We’ve watched a bunch of stuff I haven’t reported:
Andor season 2: Excellent. The original plan was a five-season series, with each season representing one year, and one year closer to the Battle of Yavin. Since Yavin is the beginning of the Rebel Alliance/soon-to-be-restored Republic dating convention, Andor covers years 5-1 BBY. Because of expense, Disney truncated the five-year run to two years, which is disappointing, as I would have avidly watched five years of this. But amazingly, the second season, which gave three episodes each to 4 BBY 4, 3 BBY, 2 BBY and 1BBY, did not feel rushed or squooshed. And the last episode bleeds directly into Rogue One: A Star Wars Tale. Great stuff. Now that I think about it, I might have said all this before. But it's worth a repeat.
Umbrella Academy season 4: Dreadful. How did that manage to turn this funny, quirky, sometimes heartwarming show into such drek? It probably started with destroying their best character (Five). I could go on and on, but it’s too depressing. Oh, also, the ending basically said, “None of this mattered. Move along, Johnny. Nothing to see here.” So if you never watched Umbrella Academy before, you don’t need to start now. (Although the first two seasons are fantastic.)
Secrets We Keep is a murder mystery set in a wealthy enclave in Denmark. It’s basically a critique of the liberal Danish elite, who are depicted as hypocrites when a Filipino au pair (of which there are a lot) turns up dead. The lead character always tries to do the “right” thing, but without fail, always makes the wrong move. Decent, with lots of travel porn.
Ironheart season 1: Gave up in the middle of the second episode. I don’t really want to watch Iron Man without Robert Downey Jr., but gave it a try. But I found none of the people in this story believable or interesting. I learned my lesson with Echo: If something looks this boring by episode two, it’s not going to get better.
Revival: We watched the first episode, and liked the actress who plays the lead character, Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp). She might, however, be slightly too old for the part. When she’s with her college-age sister she looks like the student’s mother; when she’s with her father they look like contemporaries. (It doesn’t help that the actor who plays the father is too young for the part. In the comics, the father was white-haired and at retirement age, and this actor looks 40-ish. Just like Scrofano, who is probably pushing 40 if she’s not there yet.) It wasn’t so compelling that we’ve gone back for episode 2, but we will eventually.
Last of Us season 2: We gave up after episode 2. We love Pedro Pascal in everything (except Wonder Woman 1984, but that was just a bad script), and loved Bella Ramsey in Game of Thrones. And we really enjoyed the first season. But Ellie has always been kind of hard to take as a character, and with season 2 she has become insufferable. Without Joel there to leaven the scenes, we find her unwatchable. So we’re not watching.
I hear that season 3 is going to focus on Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). Shrug. We don’t like her, either. This is what happens when you don’t give the audience anyone to root for: They leave. I honestly don’t care what happens to any of these people.
Wheel of Time season 3: Another show we gave up on. My post-surgery eyes had trouble with scenes where everyone was throwing light at each other, but I soldiered on (with diminishing understanding). But the non-CGI scenes weren’t much better. I’ve never read the books, but it’s clear the central figure is Rand al’Thor, about whom I don’t much care. I’m just there for Rosamund Pike, and while I suspect the writers are doing what they can to put her in the center of the story, it doesn’t quite work – it feels ham-handed, and she’s still not in enough scenes to make me happy. Also, it always feels like the battle scenes are rigged to put the good guys in desperate straits, when they’ve already been demonstrated to have the power to win whatever battle they happen to be in. It’s like when a magical hero in a comic book is in a story where things get worse and worse and worse, and then he remembers at the very last minute when all hope is lost that he’s got a “Beat This Particular Bad Guy” spell, and wins. No bueno.
Fortunately, Wheel of Time has been canceled, so I feel no need to finish the season.
The Glass Dome: An expert on child kidnappers returns to her Swedish home town for her step-mother’s funeral, a town where she was kidnapped as a child – and escaped, although the kidnapper was never caught. Now it seems he’s up to his old tricks again after a two-decade absence, as girls disappear and turn up dead. She helps the local police in an ad hoc capacity and the hunt (and psychological drama) is on. It was OK, with lots of travel porn, even though I guessed the ending.
