What are you watching?

[chuckdee]

I went to see Enter the Dragon at Alamo today. I wasn't old enough to see it in theaters when it first came out, so this was my first time on the big screen. It's definitely a movie that's better on the big screen in the theater.

 

[Voros]

Saw Killers of the Flower Moon and Priscilla in the theatre this weekend. Loved the former and liked the latter.

 

[TristramEvans]

Death Tube 2 was horrible, total waste of time, if anyone was interested. All the cleverness of the first film was gone, the directing, cinematography, and acting was godawful, not a single interesting death, the "increased budget" seems to have been "just enough to film one scene outside on top of the roof of a building", and the ending was dumb. There is no suspense, the "horror" is muted, predictable, and even less graphic than the incredibly tame first film. Normally I would have shut it off 15 minutes in, but I persevered just to see if there was a twist or lore reveal, but in the end nothing. 2/10.

 

[TristramEvans]

So new season of Rick & Morty - the first without Justin Roiland. And it took 4 episodes for them to do an actual Rick and Morty episode, which is what I was waiting for to see if the new voice actors could pull it off. And, well, sorta? The new voice actors are passable enough that I don't think about it every scene. But the back and forth has very blatantly lost that sense of naturalism and improvisation that drove a lot of the series humour. The episode in question is basically one joke extended into 15 minutes. It was OK, definitely watchable and entertaining, but not a classic. The series seems, overall this season, to be floundering, looking for a coherent theme or tone by basically just throwing spaghetti at a dartboard. No laugh out loud moments yet and we are 4 episodes in (of I assume ten total).

 

[carpocratian]

Watched the first season of "Gen V," the spinoff of "The Boys." It was good. I'm proud of them for taking two scenes as far as they did

Watched the latest season of "Picard." Way too smarmy, too many logical holes near the end, and the dialogue in the last two episodes was really bad, like something a middle school kid would write.

Watched the latest season of "Star Trek: Brave New Worlds." Hokey, with two gimmick episodes and another damn time travel one (don't know why Star Trek writers always do those), but there are several likeable characters, so it was entertaining enough to finish.

I suspect that Millennials wrote several of the episodes of the two Star Trek series, based on some of the phrases that kept getting used (ex. variations on "I see you" and "I want to be seen").

Next up is "Fall of the House of Usher."

 

[TristramEvans]

Watched Samaritan. It was....OK, like a low rent Unbreakable. I haven't seen Stallone onscreen in decades, so that was kinda fun. Unfortunately the main/PoV character was a kid who was pretty annoying.

 

[gruagach]

I've watched 3 episodes now of Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix. It's been quite good thus far.

The animation is excellent - quite beautiful in some spots.

The storytelling is solid. The voice acting's been great.

The fights have been excellent.

Only a coupe of character beats that've annoyed me thus far.

 

[carpocratian]

Watched Samaritan. It was....OK, like a low rent Unbreakable. I haven't seen Stallone onscreen in decades, so that was kinda fun. Unfortunately the main/PoV character was a kid who was pretty annoying.

I don't know how that one flew under my radar. I'll have to give it a watch.

 

[thebigh]

Stayed up last night to watch Glenn Maxwell go absolutely berserker mode in the cricket. I'm glad I did, but I'm not quite sure I can believe what I was seeing.

 

[urbwar]

Watched Samaritan. It was....OK, like a low rent Unbreakable. I haven't seen Stallone onscreen in decades, so that was kinda fun. Unfortunately the main/PoV character was a kid who was pretty annoying.

He's doing a great job with the show Tulsa King, but his movies of late has been pretty uneven at best. Though I thought the twist about his character in Samaritan, while predictable, to be a good fit for the kind of film they were trying to tell

The two movies I watched recently was Evil Tapes, which was mostly meh. It's an anthology of situations this guy is hired to film which he shares. Most of the people who hired him were women, and almost all of them meet a bad end. Plus the guy runs when the person hiring him is in danger, which makes him look like an asshole.

Misfits is on Netflix, so I checked it out. Ok action-comedy heist caper with Pierce Brosnan (who seems to be doing well these days), Nick Cannon, Tim Roth (as the bad guy naturally) and Jamie Chung.

I also watched a couple more episodes of season 2 of The Gifted on Hulu. Hopefully I can finish that soon.

