Contentious C

New year (for me anyway), new titles, new reasons for you to continue to not give a crap about my movie reviews. It's Day 372 (and counting) of Movie Madness, The World Is on Fire And What the Hell Am I Doing with My Time Edition. Your Baby's Dirty Diaper (Also, Quit Feeding Your Baby Five Guys) Monuments - This was an indie movie I found on Kanopy, and I wish I hadn't. It's got about, oh, 3 minutes of charm to it, and then it's just some of the most boring, obvious shit you'll ever watch. It's one of those movies where you just *know* that the writer/director/producer (because of course some guy did all 3) has this really clear vision - in his head - that he pulled off the movie he wanted to, but it's not that clear to basically anyone else. It tries awfully hard to borrow from a lot of other films - Raiders of the Lost Ark, North by Northwest, Oh Brother Where Art Thou? - but there isn't nearly enough cleverness in the script or charisma from the pairings or good acting on display to make you actually give a crap about what is going on here. If it were as cute and as funny as its opening credits scene, it might have been a fine movie. Instead, the opening credits, replete with "Technicolor/Panavision" logos and music straight out of the Studio Era, are kind of the highlight. ALERT ALERT ALERT - Unforgivable Instance of Film Malpractice (But Also, Seriously, Quit Feeding Your Baby Five Guys, We Only Have So Much Febreze in the World) Eragon - Hooooooooooooooooooooooooo boy. Where the FUCK do I start with this? Let's just get a few things out of the way. Obvious, and pathetically bland, attempt at capitalizing on Harry Potter-mania with a sword/sorcery version. And this goes all the way down to making sure they cast people who weren't cast in any of the early Potters (or at all, by the looks of it). But even without that, even on its own...holy sweet mother of fuck there is just NOTHING about this that's actually *good*. The best part by a country damn mile is Jeremy Irons, but even for him, it's the equivalent of mailing it in. The script is dead on arrival; the CGI looks terrible even for 2006; John fucking Malkovich deserved a Razzie for this movie; and there are plot holes the size of the damn dragons in the film. The sad thing about it, too, is that everyone I've ever spoken to about the books says the books are worth reading for YA fantasy, and yet they barfed up this adaptation that comes off more like if you drained all the color out of one of Terry Brooks' early Shannara books, which were already the most lifeless fantasy bilge imaginable. And you want to know the worst thing? THEY BASICALLY REMADE THIS! Seventh Son is the EXACT same fucking movie, except Ben Barnes doesn't ride a dragon! He's got some other stupid wibbly-wobbly, prophecy-wophecy kind of bullshit that makes him "special" and lets him borrow the world's dumbest Plot Armor from Eragon. How in the Hell did they not learn their lesson when this flopped so damn hard?? Ugggggh. UGH. It's so bad it makes me angry. I need to move on. AXE Body Spray Instead of Shower Predators && - I think you could just about bin every Robert Rodriguez-directed-or-produced movie into this "not quite shit, but actually, yeah, it's shit" category, save maybe Desperado. Anything he touches always has the veneer of quality, and this *looks* good as often as not, but the best parts of this are entirely in the first half, when it feels less like a dumb action movie and more like an episode of The Twilight Zone. It's also sort of laughable to see Fishburne, Goggins, and Mahershala Ali playing various numbered fiddles to Adrien Brody. Granted, two of those guys had yet to become stars in 2010, but it's like having Kobe, LeBron, and Dr. J on your team, but you make Dana Barros the team captain. All this said, it does have the single most METAL opening scene in maybe all of film, and I can't totally hate it just for that, if nothing else. Otherwise, it's only better than the AvP movies because it's shinier, not because the things operating underneath the surface are actually superior. Feast of Love - This was a 2007 movie with a lot of beautiful women doing an absurd number of sex scenes for an otherwise standard - and largely forgettable - romantic film. Why they felt the need to dust off Robert Benton (director of Kramer vs. Kramer) for this, I don't know, but you can't really fault Morgan Freeman or Greg Kinnear for showing up, because those guys always show up when you flash a paycheck, no matter how mediocre the material is. If there's a highlight to this, it's Jane Alexander, who hardly gets any lines, but acts circles around the rest of the cast with just a few looks and expressions in her rather few scenes. But it's one of those movies suffering from Interstellar disease, unconvincingly yapping its themes out loud instead of taking anyone on a trip with the film itself. Oddly enough, the song "Falling Slowly" by the Swell Season, which won Best Original Song that same year, also appears in this movie! But they even manage to screw up that little bit of serendipity by cutting the song off too soon. That'll Do, Pig Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot - I mean, this is, well, it's *decent*, but it's just kind of unremarkable as far as Gus Van Sant goes. Let me just say that however I've managed to express that I feel about not connecting to actors that others consider great, that goes about a thousand-fold for Joaquin Phoenix, who I have probably never liked in anything, except for You Were Never Really Here. And this isn't much of an exception, though it's as close as it gets. It just