What are you watching?

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Not bad, just a bit uneven, and I agree, the weakest of the three. Which seems odd given a lot of the major moments here.
Yeah, there were a lot of great individual moments, but not as strong as a cohesive storytelling whole.
 
I'm finishing up this 3 episode adaption of War of the Worlds from Filmrise. It's set in the proper timeline, but it goes a bit father, showing the after effects of the invasion is worse for humanity than just surviving. I'm also watching The Sword Identity, which is strange.
 
Checking out the first story arc of the final season of Black Lightning. I feel like everything after the first season is kind of so-so. It's not horrible, but I'm not enjoying it like I used to. Which sucks, as Black Lightning is one of my favorite DC characters
 
I read about Mike Figgis' Stormy Monday decades ago in Pauline Kael's review of Figgis' Internal Affairs (a sleazy thriller I still enjoy).

I thought 'that sounds cool, will have to track it down,' and I finally just watched it this week.

It is British noir starring a very, very young Sean Bean and Melanie Griffith, with Tommy Lee Jones as the Big Bad and Sting as a shady club owner.

Griffith and Bean are as good as one would expect, one interesting twist is that it is Bean who is most often shown nude and being hungrily looked over by Griffith.

Jones of course plays the heavy like a duck to water. A great, noisy free jazz and blues soundtrack by Figgis himself.

A late 80s gem, they truly don't make them like this anymore in the UK.

 
The Dead Zone is really good. The original Carrie is excellent, the remake is not as good, as it had a lot to live up to, but has far better special effects for the prom scene.

I think there's like 3 Carrie remakes

I watched the Dead Zone, it was good...a very short, tight story. Like movies used to be, before everything had to be an adertisement for a sequel or a 3 hour slog. Mostly held up, except for the ridiculously over-dramatic slow motion anytime anyone got shot.

I'm probably not going to rewatch Carrie, I still remember the whole thing. But I did rewatch Misery the other day, and it held up well.
 
Checking out the first story arc of the final season of Black Lightning. I feel like everything after the first season is kind of so-so. It's not horrible, but I'm not enjoying it like I used to. Which sucks, as Black Lightning is one of my favorite DC characters

It seemed to me like they were trying too hard to get too much in, and the seasons weren't focused. The latter part of season 3 was really good though- and the first part of season 4 has been good so far.
 
So Invincible is like the best thing ever.



I'd forgot this was coming out until someone mentioned it on my Facebook wall, and it is soooo, so good. The animation is perfect, captures the style of the comic without being that crappy stilted American animation experience. The voices are great, JK Simmons just stealing the show constantly, and the pacing, plotting....it's everything I want from a superhero show played straight.
 
It seemed to me like they were trying too hard to get too much in, and the seasons weren't focused. The latter part of season 3 was really good though- and the first part of season 4 has been good so far.

I probably should have watched BL before I checked out the first two episodes of Superman & Lois. I mean, this first arc isn't horrible, but it's not drawing me in like I had hoped it would.

I finished the Sword Identity as well, and found it interesting, but too cerebral for my tastes. Plus unexpected comedy that likely wasn't planned
 
We watched two episodes of Haunted: Latin America. I know this kind of show is extremely crappy, which is why we never watched the US version, but many people in Mexico love this sort of stuff and the "naco*" flavour is fun. It reminds me of the many weird and supernatural stories of my family-in-law. Nevertheless, I don't think we'll be watching the whole season, güey.

* Naco (slang) - Wikipedia
 
Last edited:
I probably should have watched BL before I checked out the first two episodes of Superman & Lois. I mean, this first arc isn't horrible, but it's not drawing me in like I had hoped it would.
I mean Superman & Lois leaves all CW shows in the dust- maybe Stargirl can sort of keep up? But it definitely raised the bar.
 
I mean Superman & Lois leaves all CW shows in the dust- maybe Stargirl can sort of keep up? But it definitely raised the bar.

Yeah, it's definitely like watching a mini-movie every week. The delay on episode 6 until May is frustrating.
 
Yeah, it's definitely like watching a mini-movie every week. The delay on episode 6 until May is frustrating.
I haven't watched the most recent one because I heard that beforehand. The episode the week before seemed like a good stopping point, so why chance a cliff hanger?
 
A lot happens in each episode of Superman and Lois, doesn't it? When they hit the commercial break that comes about halfway through, I often think that it must be later than that.
 
I mean Superman & Lois leaves all CW shows in the dust- maybe Stargirl can sort of keep up? But it definitely raised the bar.