I see Gotham and Batwoman are on Tubi, so now I can finish off Gotham as well, and check out more Batwoman

 

[Brock Savage]

I've watched 3 episodes now of Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix. It's been quite good thus far.

The animation is excellent - quite beautiful in some spots.

The storytelling is solid. The voice acting's been great.

The fights have been excellent.

Only a coupe of character beats that've annoyed me thus far.

I completed the first season. Overall it was good and I highly recommend it. There were a few things that annoyed me but they were overshadowed by the strong pacing and engaging storyline. It was written by a couple, one of whom wrote the excellent BladeRunner 2049

 

[TristramEvans]

He's doing a great job with the show Tulsa King, but his movies of late has been pretty uneven at best. Though I thought the twist about his character in Samaritan, while predictable, to be a good fit for the kind of film they were trying to tell

Yeah, I thought it was very successful at what they set out to do, and I think an adolescent me would have reacted to it quite differently, but it's not the sweet spot for superhero tales for me post-my Vertigo phase. Still thought it was good and it kinda scratched that itch (the MCU thread left me wanting to experience some live action superheroics. If I had liked the kid, I might even have found it somewhat touching (I've no idea if it was the script or the acting so I don't want to imply I'm placing the blame on the actor - I recall growing up there was that kid, Pan's son, in Hook that I couldn't stand, just annoyed me, but he was literally "The Kid" in Dick Tracy before that and there I thought he was one of the best parts of that movie).

I do wish we had gotten more interaction between Sly and his brother. I know that they were restricting information until the third act for a good reason, but even then I don;t think it would have hurt the movie to actually establish what that emotional relationship was like. I honestly would have found that more interesting then any other interaction in the film. And I know they probably couldn't afford to animate a cgi de-aged Stallone, but they both have masks.

Anyways, minor nitpicks. One big thing I liked was the style of cinematography during the prelude, which was like rotoscoping with a comicbook art style overlay (for anyone who hasnt seen it reading this I am probably explaining that horribly, but think like Ralph Bakshi when he's rushing mixed with the graphic sensibilities of a toned-down Into the Spiderverse. Got almost a Travest Cherest vibe). I don;t know if a whole film done like that is viable, some animation approaches I find are strongest in short form and get exhausting in feature length. But I'd be down for something like that. I really wish Marvel would make some more attempt like that to visually evoke a comic book, maybe Ang Lee's botched attempt scared them away from that.

The two movies I watched recently was Evil Tapes, which was mostly meh. It's an anthology of situations this guy is hired to film which he shares. Most of the people who hired him were women, and almost all of them meet a bad end. Plus the guy runs when the person hiring him is in danger, which makes him look like an asshole.

Is it intended as comedy/camp?

Misfits is on Netflix, so I checked it out. Ok action-comedy heist caper with Pierce Brosnan (who seems to be doing well these days), Nick Cannon, Tim Roth (as the bad guy naturally) and Jamie Chung. I also watched a couple more episodes of season 2 of The Gifted on Hulu. Hopefully I can finish that soon.

I see Gotham and Batwoman are on Tubi, so now I can finish off Gotham as well, and check out more Batwoman

I kinda checked out of and lost track of the Arrowverse sometime around IIRC the fifth season of The Flash, how are Batwoman and Gotham?

 

[rumble]

Watched I am Rage on TubiTV.

Wow. This is likely the dumbest abused woman revenge flick I've ever seen. Just nonsense, through and through.

It was background noise, but I think i still lost more brain cells to the movie than I did to the whiskey I was drinking.

 

[TristramEvans]

Been considering finishing Madmen. I liked the first three seasons, then IRL stuff distracted me for a bit and it got to the point where I remembered the 3 seasons well enough to not want to watch them again but not well enough to feel comfortable just jumping into the beginning of season 4, and it stayed in that equilibrium for a few years, but I think I've finally forgotten enough to make rewatching from the beginning enjoyable.

Also considering binging Prime's The Terror. Haven't seen much talk about that one in my social media haunts.

In the meantime, going to watch Dark Harvest tonight while I work. Looks kinda folk-horror-ish. I like scarecrows as monsters; don't think they get enough use in horror media these days.

