The Wind Rises

A deeply poignant and measured story about a touchy subject. I get why it's controversial on both sides, but I think Miyazaki handled the material with admirable maturity and honesty. An excellent film.

Prisoners

As usual from Villeneuve, brilliantly directed, acted, and shot; I wasn't quite as swept away as I was by some of his other films, but the craftsmanship on display is still superb. 

The Bad Guys: Kinda good family film. Slick animation and I like the industry's shift to start incorporating new shading and 2D elements in creative ways.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: Good meta comedy. Nick delivers the goods with a broad performance and Pedro matches with a nuanced and endearing one. Come for the Cage, stay for the bromance.

The Northman: Best film I saw last week. Gets off to an awkward start, but as soon as Alex takes over it hits its stride. Beautifully shot revenge flick that tells a poetic tale without sanitizing history. Could be this year's Green Knight.

Better Call Saul rewatch - just doing the full show and then finishing up the final episodes for season 6. I just started this one, so I don’t have much to say other than I love how the show starts off with Jimmy thinking he’s protecting his victim brother Chuck from the evil Howard Hamlin… Oh how interesting that story twists and turns!

The Office - The American version. It has a different tone from the British one. It has a very American sitcom feel. Where the characters have no real meaningful flaws because everything can be overcome with time and grind. Jim Halpert is lazy and lacking drive, yet gets promoted above everyone. Clingy toward someone else’s wife to be, for years, and that somehow ends up being the winning strategy for getting the girl - granted Roy wasn’t even presented as a real character, just an obstacle. He often annoyes his co-workers with pranks, and never sees consequences despite destroying office property and productivity.

The show has some excellent episodes sprinkled in, my favourite was probably The Dinner Party - also the name of my favourite Seinfeld episode; but the show kind of wears on me.

The big difference between Jim Halpert (and Ted Mosby from How I met Your Mother) and the basis for the character - Tim Canterbury and Ross Gellar, are that there were actual consequences for their character flaws (at least in the first 5 or 6 seasons of friends Friends) and they weren’t presented as good, but kind of dark and creepy - tension for Tim and Ross, based on their actions, got thick enough to cut with a knife. One moment that sticks out to me was after Ross and Rachel broke up, and how uncomfortable the other characters were in the subsequent episodes when they couldn’t ditch Ross - because he was Chandler’s best friend and Monica’s brother. In fact, that’s the sort of writing I loved about Dinner Party, Jan’s mental breakdown and Steve Carell being nowhere near the right mindset to deal with it, and the other guests just trying to be polite.

Unfortunately, most of the show’s episodes feel kind of samey, and it’s a grind to watch, so I kind of quit during season 5, not sure if I’ll go back since Better Call Saul’s a show I know I like, and I’ll probably move onto something else after. I find with most of these American Sitcoms, they hit this point where they kind of “break” and then it’s just a waste of time to keep watching because they never recover the elements that made them great in the first place. I think that’s happened with The Office, it happened in Friends during season 5 or 6? I forget, but I remember the last 30-50 episodes or so weren’t very good except for a few scenes here and there. That’s what’s happened with The Office for me. I think it happened when Jim proposed to Pam, that’s it, I don’t care about the story anymore. Shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul know when to end, but alas - the main inventive is cash. Seinfeld, IMO was the opposite, I felt like that one could have kept going - but Curb Your Enthusiasm felt like exactly the sort of update that Seinfeld needed, that and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Watched films all night, Mulholland Drive and Scarface.

I finally got around to watching Moonfall, now I know why I waited until it hit Redbox to see this. Simply put, this movie is awful in every category. I know it's a Roland Emmerich film and a certain level of stupidity is to be expected, but this movie managed to break even those barriers. The characters are so unbelievably stupid and unlikable with Uwe Boll-levels of logic at certain points, it just made my head spin and atrocious dialog. Even the CGI looks laughably bad at certain points, it sticks out like a sore thumb. And don't even get me started on the twist ending, which'll probably leave you el oh eling at how any professional screenwriter came up with THAT and some studio heads/producers actually thought it was a good idea.

Roland Emmerich makes another shitty movie, what else is new? I like ID4, that's about it.

On the plus side, I did see The Northman last weekend and it was amazing. A must-see for GoT junkies like myself.

Moon Knight: A bit uneven. At some points I was reaching for my phone, but when it hits it hits. The bits in the ward near the end were particularly inspired. Would watch more of the character and Isaac's quality acting.

Watched Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. And, I really enjoyed it.

Definitely feels like a Sam Raimi movie through and through. With some surprising brutality/violent scenes considering its a MCU film. Pretty cool though, and a little different from your average Marvel flick. So yeah, while it doesn't quite the speculator flair of Spiderman: No way Home before it, its a enjoyable film with some great action mixed in some weird multiverse shenanigans. Still not a massive fan of Strange as a hero but he's grown on me in the last couple of cinema outings. 8.25/10

Warning to those who's going to see it. Do watch the Spider-Man: No Way Home and WandaVision first if you can, otherwise you'll be missing parts and references for the full story.

My wife and I have been watching the Batman movies in HBO Max, one per night. We watched The Dark Knight last night. So far it's the best of the series but I don't think it's a masterpiece, 5/5 movie. The Harvey Dent/Two-face aspect felt specially rushed. Also the original Batman would never give up his identity just cause some psycho wants him.

Looking forward to watching The Batman (the newest one) again! I think it may be my N1 in the franchise.

I went and watched it with my wife a week ago, it was a solid film and we had a good time. We also watched The Green Knight some time ago but we didn't like it as much. Some of the elements were interesting but I wasn't very satisfied by the end. I think my favorite medieval movie made in recent times is still The Last Duel. So good!

Love + Death + Robots S3: More adult animation goodness. Some of the plots are starting to feel a little repetitive (especially the 'lone survivor' ones), so I hope they shake things up a bit if we get a fourth season. I still really want a fourth season. Highlights from this installment for me were the excellent Bad Travelling, the hilarious Night of the Mini Dead, and the captivating Jibaro. Good to see Alberto Mielgo's clout grow and to get a wonderful short from David Fincher himself.

Death Note: Light up the new world

As someone who loved the 2006 Death Note films by Shusuke Kaneko, I feel highly conflicted on this one. On the one hand, it's nowhere near in the same ballpark, the same league, or even the same sport as those movies. Its much less cerebral and polished.

On the other hand, it is much better than the atrocious American Netflix incarnation or the equally shitty L: Change The World from 2008. Unlike those trainwrecks, it as least feels somewhat true to and respective of the mythos.

Seeing a certain character return, even in a limited capacity, was a treat. The effects are also some of the best I have seen in a Japanese movie. (They don't have the luxury of the massive budgets Hollywood enjoys)

All in all, I'm glad I at least checked it out. Uneven as it was, it was at least interesting.

Top Gun: Maverick: A worthy sequel to an action classic. The soundtrack and romance don't quite compare but pretty much everything else is at least as good as before. Special credit of course goes to the incredible stunt flying and camerawork on display, the caliber of which we've never seen and may never see again. The ending is a bit far fetched but is easily forgiven for how entertaining it is. May see in theaters again.