MSU

A week ago, I got a recommended video on YouTube of the scene from S1 where Mike punches the guy in the throat with his own gun before taking the pill guy to meet Nacho. Watched that. Watched the next one that was recommended. And now I've gone back to the start and I'm halfway through S4. What a show.

007 -- Moonfall. Utter shite. And not in a good way. 1/10

You're absolutely right. It was late. I wasn't thinking. I'll redact.

006 -- Parallel Mothers. Penelope Cruz in Pedro Almodóvar's latest effort. The audience realize what its secrets far far earlier than any character in the movie so the events that contrive to push Cruz's Janis, and fellow new mother Ana together are nowhere near as satisfying or interesting as the secondary storyline of confirming the fate of Janis's great-grandfather during the Spanish Civil War. Cruz's performance and some delicious looking plates of food make it just about worth a gander. 5/10

Dyson Sphere Program has a new update out which will probably see me investing another 200 hours into it. Very more-ish interplanetary factory building fun, for fans of Factorio and Satisfactory.

005 -- The Rescue. A National Geographic documentary about the kids football team who got trapped in a flooded cave system in Thailand. A remarkable and emotional story of courage and ingenuity and perseverance, made all the more enjoyable from the heroes being people you'd least expect. I remember this from the time it happened, but I would've sworn it was longer ago than 2018. Even though I sort of knew how it ended, the characters involved are so engaging as they tell their story, it felt brand new. A triumph and at no point does anyone ask what Elon Fucking Musk thinks about matters. Highly recommended. 10/10

I pre-ordered Sea of Tranquility, which isn't something I usually do. It sounds amazing.

Probably my favourite novel of the last ten years. Her other stuff is really good too and well worth checking out.

004 -- The Tragedy of Macbeth. I struggle with Shakespeare quite a lot. Usually by the time I've translated a line of dialog into a language I better understand, I'm already four lines behind, so I never feel all that engaged, but I do feel stupid so it balances out. Joel Coen's adaptation, though, comes pretty close to breaking through my feeble brain. It looks incredible both in set design and cinematography, and Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, once I get beyond it was Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, put in brilliant turns. But the has-to-be-seen performance has to go to Kathryn Hunter as the Weird Sisters and Old Man. Hunter’s ability to make her body flow from one impossible posture to another brings an incredible uneasiness to her roles, a sensation that is only heightened by the black and white stock. She becomes an humanesque embodiment of the crows that punctuate the story and is worth the ticket price on her own. 9/10

003 -- Scream. To some degree or another, I've enjoyed all the Scream movies. I even liked 3. And I kinda liked 4. I thought this requel (not exactly reboot, not exactly sequel according to one of the characters) was probably better than both of those. They did a decent enough job of keeping me guessing about the killers, but it's not Knives Out and so the reveal wasn't quite the shock the directors would like. It didn't rely too heavily on jump scares and some of the deaths were surprisingly graphic. But despite it all, the nods to previous movies and the genre in general, the meta conversations, the bits I enjoyed most were with David Arquette and Courtney Cox just being on the screen together. I must be getting old. 7/10

The McBroons!

002 -- The 355. Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Penelope Cruz, and Lupita Nyong'o are the reluctant intelligence agents, forced to team up to chase a McGuffin around the globe that, if in the wrong hands, could start WW3. Despite a pretty solid cast, the story is boring and predictable and takes itself way too seriously. The trailer made this out to be a bit of light-hearted fun and I feel I have a decent complaint to take to the Trailer Ombudsman. No one onscreen seems to be enjoying themselves and it was even boring enough to sedate the group of unruly youths who'd occupied the back row of the cinema into a stupor. 3/10

Up for recording all the movies I see this year with an understanding that a mid-January failure (ie next week) is likely. 001 -- The Lost Leonardo. A fascinating documentary about the discovery of Salvator Mundi in a dingy New Orleans auction house, bought for $1k and under restoration was suspected to be painted by da VInci. Not only is it interesting from the point of view of the mystery, it also shone a light on the corruption of the art world, the use of tax evading Swiss freeports, and all the schemes that are concocted in the exchange of hundreds of millions of dollars. 8/10

I think Prisoner of Azkaban is generally received as the pick of the bunch. The movies before it were too juvenile and the ones after it were based from horribly bloated books. Despite all that, I felt they closed out the series pretty well.

Finnish PM is a wid.

They're all great. I mean, there are some better than others, there are some contestants better than others, and some tasks are more entertaining than others, but you really can't go wrong.

Just out of Ghostbusters Afterlife and it wasn't for me. It wasn't helped by being in an audience that didn't seem to get out of the house much and when they did, they'd never been to a movie before. There were folks literally slapping the arms of their seats with laughter. There was a wee woman in front of me who seemed to be mumbling a conversation with the characters all through the movie. I was really disappointed at how much was just lifted from the first movie and it didn't make me laugh, which even the Lady Ghostbusters was able to do a couple of times. The kids seemed to enjoy it at least a bit more than me but my step-daughter was curiously very offended at the ghostly cameo towards the end.

Love this movie. Remember scene with the robot and the watering can breaking my heart when I was a wee boy.

Remember to rehydrate.

Was just wondering what would happen if we flung a corner at the back post.

SUPERB!!

No More Jockeys was one of my YouTube rabbit-holes last year. Such fun, especially the early episodes where Tim Key's cheating was more prevailent. Back to Taskmaster, thought one of the pop events was going to be whenever one of Morgana's breests was going to pop out.

The idea that anyone ever watched the original and then thought yep, let's remake that.

I think it's more or less just an attempt to even the field a bit. Plus they like Greg looking like he's in charge, which I think was to Lee Mack's detriment in Series 11.

1. Totally agree. Don't mind admitting that her sitting on the cake was worthy of a crafty. 2. Yes.