Friday, November 8, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - The Shining, and "What is a horror movie?"

The Shining is another of those "classic" movies that I had never seen, but we finally got around to it this year. I watched it while I was in Halloween mode, further tilting the door open for me when it comes to scary movies. But in talking about this movie with some friends, I encountered people who said The Shining wasn't a true horror movie, but was more of a "thriller." And we spent a bit of time investigating what the actual difference was.

Thrillers are defined by "thrilling," unsurprisingly haha, with lots of twists and turns, and often an antagonist's elaborate scheme or intricate network of danger. Spy movies are a good example of conventional thriller movies.

Horrors, meanwhile, are intended to frighten or disgust, with shocking imagery, and often with a supernatural antagonistic presence: a monster, a ghost, a possessed doll, etc. The Bourne Identity is not a horror movie, but is a thriller. And, by these definitions, The Shining is definitely a horror.

So how was it? It was alright. It was good to finally see the context of some of those classic scenes: the hedge maze, the elevators, the creepy hallway girls, and Jack Nicholson peeking through the door and shouting, "Here's Johnny!" And it was stark but probably frustratingly realistic to watch a man's wife put up with a lot of bullshit from him. I spend a lot of time on /r/AmIOverreacting, and it's wild to see some of these stories.

Overall it was not the most compelling horror I've seen, but it was rewarding to watch. And my cousin says Dr. Sleep answers a lot of the questions you have coming out of this film, so, add it to the list!


Looking to kick it old school and watch The Shining? Click here to find out where you can stream it today on JustWatch!

Thursday, October 31, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Agatha All Along

Agatha All Along was a show I really didn't think I needed. I liked Kathryn Hahn in WandaVision, but didn't necessarily feel like her character needed her own standalone story. And the preview trailers looked fine, but I don't usually pursue a lot of witchy content. But I watch pretty much all Marvel content, so I was always gonna give it a shot.

The first episode was fantastic. It set the tone right away as a mystery, urging you to look for clues right away, a prompt that pays off in absolute spades by the end of the season. By the end of the second episode, you've got an eclectic coven of witches starting on a supernatural path, each with their own secrets, their own questions to answer, their own mysteries to unravel. And the main characters, Agatha and "Teen," have even more to reveal.

The show kind of reminds me of Loki, with a lot of really strong dialogue and meaningful character progression, characters who are absolutely on an arc. And it's got enough of a tie to compelling previous content that you care about what happens in it. 

And I cannot stress enough how well-crafted the payoffs are. There are like four different big reveals over the course of the season, with the earliest one happening in episode 5, and each of them is very rewarding. I'm doing my best not to spoil any of them, because they're really, really good.

One tiny ding is that the show does very occasionally suffer from "modern TV syndrome," where characters say explicitly what's in their minds, or they offer a somewhat unnatural line of dialogue to work some exposition or narrative information into the show. And they go a little slow-mo heavy in episode 8, which isn't the end of the world, but it just made me antsy for the show to get to the next beat.

Altogether though, the show was a rousing return to form for me. I'm eagerly anticipating the continuation (culmination?) of this story, and between this and Deadpool & Wolverine, I think Marvel is headed in the right direction. There's a TON of content dropping next year that has my interest piqued, like Daredevil: Born Again, Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four. If it picks up with the same strength that Agatha All Along sported, we just might be back in business, folks.


Feeling witchy? Click here to visit JustWatch and find out where you can feed that urge and watch Agatha All Along today!


Wednesday, October 30, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - A Nightmare on Elm Street

Finally!

For something like thirty years I've been interested in watching this movie, despite my general resistance to horror films. The first time my interest was piqued was way back when I saw the associated Nintendo game mentioned in an issue of Nintendo Power. But that pre-dated my ventures into R-rated movies, and vastly pre-dated my ventures into horror movies. Now that I've finally opened myself up to the occasional fright night, it was well past time to check out A Nightmare on Elm Street.

And I liked it!

The premise is fairly cheesy, but that didn't bother me really. I think actually when it comes to horror movies, a cheesy premise is a bit of a comfort. The more realistic a horror film is, the more worried I get that it could possibly happen for real. Saw, for example, was a really discomforting experience.

But I also liked that the movie wasn't solely in the "scary realm" so to speak. I find that when an entire movie is portrayed as dangerous, it dampens the impact of the experience for me. It becomes just an anxiety-inducing movie, and not an interesting journey. This movie spent enough time in the daytime, at school, and interacting with people "outside" the danger to create a compelling balance for me.