 

[urbwar]

Yeah, I thought it was very successful at what they set out to do, and I think an adolescent me would have reacted to it quite differently, but it's not the sweet spot for superhero tales for me post-my Vertigo phase. Still thought it was good and it kinda scratched that itch (the MCU thread left me wanting to experience some live action superheroics. If I had liked the kid, I might even have found it somewhat touching (I've no idea if it was the script or the acting so I don't want to imply I'm placing the blame on the actor - I recall growing up there was that kid, Pan's son, in Hook that I couldn't stand, just annoyed me, but he was literally "The Kid" in Dick Tracy before that and there I thought he was one of the best parts of that movie).

I totally agree on the kid, btw. He was a major annoyance to me as well

Is it intended as comedy/camp?

No, it came across as serious, but failed for the most part imho. There's so many of these anthologies on Tubi, and they're all hit or miss depending on the stories featured in them

I kinda checked out of and lost track of the Arrowverse sometime around IIRC the fifth season of The Flash, how are Batwoman and Gotham?

Gotham isn't tied to the Arrowverse; it's a pre-Batman Gotham (though he kind of starts on his way towards becoming Batman in the final season). It focuses on multiple characters, though Jim Gordon is the actual lead of the show.

Batwoman was so-so in the first season. I wasn't that into it. I felt Season 2 (where I dropped off) picked up with the new character they created to take over the role. It wasn't great, but it was interesting enough to keep my interest. Especially the character of Alice (which in a interesting note, was played by the same actress who played the young Black Canary on the old Birds of Prey tv show)

 

[chuckdee]

Watched They Cloned Tyrone on Netflix. Not sure why it took me so long to watch it, but definitely a great watch and recommended.

 

[rumble]

Hulu

Watching The Eminence In Shadow, which is more of a power trip fantasy than anything else.

Imagine One Punch Man, but with the character flaw of conceit rather than obliviousness.

Anyway, in episode 14, they're apparently introducing a character named Chancellor Perv Asshat.

Yeah. Stay tuned.

 

[StubbornMule]

Watching Scavengers Reign on Max. Super trippy animated survivalist scifi with a soothing soundtrack and lots of fucked up alien creatures. I wish I still did drugs.

 

[TristramEvans]

I really enjoyed Dark Harvest. I didn't expect it to be a period piece, but it manages to present 1950's rural America without engaging in soppy idealizations or falling back on Hollywood stereotypes (in other words it avoids the idealization and nostalgia haze towards the 50s that dominated media in the 1970s and 1980s, sort of like what is kinda happening with the 80s now). Good writing, good acting, clever story. Not going to say it was scary (that's a very high bar for myself), but it was effectively horrifying. Unexpectedly violent without being a gorefest. They left enough ambiguity to maintain an air of mystery, while explaining enough to make for a satisfying viewing experience. And the creature effects were really nicely done.

8/10, highly recommend to any horror fans, may be the best horror film I've seen (for the first time) this year.

 

[Raleel]

Watching Blue Eye Samurai. Very good. Binged 4 episodes today. Might finish tonight.

 

[gruagach]

Watching Blue Eye Samurai. Very good. Binged 4 episodes today. Might finish tonight.

Episode 5, if you haven't gotten to it...well, it was a gut punch for me.

I really like the whole season, expect for 1 unearned character decision (which I won't spoil here). If it gets a second season, I'll at least watch that.

 

[Self Saboteur]

I just finished episode 5 myself and it’s now one of my favorite episodes of any show and cemented the protagonist as one of my favorite characters. Absolutely fantastic.

 

[Brock Savage]

Episode 5 may be the best episode of Blue Eye Samurai until we get another season.

 

[Raleel]

Just finished the series. I started this morning. Yes, that good. My long neglected weeb heart is happy. Lots of great details in there.

 

[chuckdee]

Cross-posting this here also instead of just in the doom and gloom thread:

I went to see The Marvels. I liked it better than Quantumania, Multiverse of Madness and Love and Thunder. I liked Wakanda Forever better, though this movie was more fun. They didn't rely as much in CGI to be the story, the villain had believable motives and they showed her doing stuff rather than just telling the stuff she could do (Gorr, I'm looking at you), the ending wasn't just one big CGI fight, and there were lasting consequences. The leads had good chemistry, and the backstory already created played out well. They did have one over indulgent scene that didn't really make a difference in the overarching plot that they could have removed, and another that bordered on it, but they cut it before it could become too much.

