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What Have You Watched Recently?


Susano

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Just got back from seeing Jack Reacher - never go back. If you liked the first one (I did) you will like this one. The thing that struck me watching it though is that if you ever wanted to see a Cobie Smulders - Maria Hill movie, this might be as close as you get. She was a fun action hero female.

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X-Men: Apocalypse aka How Charles Xavier Became Bald (with Obligatory Wolverine Scene).

 

I was bored. The movie was not particularly bad exactly, but it wasn't really good either. Nothing in that movie stood out with the possible exception of how stupid the Quicksilver Saves the Mutants scene played out. I also got the impression that the whole thing was an excuse to showcase the "kewl fanboy" characters like Psylocke and Archangel. Probably a me thing, but it looks like 20th Century Fox is pumping out X-Men movies like puppy mills deliver sick puppies to the pet stores. Too bad you can't find X-Men in some sort of rescue shelter.

 

~yawn~

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I thought X-Men: Apocalypse was okay. Not great, not sorry I didn't see it in the theater, and certainly not as good as Days Of Future Passed. But okay.

 

I finally finished Luke Cage. Enjoyed it, and it was certainly well done, but can't say it grabbed me quite as much as previous Netflix-Marvel shows. Definitely worth watching tho.

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My wife & I re-watched the first season of WKRP In Cincinnati. It holds up pretty well today, far better than most sitcoms from that era IMO. The only downside is they didn't retain licensing rights to most of the songs they used in the show, so they had to replace them with utterly generic studio music tracks. The music was such a big part of that show, and it's just not the same without it. According to Wikipedia, there's a later DVD release that managed to restore most of the original music, but that ain't the version I have - so if you're going to pick this up, make sure you get the right one.

 

Speaking of music: fun fact! As a kid, I was always annoyed that we could never make out the lyrics of the closing theme because the station was always talking over it to plug the next show or whatever. Turns out, there aren't really any lyrics! Apparently the musician originally recorded a bunch of nonsensical mushmouth half-words as a placeholder, but the show runner thought it was funny and kept it as a bit of satire. Who knew?

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I watched the new Jack Reacher movie last night.  I liked it.  It was far different than the first movie.  Some have even compared it favorably to the most recent Bourne movie.  The Reacher character actually has more in common with Kwai Chang Caine though.  The way the movie shows his nomadic lifestyle makes it both appealing and tragic at the same time.  If you enjoyed the first movie you'll likely enjoy this one too.

 

HM

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Let's see . . .

 

The Walking Dead Season 7 first couple of episodes. We called the season opener reveal. Pretty much par for the course there. Lot of people giving the show flak for the brutality of the first episode, but it all seems to serve the story, so we're fine with it here. Second episode was a lot lighter in tone, nice break after the first one.

 

Cleverman, Season 1: According to Wikipedia, ". . .an Australian-New Zealand-American television drama series based on an original concept by Ryan Griffen." Mr. Griffen is, according to the same article, an Aborigine who wanted to create an Aboriginal super hero for his son. The show's premise is interesting, but the six episode first season loses its way with an excessive number of subplots and story elements that are either poorly-executed or simply not followed through on. The titular Cleverman is an Aboriginal shaman who acts as a conduit to the Dreaming. (How the show refers to the Dream Time.) The power of the Cleverman is passed on from a wizened old man to one of his nephews. The other nephew, of course, has issues with it. But that's not really the main conflict in the series. The Hairy People have recently (6 months prior to the show start) come out to the world at large. They're basically humans with long, coarse hair covering their bodies, including wispy facial hair for the ladies. They're stronger and faster than humans by a fairly wide margin, and share cultural roots with the Aboriginals. They're referred to as hairies by the public at large and as subhumans by the repressive, evil government. (The symbol for the security force responsible for containing them has a symbol strongly reminiscent of a swastika.) The subhmans/hairies are contained in the Zone, which also has a large Aboriginal population. The humans can come and go if they have their human IDs, the hairies need to stay put  . . . or else. It's all pretty on the nose and obvious with its parallels. I'd like to like it, but it's just too short for the amount of subplots shoved into it, and suffers from a few jarring internal inconsistencies. I'll check out season 2 (it was renewed), to see if any of the plot holes are filled in, and suggest anyone who's thinking about it wait until the two seasons are both up to watch back to back.

 

Tomorrow, When the War Began: Another Aussie production from 2010, this time a movie. A group of seven teens go for a weekend camping trip in the Outback (not the steak house), and return to find that Australia has been invaded by a foreign country. The group checks things out, narrowly escapes a couple of incidents, picks up an eighth member, and eventually formulates a plan to strike at the invaders and executes it. Overall, pretty well done movie, based on a popular YA novel. The exploits and successes/failures of the characters are fairly believable, given some lenience for vehicles exploding every now and then when they probably shouldn't. I'd give it a solid 3/5 stars, mainly because the plot wasn't very involved. However, after watching the train wreck of the over-complicated plot of Cleverman, the linear plot was appreciated.

 

Black Mirror, Season 3: Production moved over to Netflix this season, with a higher budget. The higher budget didn't really pay off. The season was tepid at best. The quality of the stories (it's an anthology show) varied greatly, with two fairly bad, two kind of mediocre, and two pretty decent episodes. They're all watchable, at least. Good actors in all of them with decent production values, but the writing frequently fell flat for me.

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<SNIP>

 

Tomorrow, When the War Began: Another Aussie production from 2010, this time a movie. A group of seven teens go for a weekend camping trip in the Outback (not the steak house), and return to find that Australia has been invaded by a foreign country. The group checks things out, narrowly escapes a couple of incidents, picks up an eighth member, and eventually formulates a plan to strike at the invaders and executes it. Overall, pretty well done movie, based on a popular YA novel. The exploits and successes/failures of the characters are fairly believable, given some lenience for vehicles exploding every now and then when they probably shouldn't. I'd give it a solid 3/5 stars, mainly because the plot wasn't very involved. However, after watching the train wreck of the over-complicated plot of Cleverman, the linear plot was appreciated.

 

<SNIP>

 

So, kind of a Red Dawn Down Under?

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