True. I was both surprised and impressed with how good that show is. Of course, my favorite of the rest is Legends of Tomorrow, even though it's gotten kind of lowbrow the past 2 seasons. Stargirl is a my next favorite after that. Superman definitely tops the list now though
 
Also, super-minor (and hopefully humorous) spoiler for episode 3 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

View attachment 29101

"Now is ze time on Sprockets vhen ve dance!"
I watched it twice, once by myself in the middle of the night and again with my wife the next day. And I laughed at this both times.

His character in that episode was superb.
 
I watched the latest episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier last night. It was okay. The buddy genre is one of those things that is easy enough to do, but hard to do well. This feels like a fairly rote version of the formula, but the banter feels a little too warmed over to be more than that. It probably doesn't help that both main characters are emotionally in moping mode.

Adding Zemo to the mix helped the episode, but it isn't a great sign that the central team needs a third-party to stay interesting.

As as aside, I don't get the internet demands that Stan play Luke in an upcoming Star Wars project. Yeah, I can see some facial resemblance if you put two similar photos of them next to each other, but I didn't see anything about his personality that works for Luke. I realize actors can sometimes completely surprise you with a new performance, so I'm not ruling it out. I just don't see it at the moment.
 
So Invincible is like the best thing ever.



I'd forgot this was coming out until someone mentioned it on my Facebook wall, and it is soooo, so good. The animation is perfect, captures the style of the comic without being that crappy stilted American animation experience. The voices are great, JK Simmons just stealing the show constantly, and the pacing, plotting....it's everything I want from a superhero show played straight.

I'm really enjoying this! I haven't read the comics so I'm going in blind - I think Kirkman does a grand job subverting and playing with superhero tropes (but I did also enjoy his work with TWD, not so much the screen adaptation.).
 
Last night my wife and I watched A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), about a troubled writer sent to interview Fred Rogers and the effect that Rogers has on him. The writer, Lloyd Vogel, was well played by Matthew Rhys; I didn't like the character, really, but I found his performance compelling. I was surprised to learn that he is Welsh--he does an American accent perfectly. Susan Kelechi Watson is good as his wife and Chris Cooper was pretty strong as his ne'er-do-well estranged father.

For me at least, the weak link was Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers. Not an easy part to play, I'm sure. But the film rests largely on the idea that Rogers was a unique and saintly personality, who had a special effect on those he came into contact with. Hanks' version of Rogers always felt like an act, a performance, to me. Of course, it was a performance, but it never felt real in the way Rhys' version of Vogel did.

In most movies, that would not be that much of a flaw--a good film can survive less-than-compelling acting. But I thought it really hurt this movie, because it created the impression that Fred Rogers was acting--that his public persona was a carefully crafted act and not a reflection of his real personality. I think that's the opposite of what the film-makers intended.
 
Last edited:
I have found out that DS9, Voyager and Enterprise are on USA Netflix, so I've started DS9. It's pretty good so far, but good lord the actor that plays Sisko is terrible! It's like he has no emotion, or anything! You got all these other characters around him that are good, but then there's Sisko with his flat performance.
 
I have found out that DS9, Voyager and Enterprise are on USA Netflix, so I've started DS9. It's pretty good so far, but good lord the actor that plays Sisko is terrible! It's like he has no emotion, or anything! You got all these other characters around him that are good, but then there's Sisko with his flat performance.
That's interesting. I've always thought that Avery Brooks did a good job in the two-part series opener. Of course, his performance there should be a little low-key as he is emotionally shut down by his grief for his wife. Another factor may be that (I think) there was a deliberate decision that, unlike Kirk and Picard, Sisko would not be a speech-maker. A lot of TOS and TNG episodes feature the captain delivering some kind of stirring oratory. In DS 9, it's the villains--especially Dukat--who are talky.

Brooks was acting alongside some very experienced and good character actors, which could perhaps make him look a little less impressive. Rene Auberjonois, Colm Meaney, and Armin Shimerman all had a lot of experience and are always good in their parts in DS 9. Cirroc Loften, who plays Jake, was quite a good child actor I thought and you see him literally grow up in the roll. I'm not sure how good Nana Visitor is at acting overall, but I think she plays Kira quite well. In the early episodes, the weakest links to me are Terry Farrell as Dax and Alexander Siddig (then still Siddig el Fadil) as Bashir. I never believed that Farrell was simultaneously a young woman and a 200+ year-old slug. She gets better, though, and they start writing the doctor more effectively as time goes by--I think for him the problem is more scripts than acting as such.

The show also had some great villains or semi-villains: Andrew Robinson as Garak, Marc Alaimo as Gul Dukat, Louise Fletcher as the conniving Kai Winn, and Jeffrey Combs as a lot of aliens.