I'd recommend it.

 

[Urdlen's best boy]

Gf and I are in the middle of watching the Life on our Planet documentary series. From what I've seen I'd rate it a 6/10, meaning "good for an american documentary".

Pros :
-Good contextualization on mass extinctions, and all of them are included. Though, they could have contextualized some more. Take the Permian extinction : 90% of species wiped out is impressive, but not as marking as when you realize that means 99% of all animals perished in the absolute hell Earth had become, as most surviving species were thined out and barely hanging for dear life. That's what makes me shudder when I think of the Permian Mass Extinction.
-Model quality. Many of the models were cool, though the Eocene animals we much better than the dinosaurs. It's not the most conservative, even daring to put some quills on the iconic T-Rex, while still being a huge prod, which tends to favor ultra-conservative depictions.
-Behavioural complexity. While in extinct animals, those are purely speculative, they are also what brings animals to life on a screen and in the imagination. The unnamed terror birds and the cats benefitted from that a lot, and that's generally a good thing to see.
-Modern day parallels. There was a general attempt at conveying the process of evolution and explaining past animals speculated behaviour by interweaving modern animals, which were shown having a variety of interesting behaviours.
-Cool lava and storm footage. Really liked those, they were beautiful.

Cons :
-American documentary tone. There's too much dramatization of animal behaviours, over the top and sometimes out of place sound design and a general lack of specificity. I recognized the terror birds as phorurhacids, but having the name "titanis" would have been nice.
-Model quality. While they were less conservative with models than most documentaries and some were pretty good, that's not what I had hoped for. When I hear Spielberg made a dino documentary I expect the american tone, but I also expect stellar modelling of all things shown. The smilodons were med too big or the titanis too small just to make a dumb scene - direct predation isn't what helped smilodon outcompete terror birds. Permian creatures and dinosaurs were still way to banal, sometimes bordering on being straight up copies from Walking With or other medias. The allosaurus was particularily ugly, with osteoderms pulled out of stevie's ass. Up that color game! Add visible adaptations in the fleshy bits!
What I want to see :


Tyranosaurus by Matt Martyniuk

Apatosaurus by MakairodonX

The white gorgon by Eurwentala


Cool, innovative designs. Instead we get another round of shitty brown-green color schemes, minimalist integumentation and unexpressive animals. Bleh!
-Confusing timeline. While drawing modern times parallels is good, the timeline is really wonky and jumps occur at a confusing rate. Some hume time periods receive very little time and only iconic animals are covered as a result, rether than displaying the astonishing diversity of creatures of those periods. Big loss.

Conclusion :
Watch the Walking with series, watch The Story of Big Al, watch prehistoric Planet. If you've still got time for paleo media, then you can watch Life on our planet. It's not bad, but it's not amazing either. But more problematic for an american style drama-docu by Spielberg, it doesn't go ham on the spectacle.

 

[Giganotosaurus]

Just finished Scavengers Reign. Jeezus that was some quality sci-fi, really good job making the planet feel both real and yet super alien. I hope it gets a second season.

 

[Self Saboteur]

Finished Blue eyed samurai. Excellent.
Starting Onimusha. It’s like an anime Toshiro Mifune. Dig it.

 

[MoonHunter]

This series isn't done yet. We had a mid season clip show last week. So, it is roughly half done. Still lots of "Rubber Wrestling" and F/X to enjoy.



We have a couple of full series still available in the channel and Regalos was a bit different for the ultra series.

 

[rumble]

Netflix

Blue Eye Samurai was indeed excellent. Episodes 5 and 7 were standouts. Episode 1 was a great setup, with very powerful scenes.

It does have some flaws. Presenting passage of time was not as strong as I felt it should be. For as graphic and "mortal" as the show is, the healing times are absurd. I know they were trying to show vulnerability and fallibility on the part of the protagonist, but I think I was expecting... ah, that's how to define it...

The protagonist and supporting cast have a different standard of damage accommodation than everyone else. Something just feels off about the combat pacing in general. Like they're over-rotating on the damage. Episodes 6 and 8 broke my immersion in a way that even the Four Fangs episode didn't.