feels a lot like "Joaquin Phoenix as", in the way that Nicholson or Pacino are sort of doing the same schtick for a lot of their roles. Except Phoenix's schtick is to be pathetic and schlubby and self-loathing, so I guess they got the right guy for this role, if nothing else. If anyone shines, it's probably Jonah Hill, who's a little more believable as his sponsor. The love affair between Callahan and Rooney Mara's character is pretty flat, too, which is strange (or maybe explained) since her and Phoenix are actually a couple and have been for years. I don't think a lot of the creative choices Van Sant makes in this are things that make the movie a lot better, but the story at the core of everything works well enough that I basically didn't care that there were things I didn't otherwise like. Your mileage may vary. Pain & Gain - This was *reeeeeeeeeeally* close to bumping up to the next category, but I think it overstays its welcome, the little titles and voiceovers get old after a bit, and the script isn't quite as funny once it has to wrap up as it is to start. But damn if this isn't pretty much the best Michael Bay movie that's ever been made. It's the rare time where his obsession with overblown action and crazy bullshit actually fits the story. Wahlberg and the Rock are both great ("I can't help you chop up bodies, I'm doing a superset" is the most honest gymbro comment ever), and Rebel Wilson steals every scene she's in. I can also appreciate anything that makes the police look totally fucking incompetent more often than not. Carlin was right; it's the American Dream because you gotta be asleep to believe it. Yeah, But... Midnight - I was worried I wouldn't hit every category out of the gate, and then I watched this Korean thriller today. Man, this is pretty interesting stuff. It's not quite *great*, because it's a little obvious at times - you have seen lots of movies like it, and it liberally borrows from other films - but it still has a lot to say about social issues. It isn't exactly Parasite in that regard, but it's closer than you might expect. The main character is deaf, and the many otherwise-absurd twists and turns in the plot end up working relatively well because of her run-ins with incompetence, or bigotry, or indifference, or a lack of empathy from quite a few different characters and groups of people in the film. And there's kind of a funny switch that gets thrown at some point (I think I'd need to rewatch it to pinpoint exactly when), but it goes from being almost jokey and sympathetic toward the serial killer's behavior to being full-on insane and creepy and putting the audience very much in support of the victims. The acting is generally pretty solid and although there's a lot of RUNNING!, the camera work is usually quite good. Not quite your run-of-the-mill thriller and worth a look (also on Kanopy right now). One Maple-Frosted Donut Flee - Ooooof. If Drive My Car hadn't won Best Foreign Film, I could see this taking it in a walk last year. I think it might have been a bit unfairly punished because the animation style is like those old insurance commercials and A Scanner Darkly, where they filmed at least some real stuff and then rendered that into a cartoon, so I'm a little surprised this didn't win Animated or Documentary, either. But I don't feel like the animation does a thing to hurt the emotional impact of this, which is just...it's a lot. But I also think it's a movie people have been prepped for, at least a little bit. We've had The Kite Runner or Incendies to sort of speak the language of refugees prior to this, so I don't think this is quite the hammer blow it would have been without those films. But, then again, that's also the main thrust of the whole damn thing: getting eyeballs on a problem and getting people to take it seriously enough. The whole movie is shot through with so many instances where people drift in and out of the moment and choose inaction over doing the right thing, and families and nations suffer, over and over again. This film makes it painfully apparent that it's impossible to flee the greatest cruelty of all: the cruelty of indifference. Why They Make 'Em, Why We Watch 'Em Raging Bull && - After watching The Set-Up, I figured maybe I should revisit this, since I hadn't seen it in probably 20 years. Back then, I can safely say I didn't appreciate it. I found some of the boxing action ridiculous (and still do, in the case of the last Robinson fight), and I didn't really have much of an eye back then for the craft of putting together something like this. Plus, I think I felt like something had happened between Joey and Vickie, and I'm not sure where I got that that idea from anymore. This time...it was almost like I hadn't seen it at all, and I guess on a lot of levels, I hadn't. I still think it's maybe a little too long - some of the post-boxing stuff could be shorter, especially if they'd had something else besides the passage of time to really make his suspension feel like it had consequences - but everything else is basically letter perfect. I think this is probably my favorite Joe Pesci role. I also really found myself liking the script, which felt a lot more natural than, well, just about any other movie you'll ever watch, because, hey, people repeat themselves and don't just say flowery bullshit all the time! I'd still probably rate this lower than a lot of you - I think it'd fall at # 4 for the 80s behind Videodrome, Raiders of the Lost Ark (only the most rewatchable movie ever), and Come & See, in that order - but it's nice to finally 'get' this one. Still probably won't fucking like Taxi Driver, though.

