HARSH TIMES

Christian Bale did a great job playing a selfish jerk. I didnt like the movie because I coudln't identify with much in this movie.

Glass is very different from the other two entries as it presents a larger universe with a big conspiracy at it's center

THE KEEPING ROOM

I like movies about Civil War that shows what it did to families. This one definitley showed the horror of being a slave as well as the horror that came to be visited upon the females who's menfolk had marched off to fight for the Condereracy.

It has an uneveness to me where it drags then goes almost too fast. My biggest issue was the ending, which just about certainly ended with the three ladies dead, though they thought they had just made a great decision.

In their situation at the end, there were hardly any good decisions to make.

HARRY AND SON
Paul Newman and Robbie Benson.

Been on sort of a Paul Newman watching binge lately. This movie didn't look like it would be something I would watch all the way through, but it kept me intrigued. Took some odd turns I wasn't expecting.
Not a masterpiece by any means, but I enjoyed it.

GREEN ZONE
Matt Damon

I don't know how true the specifics are, but I enjoyed it as a movie.

In the manner of hating a train wreck that you are powerless to stop, I hated it as it layed out the misteps at the beginning of what developed into our quagmire in Iraq.

LAYER CAKE
Daniel Craig

Completely lost interest at 44 minutes in.

Invincible Season 1

It was good.
It's been so long since I've read the comics but it kinda made me want to pull them out and also take a look at my Omni Man heroclix.
They speed up a lot of story arcs and for the most part it worked, I forgot how violent some of the fights were. On the current pace they are probably trying to aim for 10 seasons of 10 episodes.

SON OF NO ONE
Al Pacino

If someone else watches this movie, please explain the plot to me. And why Vickie was writing those letters.

As is, I think I wasted my time. But not 100% sure. 99%, maybe.

TWO FOR THE MONEY
Al Pacino Matthew McConahey

I liked most all the bits and pieces, but as a whole it fell flat for me.

I wanted to see something a little more on the Fantasy side and I wanted to exercise my Russian, so I treated myself to the The Fantastic Journey of Mr. Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit. This is a Soviet-era TV adaptation of the Tolkien classic... and quite frankly I enjoyed it more than the three combined films of the Peter Jackson trilogy. Subtitles make it easier, but with a deep memory of the original text it isn't that hard to follow without them.

I have never seen any Lord of the Rings movies. I started to, but couldn't get interested.

I have never read any of the books. I started to, but couldn't get interested.

My son tells me that when we finish watching STNG and original Twilight Zone, we WILL watch LOTR

Not a movie, but kinda felt like it, I just finished DEVS and it was pretty solid. Not perfect, if that's what you need, but on par with his other works.

And decently satisfying through the end.

On Hulu.

Last week I saw the news of the passing of Ned Beatty who I knew primarily as Otis saying “Mister LEW-THOR” from the Superman movies. I decided to mix that up and watched...
Network – 1976. Wow, that was good, wild and holds up. For awhile it seemed like he didn't have much to do until he had one of the most amazing parts.

I haven't watched Lord of the rings since they came out. LotR:2 (Two Towers/ or Twin Towers) is easily my favorite of them. The first one was just okay but way too slow to get going and the 3rd one was pretty good but I got annoyed by the multiple fade outs that made it seem like it was done but kept coming back from the hard fade like ~5 times or more.

You mean Otis, with the cat-like reflexes? What a great character!

Teaching our will-be-writer son about heist movies. Tonight's was Fast Five because it's just silly and fun.

You need to see a film called Ed & His Dead Mother it's a "zom-com" but not in the way you'd expect from other films in that genre. It has Ned Beatty playing the "matter of fact" father of Steve Buscemi who's a momma's boy that's approached by Ted Danson a salesmen who's company resurrects the dead. Ted Danson's character is like one of those old time door to door salesmen and of course the comedy comes from things going horribly wrong for Steve Buscemi's character.

I think I “reviewed” that movie here sometime back.
You and I may be at polar extremes about it.

Thanks to Adult Swim, I've been (re)watching Saul of the Mole Men. The entire series is available on, probably with geographic restrictions. This is a 20-episode series of 11-minute shorts that tell the story of Saul Malone, survivor of a catastrophic subterranean adventure.

It's an adult comedy that evokes a sort of Sid & Marty Krofft interpretation of Red Dwarf. I missed the 'second half' of the series when it was previously available, so I look forward to watching this throwback show. I don't know how long Adult Swim keeps programs available online.

I can't be accused of being on the pop-culture bandwagon: I finally watched both seasons of The Mandalorian.

In terms of Star Wars fandom, I think I am a good example of a potential candidate to have dipped deep into the original lore, but somehow nearly completely avoided it. I was precisely the right age when the Star Wars was released; I read the very first paperback novelizations (film and Splinter..), Marvel comics, and I definitely was tuned in for those early crazy TV outings. By the time of Return of the Jedi (and the Ewok Adventures) I was simply becoming too interested in other things, and there was simply too much other literature to experience that I never ventured back. I liked Star Wars, but the 'canon' simply occupied no space in my consciousness... despite having college roommates and friends who were more than willing to explain certain things that were 'happening' in the then-current publications. I have barely watched any of the non-film properties... this includes any/all of the animated properties.

Anywho, I wrote all of the above to try to give some context to my review. I will give the series a qualified recommendation. If you are NOT a Star Wars fan, the story (such as there is) is better experienced through some other medium. The story is a Star Wars re-skinning of a few classic tales from other media... which is fine, considering that statement is true of ALL of Star Wars... but the HEAVY lean into Star Wars lore (especially in season 2) puts a lot of 'lumps in the gravy', as it were.

If you are a Star Wars geek... the 16 episodes are chock full of Easter Eggs... but as a casual fan, I can tell you that in many places I could tell where certain things were introduced as nods to the deep fans and such things often were jarring to this casual fan. Season 1 was rather tightly scripted, and so this bothered me less... but by the time Season 2 started I found this quite bothersome. I was completely unmotivated by the "Mandalorian" aspect of the story.

The acting and production values are top-notch. I found myself wishing for more choreographed action sequences. There were a couple of the shorter episodes that I felt could have used such 'padding'. I definitely feel that if I had stopped with Season 1 that I would have had a much higher opinion of the series.