So good. Terrible cliffhanger to end on.
although given the control CLU had by the time of Legacy it was inevitable that Argon City would ultimately fall
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I remember hearing Adam Corolla do his “Mr. Birchum” character on the Kevin & Bean radio show in Los Angeles back in the 90s. At the time it seemed like a reasonably funny bit, or at least a bit the target audience would find funny. Birchum was an equal-opportunity offender who was kind of a combination of Ron Swanson and Lewis Black, and it was always clear that Birchum was supposed to be the asshole rather than some kind of enlightened hero.
This show looks like someone took that concept, stripped it of anything resembling actual humor, marinated it in 30 years of bitter right-wing talking points about “cancel culture” and “woke mob mentality” and passed it off to the lowest-bid animation studio available. I can’t even imagine right-wingers actually laughing at this train wreck.
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Yeah, this gets into some of that territory… but unlike Mr. Birchum, in a funny (and interesting) way…
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Here’s another good breakdown that dissects the show’s fundamental problems by comparing and contrasting two episodes of Mr. Birchum with two episodes of King of the Hill that involved near-identical plots. One where Hank Hill becomes a substitute woodshop teacher, and another where he tries to act as a peacemaker between two rival groups of veterans.
The big takeaway being that it’s entirely possible to create a genuinely good animated sitcom about a conservative main character struggling to live out his “common sense” ideals in a world of changing social norms and occasionally asinine-sounding rules. Corolla and his creative team just really, really suck at it because they care more about grievance-airing than storytelling or character development.
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Also, who would guess that his buddy* who did the least amount of work on that radio show became the most successful of the group? He now seems to be the one who is most aware of his privilege.
(*I say that because I remember more than a few times when Kimmel literally read from sports section from the LA Times without any sort of attribution.)
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Just a few episodes in, but loving it.
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We’ve just finished watching The Decameron on Netflix.
We really, really liked it. I mean, we’re medievalists, so the 14th century aesthetic spoke to us (and they did a really good job on that, vis-à-vis the costuming), but with modern music (Shock the Monkey was in there, as was some stuff that sounded industrial, mixed in with some Vivaldi and pavanes), but it was set in the Black Death, and it was made very clear that this was a time of chaos and death.
The characters all set themselves up to be untrustworthy in one way or another, but you can see where it’s coming from. And, like, the Black Death is destroying the world around them, so no, none of them is going to be OK.
There is humour, there is violence, there is death, there is joy, there is lots and lots of sex of various kinds, there is hope, there is despair, there is anger and grief and madness and hate and tragedy, and there is love.
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I just saw the very end of S3E1 and now I want to watch the series.
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… finally cought up with “The Boys” Season 4
By the end everything is totally fucked
I noticed that one character named “Senator Calhoun” also seemed to be the outgoing Vice President and the Speaker of the House 
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[Industry]
Come for the fast-talking bullying in incomprehensible financial jargon, stay for the soft-core porn. 
It is fun, though.
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That was also what drew me to Succession.
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Watching True Detective season 1. Pretty intense.
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So good.
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His Punisher was a pretty decent portrayal. Very different from the usual “Death Wish” inspired character of prior movies and comic books. A lot closer to “Outlaw Josey Wales” in that he unintentionally grows a “found family” of people to protect.
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This weekend I watched both parts of Per Aspera Ad Astrum Astra (Through the Thorns to the Stars) on Kanopy (video streaming service through my library). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film more deserving of a remake. The special effects, editing, and sound are so bad. But it has the bones of a great story and is full-on space communism. Even the ship’s cat is up there in space redistributing wealth.
The first half of each part was a bit of a slog to get through, but the second halves were really enjoyable. I feel like the main character, Niya, maybe inspired aspects of Data in Star Trek and Eleven in Stranger Things.
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original 2.5 hour cut with subs on ytube (may be geofcked) in good quality.
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Doh! Fixed, thank you!
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A very popular phrase/motto with a couple of variations.
Included within the Sounds of Earth audio portion of the contents of the Voyager Golden Record is a track containing the inspirational message per aspera ad astra in Morse code.
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