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Gretchen and I headed out to a matinee of "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" to catch the show before it vanishes in an avalanche of incoming movie releases for Christmas. We liked it quite a bit. It's a good sequel to the original film and very satisfying in that way.

If you get a chance to see it (and you liked the original film), it's worthwhile.
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Gretchen and I got around to watching this tonight. As I said to Gretchen at one point during the film, it's the best bad movie I've seen in a while.

It's also not actually bad. Although there was also a point when I asked Gretchen "Is there anything that they do that isn't a clusterf***?"

But seriously, it's not bad. It holds together pretty well.

Just don't overthink it.

Game Shows

Jul. 9th, 2020 10:09 pm
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It is a sign of how desperate we are to watch something that we haven't seen before that Gretchen and I find ourselves watching ABC on Thursday nights. First, we watch "Holey Moley", which is an absurd combination of miniature golf and "Wipeout!". Then we watch "Don't", which is new this year and just a bit surreal. It is tickling my distant memories of "Truth or Consequences", except it's bigger and dumber. But the contestants seem to walk away with a good sum of money for being battered about and I haven't seen anyone actually get hurt, so it's all in good fun, I think.

If nothing else, it's easy to talk over because you're not worrying about the plot. And that's good for conversation. :)

Star Wars

Dec. 28th, 2019 10:13 pm
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I ducked out and saw the new Star Wars this morning at the first show. Gretchen, who has been dubious about going to see the film, joined me for lunch and a quick review / spoiler session. We'll leave the spoilers out here and just cut to the chase, which was I told her she should really go see it.

The movie has flaws, but that's ok. It's recognizably Star Wars, which the previous film was not. And since I wanted to see Star Wars, the result was eminently satisfactory.

I'm thinking that the next version of the Machete Cut should just omit Chapter 8...
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Apparently, social media outrage is running rampant over the Star Wars movies again. And I have read enough stuff floating around that I am finally giving up and writing down what I think.

So, let me preface this with a couple of things:

  • I have yet to see Solo. This is not because I have any objection to going out to see Solo. This is because I have two children, a job, am coaching softball, and am flipping exhausted. I haven't seen Avengers yet either. Or Black Panther. I've seen Coco (which was great!) and I'll be seeing Incredibles 2 with the family at our earliest opportunity.
  • The people who are picking on Kelly Tran are a bunch of idiotic assholes.

    That said, I feel really sorry for Kelly Tran. There was absolutely nothing wrong with what she was doing in The Last Jedi. She just had the misfortune to be stuck as one of the lead characters in The Stupid Plot(TM).

    Now, The Stupid Plot appears time and again in Star Wars films. The prequel trilogy was full of it. It's why so many of us didn't like it.

    The entire excursion to the gambling planet was idiotic. It cannot work unless the ragtag fugitive Rebel fleet (wait, wrong show) was being chased for weeks. I understand that Star Wars historically plays fast and loose with space and time (see: Kessel Run), but this makes no sense. Certainly, when we check in on the fleet, we have no sense that this chase has been going on that long.

    So we have this entire plot line that is shoehorned into the film and has no business being there. And what does it say?

  • All rich people are scum.
  • ...

    No, I'm trying to think of something else it had to say, but I'm coming up pretty empty. I guess we get the pretty scene at the end with the kid and the broom, but this plot line was way too big a price to pay to get there. Seriously. Get there some other way. It can be done by competent writers.

    Other than that, I liked The Last Jedi. There are things that I can quibble with, but it's pretty much quibbling. But this massive dose of The Stupid Plot just hurts an otherwise good film.

    And here's poor Kelly Tran, who is getting savaged on the Internet by idiots and trolls. And she doesn't deserve any of it.

    On the behalf of relatively sane people on the Internet everywhere, let me just say, "I'm sorry."
  • billroper: (Default)
    As we arrive at the end of the year, it's time for the report on the state of the television (and associated DVRs) in our house. Otherwise known as "What the Heck Have They Been Watching?" The lists below are mostly ordered by day of the week, as that's my only hope of keeping track.

