Courtesy of pbs.org, I found myself watching the first two season of the revival All Creatures Great & Small. I found myself wanting some angst-free period drama and these 14 episodes hit the spot. This was definitely a cozy watch, as each episode can be described as "heartwarming". It is (for the most part) pleasantly free of too much excitement. Also, it has a lot of animals.

For those not familiar with the source material: This setting for this series is a small veterinary practice in the pre-WWII Yorkshire Dales.

I watched the entirety of Adult Swim/Crunchyrool's Blade Runner: Black Lotus. I was impressed. This is a 13-episode CGI-animated (from motion-capture) "mid-quel" between the original Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049... it is set in a Los Angeles of 2032 if you are curious of the precise timing. It has a rather straightforward of revenge story with excellent visuals and fight choreography. I will recommend, but as is my wont I will describe my few complaints.

The first is that the series is about 3-episodes too long. There are (from my recollection) three episodes that make heavy use of flashbacks (reused scenes). I can't quite recommend you skip these... you will immediately realize which episodes upon starting them, they are scattered among the series... but you can tune out during them and not miss that much.

The second is that the animation is somewhat painful to watch in "close up" of the characters. I blame some combination of it being originally done for Japanese voice acting and the actual animation process. Occasionally there is some excellent shot construction, but many of the two-hander scenes (especially early in the series) are ones I found to be off-putting. There are a few characters with intentionally off-putting screen presence so I think that particular style works really well for them... but otherwise many of the "pensive dialogue" moments had me gasping for air.

The visuals and action sequences are amazing. If you are a fan of the lore of the BR universe it is well worth watching. The music is generally pretty good.

One particular voice actor, and the visuals, had me desperately wanting a similar neo-noir animated series based on the Deus Ex franchise.

Rewatched Casino Royale and that movie just works.

Starting to rewatch Oldboy and remembering how much of a movie this movie is. SO MUCH. I plan to watch the other Vengeance Trilogy movies as well, if I feel up to it. Might need to break it up with something lighter.

I watched new The Tragedy of Macbeth, and I have to admit that it had trouble holding my attention. This is a relatively short film, so this is a bad thing. There were some very clever pieces, and the actors had command of the material, but otherwise it was a little too minimalist for my liking.

Just completed the latest George Lucas Talk Show and that is always an experience. Just a silly and fun bunch of nonsense on an irregular schedule.

My most recent movie, and if you're anything like me and consider this show a significant cornerstone in your childhood development, you need to hop onto HBO Max and watch "Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street". Like seriously, do so ASAP. The only missteps this documentary makes is never once mentioning either Richard Hunt or Jerry Nelson, who in my heart are the great unsung heroes of Muppetdom.

But almost all of the most important players are here either through contemporary interviews or archive footage: Joan Gantz Cooney, Jon Stone, Jim Henson, Carrol Spinney, Roscoe Orman, Sonia Manzano, Emilio Delgado...

It's a really special thing to watch, and a very insightful look into arguably the single most important television program ever made.

The Legend of Vox Machina (Season one)
I listen to plenty of DnD actual play podcasts, but never did get into Critical Role. Not because I wasn't interested but because the episodes, at least in the beginning, are extremely long. All of that said, this show is awesome. The only drawback is it will either give you DnD withdrawal or make your DnD withdrawal ten times worse.

Peacemaker (Season one)
I didn't expect that I would enjoy John Cena much in "The Suicide Squad" but he turned out to be a standout. James Gunn pulls it off again with "Peacemaker". If you enjoyed "The Suicide Squad" even half as much as I did you'll enjoy "Peacemaker" plenty.

Midnight Mass
Hamish Linklater is so good as Father Paul. The writing captures so much wrong with small town religion (and religion in general). I really enjoyed this, even if the whole wasn't good (which it is) I'd recommend it on Linklater's performance alone.

Demon Slayer Entertainment District Arc
This season was so fun and episode 10 alone is worth it. Episode 10 is a kinetic masterpiece that makes you experience all the emotions within a 22 minute timeframe.

Attack on Titan (The final season)
At this point I'm just watching this for closure. I enjoyed the series originally due to the Omni-directional systems making for fun and interesting combat but in season 3 it took a hard antisemitic turn.

