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We got around to watching The Batman by Matt Reeves. I found the movie to meander a little too much, especially considering it runs over three hours. I did however thinking that it works as a work-in-progress Batman. I like the way Robert Pattinson has this cold, stiff, almost robotic way about himself, as if Bruce was still stuck as a seven year old traumatized child in adult form. The way he talks to Selina at times reminds me of an under-developed person. At the end you can see where he’s headed and it’s intriguing.
 
Finished Evangelion, which added proof to the thesis that I am not the target audience for anime. The theme song sounded like a contender for the Eurovision Song Contest. After a few episodes I switched from the original Japanese to the English dub; I don't speak nor understand Japanese so all I hear is monotonous mumbling or shrieking shouts without familiar intonation. I don't like the Lazy Animation style where basically nothing happens onscreen for a minute or two, while offscreen (or without moving lips) there's some conversation going on. The story itself was boring the first half, then suddenly seemed to go somewhere, but in the finale was a letdown for me.

Finished season 2 of Stranger Things. I like it and hope that they can keep up the quality for the next seasons. I also like the cast and the way the characters are written. I was expecting
Bob to be a spy inserted in the Byers household to keep tabs on Will, but nope...

In between I discovered Archer and Love, Death and Robots. Bite sized snacks for in between. I like L,D+R.
Archer is fun too but I don't know if I'm gonna watch the entire series.

And I just started on the Witcher, 16 episodes of something else, before I begin Stranger Things season 3.

And I watched a few movies, Day Shift the most recent.

Yes, I'm milking that Netflix subscription for all its worth
 
Finished Evangelion, which added proof to the thesis that I am not the target audience for anime. The theme song sounded like a contender for the Eurovision Song Contest. After a few episodes I switched from the original Japanese to the English dub; I don't speak nor understand Japanese so all I hear is monotonous mumbling or shrieking shouts without familiar intonation. I don't like the Lazy Animation style where basically nothing happens onscreen for a minute or two, while offscreen (or without moving lips) there's some conversation going on. The story itself was boring the first half, then suddenly seemed to go somewhere, but in the finale was a letdown for me.

Finished season 2 of Stranger Things. I like it and hope that they can keep up the quality for the next seasons. I also like the cast and the way the characters are written. I was expecting
Bob to be a spy inserted in the Byers household to keep tabs on Will, but nope...

In between I discovered Archer and Love, Death and Robots. Bite sized snacks for in between. I like L,D+R.
Archer is fun too but I don't know if I'm gonna watch the entire series.

And I just started on the Witcher, 16 episodes of something else, before I begin Stranger Things season 3.

And I watched a few movies, Day Shift the most recent.

Yes, I'm milking that Netflix subscription for all its worth

Eva is not a good place to start for anime, I found it overrated and had many of the same issues as you. With a few exceptions I wouldn't say I'm a fan of a lot of anime series, most of the best work takes place in features imo, but Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent is an excellent series.
 
So, for other animates stuff, Arcane? or Dragon Prince (I loved Avatar)?

I haven't seen those yet. I've heard good things about Dragon Prince but I think it is more YA in tone, which is cool but probably not for me.

I find most Netflix anime series too tropey for my tastes. Of modern anime the only one on Netflix I'd recommend without reservation is the satirical One-Punch Man and if you like surreal nonsense humour Pop Team Epic (love the latter myself).

I actually like the anime selection on Prime more than Netflix: Inuyashiki: Last Hero, Dororo (based on a great Tezuka manga), first season of Psycho-Pass and especially the medieval detective series Onihei all deal with more 'mature' subject matter without lapsing into the adolescent excess that that term usually connotes in anime.
 
So, for other animates stuff, Arcane? or Dragon Prince (I loved Avatar)?
Dragon Prince is nice but it's not even YA, it's more late elementary, middle school. If you liked Avatar, it's worth an episode.