    Shows That We Are Essentially Up-To-Date On
  • Scorpion
  • Me, Myself, and I
  • Lethal Weapon
  • NCIS: New Orleans
  • Legends of Tomorrow
  • The Big Bang Theory
  • Young Sheldon
  • Mom
  • The Orville
  • The Good Place
  • Marvel's Agents of SHIELD
  • Hawaii Five-O
  • The Librarians

    Well, that's an odd little list. The science in Scorpion remains laughable, but the character dynamics are fun to watch. Me, Myself, and I was a sweet little series that completely failed to find an audience -- it might have been better paired with Young Sheldon which is -- in a surprise to us! -- a much nicer series than we feared it was going to be. Adam is the best thing that has happened to Mom -- it's fun having a character sit there and say so many of the things that we've been thinking.

    Lethal Weapon may well be my favorite show on TV right now. I say this as someone who has never watched any of the movies. It is a wonderfully nuanced funny show, with both romance and explosions. What's not to like?

    I worry that Legends of Tomorrow will suffer greatly with the cast changes, but we'll see what happens. Hawaii Five-O seems to be surviving its cast changes -- I don't believe it is long for the world in any case. SHIELD has been solid in its return to the lineup; I'm hoping that things pay off nicely. NCIS: New Orleans has been its usual comfortable self.

    The Big Bang Theory continues to be funny. The Good Place continues to be both funny and strange.

    And then there's The Orville, which took a ninety degree turn after the pilot episode and decided to be one of the better SF series that I've seen on TV in years. The ensemble is strong and McFarlane has been writing scripts to showcase them, not himself. I've been impressed.

    Oops! And I almost forgot to mention The Librarians as it just popped up again for its short run. Nothing new to see there, to be honest, but still a good light show to watch.

    Shows That We're In The Middle Of
  • Once Upon a Time

    Once Upon a Time is pretty much the only series that we've watched any substantial amount of this year that we're not caught up on. The reboot is interesting, but we're wondering how any of this is going to pay off and when. I suspect that the ratings will not be high enough to earn another season, but we'll see.

    Shows That We Have Barely Watched
  • Supergirl
  • 9JKL
  • Superior Donuts
  • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
  • Inhumans

    We're behind on Supergirl, because Julie has spoken of wanting to watch it with us. As a result, we've only seen the Earth-X crossover episode, which we decided to watch out of order with the rest of the series.

    I would like to like Superior Donuts more than I do, but it is trying desperately to escape from the original shell of the play that it is based on and is having a hard time succeeding. But we are short on sitcoms on the viewing schedule right now...

    We have watched the beginning of Inhumans and will probably watch the rest of it -- eventually. Far from now eventually.

    We have watched one episode of 9JKL. Gretchen hates it. I thought the pilot was pretty awful, but had hope that things might improve. Eventually, we will get desperate enough to watch a few more episodes and find out whether or not we are going to delete the rest of them from the DVR.

    And then there's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which I am still interested in, but which was getting crazy enough by the end of last season that Gretchen was becoming unwilling to put up with it. We haven't even started this season yet; maybe we'll get to it together or maybe I'll watch it by myself.

    That's the score here.

    How are things where you are?
  • Jumanji!

    Dec. 29th, 2017 11:55 pm
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    Having seen the trailer -- and shown it to Katie -- I suggested that we get up early this morning and catch a matinee of the Jumanji remake / sequel. She concurred; Julie demurred and stayed home with Mom.

    The movie is an absolute hoot. It's sort of like The Breakfast Club falls into a video game. It's obvious that whoever was involved in the scripting loves those old adventure games. Every trope you might want to see is present.

    And it's laugh-out-loud funny.

    Is it a great movie? Well, no. There are darned few great movies. But it is a fun movie with no major flaws, which makes it worth three stars on my own rating scale. And the cast was obviously having fun with the parts.

    Worth catching, even if you aren't paying matinee prices. :)
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    Still liking it. SFX nicely done.

    And I looked at a particular situation early in the episode and said, "This will end badly." I was right. Of course, practical jokes are like that, more so when trying to explain them to an intellect that does not understand humans all that well...

    (It's quite possible to say "This will end badly" about many things that happen on The Orville. But I suppose that's the essence of a lot of humor. :) )
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    The third episode of The Orville aired last night.

    After we were done watching it, Gretchen turned to me and said (roughly, it was late, so my quote may be a bit off), "That was far more nuanced than I would expect to see on network television."