I'm kind of toying with a PPL split at the moment that I actually kind of like; I just haven't really hit upon a frequency that's going to work. I could just break it as an 8-day cycle, but I almost kinda want to push it to 9 for the extra rest, and just do two days on/one day off for whatever I need to do to complete the cycle. But I still really haven't worked up to either of those, yet. Just a few weeks in a row of going at least 3x and going about as hard as I was before I broke myself. I really needed that trap video; mine are...to put it politely, trash that a trash panda would avoid. I went with the 5-lbs and the Y-raises were straight murder. I need more of that. Mostly I was just happy to almost get 4 rounds of farmer carries with 70 in each hand at the end of Pull day. Once I can actually finish 4, I'll finally bump that up to 75 and go back to 3 walks. My right elbow had been fucking screaming with tendonitis for months, but since I got back to doing the carries more regularly, I think it's finally responding with less pain. Now I get to enjoy the recipe listed below. I don't make it exactly - I skip the milk, potatoes, and the ketchup, and I use beef broth via Better Than Bullion - but with those changes, it's kind of a little too good.

I did a weird thing and played CELESTE of all games. Obviously, considering my aversion to difficulty, I was not going to play this legit. I appreciate the tip screen that says "your deaths are good!" though. I just slapped on God mode and jetted around. Honestly, if it weren't for falling deaths and dumb hazards, I probably would have enjoyed things like the Mega Man games a lot more when I was younger. This was kind of the vibe I got here, plus the injection of something like an actual story. I only made it to about the gondola bit or just past before getting a little bored; I think I'll check out the rest today and then probably delete it, because let's face it, I'm not playing it the way it was intended. It kind of makes me want to replay GRIS at some stage and try to finish unlocking whatever was left there, because I know I didn't find everything in that game.

Andrew Wiggins regrets getting vaccinated. We regret you're a fucking moron, Andy.

Too bad the flight sounds like wooden spoons banging on trash cans.

I have a Purple 2. It took some getting used to but I really like it now. Definitely not a $10K mattress, either.

You're a real (today's word) for suggesting this game.

I went through most of the rest of TUNIC and saw both endings. I don't know how I feel about this game. On one hand, it's clearly made with a lot of love for a certain type of game that I ought to find myself enjoying, and I mostly enjoy this except for the combat feeling occasionally janky (well, that and the incredibly annoying item menu). The fact that I played it through a couple of times already even when I found it initially frustrating is a testament to the many things about it that work. But I also don't know if I would have ever put together the big puzzle within the game; I can't think of a NES/SNES title ever that went to these kinds of lengths to embed a mystery (except for the garbage NES X-Men game that actually got the code wrong on the box and even that was barely a mystery), and while I feel like I ought to applaud it, it also feels a bit too obtuse. Especially for *this* payoff. Yeah, it unlocks an ending, but...that ending kind of, uh, doesn't make a lot of sense? It's too cutesy and sappy for its own good, ending up being rather maudlin instead of really hitting you with the stakes it ought to. And, once you see it, you realize it did precisely nothing to address the much, much, MUCH bigger mystery in the game's deepest level. Given it took them 8 years to make this, I can't really see how it's going to ever get a sequel or any sort of explanation to what was going on; granted, the entire game is about addition-by-subtraction, implied storytelling, and winnowing your focus down to the bare essentials when required, so maybe expecting answers or a more arching narrative is expecting too much.