Like a lot of Trek series, it takes DS 9 a while to figure out what it's going to do and what the tone will be. There are some good episodes in the first season, but there's more dross there than later in the series.
 
Garak is probably Trek's most complex character. A zealous nationalist/speciesist who wishes he was more of a zealous nationalist, but is "held back" in his own view by being too intelligent and sympathetic and yet is proud of those traits. The relationship with his father, the questions around what exactly he did to get exiled etc.
 
Garak is probably Trek's most complex character. A zealous nationalist/speciesist who wishes he was more of a zealous nationalist, but is "held back" in his own view by being too intelligent and sympathetic and yet is proud of those traits. The relationship with his father, the questions around what exactly he did to get exiled etc.
Yes. The second season episode 'The Wire' which really introduces us to Garak in depth is one of the best in the entire series, I think. It doesn't hurt that Paul Dooley, another character actor of long experience, plays his mentor Enabran Tain. IIRC Robert Hewitt Wolfe wrote the episode.
 
True. I was both surprised and impressed with how good that show is. Of course, my favorite of the rest is Legends of Tomorrow, even though it's gotten kind of lowbrow the past 2 seasons. Stargirl is a my next favorite after that. Superman definitely tops the list now though
I have a soft spot for Arrow, but with that one gone, my tops was Black Lightning. Now of course, it's the same as yours.

Supergirl gets in its own way. They have great starts, then bog it down with needless plot changes.

Same with Legends of Tomorrow, though it seemed that during the middle it learned how to thread that needle. The last season was less than.

Flash should be awesome, but they have no creativity in villains or plans. This Mirror stuff is actually pretty good though, and Bloodwork had potential.

Rachel Skarsten must have huge muscles the way she carries Batwoman. It actually got better in the last part of the season after Crisis, and this season is a lot better without Ruby Rose.
 
I have found out that DS9, Voyager and Enterprise are on USA Netflix, so I've started DS9. It's pretty good so far, but good lord the actor that plays Sisko is terrible! It's like he has no emotion, or anything! You got all these other characters around him that are good, but then there's Sisko with his flat performance.

That's an interesting take. He's actually my favorite captain. Maybe in hindsight it's because of some of the later developments as he grows into the role. It will be interesting to see your take as it goes on.
 
That's an interesting take. He's actually my favorite captain. Maybe in hindsight it's because of some of the later developments as he grows into the role. It will be interesting to see your take as it goes on.
I think it's just the dialogue in these early episodes.
 
Personally, I think Avery Brooks is at his best as Sisko in the earlier seasons (though maybe not some first-season episodes, which are just weak). Towards the series' end he becomes more histrionic and shouty; I always get the feeling that he has become bored with the role. His relationship with his father, played by Brock Peters, is well-done, though, as is his turn as a 1950s SF writer in "Far Beyond the Stars" in season 6.

As it happens, my wife and I have been rewatching a few DS 9 episodes (we have the whole series on disk) and a few nights ago saw the 3rd season episode "Destiny." I had remembered it as a middle-of-the-road entry in terms of quality, but rewatching it I was impressed by how artfully constructed it is. Unlike a lot of the best episodes, which highlight only a couple of the characters, it gives almost all of the main cast something important to do. It brings in a lot of the main plot elements: Bajor's relationship with Cardassia, Sisko's role as the Emissary, the quasi-SF quasi-religious nature of the Prophets, etc. Plus it has a very amusing 'B' story featuring Chief O'Brien, a visiting Cardassian engineer (Tracy Scoggins) and cultural misunderstandings.
 
Watched Godzilla vs Kong. Dumb movie. Very fun though. Special effects were really nice, and the way they used camera angles and the slow deliberate motion to highlight "size" was really good.
 
Last night my wife and I watched A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), about a troubled writer sent to interview Fred Rogers and the effect that Rogers has on him. The writer, Lloyd Vogel, was well played by Matthew Rhys; I didn't like the character, really, but I found his performance compelling. I was surprised to learn that he is Welsh--he does an American accent perfectly. Susan Kelechi Watson is good as his wife and Chris Cooper was pretty strong as his ne'er-do-well estranged father.

For me at least, the weak link was Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers. Not an easy part to play, I'm sure. But the film rests largely on the idea that Rogers was a unique and saintly personality, who had a special effect on those he came into contact with. Hanks' version of Rogers always felt like an act, a performance, to me. Of course, it was a performance, but it never felt real in the way Rhys' version of Vogel did.

In most movies, that would not be that much of a flaw--a good film can survive less-than-compelling acting. But I thought it really hurt this movie, because it created the impression that Fred Rogers was acting--that his public persona was a carefully crafted act and not a reflection of his real personality. I think that's the opposite of what the film-makers intended.
I'm a bit torn on Hanks as an actor. I think the comparison of him to Stewart are way off base and really reinforce misunderstanding of Stewart as an actor: although famous for his more saintly roles Stewart played a wide range of characters, including much darker roles like in Vertigo and Mann's The Man from Laramie.
 