The ending... well I'm not entirely sure what happened at the end. But I'm kind of okay with that. It's a horror movie with six million sequels; maybe there are more answers in future films. For now, I'm calling this a rousing success.



Feeling like a classic fright night yourself? Click here to go to JustWatch and find out where you can stream this nightmare today!

Monday, October 28, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Get Out

IT'S HORROR WEEK!

Historically I haven't been much of a horror movie kind of guy. It's a little bit of an oddity, because Jurassic Park and Jaws definitely draw on horror elements, and they're two of my all-time favorite movies. But then I watched The Ring at some point, and I was like, why on earth would someone choose to do this to themselves?

For a while it was just monster movies, like Cloverfield (good) or Deep Blue Sea (decent). And then earlier this year I gave a shot to Anaconda (so, so bad). But Get Out has been a movie that seemed to cross into the mainstream to such an extent that it demanded being watched. Granted, some might say the same about the movie IT, but I'm in no rush to see that film. "Underground ghost clown" isn't the basis for anything fun I want to see.

My cousin Nick has been recommending it for years, and I finally caved in and watched it. And it's just fantastic. The main character feels so incredibly realistic, especially his relationship with his friend, fleshed out almost exclusively via phone calls. And look, I'm by no means an expert on the topic. But this feels genuinely like a movie written by Black writers, with Black characters in mind. So often you find Black characters in movies or shows that feel aggressively neutral, or painted as downright caricatures. By contrast, this movie felt so purely human and realistic.

The reveal is great, the characters are great, and the culmination is great. There's one cheesy line towards the end, which I won't spoil, in case you haven't seen the movie. But the rest of it is just an absolute treasure, and has got me ready to watch more Jordan Peele films ASAP.



If you haven't watched Get Out, you've got to click here ASAP and find out where you can stream it, and watch it. Now.

Saturday, October 26, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Unbreakable

No, not Kimmy Schmidt. This is the M. Night Shyamalan film from 2000 starring Bruce Willis (hey, like I promised!) and Samuel L. Jackson. It's the first of a three-part "trilogy" that includes two more movies on my horizon: Split and Glass.

So how was the first entry in this saga? Well, let's just say that if I hadn't received such inspirational reviews of the second and third films, this might have been where my journey stopped.

The beginning of the movie is actually really well done. It introduces us to Willis' character, David Dunn, showing us that he's got some charm, that he's having marital trouble, and then sets off the story by putting him in a catastrophic train wreck as the sole survivor. But after that, Dunn becomes almost completely uninteresting and uncharismatic. Willis plays the role very similar to his role in The Sixth Sense, but that character was supposed to be a man literally haunted by the events of his life. This character should have some kind of personality. And I say that as someone who loves Captain America, admittedly one of the less flamboyant heroes. You gotta give me something.

Jackson's portrayal of Elijah Price is much more interesting, but that's how it goes with antagonists, right? That's how you knew he was the bad guy: he was eminently more watchable and compelling than Willis.

I think ultimately this movie suffered from the success of The Sixth Sense. It seems like Shyamalan "learned" too much from that movie, and employed character work and cinematography that wasn't quite right for this movie. But I trust the recommendations I've received enough that I'll give Split and Glass a shot.

One last thing. Just before the end credits, the movie does a freeze-frame and text-based post-script. "David Dunn led authorities to... Elijah Price is now..." etc. In a fictional, serious movie, this feels completely out of place. It makes sense in Remember The Titans, because you want to know the real world "whatever happened to..." about a number of characters. And it makes sense in like Animal House, because Animal House is an unserious movie. In this film, a serious dramatic but fictional story, it just feels strange. One more oddity in a movie full of less-than-exceptional quirks.


Wondering if I'm way off base? You can check out Unbreakable on your own! Click here to check out where you can stream it today on JustWatch.


Wednesday, October 23, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Looper

I'm generally a Bruce Willis fan. Die Hard was one of the first R-rated action movies I ever saw, and Die Hard: With a Vengeance was the first R-rated movie I ever saw in theaters. And there'll be another Bruce Willis movie in this feed shortly, so stay tuned!

Willis isn't quite the protagonist in this movie, though; that distinction goes to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays the younger version of Willis' character. The two characters are dealing with the consequences of a life of crime and time travel, and naturally are both cooperative and combative at different points in the movie. They both do a great job of acting, while some of the supporting roles (Emily Blunt and Jeff Daniels specifically) are a bit less impressive.

