Finished the second season of Pantheon, which completes the series.

This show does some things I really enjoyed in the science fiction of its story. When it arrives at the end, I think it swung a little harder than it could manage, but I still enjoyed the reach.

If you have the means to watch it and the concept of the singularity interests you, it is a decent exploration of that concept and around and beyond. Is this show widely known and discussed? It happened into my perception by random chance, but I'm glad I took the ride.

I have it queued, but it has been on the long hold for a while.

I am almost done with S3 of Pennyworth, which I had planned to "hate watch". It is (so far, 8 episodes in) MUCH better than season two. It has slightly more fantastical elements than I would prefer, but it has returned to a the "Cool Britannia" that I felt worked for season one.

Auditioned KITH Brain Candy as a candidate for the Project.

The movie still amuses me, but I'm now old enough to see some clumsiness and how not everything has aged great. Overall I think it's going to be an alternate at best. Like if a disc for another movie breaks or something.

I will say that the soundtrack got dug up and it has my favorite TMBG song Spiraling Shape. That and the other songs enhanced the experience with the movie a fair bit. The collection of bands is pretty delightful.

Forgot to note earlier this week was the anniversary of the release of Master and Commander, and if that's your jam, you should revisit. It's always worth your time. I'm hoping we eventually get a 4K release of that gem.

No One Will Save You - A recent alien horror movie on Hulu. It was interesting, especially the almost complete absence of dialog, but I had enough issues with it that's it's not an instant recommendation.

Managed to see Barbie and it was a delight.

Hit the notes it needed to and was effectively a level up in sophistication of the Lego Movie.

Saw Dream Scenario this weekend. Loved it. Cage drops a perfect performance that's, shockingly for him, impressive in its subtlety.

Watched Oppenheimer and it was very good.

The Creator was fine. Beautiful, but in all other ways largely unremarkable.

Project #26: The New World (Extended Cut)

I think this is in my top 3 most beautiful movies. It made my son very frustrated, similar to his experience with Kingdom of Heaven, but not quite the same. We talked about art and being part of the audience and being able to respect people who are artists even if their work doesn't land for you. But I really like that movie as poetry about all the things that are wrapped up in that time in our history, both terrible and breathtaking.

Finally put on Air and is it possible for something to just be a model of competence? Straight story, stakes spelled out, a couple good monologues. You could probably just listen to this movie, if that's a fault. Not a lot of visuals that have impact. Top-tier background movie though.

Finally got to see The Marvels and quite honestly I have a hard time finding anything wrong with it. It’s beautifully balanced, funny when it’s appropriate, serious when the situation calls for it, and everybody works well together.

This movie doesn’t deserve the struggle it’s going through, but we all know why it’s had a bad rap since long before it even finished filming. It’s a delightful film, beautifully executed, and feels like a pure celebration of everything that makes comic books great.

I hope this movie doesn’t destroy Nia DaCosta’s chances at future Marvel movies, because damn does she deliver. Great movie, please don’t miss it.

Took the family to see Wish tonight. An entirely harmless Disney movie, with a solid to great cast and visuals, but no real “oomph,” like Frozen, Encanto, or Coco. Definitely some solid anti-capitalist underpinning though.

What it does do well is PACK in Easter eggs to prior Disney stuff. You could make a drinking game out of “spot the reference” and be passed out within 30 minutes.

Project #27: Drive

While I find this to be a style over substance movie, it was still well-received. He enjoyed my bonus content when the movie was over, explaining that the director was used as the model for Heartman in Death Stranding (a game experience we both enjoyed). I remain impressed by the work Oscar Isaac does in this small role. He really earns all his success through genuine skill.

That all said, it was a nice one. I'm not sure when yet, maybe in the new year I'm going to try one more potentially torturous movie (based on precedents), but I think it will be worth it and hopefully a redemption for historical-based works if we try Master and Commander. Very curious to know if Hold Fast will register into his brain.

I found a BR of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan for dirt cheap, so I did a rewatch of the "Director's Cut". The DC only adds a small number of bits of dialogue to existing scenes; Trekkies probably are aware of those with the biggest impact.

This movie still holds up, and there has yet to be any other Star Trek movie that feels more like a complete film than this one; First Contact comes close, but still feels a lot like a TV episode to me. I'm most amazed how WoK feels so unlike a TV episode, despite having a simple plot that I can easily imagine being an hour (or two) of television.

Also: The Center Seat podcast with guest Brannon Braga reminded me of so much of what I didn't like about his era (as a writer, as a showrunner) of Star Trek on television. I was getting those feels with the episode with guest David Livingston, but (to my ears) Livingston explained/justified/rationalized his efforts in a way that generated some empathy from me. Braga's attitude feels more like "I did what I wanted and needed to do, and so that made Voyager Star Trek even if it wasn't popular (or enjoyable)." He did admit that each 26-episode season had some stinkers, but I got the impression that he thinks his show outdid most of the other Trek franchise properties.

After a wait on my part and a weird amount of exuberance from my son about it, I finally watched Prey.

It was fine? I think it was probably over-hyped (to me) and maybe I should have watched it sooner. Also, I didn't come across the Comanche dub, though I wish I had as I suspect that would help a lot of things land with more impact and build a better immersion experience.

I'm surprised to learn that the director doesn't have anything meaningful on the horizon (according to IMDB anyway) as this movie feels like a stepping stone to some other franchise picture... but who knows.

I'm certainly not mad that the movie exists. It's an okay action movie. That's about all I've got about this one.