Also, Bosch came out with their latest season recently.
That one was under my radar so far, thanks for the tip!
Westworld S2:
Watched “Hawk the Slayer” and “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets”.
Hawk was noticeably better, despite being a legendarily bad film*. Jack Palance was absolutely chewing up the scenery, providing quite a contrast to the way lead actor John Terry brought new meaning to the word “wooden”.
* And deservedly so. If you don’t purposely watch bad movies for the laffs, avoid it like the plague.
Just watched Valerian last night. It was one of those movies that annoyed me immensely by its very existence because someone obviously spent a lot of money making it, they just skimped on trying to get any decent writers or actors.
I remember my brothers and I going apeshit over Hawk the Slayer simply because of the machine-gun speed of the elf and his arrows. Of course, we were deep into D&D at the time…
And if John Terry’s character was wooden (which he was) I’d have to describe the Elf as robotic. It was like he was reading his lines for the first time every time!
Considering they probably spent the budget on getting Jack Palance that may be true. I still love that trainwreck of a film.
Also on Valerian. While he has had some good films Luc-Besson has been style/visuals over substance for awhile now.
Is Bosch good? I tried to watch it, but the very first episode has this whole “you’re a good cop, but you’re in trouble for having shot a suspect again” kind of thing that really really rubbed me the wrong way. The knowledge that in real life, a police officer who shoots a black man rarely faces any real consequences made me pretty upset at the way it seemed to portray Bosch as having been done wrong by the powers that be when they made him take some time off
Does it get better? Am I misremembering the first episode?
It’s good in that it does a decent job in representing police procedural stories in novels that are over 25 years old for the most part. If memory serves, his character is a Vietnam vet turned cop who’s trying to do the right thing in a generally corrupt system. He’s aware of his privilege to some degree, I believe, and tries his best to be fair. I think his questionable shoot was part Latino if I remember correctly.
ETA: Yes, he’s a maverick cop, but many of the novels show that it often works to his disadvantage. ETA ETA: Not to give away overarching storylines, but he is working against corrupt cops often.
Evil Genius.
Last night I watched the first episode on a whim, and then stayed up much later than I had planned to after being totally sucked in.
The Expanse - Delta-V
So that happened. Don’t be messing with the protomolecule.
Also: miller!
I’m really into The Americans - a show about a pair of Soviet “illegals” - spies operating without diplomatic cover, pretending to be an American family
It is a show you really need to watch from the beginning, and when it began it just wasn’t super popular. (Keep in mind it came out in 2013 and in 2012 Romney had been mocked for saying Russia is America’s biggest geopolitical foe.
It’s on Prime if you want to catch up - next week is the series finale.
My wife was so nuts for that movie it seems a little strange. She’s always had a weakness for caper movies of which this is an oddball sort.
So Solo was mostly pretty fun even if it had a few plotholes and wasn’t strictly necessary. I was really annoyed that someone felt a need to smear some Phantom Menace on it in the final act though.
The Expanse - It Reaches Out
So so glad this will have a life after this season - stupid syfy!
Also: miller!
The Handmaid’s Tale - First Blood
Not sure how much more grimdark bleak despair i can take with this show and you know it’s bad when a suicide bomber taking out a bunch of commanders is a “fuck yeah” moment.
Watched Rogue One last night and only just realized the storm troopers’ armor is useless. They go down with just about every hit they take. Am I wrong in thinking this?
So, yeah. Catching up on the newer SW flicks. I well remember going to the first one in 77. The oldness, it creeps up on you.
This has been covered extensively (maybe not here). It’s not just you.
But hey, maybe Force kung fu is the excuse? I dunno.