The Åre Murders: A suspended Stockholm police officer returns to her home town just as a teenage girl is murdered. She joins the local cops in a “loan” sort of way, and eventually moves back full time even after her suspension is lifted. There’s a brewing romance with a married colleague, and the first murder is solved by episode four, and second one solved by episode six. That makes me think this is intended to be a running series. It was also OK, with lots of travel porn.
The Bridge: We were looking forward to this one, which is about a murder on the bridge between Denmark and Sweden. (There’s an American remake set on a bridge between the U.S. and Mexico.) We didn’t even know what language it would be in. Turns out the language was English, because it was dubbed! We hate dubbed, so we didn’t watch it.
SQUID GAME: Started watching this from the beginning tonight. We watched season one back in '21, but I wanted to re-watch it before starting season two. One thing led to another, and now there are three seasons.
I've been watching the results of the latest sumo tourname t from Nagoya. I only started following sumo this year. It takes a while to get into, but it's interesting stuff. There's this Ukrainean kid that wrestles as "Aonishiki" who's doing very well for himself.
Superman (2025). I posted a generally positive review under the last video, only to release I couldn't edit it and I had to delete and repost again. The movie has many, many good elements, but it, too, required editing.
Short version: an enteraining mess that should have been a lot better, given that they have the right cast and they understand these characters.
Jimmy Olsen’s connection with Eve Teschmacher stretches credulity even in an unabashed comic-book movie. The nascent Justice League who cannot agree on their name are very entertaining. Terrific, in fact. Metamorpho was one unnecessary character too many. Worse, the role of both undercut Superman and Lois as characters, and shortchanges the conflict with Lex Luthor.
Edit: let Lois do the research that falls into Jimmy's lap, minimizing Olsen's role, and just have Lex use kryptonite in the prison sequence, rather than bringing in a character. Let Superman find his way out of the mess, in time to rendez-vous with Lois and Mr. Terrific.
Replies
WONDERFUL WORLD OF TUPPERWARE: A kitschy half-hour 1965 "infomercial" about Tupperware.
We’ve watched a bunch of stuff I haven’t reported:
Andor season 2: Excellent. The original plan was a five-season series, with each season representing one year, and one year closer to the Battle of Yavin. Since Yavin is the beginning of the Rebel Alliance/soon-to-be-restored Republic dating convention, Andor covers years 5-1 BBY. Because of expense, Disney truncated the five-year run to two years, which is disappointing, as I would have avidly watched five years of this. But amazingly, the second season, which gave three episodes each to 4 BBY 4, 3 BBY, 2 BBY and 1BBY, did not feel rushed or squooshed. And the last episode bleeds directly into Rogue One: A Star Wars Tale. Great stuff. Now that I think about it, I might have said all this before. But it's worth a repeat.
Umbrella Academy season 4: Dreadful. How did that manage to turn this funny, quirky, sometimes heartwarming show into such drek? It probably started with destroying their best character (Five). I could go on and on, but it’s too depressing. Oh, also, the ending basically said, “None of this mattered. Move along, Johnny. Nothing to see here.” So if you never watched Umbrella Academy before, you don’t need to start now. (Although the first two seasons are fantastic.)
Secrets We Keep is a murder mystery set in a wealthy enclave in Denmark. It’s basically a critique of the liberal Danish elite, who are depicted as hypocrites when a Filipino au pair (of which there are a lot) turns up dead. The lead character always tries to do the “right” thing, but without fail, always makes the wrong move. Decent, with lots of travel porn.
Ironheart season 1: Gave up in the middle of the second episode. I don’t really want to watch Iron Man without Robert Downey Jr., but gave it a try. But I found none of the people in this story believable or interesting. I learned my lesson with Echo: If something looks this boring by episode two, it’s not going to get better.
Revival: We watched the first episode, and liked the actress who plays the lead character, Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp). She might, however, be slightly too old for the part. When she’s with her college-age sister she looks like the student’s mother; when she’s with her father they look like contemporaries. (It doesn’t help that the actor who plays the father is too young for the part. In the comics, the father was white-haired and at retirement age, and this actor looks 40-ish. Just like Scrofano, who is probably pushing 40 if she’s not there yet.) It wasn’t so compelling that we’ve gone back for episode 2, but we will eventually.