I liked it, but I don't know. It felt a bit like an Agents of SHIELD episode with the way they handled the school stuff, and that's not a compliment. Loved the "costume from Mom, name from Dad" bit, but given my near-allergic reaction to how stuffy her mother was in the first ep, it seems a bit crazy that they flip over that completely by the end of the show. But the stuff that's been working still worked, and the Spidey cameo thing would have made some sense, since this show 100% sets her up to be the modern-day Spider-Man. But maybe Disney & Marvel are stretching themselves a bit too thin with so many shows. I'd rather see half as many of them and have them done better; I don't think any of them have been as good as Daredevil was, for example. Then again, Disney's a bunch of assholes who don't want to pay people for better work as evidenced by the CGI worker complaints, so hey, here we are.

I think my problem with this, and why it seems so ridiculous, is that it's a missed opportunity. I didn't really consider that Mikey would be in bed with multiple scuzzballs, but then again, if one, why not more; the issue for me is that they could have let that sink in a bit or be foreshadowed in a more effective way. Have Cicero name-drop some Bigger Bad in an earlier episode whose initials happen to be "KL", expecting that people aren't really going to make the connection (unless they have subtitles on), or cut away to the pile of money with one bit that has some kind of identifying characteristic on it: handwriting in another language on the rubber band, perhaps? Something to make it seem less like the get-out-of-jail-free card that it felt like and more like the time bomb that it almost certainly is, so that the happiness of making choices and figuring out a goal is tinged with some kind of menace due to what's to come. This is clearly picking at small threads in something that otherwise kicked all the asses in Chicago.

The guy who got the skull overlaid on his face is thinking, "Well shit, at least I didn't do *that*!"

Given that Rust Cohle is my spirit animal - him or Walter Sobchak - that just sounds like "Tuesday".

Yeah, I mean, I didn't look up who did the soundtrack; I'm just saying Michael Mann's movies always have good music, whoever is composing it.

Soundtrack's a banger, but then again, what Michael Mann soundtrack isn't? Scarface was way too long, fatalistic, self-serious, morbid, and thoroughly unlikable (a lot of which is intentional, but it's to an excessive degree) in any meaningful way. And I thought Pacino was at his hammy worst, and that's saying something from that guy. Really everything about the movie is so over-the-top and yet so grim that I found it a pain in the ass to sit through. Granted, I watched it probably close to 15 years ago, but I doubt my opinions on it would change that drastically. Really, De Palma and Oliver Stone feel a bit interchangeable at times and I don't care much for their output as a whole, except I actually like more De Palma movies (though not many more). Gimme Carlito's Way or Blow Out. Other awful opinions of mine: I don't like Taxi Driver either!