I mean, it makes no sense that I can accept wushu acrobatics but I can't accept an utterly debilitating foot injury. And I'm completely aware that the protagonist's face should be an pulverized, unrecognizable mess by Episode 4. Unless the Japanese were really good at facial reconstruction surgery back then.

Put another way, I enjoy Mortal Kombat. I enjoy Toshiro Mifune flicks. I just find mashing them together jarring.

 

[TristramEvans]

I've been rewatching Preacher, just into season 3.

Season one holds up really well, actually maybe better on a rewatch because I knew what to expect going in. When I first watched the show as it was airing, I was worried the entire series was going to be the first issue of the comic stretched until the concept ran out. Now I really appreciate the consistent pacing and tone that is sort of EC comic meets neo-Western. It works, I like it.

Second season is uneven and doesn't quite come to grips with mixing several tones (mainly because of an attempt to introduce a very self serious character arc towards the end of the season that runs counter to the dark absurdity of Arseface and Hitler's bromance in Hell, and the over-the-top James Bong villain of Herr Starr stealing the show every scene with his over the top supervillain-ness. It's just not a situation where a PSD trauma psychological recovery plot works in tandem, especially played so straight. There are exceptional single episodes (towards the beginning, the Fiore episode is a standout for the series overall - and also perfectly captures the tone while deftly handling similar personal issues. That episode felt like a true continuation from the first season.

And the Saint of Killers starts off as terrifying (they'll neuter him for plot convenience later on - I think they would have been better off using him sparingly until rather than as a constantly recurring villain, where they'd write themselves into a corner where, by all rights, the main characters should be dead). Those first few episodes though, Saint is both entertainingly over the top and terrifying, like Jason Vorhees with an uzi.

And the stuff with Starr is, as mentioned, consistently hilarious. Instead of the show itself being self-serious, it let's the character be self-serious in constantly ludicrous situations. The training montage may have been the best 10 minutes of television ever aired.

Cassidy gets one great episode where he acts like Cassidy (the aforementioned Fiore episode), but then becomes weirdly subdued for the remainder of the season. His character traits during the season seem to be "secretly in love with Tulip" and "concerned about his son". And I didn't like the subplot with his dirty old man son. This was a part of the show I liked less on rewatch, because during first watch I was still expecting Cassidy to follow the arc of the comic to some degree so I interpreted all the stuff in season 2 as build-up towards that. With that out of the picture. it just seems like the writers had no way to connect him to the main plot most of the time, and so just wrote him as quirky apartment furniture.

I recall season 3 being really good on first watch, so we'll see if it holds up.

Worried about Season 4. On my first watch however many years ago, season 4 removed any emotional connection to the characters by the time it limped to a meaningless ending, seemingly adopting a "throw spaghetti at the dartboard" approach to try to constantly out-shock itself. The show was always a black comedy on par with The Boys, but I regarded it as mostly silly at the end.

The show was not faithful to the Comic, but overall I think, at least until the final season, it was a good translation of the concepts and characters, but the biggest change, which I think colours the entire series, was in the character of our MC, Jessie Custer. In the comic book he is, despite the over the top setting and premise, a pretty classic heroic character. In the show he's instead an irascible rogue who is honestly just kind of an asshole most of the time. If he ever verges on heroism it's for purely selfish motivations. His devoutness comes across as window dressing, dropped the minute it becomes inconvenient to him. I don't think the show ever gave a reason that Genesis attached itself to him, and I can't think of one short of some prescient ability of Genesis to identify the show's main character. Moreover, aside from one sequence I remember, we completely lose the inner dialogue between Jesse and John Wayne, one of the best aspects of the comics that explored transitioning notions of heroism and masculinity from the Westerns of the 50s to the angsty 1990s. The Jesse Custer of the show is the character in name only, and many times during the show I saw this as a weakness, as the character is forced to act, well, out of character, for the plot to move forward. Things that made sense for the comic book Jesse to do seem like contrivances for the self-absorbed TV Jesse.