I liked Arcane quite a bit. It avoids the trap of many shows based on games in that it doesn't assume that you know anything. It has sibling rivalry, class friction, and nice explosions.
 
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Finished up Paper Girls on the way to work this morning. I really hope it gets renewed. Dove into No Time to Die, which was also on Prime. It was ok, but I honestly found the bad guy to be weak.
 
I've been watching a Rhys Darby special on Prime. It's been a mixed bag, so I haven't finished it yet. I watched the first episode of the now-cancelled Resident Evil series on Netflix. Since I only know RE from the different movies (live action and animated), I thought it was interesting how they went on a path different than most of the other material. Not sure how I feel about it yet, other than it's better than that last RE movie.
 
I burned out on Scrubs as it started to get very same-y. They found a good formula and started leaning into it too hard.

I am wrapping up season 1 of Schitt's Creek which is quite good so far
IMO Schitt's Creek just keeps getting better
 
It's already been canceled?
Yup. Announcement about it was about a week ago.

Hit up some more Magnum PI and Equalizer on Paramount Plus, then started to watch Nope. Not really grabbing me. I've never seen Peele's previous work, though from what I've read, they're better than this film. I like the premise, but it's kind of boring so far.
 
Surprised I haven't seen more chatter on here about S2 of Primal which manages to top S1 in its heavy metal fantasy imagery and gory violence. Loving it.


Oh this is out already? I bought Season 1 and have been waiting for Season 2.
 
Surprised I haven't seen more chatter on here about S2 of Primal which manages to top S1 in its heavy metal fantasy imagery and gory violence. Loving it.


It's just great. That is all that I have to say about it.

In other news, I watched The Northman. A way better version of Hamlet in my opinion. Yorik's skull talks and hamlet kills a Draugr for a magic sword.
 
Yorik's skull talks
Like Murray?

0ffbBZB.gif
 
Last night, on one of the lower-rent broadcast channels, I caught a little bit of Panic in the Streets, a 1950 film directed by Elia Kazan. I'd never heard of it, and found it intriguing, because it's about a possible plague outbreak in then-contemporary New Orleans. There aren't a lot of movies about plague, and even fewer about the third (modern) pandemic.

It has a good cast--a young Richard Widmark as the Navy public health doctor trying to hunt down a man likely suffering from plague before it spreads, Paul Douglas as the jaded policeman helping him (or not), and a very young Jack Palance and youngish Zero Mostel as part of a criminal gang. The black-and-white cinematography was good, too, insofar as I can judge such things. I'd have been happy to watch the whole thing, but it came on late, so I only saw thirty minutes or so.

Here are two posters for it; the second has a nice image of Palance, who is even more angular-looking than the picture suggests:

Panic Poster.jpg Panico Poster.jpg
 
Maybe they figure if they kill the DCEU, they can start it up again with no problems? That's the only rationalization I can see for some of these decisions.

Looks like they are going to lose Legendary (Monsterverse and other properties) as well.
 
Finished Nope, which did get better. Watching Beyond Resonator, the 2nd of 3 films Full Moon compiled from what was supposed to be a tv series they were creating around Miskatonic University. The first film revolved around the son of Crawford Tillinghast and his friends as they discover and muck around with the Resonator his dad created. At the end of that film, Herbert West shows up at Miskatonic. This film continues that storyline, while West tries to perfect his reanimation serum. While the guy playing West is no Jeffrey Combs, he's actually not bad as West. Ill be checking out the final film, Curse of the Re-Animator, tomorrow.
 
I just saw "The Prisoner of Zenda" from 1937, which is so much better than almost most modern filmic or televisual versions of classic stories, because the casting and performances did not alter the novel's characters; the plot kept the traditional themes of gentlemanly chivalry, virtus and honour; and the hero and heroine's lovestory was noble, pure and romantic.
 
"Black Widow" ended up being better than the reviews made it sound, which is good, since I like that character a lot. I'm not happy with what they did with Taskmaster, but I enjoyed the movie overall. I really like David Harbour's version of "Red Guardian."