Buncha y'all don't know a joke when you see one. It's that time! Today's the day! Made to one year! of this nonsense. Well, sort of. I actually got kind of fucked up and distracted the day I watched China Moon (Jan. 23 by my notes) and had to watch the last 12 minutes on the 24th, technically (just watched it through midnight of those days), but I watched the first 80+% on the day I intended to, so...I think that counts. Even then I'm back up to nearly 150 days regardless, so, screw you, I'll bookkeep however I like. I think I'm going to shake up the titles for the new year. I'm going to slice things a little thinner and include separate categories for those "not-quite-total-shit" movies like Waitress and whatnot, and another one for the "not-quite-great" stuff like Thief. Though I can still see Curt's eyes rolling from that one. Anyway... Total movies watched (that I commented on): 398... Total number that passed the Bechdel test: not enough... Total number of times Sean Bean died: less than I expected! Biggest takeaway from the movie-watching year that was: I need to get a life. The Worst 5 Movies I Watched for the First Time Last Year 1. The Crow: Wicked Prayer (literally the worst fucking thing I've ever seen that was intended for wide release) 2. Seventh Son 3. Artemis Fowl 4. Tomcats 5. No One Lives The Best 5 Movies I watched for the First Time Last Year (otherwise The Piano would win this every year) 1. Videodrome (my current pick for Bot80s) 2. Secrets and Lies 3. Come and See 4. A Separation 5. Drive My Car Honorable mention to 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days for that category, but the worst & best were all fairly clear standouts to me. But you want more movies, right? Here are more movies for Day 365 (and counting), Better to Burn Out than Fade Away Edition. Acceptable Queens of Pain - This documentary about NYC roller derby was easily the "worst" thing I watched, but I made a concerted effort to not watch total bilge this week. This is OK, but I think it could have used a more thorough explanation or a full-on breakdown of exactly *how* roller derby is played, because it's not like the casual viewer is going to understand. And that means when the big matches are shown - which there also needed to be more footage of - it isn't always clear why things develop as they do, because the rules are at least somewhat obscured. It could have also used a lot more supporting talk from the other people involved, rather than just the 3 primaries. This was only a 75-minute movie and I just can't think of a good reason why they didn't flesh it out more. What's there is all right, certainly far from great, but it just feels incomplete. The Doors - I really don't care for Oliver Stone much. JFK is a bloated waste of time, Platoon is overrated, and I can't stand Scarface. But this? This I liked. There's just enough weirdness to make you feel like you're watching Morrison build up and fall apart believably, without becoming too incredulous or too expository about the whole affair, either. Really, one of the worst things you can say about this movie is that it's about the Doors, and so their music is inescapable...but hey, Val Kilmer could really sing, as it turns out. Makes it that much shittier what's happened to him since, and it also makes me wonder, why didn't anyone call him for Mamma Mia? Was he already sick by then? He *had* to still be a better singer than Firth, Skaarsgard, or fucking Pierce Brosnan were. This is easily his best role, even if it is tinged with a bit of 'what if'. The other worst thing you could say about this is goddamned Meg Ryan trying to play Sally Albright in half her scenes instead of, I don't know, acting. Jesus, this is one of the worst performances of her career. But the rest of it holds together and paints a believable picture of a guy who had no intentions of sticking around. And, ultimately, maybe we're better for that. Does anyone else want to picture the notion of 80-year-old Jim being a fucking crank like Clapton or Van Morrison, or doing Louis Vuitton ads like Keith Richards? Because I don't. Spencer - This felt like a slightly prettier, slightly less absurd attempt at a Yorgos Lanthimos movie; think The Favourite only more contemporaneous and yet somehow less believable for it. I think where the former movie works and this one fails a little is that there's a lot more humor to be had from acknowledging certain realities and tweaking their nose than there is in trying to spin some Fantastic (capitalization intended) yarn about what someone in the public eye must have been thinking. I don't know if Kristen Stewart *quite* deserved a Best Actress nomination for this, but she carries it pretty well, and I suppose if anyone would understand living under a microscope to the extent that Diana did, it'd be Stewart. Mostly, though, the real draws here are the script, which is occasionally pretty cutting and incisive, and the cinematography, which really does make the locations seem quite beautiful. It doesn't quite feel like it spends enough time with the other major players, although if that had come at the expense of the exchanges with Sally Hawkins' character, then they wouldn't have been worth it. I can see why this isn't some people's cup of tea, and it wasn't really mine, either, but it's still fairly solid. The Lost Weekend - I was kinda hoping I would like this more, but maybe I just don't care much for Billy Wilder, either; I watched The Apartment some years ago and didn't really think that was a particularly great movie. Or maybe it's just too much in the way of studio convention: the big, overblown, swirling music that smashes everything else, the stilted line deliveries, the predictable transitions that don't add up to much in terms of building tension or drama. There's still a lot to like here - the script is great and obviously so is Ray Milland - but this doesn't feel like a movie that has aged particularly well. I'm not entirely fond of how judgmental and condescending it's played either; I think a lot of other media dealing with alcoholism has been more nuanced and less critical of their subjects. Then again, maybe they had the sense to do that because this movie existed before and it is what it is with respect to its presentation. Hard to untie that knot these days, but still worth watching if you're into old stuff. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - This is I think the first time I'd seen Jane Russell in anything, but this is also her biggest role by far, so who knows when I'll dive back in to anything else she did. She's pretty great here, and so is Marilyn for the most part, but holy FUCK this is THE WHITEST MOVIE EVER. Ever. There are, what, 3 or 4 people of color in the entire thing and they're such clearly overdone caricatures that it just draws even more attention to how lily-white-WASPy the rest of it really is. That said, it's not without a certain amount of charm, and the musical numbers aren't too bad. But, I watched this mostly because I'm of a certain age where Madonna's "Material Girl" video made an impression on me, so I felt it was time to take a look at the original. As it turns out, the best pop culture reference in the whole thing happens about 34 minutes into the film; watch it and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, because I just about fell out of my chair laughing. Awesome The Set-Up - Hey, now we're talking. This was frickin' great - an old boxing movie that has some obvious lines to draw to the likes of Raging Bull and Rocky and even Snake Eyes, but also to stuff like Pulp Fiction, if only with respect to plot. But the real source of quality here is the direction and camera work, which at times are WAY ahead of the curve - or, at least Robert Wise knew the right people to borrow from to make something that feels ahead of its time. There a ton of really good cuts here, where instead of doing boring crud like you would have seen in The Lost Weekend or practically any other movie from the 40s, Wise actually moves us to what the main character is seeing or chasing or running away from, like, you know, practically every director for the last 50 years has been doing. There are a few sections that I could swear were a little bit of a nod to Fritz Lang's M, as well, as it's got some of the lurking shadows and claustrophobia that eventually build up in that film. The lighting is sometimes really nifty, too, and all the side characters who get any real amount of dialogue - aside from maybe the Big Bads - are well-acted instead of just being 2-D plot props. Probably the worst thing about this is the boxing itself, but I'm not a fan of the "beat the shit out of each other the whole time" style that Rocky movies espoused, either, so I suppose The Fighter remains undefeated for showing decent ring action. But this was kind of a revelation to watch; if I were making a Best of the '40s List (what am I saying, of course I am), it'd probably be somewhere on the bottom half of the top 100.