    Um, guys? Against all odds, they are actually doing good SF.

    Y'all might consider watching this before it gets cancelled for lack of viewers...
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    We watched NCIS: New Orleans last night. I've never really been a fan of either of the other two incarnations of NCIS, but this one could grow on me. Although original NCIS creator, Donald Bellisario, isn't apparently involved with the show, it features two veterans of earlier Bellisario shows: Scott Bakula, from Quantum Leap, and Zoe McLellan, from JAG. And it feels like a comfortable old shoe.

    With luck, this one will hang around for a while.
    billroper: (Default)
    And season two of Under the Dome wrapped on Monday. As you might expect, there will be spoilers under the cut tag.
    No, really, spoilers... )
    billroper: (Default)
    So let's talk briefly about some of the summer replacement (and leftover from last season) TV that [livejournal.com profile] daisy_knotwise and I are watching. Spoilers may abound.
    So I'll cut tag this... )
    I suppose most of this could be classified as good reasons for getting to bed earlier.

    Avengers!

    May. 6th, 2012 12:14 pm
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    We got a babysitter and headed out to see The Avengers yesterday with [livejournal.com profile] samwinolj and Bonnie. Overall, it's a good movie, but felt to me like it was less than the sum of its parts.

    Let's discuss things in a reasonably spoiler-free fashion. You have to consider that the only film in this canon that I've seen was Iron Man, which I liked quite a bit. Then little girls arrived, so I haven't seen any of the other films (although DVDs of Captain America and Thor lurk downstairs somewhere). Thus, to the extent that we're relying on plot elements introduced elsewhere, I'm adrift.

    That was mostly ok. Apparently, the main McGuffin comes from one of the other films, but I can get by that. And I know enough of the history of the comic-book Marvel Universe that I can pretty easily follow what's going on and spot the changes and the resonances.

    I miss Hank and Jan from the original team, but I can understand why you'd end up replacing them with Hawkeye and the Black Widow, especially given that Bruce Banner seems to be filling in as the resident biochemist here. And I really enjoyed most of the character bits. I especially enjoyed it when the Hulk met Loki. (This may reflect how things are going at work. It's hard to say. :) )

    But I have a problem with the fact that Loki seems to be an idiot while Nick Fury seems to be playing a much deeper game than I would ever give him credit for.

    It was great fun to watch. It just feels a little empty somehow.

    And that's a shame.
    billroper: (Default)
    [livejournal.com profile] daisy_knotwise and I engaged the services of the girl next door to babysit Katie and Julie tonight and headed out to the theater with [livejournal.com profile] samwinolj and Bonnie to see Green Lantern. The reviews have been pretty uniformly unhappy with it from what I gather.

    We all liked it, from the GL geeks that Sam and I are to the relative novices that Bonnie and Gretchen are. It holds together well, there are a lot of nice bits of character work, and the special effects are just fine (although Gretchen feels they're a bit reminiscent of Harry Potter. I attribute that to it being the current state of the art in Hollywood.)

    I'm hoping the numbers hold up well enough for there to be another film. We'll see.
    billroper: (Default)
    [livejournal.com profile] daisy_knotwise and I engaged the services of the girl next door to babysit Katie and Julie tonight and headed out to the theater with [livejournal.com profile] samwinolj and Bonnie to see Green Lantern. The reviews have been pretty uniformly unhappy with it from what I gather.

    We all liked it, from the GL geeks that Sam and I are to the relative novices that Bonnie and Gretchen are. It holds together well, there are a lot of nice bits of character work, and the special effects are just fine (although Gretchen feels they're a bit reminiscent of Harry Potter. I attribute that to it being the current state of the art in Hollywood.)

    I'm hoping the numbers hold up well enough for there to be another film. We'll see.
    billroper: (Default)
    [livejournal.com profile] daisy_knotwise and I got around to watching the series finale of Medium last night, slightly delayed by my trip to Confusion last weekend. I've officially decided to add this to the scrap heap of final episodes that I intend to ignore, much like Quantum Leap.