Next up is "The Eternals" and "Shang-Chi." The Eternals never seemed like a good choice for a set of characters for a movie (I never cared for them in the comics, either), and what I have heard about the way they do the Deviants doesn't sound promising, but we'll see.

I enjoyed Black Widow, There was great banter among the characters. They didn't quite land the ending (a common issue with blockbusters) and mildly disappointed they felt they had to explain what the whole Budapest incident and Draco's daughter's references. I think it's more fun when these things are left unexplained.

Shang-Chi was a lot of fun. I enjoyed Eternals. It could have done with fewer flashbacks and I would question some the casting choices. It was very different from the original Kirby comics, but to be honest those comics were not the good anyway.
 
I also watched Nope, and it creeped me out with the way Jean Jacket devoured those theme park goers.
I'm going to put spoiler text, just in case someone here hasn't seen it yet, but wants to.

I felt sorry for the one lady in the crowd. First she got mauled by Gordy in flashbacks, then Jean Jacket made a meal out of her. Most tragic character in the movie.

I thought it interesting that Jean Jacket spent most of the film disguised as a UFO, but it's true form looked like something out of the Cthulhu Mythos. A people eating space squid. When the film guy recited the words to Flying Purple People Eater, I can never listen to that song the same way again now
 
I enjoyed Eternals. It could have done with fewer flashbacks and I would question some the casting choices. It was very different from the original Kirby comics, but to be honest those comics were not the good anyway.
I disagree on that. I loved Kirby's Eternals. The movie was good except for the dumbing down of the Deviants. I felt that was a poor move by Marvel for that. I get they can only do so much in a film, but I still felt it was a bad decision on their part.
 
I enjoyed Black Widow, There was great banter among the characters. They didn't quite land the ending (a common issue with blockbusters) and mildly disappointed they felt they had to explain what the whole Budapest incident and Draco's daughter's references. I think it's more fun when these things are left unexplained.

Shang-Chi was a lot of fun. I enjoyed Eternals. It could have done with fewer flashbacks and I would question some the casting choices. It was very different from the original Kirby comics, but to be honest those comics were not the good anyway.
There were a few things that took away from the whole in BW for me. First, that she was so sloppy in Budapest from what we've seen of her. Second, they don't know how to have a strong male and leading female in the same movie yet; Red Guardian was done dirty and pretty incompetent. Third... Taskmaster. Not the gender bending, but making her a victim rather than what we've seen before when Taskmaster is such a great villain. I loved Florence Pugh and thing she's a great new Black Widow when they get to that.
 
So, for other animates stuff, Arcane? or Dragon Prince (I loved Avatar)?

I just watched Arcane and really enjoyed it. I don't know the game it was based on, but the series was top-notch.

Currently watching Series 4 of Cobra Kai. LaRusso's son is a real knob, a self-entitled bully, like the ones his father would have hated as a kid.
 
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So I finished up the Full Moon trilogy with Curse of Re-Animator. Continuing the dual stories of Herbert West and Tillinghast's son, we get a build to a crossover. As with the other two films, total cheese, and I wasn't sure the final confrontation worked for me, but it did lead to an interesting twist for Herbert West and his attempts at perfecting his Reanimation serum.

As cheesy as it was, I kind of hope Full Moon does more.

I forgot to mention I also watched the Tubi "Original", Dead Zone. Soldiers in the near future go into a town that is radioactive to get their hands on a serum that might help humanity survive an outbreak of 28 Days Later rage zombies. Radiation was killing them, but they're starting to become immune. It's sort of by the numbers, and the soldiers have special suits to protect against radiation, but not being bitten! Also, a more mutated infected, which was really cool due to some interesting abilities it seemed to showcase.

I'm now watching an older Korean Historical drama on Tubi called Blades of Blood. I kept putting off watching it, but it showed up on their leaving soon list, so I figured it was time to check it out. Enjoying it so far
 
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