Yeah. I still think the challenge is way too high - the Quarry level is...ugh, just the absolute damn worst, easily the low point of the game for a variety of reasons, to the point that even being unkillable, it's still not easy per se - but it's been a lot of fun to explore and start to get a sense of what's happening. It's more Zelda than Zelda but somehow also subverts a bunch of that stuff.

OK, can we talk about how fucking stupid certain parts of The Bear finale were? The rest was excellent, as per usual, but...MAN. What in the cotton candy fuck WAS that.

I've played a decent chunk of TUNIC now (yay $1 Game Pass) and I'm glad I did, because it's *just* irksome enough with the combat that I wouldn't enjoy trying to grind through some of the enemies that are there. I got frustrated before the first boss and deleted it, but then cursed myself for being so hasty. Second time, I just slapped on God Mode and went Terms of Enrampagement on everything I saw, and now I'm closing in on the second bell tower. I think. I love the feel and style - I like how it just kicks you in the deep end and says, "Have fun, ya vulpine idjit", but there are times when the runes and nonsense get to be a bit much. I guess I should try playing FEZ at some point, since people keep comparing this to that, but for me, this was the most "First LoZ" experience I've had in...yeesh, maybe since the 80s when I *beat* LoZ. It totally picks up where that left off with Miyamoto's sense of wonderment and exploration. The iso POV is not much of a handicap for me, since my visual awareness is usually pretty good. The only real door or hidden path I missed was a big one, though: the lantern. Had to backtrack for that stuff. The Dark Tomb puzzles with the guns were frickin' amazing, too. I'll probably finish this on god-mode and then move on to something else. I see what everyone else sees in it, I can admit it's a lovely piece of work all around, but I could do without it being so combat-heavy. I have so many games already where I bought them years ago and never gave them much of a playthrough that I couldn't justify shelling out money for this since I know I wouldn't replay it legit, even if I wish there were more things like it.

I made the mistake of watching The Bear last night. Let me revise that: on some level, I've been making the mistake for several days now, not because I don't like it - I acknowledge its greatness - but, as a scientist, it's pretty screwed-up. Cooking of course was the first science, and the parallels between working in a lab and working in a restaurant are difficult to miss. The biggest difference is the handling of time; cooking involves many tiny tasks constantly happening, but that also allows for the possibility of the many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many (keep this up for a while) microaggressions you see on the show. Science is a lot of "hurry up and wait", but it also means that doing one step wrong at the wrong time can cost you hours - or days, or months, or more - of time spent building to that point. I would never work in a restaurant, but somehow I picked Time-Dilated Restaurant as my vocation location. Go figure. But last night was kind of a mistake, because I got to "Review" at about 3:15 AM, saw it was 20 minutes long, and thought, "Eh fuck it, one more episode." And then THAT episode happens. Probably the best piece of TV since "Who Goes There?" or maybe the S1 finale of Succession. Jesus. I don't *love* this show, because it's so full of anxiety, but it's the next closest thing to loving it. Thank you, chef.

When you stare into the late-capitalist abyss, the late-capitalist abyss stares back. Likely in emoji, but it's staring back.