The story is fairly straightforward, which is a positive in a time-travel movie; that shit can get weird in a hurry. That said, the story just didn't grab me the way I hoped that it would. It's a fine little suspense film, with a rewarding enough ending, but lacking in any of the big dramatic moments that makes a movie really sing for me. It kind of feels like the movie had a premise they liked, and they sort of tried to jam a full-sized story on top of it, and the fit is a little imperfect. Not bad, just not great... which feels like the story behind many of the films I've watched this year, but hey, that's how it goes, right? Most stuff is okay, some stuff is great, some stuff is terrible.

You're welcome, I just explained life.


If you'd like to watch Looper yourself but aren't sure what timeline you're in, I can't help you. But if you just need to know where it's streaming, click here to check out its entry on JustWatch!


Monday, October 21, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Sleepy Hollow

So for those of you who know me, you know I don't have a big horror background. I'm not into jump-scares at all; that's a sensation I'm perfectly happy to leave behind. But there are thrilling movies that appeal to me; Jurassic Park and Jaws are two of my all-time favorite films, and thrill and danger are core to both of those movies.

Sleepy Hollow offers some of the same sorts of vibes, albeit with a supernatural bend. You've got a strong cast of skilled actors playing lots of interesting characters, almost all of whom have secrets to hide. Johnny Depp is very entertaining, as always, and he plays the role of a skittish-yet-overconfident investigator to perfection. And though I'm generally not into supernatural horror, I enjoyed how they stretched it as long as they could to keep you unsure if it was truly a ghost story.

Overall it was a fun watch, one I'll definitely be happy to revisit from time to time, when I'm in a spooky mood but don't want to watch something new. Sleepy Hollow gets my Halloween seal of approval!


If you'd like to watch Sleepy Hollow but you don't know where you can stream it, have I got a deal for you! Click here to check out JustWatch, and they'll tell you what streaming/rental services have this movie!

Saturday, October 19, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Fallout, Season 1

It's kind of remarkable what happened in the span of a year. Last year, Bethesda released the long-awaited title Starfield, a new world by the creators of Morrowind, Skyrim, and (of most relevance here) Fallout. Just recently, the Borderlands movie came out, and was by all accounts a colossal failure (I haven't seen it yet).

And yet in between, a show about a video game world, an expansion of the lore from a Bethesda product came out, and it was fantastic.

I've only played the very beginning of the very first Fallout game, the old tactical isometric game from a million years ago, and then about an hour of Fallout 3 at my friend's house. Other than that, my exposure to Fallout has been exclusively through internet videos and memes, but even with that limited awareness, the show absolutely popped.

The characters are robust and dynamic, and the world is full of personality, danger, and excitement. Walton Goggins is tremendous as always, but maybe the strongest performance is by Ella Purnell, our optimistic and adventurous protagonist; we meet most of the surface world through her point of view, learning as we go along. The third protagonist is played by Aaron Moten, and he took the longest time for me to come around to. But by the end, he's as entertaining as any of them. Adding in some secondary characters played by Chris Parnell, Michael Emerson, Michael Rapaport, and many others, there's really entertainment around every turn.

The season of television asked a lot of questions, gave a lot of answers, and left enough unresolved that you absolutely must have a second season. And it will! Amazon announced that the show will be renewed for at least one more season, and I'm looking forward to more.


Fallout is an Amazon show, but just in case you might have other options down the line, here's a direct link to the show's entry on JustWatch!

Thursday, October 17, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Invincible, Season 2 Part 2

If you were worried that Invincible didn't have enough characters and storylines going on, don't worry. The delayed second half of season two offered even more complexity, with even more characters getting into even more hijinks. Was it good?

It was... okay.

I would say there are too many characters and happenings for my taste; the wide spread of content means that you might go a full episode or longer between story beats for a particular character. The finale's focus on Angstrom Levy, a character we'd seen for maybe 4 minutes all season, is the most glaring example of this. If you boiled the show down to the Viltrumites (who get shortchanged this season for the most part), two or three secondary characters, and a "monster of the week," I think you'd have a stronger show.

The other side of my frustration with this show comes from the delay. Season 1 debuted in March of 2021. Season two didn't release until the summer of 2023, and only the first four episodes were released; the last four didn't come down until March of 2024. That is simply too long a delay to preserve excitement, and especially frustrating to have such a delay inside the season. The show lost all momentum from Part 1 to Part 2.

Hopefully future seasons don't have such a delay, and are not split. The show suffered a lot because of it.


To find out where you can watch Invincible (all at the same time), click here to check its entry on JustWatch!

