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What Have You Watched Recently?


Susano

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Currently watching Star Trek: DS9, the  Season One episode "Duet". Probably the best episode of the season, and I'd say without a doubt in the top 10 episodes of the entire series. The acting is superb,  the study of evil and the nature of justice vs revenge and so much more is fascinating. 

 

" Nothing justifies genocide."

"What you call genocide, I call a day's work."

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Currently watching Star Trek: DS9, the  Season One episode "Duet". Probably the best episode of the season, and I'd say without a doubt in the top 10 episodes of the entire series. The acting is superb,  the study of evil and the nature of justice vs revenge and so much more is fascinating. 

 

" Nothing justifies genocide."

"What you call genocide, I call a day's work."

 Right. This was a really good episode...with some interesting twists on the way.

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Saw the movie "Central Intelligence" last night with friends. It is a lot of fun and Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart have fantastic chemistry. I really want to see them on the big screen together again. Character wise, both protagonists are easy to cheer on. I think I laughed out loud every five minutes on the dot. I'm buying the DVD when it comes out.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Secret Life of Pets is a wonderful story of a Princess...err Pomeranian who must quest to rescue her Prince... err Jack Russel Terrier. 

 

Okay, there's more to it than that and indeed, there's clearly an intent to focus on our two male leads, but Gidget (Said princess stand in) maybe my favorite character in the movie, which surprised me. Beyond that, Pops the senior basset hound and several others made me laugh or smile.

 

(Revolution Rabbit is scary)

 

I think everyone will have some pet they fall in love with, probably more than one, before the movie is even half over.

 

But seriously, there are some "Adventurers amok' moments touches here that I could easily use in a fantasy campaign. Fun stuff

8/10

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Terminator:Genisys (or whatever silly way they spelled it) - Not bad. I enjoyed the way that the original was lampooned in certain spots. Some weirdness towards the end, but nothing I wouldn't do or have seen in a gaming environment so I'm cool with that.

 

Interstellar - I really liked the leanings towards respecting relativity. Obvious rubber science with the wormhole, but other than that Deus Ex Machina, I felt that Interstellar danced the line between science and drama pretty well....until the end. Not sure about the armageddon climate science. That seemed more to set the tone and bleakness than having any real basis in fact. Not going to spoil anything, but the end ruined a pretty emotional decision in the movie. Cooper station needed to be bigger. Something like the Citadel from Mass Effect. I probably will never watch it again, but I was mostly gratified with the entertainment value.

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Interstellar - I really liked the leanings towards respecting relativity. Obvious rubber science with the wormhole, but other than that Deus Ex Machina, I felt that Interstellar danced the line between science and drama pretty well....until the end. Not sure about the armageddon climate science. That seemed more to set the tone and bleakness than having any real basis in fact.

The problem was not so much climate as a "blight" that made agriculture less and less viable on Earth. I suspect a biological weapon gone out of control. I was more concerned that none of the other nations on Earth were represented in the prokjecty -- did they want a cosmos populated solely my mostly-white Americans?

 

Insterstellar was a movie of ideas, but most of them were at best wooden-headed.

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Adele at Glastonbury. And boy did she swear up a storm during the breaks between songs. But really good set. And something I have not seen before. She stopped to allow an announcement about getting someone seriously ill out of the crowd and ensured that there was a clear path for them to move. Also picked people out of the crowd, got them on stage, quasi interviewed them and stopped to get photoed or selfied with them. 

 

Watching it now. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Somme 1916: From both sides of the wire

 

This was a three part series presented by historian Peter Barton looking at the offensive from the point of view of the attacking British and the defending Germans. His conclusion was that it was a defensive German victory despite the Germans retiring to the Hindenburg Line at the close of the battle. The reason for this was the study of the German archives which threw up some interesting documents showing that the Germans knew when the attacks were coming and the rapid introduction of new tactics even in the middle of the battle. This included the first encounters with tanks and how to defeat them.

 

Overall a sobering and interesting account of the battle showing just why the Germans were so successful and why the Allies were not.

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I've been taking a break from online gaming so have been catching up on Netflix

 

Interstellar - excellent high concept movie.  A great spiritual successor to 2001.  For many of the same reasons I'll file it away as 'I  really enjoyed this but have no desire to see it again'.

 

Ant Man - parts of this I really liked, parts of it I did not. It's probably the 'weakest' marvel movie I've seen in recent years but not due to the actors or characterizations so I'm fine with seeing the characters again. Just... try and be a little more consistent with your own established rules, guys.  Break a floor tile or ride an ant - don't do both.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy - this was a lot of fun.  Solid marvel film all around. 

 

The Martian - fantastic high concept movie.  Well written, well acted, and the science half of the science fiction just felt right. Grounded.

 

Edge of Tomorrow - Surprised by how much I enjoyed this film - though really with giant bug monsters, power armors, crazy science fiction, Tom Cruise, and a bad ass heroine I guess I shouldn't be.  Not my favorite ending (it should have ended one scene earlier and left what happens up to the viewer) but I understand a hollywood need for closure.  

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Le Dîner de Cons (The Dinner Game), a very funny comedy-of-errors film. The premise is that there's a group of wealthy friends who get together for dinner regularly and each bring an idiot along for the amusement of the others.  Pierre Brochant, a publisher, decides to bring along an idiot tax auditor one of his "idiot spotters" finds. What follows is classic, and funny all the way to the end. I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time.

 

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, a French spy spoof that mostly plays off of Connery-era James Bond. Some of the jokes fell flat, some went on overlong or were repeated too many times, but overall it was funny and well worth the price of a rental.