    Yes, it was that bad.
    billroper: (Default)
    [livejournal.com profile] daisy_knotwise and I got around to watching the series finale of Medium last night, slightly delayed by my trip to Confusion last weekend. I've officially decided to add this to the scrap heap of final episodes that I intend to ignore, much like Quantum Leap.

    Yes, it was that bad.

    1 vs. 100

    Sep. 8th, 2007 11:39 pm
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    It was late, SportsCenter wasn't on due to an excess of college football, and [livejournal.com profile] daisy_knotwise and I were looking for some brain candy on the TV Guide when I spotted 1 vs. 100, which I'd never actually seen a full episode of, and suggested that we watch that. It's actually fairly interesting, although it relies on having contestants who seem to have escaped from Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

    The game has a series of multiple choice questions with three possible answers. If you answer a question correctly, you stay in the game, whether you're a member of the "Mob", which starts with 100 members, or the singular contestant. The contestant wins money for each member of the Mob that they eliminate and is allowed to leave with the money they've won at various points in the game. If the contestant is the last person standing, they win $1 million. If the contestant misses a question, the remaining members of the Mob split the accumulated prize money. Mob members who answer all questions correctly are retained to the next game and the Mob is recharged to 100 with new players.

    The contestant gets three "helps". They can "Trust the Mob" and accept the consensus answer. They can "Poll the Mob" and see how many Mob members picked a particular answer. They can "Ask the Mob" in which case one member with the correct answer and one member with the incorrect answer will be picked randomly and the contestant can ask them why they picked that answer. (The Mob answers are usually pretty uninformative, which is somehow not surprising, since they're playing for the same pool of money.)

    Of the questions we saw in the two games, there was only one that I couldn't immediately answer and -- as it happened -- I picked the right answer, although I would have definitely asked for help on it. (Which of these three band members was not married to Heather Lockyear? Ack! Not my cuppa...)

    The first game ended with 25 Mob members left standing; the second with only 7. However, the 7 still there were pretty good, including professional poker player Annie Duke. There were a number of other celebrities in the Mob, including David Eckstein, Wink Martindale, and Bob Eubanks.

    My suspicion is that the folks who select the contestants make sure to select the brighter ones into the Mob. I didn't see the Mob make any money, but there may be some lovely parting gifts I suppose. :)

    And it's an interesting game.

    1 vs. 100

    Sep. 8th, 2007 11:39 pm
    billroper: (Default)
    It was late, SportsCenter wasn't on due to an excess of college football, and [livejournal.com profile] daisy_knotwise and I were looking for some brain candy on the TV Guide when I spotted 1 vs. 100, which I'd never actually seen a full episode of, and suggested that we watch that. It's actually fairly interesting, although it relies on having contestants who seem to have escaped from Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

    The game has a series of multiple choice questions with three possible answers. If you answer a question correctly, you stay in the game, whether you're a member of the "Mob", which starts with 100 members, or the singular contestant. The contestant wins money for each member of the Mob that they eliminate and is allowed to leave with the money they've won at various points in the game. If the contestant is the last person standing, they win $1 million. If the contestant misses a question, the remaining members of the Mob split the accumulated prize money. Mob members who answer all questions correctly are retained to the next game and the Mob is recharged to 100 with new players.

    The contestant gets three "helps". They can "Trust the Mob" and accept the consensus answer. They can "Poll the Mob" and see how many Mob members picked a particular answer. They can "Ask the Mob" in which case one member with the correct answer and one member with the incorrect answer will be picked randomly and the contestant can ask them why they picked that answer. (The Mob answers are usually pretty uninformative, which is somehow not surprising, since they're playing for the same pool of money.)

    Of the questions we saw in the two games, there was only one that I couldn't immediately answer and -- as it happened -- I picked the right answer, although I would have definitely asked for help on it. (Which of these three band members was not married to Heather Lockyear? Ack! Not my cuppa...)

    The first game ended with 25 Mob members left standing; the second with only 7. However, the 7 still there were pretty good, including professional poker player Annie Duke. There were a number of other celebrities in the Mob, including David Eckstein, Wink Martindale, and Bob Eubanks.

    My suspicion is that the folks who select the contestants make sure to select the brighter ones into the Mob. I didn't see the Mob make any money, but there may be some lovely parting gifts I suppose. :)

    And it's an interesting game.

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