Well, Episode 1 of the game ends with and one of the few book-related spoilers I happened to see mentioned that so unless Bigby is into some Ed Kemper shit, I'd say "hijinx afoot" is right. Plus, there's a namedrop in the Trailer for TWAU2 that would lead me to believe said hijinx. EDIT: Yep, hijinx. Should have played another 10 minutes. (Also really hope this is the first, last, and only Ed Kemper reference in the video game section...)

I finished up Chapter 1 of The Wolf Among Us and spent a good chunk of that time really really wanting to see Bigby get some happy-good-funtimes out of all his hard work with Snow. I don't know if I've actively rooted for a video game character to get some before. And then...yeah...that ending. Then again, I suppose there's some hijinx afoot that will probably undo a chunk of stuff that's "mission-critical" for this game. Still, felt bad for my fellow perpetually angry dude with great hair that he didn't get to have some alone time with his special lady. I also bought Jedi: Fallen Order after all. "Fallen Order" is about right, since mostly I miss the jumps on ziplines and fall to my death over and over. I'm not sure I like it enough to really get engrossed with it, but at some point I'll actually delve further and try to get better at it.

Yeah, that was probably the best bit. My post about William Sadler as Death in the movie became pretty close to evergreen with the Shadow Realm section, since that kinda looks straight-up Bergman, but let's face it, Taika did that because, "Well, uh...they're in the Shadow Realm, mate. So, yeah, it's dark there." Just about the best version of Mighty Thor I could have expected them to do, and I'm good with it. A better sendoff for Portman than what they'd done (or hadn't done) previously. The whole Valhalla bit at the end really makes me think they're going to pull some get-out-of-jail-free bullshit with it, though. Also pretty disappointed that Eternity is just going to be...whatever that was. My least favorite part was the Necrosword just being pulled out of Kevin Feige's ass as a plot device, instead of having any of its own backstory besides some assholes saying, "I've heard of it." Really fucking lame.

