deeply.
On a review on another site in the comments someone had posted that âThis global warming thing has been around since the 80âs and none of their predictions have come true.â and all I could think is what the holy heck? Do they not watch the news?
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Yes, it is deeply bitter-sweet comedy. I can definitely see the vibe they had on The Big Short carrying over to this one.
The most worrying thing is that I can see our super billionaires not giving a toss about the rest of us in the name of profits. Did anybody notice the age average on the very last scene? Humanity is doomed, and yet here we are, not moving a finger.
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