I have a soft spot for Arrow, but with that one gone, my tops was Black Lightning. Now of course, it's the same as yours.

Supergirl gets in its own way. They have great starts, then bog it down with needless plot changes.

Same with Legends of Tomorrow, though it seemed that during the middle it learned how to thread that needle. The last season was less than.

Flash should be awesome, but they have no creativity in villains or plans. This Mirror stuff is actually pretty good though, and Bloodwork had potential.

Rachel Skarsten must have huge muscles the way she carries Batwoman. It actually got better in the last part of the season after Crisis, and this season is a lot better without Ruby Rose.

I kind of wish they'd all do shorter seasons like Legends does. I think it might help with the mixed quality we get from longer seasons. Then again, I've been spoiled by the shorter season lengths of British shows long before cable tv and streaming services started to follow suit.

I loved Arrow up through Damian Dahrk. It started going downhill a bit after that, though Crisis on Earth X and Crisis on Infinite Earths were well done given their budget limitations.

Flash annoys me by still having Thawne around. I do like Bloodsport and the mirror stuff (I haven't started this season yet, so I'm not up to speed on that storyline), but for every great moment, they tend to have bad ones too. I'm finding the current season of Batwoman to be better than the last one; I love Rachel Starsten; she was one of my favorite parts of Lost Girl when that was on.
 
Last Sunday, I saw the first episode of 'Atlantic Crossing' a Masterpiece series about the Norwegian royal family and their tribulations in World War II. Normally, I don't care all that much for shows about modern royalty--I watched the first series of "The Crown" but ultimately gave up in the second because I just had no interest in what happened to Elizabeth or Philip. It all seemed like 'sound and fury, signifying nothing.' This show cagily managed to pique my interest through a couple of strategies:
  • Giving the royal family a real crisis to deal with, where they personally are at risk--the German invasion of Norway in 1940.
  • Making the crown prince and princess fairly likeable people, and the king notable for his bravery (if not precisely his realism).
Interestingly, most of the episode was presented not in English, but in various Scandinavian languages, subtitled. The show was scrupulous in pointing out whether a character was speaking Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish--an odd bit of detail for showing in Anglophone areas, I thought.
 
I kind of wish they'd all do shorter seasons like Legends does. I think it might help with the mixed quality we get from longer seasons. Then again, I've been spoiled by the shorter season lengths of British shows long before cable tv and streaming services started to follow suit.

I loved Arrow up through Damian Dahrk. It started going downhill a bit after that, though Crisis on Earth X and Crisis on Infinite Earths were well done given their budget limitations.

Flash annoys me by still having Thawne around. I do like Bloodsport and the mirror stuff (I haven't started this season yet, so I'm not up to speed on that storyline), but for every great moment, they tend to have bad ones too. I'm finding the current season of Batwoman to be better than the last one; I love Rachel Starsten; she was one of my favorite parts of Lost Girl when that was on.

From what I hear, they're supposed to be going with shorter seasons and higher budgets. At least I hope so.

There was some good after Damien- if I had to say which seasons were good - 1, 2, 3 (until he went over a cliff with the show), 5 (Prometheus is the only villain that rivals Slade and Merlyn), 6 was ok until they lost their main villain (he quit) and changed it to Diaz on the fly, 7 was good for the most part, and 8 was good. Definitely stuff worth watching after Darkh.

And it's sort of ironic that Darkh was really good on Legends.

Thawne? You mean Wells? I actually like him- he's one of the best actors on the show.
 
I'm a bit torn on Hanks as an actor. I think the comparison of him to Stewart are way off base and really reinforce misunderstanding of Stewart as an actor: although famous for his more saintly roles Stewart played a wide range of characters, including much darker roles like in Vertigo and Mann's The Man from Laramie.

although, undeniably, Mazes & Monsters would have been a hundred times more awesome with a young James Stewart in the role...
 
Watched Godzilla vs Kong. Dumb movie. Very fun though. Special effects were really nice, and the way they used camera angles and the slow deliberate motion to highlight "size" was really good.
I'm hoping the takeaway from this is "Hey, Box Office and Streaming can live side by side- let's do away with windows!" But that would be a bit too progressive, especially since the ink has barely dried on the new deals. AMC and some other company got a great deal- 3 weeks and royalties on streaming, with Regal taking it out to 6 weeks. There's no way they're going to pull it from the other theaters, so they'll get 6 weeks and royalties.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top