The month of October is now underway and we’re getting really busy with all the shows that we’ve been getting and the things coming up. It’s so chock full of really interesting works that I’m excited about We’re working through a couple of ongoing series that we’re reviewing with Stargirl, Star Trek: Lower Decks, What If…? and Foundation. We’ve wrapped up on Loki and Star Wars: The Bad Batch. We’re also digging into a lot of other shows, wrapping up some things and starting up a few others – or at least getting closer to start dates for some projects.
We’re keeping up with some of our favorites like Evil, See, and Ted Lasso, and a whole lot more as well.
Current Netflix queue: Rebecca, Cool Hand Luke, The Dig, Gunpowder Milkshake
HBO Max queue: David Bowie: The Last Five Years, Greenland, Zack Snyders Justice League, Bright Young Things
Hulu queue: Das Boot, Swing Things, I Kill Giants
With the second season of Star Trek: Picard coming up next year, I found myself wanting to revisit the first season. It’s a show that I enjoyed a lot as getting to see some of the TNG characters doing true serialized storytelling was not something I ever really expected to see. Revisiting the show in binge form as opposed to weekly was a lot of fun as there’s a tighter feel to things when taken in this way but it was also fun just to get back to some of those moments that made the whole thing work for me. I’m still not exactly on board with some of the stuff that went down in the two-part finale, but the season by and large was a whole lot of fun both with the existing characters and the known ones. I’m always glad to see Riker back in uniform and getting some time with his family was a delight. But the reality is that I really liked the new kind of crew that we got here, imagining if Kirk had had to do the same to rescue Spock in the third film instead of having the core crew come with him. I liked that it put him in a new position, on the outside, and without the backing of the Federation. Suffice to say, I’m excited to see where a second season goes.
We’re at the halfway mark or so of Y: The Last Man as I believe it’s a ten-episode run and I’m certainly enjoying it. It’s definitely a grim affair, one that is certainly made all the more real by being produced during the pandemic and influenced by reactive events during it. But it’s also updated well in terms of how our public understanding of gender has grown in the nearly two decades since its original release. While the original was focused mostly on Yorick and his journey, the expansion here to cover more big picture pieces, additional intrigue and power plays, helps to flesh it out so it does feel more real in a way that it needs to. If this was done during the syndicated days of old, we might get a nod to it and the occasional mention, but it would otherwise be shuffled off and ignored in order to focus just on the journey itself. I’m definitely curious to see how far they’re going to take things though as it has a lot of room to play in to get both inspirational and very dark.
The Apple TV+ series Mr. Corman drew to a close with its tenth episode and Apple made it clear they weren’t renewing it, though still working with Joseph Gordon-Levitt on other properties. This series was a hard watch in a couple of ways. First, while it was well-received critically, there was a general hands-off approach to it by many as it simply being another show about a depressed/anxious white guy. And I totally get that. I’d like to see more stories about different aspects of society and their struggle with it because it comes at us in so many different ways. Getting rid of this particular type isn’t the answer though. But I understand why it wouldn’t be a draw. I like JGL and this series played to a really weird form with a lot of green screen featuring cartoonish backgrounds to represent different things. I’m not sure if it was done as a creative choice or a production one to deal with filming during the pandemic, but once you get a handle on what it does, it works pretty well. With JGL having created it and directed a bunch of it, and it being an A24 TV series, it’s definitely worth exploring. They also lucked out with a fantastic slate of guest actors beyond JGL and Arturo Castro as the leads. Juno Temple was great in the two episodes she was in, and Lucy Lawless is a delight as always, but especially when she gets into grimier roles. I really loved Hugo Weaving’s performance and it would have been my favorite overall, but then Jamie Chung shows up for the last episode and steals it with her Zoom date with JGL’s character. Just made me want to see another season if they can get it together or to follow her story.
Produced in late 2019 and arriving on Netflix this summer, I finally got a chance to watch the Good on Paper film starring Iliza Shlesinger. I’ve liked a lot of her standup over the years and her routine about Lyin’ Brian, based on actual things that happened to her, is the basis of the film. Essentially, she meets a guy that she gets along real well with as a friend but he’s interested in something more romantic. She eventually realizes she does care for him but it’s all a sham as he’s built up this life and persona that doesn’t exist in order to impress her. It’s not exactly an unfamiliar piece of cinematic storytelling in the romcom genre but there’s some added weight of knowing it actually happened to her, just not to this extent though still pretty damn far. The film isn’t bad, per se, but rather middling in that it has a good story to work with but it’s probably twenty minutes too long and I never really bought the eventual chemistry that exists. Ryan Hansen fits the leading male role here well but it just felt too obvious that everything was wrong about him. The subplot material is interesting with Iliza Shlesinger’s character dealing with the struggle to move from stand-up to acting and that plays well against Rebecca Rittenhouse as her competition and her best friend in Margaret Cho, who doesn’t get anywhere near enough material to work with. If they could give it a better edit, I think it’d work as a shorter and tighter film.
In catching up on older things that I’ve got in my collection that I’ve revisited while working while trying to avoid streaming so as to not use up my data cap, it’s an odd mix this week. Over the course of the week, I’ve background watched:
- Mortal Engines
- Wildlife
- Get Smart
Movie reviews this year:
- Black Widow
- Jungle Cruise Review
- As the Village Sleeps Review
- Space Jam: A New Legacy Review
- A Quiet Place Part II Review
- Knots: A Forced Marriage Story Review
- School-Live! The Movie Blu-ray Review
- In the Heights Review
- Over the Moon Review
- Feeling Through Review
- Two Distant Strangers review
- Yes-People Review
- A Love Song for Latasha Review
- If Anything Happens I Love You Review
- Burrow Review
- Godzilla vs Kong
- Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story Review
- Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years Preview
- Raya and the Last Dragon Review
- The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run Review
- The Little Things Review
- In Other Words Review
- Earwig and the Witch Review
What did you watch this past week?