And then there's Tulip. She is obviously nothing like the Tulip in the comics, but in this case that's a good thing. It's the Trillian problem really - Tulip in the comics is a pretty milquetoast character, the obligatory female/love interest. She's not one dimensional, and not a point against the comic, but the comic book version is not assertive, and is kinda a walking victim. The reworked TV Tulip as a badass, foul-mouthed criminal was one of my favourite aspects of the first season, and put her in a position as a main character to drive the plot. But because they have no fitting plots from the source material to adapt, it seems like the writers really struggle in the second season to give her character interesting things to do. They sideline her from the Search for God almost immediately, and her three subplots during the season end up killing the show's momentum, and, like Cassidy, she becomes subdued and there to react to things rather than providing her narrative agencies. As I recall though, season 3 goes a ways to fix that at least.

 

[hawkeyefan]

TristramEvans Which season was it where they had a running foreskin joke for several episodes in a row? That’s where they lost me. Never made it to the end.

 

[TristramEvans]

TristramEvans Which season was it where they had a running foreskin joke for several episodes in a row? That’s where they lost me. Never made it to the end.

Cassidy has been talking about a conspiracy using foreskins on the black market since season 1, but it doesn'r become a plot point until season 4.

 

[Brock Savage]

It does have some flaws. Presenting passage of time was not as strong as I felt it should be. For as graphic and "mortal" as the show is, the healing times are absurd. I know they were trying to show vulnerability and fallibility on the part of the protagonist, but I think I was expecting... ah, that's how to define it...

The protagonist and supporting cast have a different standard of damage accommodation than everyone else. Something just feels off about the combat pacing in general. Like they're over-rotating on the damage. Episodes 6 and 8 broke my immersion in a way that even the Four Fangs episode didn't.

I mean, it makes no sense that I can accept wushu acrobatics but I can't accept an utterly debilitating foot injury. And I'm completely aware that the protagonist's face should be an pulverized, unrecognizable mess by Episode 4. Unless the Japanese were really good at facial reconstruction surgery back then.

Put another way, I enjoy Mortal Kombat. I enjoy Toshiro Mifune flicks. I just find mashing them together jarring.

Let's be honest here - if you can suspend disbelief enough to accept a 99 pound woman casually destroying dozens of men twice her size in hand to hand combat, all that other junk should not be a problem.

 

[Stumpydave]

I've just finished Loki and what an ending! It shows what can be done and everything is not only tied up but done so with style (whilst still leaving room to move forwards if they wanted to) Take that She-hulk and your crappy "We'll meta our way to resolution".

I'd also like to direct any current and future show runners of Dr.Who to this and say "This is how you write for a godlike entity and still keep the stakes high. Not that Timeless child/Flux garbage".

Anyway, I've managed to accidentally slate two female led shows with the above rant so I need to go book tickets for the Marvels to balance the cosmos.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Cassidy has been talking about a conspiracy using foreskins on the black market since season 1, but it doesn'r become a plot point until season 4.

I meant the regrown ear on Starr.

I can enjoy juvenile humor as much as anyone… I love the comic, for instance, warts and all. And the show was decent overall… a bit uneven, but leaning toward good.

But when we got to that string of episodes, and they just kept running with that bit, I just punched out.

 

[TristramEvans]

I meant the regrown ear on Starr.

I don't recall that and it hasn't happened yet in season 3 so assume it must be s4. I think 4 is where they really threw out the tone of the series in the mad dash towards an end, maybe to distract from them not really having a good ending.

I think s3 , while overall way better than s2, laid the groundwork for the fall by giving God a physical form that undercut the big mystery of the series and essentially discarded the search for Him which up until that point was the driving force of the series.

It all starts to feel like Kevin Smith's Dogma at that point

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't recall that and it hasn't happened yet in season 3 so assume it must be s4. I think 4 is where they really threw out the tone of the series in the mad dash towards an end, maybe to distract from them not really having a good ending.

I think s3 , while overall way better than s2, laid the groundwork for the fall by giving God a physical form that undercut the big mystery of the series and essentially discarded the search for Him which up until that point was the driving force of the series.

It all starts to feel like Kevin Smith's Dogma at that point

Yeah, I feel like what I’m thinking of is in season 4. We were pretty close to the end and I remember being disappointed to drop it at that point. But I just couldn’t.

Let me know when you get to that point if maybe it’s not as bad as I’m recalling.

 

[rumble]

TubiTV

Watching a German flick called Holy Shit!

Best to watch it without reading reviews.

Low budget. Mostly shot in a porta potty. Wilson is the toilet lid.

I am entertained.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm about halfway through the net Netflix pic Killer with Michael Fassbender. So far so good.