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New Game is one of the better new comedies of the anime season. Right after graduation, a young woman who was presumably an artistic prodigy in high school lands a job at a video game studio, on the all-female team that is putting together the third installment of the series that inspired her to become a CGI artist in the first place. The heroine is talented (she is able to learn new software and techniques with remarkable speed) but naive, and the other members of her team don't always provide the best examples of sound life choices. The humor comes from their interactions and eccentricities as they cope with the project, the sacrifices to their social lives it entails, and the knowledge that the deadline is approaching. In between they gossip, joke, and occasionally get thoroughly blasted at company-sponsored drinking parties (in an episode that satirizes Japan's alcohol culture from the perspective of the underage heroine).

 

It's not meant to be a realistic portrayal of the video game industry -- I originally assumed the heroine would have to have had at least a college degree to land the job -- but it is funny and the characters make sense in terms of their places within the story. I do not expect to see any significant men over the course of the series, and the cast is entirely too driven in their work to spend much time cultivating romance with either gender.

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Marvel's Agents of Shield, Season 3

 

Highlights:

  • The alien planet, while just color filters over a desert shoot, just screams authentic to me. I really liked it a lot. One of the moons was perhaps a little largish in the sky, but I still enjoyed the 'atmosphere' it created. The exposition later in the season really made it awesome. 
  • Fitz was my favorite character this season. He, more than any other member of the team, demonstrated heroism. Again, it was subtle, but very powerful. The actor did a great job with that plot line.
  • Thank god we finally get rid of <name removed to protect the spoilage>. They have no reason now to bring that character back and no really rational way to do it. Good riddance.
  • The relationship between Rosalind and Coulson was very well done, with the constant paranoia. I didn't like the end resolution much, but the late middle part was nice to see.
  • Powers Booth. I've always liked him and he did not disappoint here either.

 

Can't wait for Season 4 to play out so I can watch it on Netflix.

 

***

 

Supergirl

 

I missed this during the first run because I limit myself to just a few shows and the CW superhero roster pretty much devours most of my time. Now that Castle is off the air, a vacancy has been created in my allotted TV time, so I figured I would use this "Summer catch-up" event to get ready for season 2.

 

So far I am neither groaning nor cheering. It is just a show that is incubating. I'll have more to say once I slog through the first season. I wish it were on Netflix so that I could just binge watch it over my days off and be done with it. I hope, like Agents of Shield, it has a few slow episodes at first and then takes off. 

 

I like binge watching TV series, I realize. The weekly break between episodes pulls me from the story. It is like reading a book one chapter a week. I lose the emotional connection to the characters and have to take time to reestablish that bond enough to care. Binge watching is like reading the whole novel in a sitting or two. I'm invested in the story and can't "put it down" until I am done. To me, that is a far more satisfying way to experience the story. 

 

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Also watched the Olympics, although mostly tennis and archery. I was looking for some fencing and judo, and all they showed so far for those sports were the gold medal matches. I can always stream from NBC, but my streaming is slow, and I have to register in order to watch.

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Also watched the Olympics, although mostly tennis and archery. I was looking for some fencing and judo, and all they showed so far for those sports were the gold medal matches. I can always stream from NBC, but my streaming is slow, and I have to register in order to watch.

 

That irritates me too. Some of the non-mainstream sports are the most interesting and I prefer to be able to watch all the matches.  At least for soccer I can DVR the matches.  Rugby and fencing on the other hand, are like you mentioned,just the critical matches with maybe some of the others if they fit them in.

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That irritates me too. Some of the non-mainstream sports are the most interesting and I prefer to be able to watch all the matches.  At least for soccer I can DVR the matches.  Rugby and fencing on the other hand, are like you mentioned,just the critical matches with maybe some of the others if they fit them in.

 

Yup. Some of the highlights are on the website (you don't need to register to watch these). I'm watching some of the fencing and judo videos now. I may just register to watch the matches, including the replays, since there's no extra charge according to the NBC website. I will just have to wake up at 5 am to watch the fencing matches. Good thing it's Sunday.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The Hatfields and McCoys mini-series starring Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton. I personally really enjoyed it, though it seemed to take a few minor liberties with the historic facts in favor of dramatic license. Not being a scholar of the Hatfield/McCoy feud, I can only reference some of the information I've found online. Not that it matters. It was a good show that held my attention all night until 6 AM this morning.

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True to form, I've begun following the advice I was given and binge-watching Steven Universe. This is an animated series (originally airing on Cartoon Network in the US) about a young boy (age not really specified) who is essentially being raised by three super-powered "Crystal Gems" -- heroines charged with protecting the Earth from other "gem creatures" Steven Universe is his real name -- his father is Greg Universe, a failed rock musician who runs the local car wash. His mother was the leader of the Crystal Gems until she "gave up her physical form" giving birth to him.

 

I'm going through it in sequence (although I did skip ahead to a couple of later episodes -- you'll see why that matters in a moment). The early episodes I've been watching are Steven essentially exploring the world, gradually figuring out what his own Gem Powers might be capable of, and being a kid -- enthusiastic, naive, and a little bit selfish. What prevents him from being insufferable is his eternal optimism and resourcefulness -- what he lacks in skill he makes up for in chutzpah.

 

Right now it's very light-hearted, but my understanding is that as the show goes on, and Steven gains more experience, the tone of the show will change dramatically -- not as much emphasis on the comedy, more exploration of the backstory behind the Crystal Gems, and some things that will fly right over the heads of juvenile audiences.

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