Yes, it's that time. No, you don't care. It's Day 359 (and counting) of Whatever This Is, Broken Streaks Edition. Obviously not *that* streak that you don't care about, or it wouldn't say 'and counting'. But, due to the theater screwing up my particular showing of Thor: Love and Thunder, I wasn't able to watch the Thursday preview, which is the first MCU one I've missed since the original Avengers. So, there goes that. Anyway. Hot Garbage The Expendables - This ended up being what I watched instead of Thor. I'd been putting this off for a long time, because I knew it would suck, and it does, but it's not 100% irredeemable, either. It's an interesting look at the spectrum of White Guy Action Stars, since Stallone and Statham carry the bulk of the talky-talk crap because frankly they're the only ones who can. Then there are guys like Lundgren in the middle, and then Couture and Steve Austin bring up the very unwiped, very stinky rear of things. I'd make a joke about how maybe being unable to act convincingly correlates with your willingness to hit women, but, then again, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, and Michael Fassbender all exist. But, as far as action goes, this has a couple of decent moments, but once you notice Chad Stahelski's name, it makes a lot more sense why those moments work. The Sitter - Ah, David Gordon Green, how I love to roll my eyes at your typically unfunny fucking movies. This has nothing on the likes of Adventures in Babysitting, and I'm not sure it's necessarily funnier than Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, either. Lots of tropey, racist crap all over the place here, with a smattering of homophobia, too, for that matter. The same things that make Jonah Hill a believable schlub who'd find himself in this position also make him thoroughly unconvincing as the guy you actually believe can win over this many people. Hardly the worst thing I've watched lately, but somehow still a waste of time despite being noticeably less than 90 minutes. Hotel Transylvania - This was dumb, but it's pretty clearly one of those "high floor/low ceiling" kind of movies where you just run through the spots you know are coming and get it over with. Why do I keep liking Selena Gomez in things? This still confuses me. Maybe it shouldn't. But don't worry, I still don't like Adam Sandler in basically anything, so, hey, great, he's fucking everywhere. Steve Buscemi was kind of the highlight, though, especially with the sheep-in-the-road scene. I wouldn't mind a Wolfman movie with him, honestly. I think we've wasted too many words already on a movie no one over the age of seven should actually like. "1/1" - I stared and stared at the main character for a while until I realized she was one of the women in No One Lives, easily one of the biggest piles of shit I've watched in this streak. And yet here, she's...well, she's actually pretty good, if not often better than that. I think this doesn't really work, though, because all the experimental stuff it does is clearly biting off more than it can chew when it has to have a real moment or three of tension or empathy or drama. There are two or three times where it comes together and works, but the bulk of the time it just doesn't. The acting is fine, but it feels too - not disjointed, because it's going for disjointed and stream-of-consciousness, but instead broken up by its own gimmicky behavior in a way that disrupts the feel of the film instead of enhancing it. I think I'm also very much done with dudes telling me how women feel about pregnancy scares. Just, knock it off altogether. The Princess - This is also very much "high floor/low ceiling", and while it's quite possibly the most enjoyable movie I watched in this category for this post, it's also just...super predictable and obvious and cookie-cutter in so many ways. When you watch it, you will know everything that's coming before it happens. I think where it bobs above the surface of mediocrity just a little bit is in its message, which is a relatively appropriate kind of film to have been released with every crazy goddamned thing going on in this piece-of-shit country lately. I do wonder what the Venn diagram looks like of incels who think this movie (or the other Raid-lites out there) is badass but are also totally OK with seeing women lose rights in the real world. Let the Sunshine In - This is my first exposure to Claire Denis and GOOD GOD IS THIS TERRIBLE! It's not Mount Flushmore-bad, but this has a Metascore of almost EIGHTY?!?!? HOW IN THE FUCK? Normally, I will watch just about anything with Juliette Binoche - I've had a crush on her since The English Patient - but this is just so thoroughly unlikable and lifeless compared to, Jesus, EVERY other French film I've watched that came out in the last 10 years or so. It spends a massive chunk of its run time in these inexorable talky fucking scenes with these two complete choads who are screwing up her character's life, and while you might think there's a level of real-world believability to that, it's also just completely and utterly impossible to understand what on the Flying Spaghetti Monster's Noodly Earth she *sees* in either of these boorish fuckfaces that we have to put up with for about 45 minutes. And then the "fling" guy that follows that is even less believable since they cast a guy who could have done The Shape of Water without any CGI or makeup. Oh, and to top it all off, let's just have Gerard Depardieu's character appear almost literally out of nowhere and close with the two of them having a psychic card-reading session where he tells her about her aura and her future, because we haven't wasted everyone's time completely yet. Y'know, hey, I get it. I get what this is going for. There are people like this out there in the world. There are people who make bad decision after bad decision, people who can't get out of their own way, people who don't see the forest for the trees and keep making their lives worse, and that it's tough to help those people or help them see something better for themselves. But most of us AVOID those people if we can. That goes for movies, too. Christ, I really hope Denis' other films are fucking better than this. It looks nice, it is shot well, and you will still want to launch it into the fucking sun rather than watch it a second time; it's one of the most well-made piles of useless tripe I've ever seen. Acceptable Thor: Love and Thunder - As usual, I won't spoil much for this, except to say it is decidedly Acceptable. You can really have only one Ragnarok, and only one Thor: Ragnarok, and while this is funny at times, it feels a little too...inconsequential, even despite the alleged stakes at the heart of it. Marvel's really dropping the fucking ball in that category lately. That said, Christian Bale is pretty good in it, even though I was expecting his character to be another weak Thor villain. Not sure it's better than Dr. Strange 2 but certainly better than the first 2 Thor movies. Becks - This was the only real highlight of the week+ for me, as this got awfully close to the Awesome line. All of the important acting roles here are really, really good, especially Mena Suvari, who has seemed lost in the shuffle since American Beauty (even terrible-ass Wes Bentley has had a higher profile than her in the last 20 years, despite being crap in almost everything). But she helps really make this work, as does Lena Hall as the title character. Plus, this is another film, like Once, where it focuses on an artist who's *actually a good artist*, as the music is a serious highlight. It's funny and biting and bawdy and knows when to go for the slow burn and when to swing for the fences. Sometimes, watching all these friggin' indie movies is a grind, but stuff like this is what makes it worth it. You should watch this. Next week, I'll cross the ONE YEAR LINE~! of new movies watched! I'll summarize the year that was! I'll make some lists! I'll crack some jokes! You still won't be reading a fucking word of this!

Scott posted a remark on Twitter about how James' father never said "I love you" so he said it to Scott all the time. The snarky asshole in me wanted to snipe back, "Oh, so that's why you're a shitty actor", but, getting that out of my system here instead...