Last of Us season 2: We gave up after episode 2. We love Pedro Pascal in everything (except Wonder Woman 1984, but that was just a bad script), and loved Bella Ramsey in Game of Thrones. And we really enjoyed the first season. But Ellie has always been kind of hard to take as a character, and with season 2 she has become insufferable. Without Joel there to leaven the scenes, we find her unwatchable. So we’re not watching.
I hear that season 3 is going to focus on Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). Shrug. We don’t like her, either. This is what happens when you don’t give the audience anyone to root for: They leave. I honestly don’t care what happens to any of these people.
Wheel of Time season 3: Another show we gave up on. My post-surgery eyes had trouble with scenes where everyone was throwing light at each other, but I soldiered on (with diminishing understanding). But the non-CGI scenes weren’t much better. I’ve never read the books, but it’s clear the central figure is Rand al’Thor, about whom I don’t much care. I’m just there for Rosamund Pike, and while I suspect the writers are doing what they can to put her in the center of the story, it doesn’t quite work – it feels ham-handed, and she’s still not in enough scenes to make me happy. Also, it always feels like the battle scenes are rigged to put the good guys in desperate straits, when they’ve already been demonstrated to have the power to win whatever battle they happen to be in. It’s like when a magical hero in a comic book is in a story where things get worse and worse and worse, and then he remembers at the very last minute when all hope is lost that he’s got a “Beat This Particular Bad Guy” spell, and wins. No bueno.
Fortunately, Wheel of Time has been canceled, so I feel no need to finish the season.
The Glass Dome: An expert on child kidnappers returns to her Swedish home town for her step-mother’s funeral, a town where she was kidnapped as a child – and escaped, although the kidnapper was never caught. Now it seems he’s up to his old tricks again after a two-decade absence, as girls disappear and turn up dead. She helps the local police in an ad hoc capacity and the hunt (and psychological drama) is on. It was OK, with lots of travel porn, even though I guessed the ending.
The Åre Murders: A suspended Stockholm police officer returns to her home town just as a teenage girl is murdered. She joins the local cops in a “loan” sort of way, and eventually moves back full time even after her suspension is lifted. There’s a brewing romance with a married colleague, and the first murder is solved by episode four, and second one solved by episode six. That makes me think this is intended to be a running series. It was also OK, with lots of travel porn.
The Bridge: We were looking forward to this one, which is about a murder on the bridge between Denmark and Sweden. (There’s an American remake set on a bridge between the U.S. and Mexico.) We didn’t even know what language it would be in. Turns out the language was English, because it was dubbed! We hate dubbed, so we didn’t watch it.
We quickly gave up on the American version of The Bridge, but there's also a UK-French version called The Tunnel that I think we finished and enjoyed.
SQUID GAME: Started watching this from the beginning tonight. We watched season one back in '21, but I wanted to re-watch it before starting season two. One thing led to another, and now there are three seasons.
I've been watching the results of the latest sumo tourname t from Nagoya. I only started following sumo this year. It takes a while to get into, but it's interesting stuff. There's this Ukrainean kid that wrestles as "Aonishiki" who's doing very well for himself.
Superman (2025). I posted a generally positive review under the last video, only to release I couldn't edit it and I had to delete and repost again. The movie has many, many good elements, but it, too, required editing.
Short version: an enteraining mess that should have been a lot better, given that they have the right cast and they understand these characters.
Jimmy Olsen’s connection with Eve Teschmacher stretches credulity even in an unabashed comic-book movie. The nascent Justice League who cannot agree on their name are very entertaining. Terrific, in fact. Metamorpho was one unnecessary character too many. Worse, the role of both undercut Superman and Lois as characters, and shortchanges the conflict with Lex Luthor.
Edit: let Lois do the research that falls into Jimmy's lap, minimizing Olsen's role, and just have Lex use kryptonite in the prison sequence, rather than bringing in a character. Let Superman find his way out of the mess, in time to rendez-vous with Lois and Mr. Terrific.
-
129
-
130
-
131
-
132
-
133
of 133 Next