Wrath of Man
I love Guy Ritchie's crime-edies like "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", "Snatch", "Rocknrolla" and "The Gentleman". This isn't that. It's a dark revenge thriller that, thankfully, had a bit more going for it than advertised. It's enjoyable but nowhere near the previous Ritchie films that I just mentioned.

Lamb
I was excited when I saw the first trailer. A24 has quickly become the studio known for experimentation, and in this case I think it paid off. This isn't a horror movie, it is an unsettling folk tale of a film. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys the odd side of films.

The King's Man
I thought the first "Kingsman" was a little better than "meh". The second is a complete mess. This one I put on more as a background movie and...not a fan. I wish Matthew Vaughn would make more Layer Cakes and less of this.

I am finally getting around to watching the Netflix series Punisher before it goes bye-bye.

Holy crap, is that first season good.

I'm not a Punisher fan. He was good in his 80's appearances and the Steven Grant / Mike Zeck limited series.

I know some are fans of Garth Ennis but his style is too reminiscent of the crap me and a friend used to write/draw in high school - passing "issues" back and forth in algebra class.

I loved Punisher's appearance in Netflix Daredevil and presumed (wrongly) a whole season (or two) would be dull. It is so good - glad I get to enjoy it now.

Only question, can I get through the final 10 episodes in 3 nights?

I hope you can. When I watched S2, I wasn't exactly under the same hard/Netflix deadline... I was on extended holiday with the family and I really wanted to finish the series before the holiday ended... I think I ended up binging several episodes on a bad weather day when everyone else left for the afternoon.

I've really enjoyed the Daredevil series and I thought that the casting was terrific. The same goes for the Punisher. I thought they were head and shoulders above the rest of the Comic Book TV shows I've seen.
The Punisher was exciting, tense, and appropriately violent.
In fact I've enjoyed the Marvel Shows overall with the exception being Iron Fist. The actor who played Danny Rand irritated me so much that it pretty much killed the show for me.
But the Punisher, outstanding.
I have confidence in you, man.

I finished up Witcher Season 2. I have really enjoyed this Fantasy show; I find it to be a very pleasant diversion from other "more serious" genre TV shows that just leave a bad taste in my mouth. The critical media has accused Witcher as being too simplistic, but keep in mind that for some critics this equates to "a shocking lack of rapes." I also find it to be refreshing in the sense that are rather clear good buys/bad guys, with just a little hint of moral ambiguity (on most sides). Both seasons so far have also felt like they were building towards a pay-off that was earned. all of this is in stark contrast to other genre shows (ehem Game of Thrones).

The SFX (polygons!) are all quite good, as is the rest of the production values. There are some occasions of actors chewing the scenery... this is something I typically enjoy, but even I found it to be somewhat uneven at times.

I really want to get to Witcher at some point. While I've never read the books, I did grab a copy of "The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt" on my Nintendo Switch on enthusiastic recommendation by my best bud, and have very much loved the experience.

There's just too many things to watch all at once. Makes it darn hard to filter things out.

I feel the same. A nice thing about Netflix' Witcher is that it is only 8 episodes per season.

DOMINO, mother-grabber!

I finished Punisher just in time. Thanks for rooting for me!

While season 2 got a little redundant about 3/4ths in, I think the way they ended it was likely as good as was possible.

And then I see in 2 weeks all the Netflix shows will be on Disney+.


As far as the list goes, I really liked Daredevil - especially the first season. Second season was good, too. Third was so-so.

Jessica Jones was brilliant. First season was amazing. Second was good.

I really liked the first season of Luke Cage - it was different, and creative. Second season was solid.

Defenders was okay. Fun seeing everyone together but was lacking something.

I am a big Iron Fist fan so I looked past as many flaws as I could. As it progressed it got weaker - and Danny just wasn't the Living Weapon I wanted to see. Supporting cast was solid, though. Second season was a slog - but I did it.

Overall, though, I think Netflix did a nice job.

The one problem I had with the Netflix Marvel shows is that they almost all stuck to that 13 episode format even if the story the season was telling didn't warrant that many episodes. So you had a lot of drag, a lot of filler, and a lot of needlessly lengthy side-tracking that just dragged it all out.

I hope that if the stories of these characters continue on Disney+, they'd get streamlined some, and not glued into "make it this many episodes" requirement.