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Echo, Season 1

Echo was a show I didn't really think we needed before I watched it, and then I watched it, and I still feel the same way. Story-wise, it serves to tie a little bit of content together between the old Daredevil show (which was phenomenal) and the upcoming series Daredevil: Born Again. I say that without knowing what the new show will be about, but it'll be about Kingpin, and that's the most interesting part of Echo.

But the action is often drawn out and also unbelievable, and the characters just aren't that compelling. Even Kingpin's character feels a little bit restrained. But we do get a glimpse of what might be to come in his future MCU presence, and that's reason for optimism.

My biggest frustration with Echo is that compelling. But when a show isn't very good and it's got a female or minority lead (or both, in this case), the conversation gets skewed by people's reactions to that fact. Sexist folks will say, "Marvel's focus on wokeness is ruining the MCU!" Anti-sexist people will praise the show for its wokeness, without acknowledging its flaws. And the public at large is left with a not-that-great show that people care way too much about.

Echo wasn't that great. It's not the end of the MCU, and it's not because it focused on a girl. Agatha All Along's success is hopefully proving the latter point.


I wouldn't exactly recommend it, but if you want to watch Echo on a streaming service, you can click here to go to JustWatch and find out where you can do that.

Monday, October 14, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - What If?, Season 2

The first time I watched through the first season of What If?, I was not impressed. I was still in my post-Endgame haze when it came to Marvel content, and I wanted stuff to contribute to the "story at large." What If? didn't do that.

But, the second time I watched through, I found a lot of it entertaining. I think having a bit of distance and separation, knowing it wasn't going to be part of the greater story (not really, at least), I was able to just sit and have fun with the show. I also think that mentality has helped me to enjoy X-Men '97 and the amount we've seen thus far from Agatha All Along.

Season two of What If? benefits from the same adjustment of expectations, but it doesn't have quite the same level of charm as the first season. I found myself nodding off as the pace of the episodes felt designed to stretch a fairly small story into something longer, but not necessarily greater. It's not the worst watch in the world, and there are some highlights (the first episode basically puts Nebula into Blade Runner and it's fucking brilliant). Just do like I did, and temper your expectations.


What If? is a Marvel television show, and is probably available on Disney+. But just in case, you can click here to check JustWatch and see where it's streamable.

Thursday, October 10, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Okay, in case you're one of the four people who hasn't already teased me for not being 100% certain that this movie was a musical, get your yuks out now, sunshine. Yes, I saw the episode of The Office that features a Sweeney Todd performance. Yes, that's the only real exposure I've had to the content. Sue me.

Err, wait. Don't, don't sue me.

The film was alright, although this particular musical didn't resonate with me, though that's not necessarily uncommon when it comes to musicals. I'm sure for some people it's perfect. For me, it feels like a little too much time is spent inside these characters' heads, and not enough time is spent actually interacting with the other characters.

That said, Johnny Depp is great, Helena Bonham Carter is great, and it's always nice to find Alan Rickman again. And you can tell objectively that it's a good movie. It's well-executed and sharp, the music and settings give it a true sense of being a stage play brought to life on the big screen. Overall an enjoyable experience, if not an transcendent one.

PS: I'm trying to tighten up these posts, they had gotten a little out of hand there for a while. The whole premise was "one good point," as in, a quick blurb and then we're out. So, shorter posts forthcoming... we hope lol.


If you'd like to watch Sweeney Todd today but aren't sure where you can stream it, click here to go to JustWatch and find out!

Friday, September 20, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Bonding, Season 2

I mentioned previously that I had watched Season 1 of Bonding last year, and enjoyed it thoroughly. The humor was sharp and clever, and the protagonists (Tiff and Pete) were a lot of fun, both individually and in tandem.

During season 2, the Pete storyline and character feel less relatable, and I found myself either not rooting for him, or actively rooting against him. His point of view and outlook came across a lot less sympathetic, and a lot more entitled. I have to admit though, it's entirely possible that my "straightness" is part of what hinders my ability to appreciate Pete's story. I'm sure there are people who found his experiences a lot more relatable, and felt more empathy for how he interacted with the world. 

But the rest of the season was just as good as the first. The humor stays pretty strong throughout, in a way that Harley Quinn had a bit of trouble with. Tiff is an interesting and complex character, and the whole BDSM scene is given a more substantial presence in the second season of the show. There's more variance in the types of D/s relationships that are portrayed, and Tiff especially has a few different forays into exploring improved sexual health. The second season felt like it was maybe a little more responsible and interested in engaging with human sexuality, and that felt like a logical pivot for this show.

I still love the format of 15-20 minute episodes, and although I kind of wish I had another 20 minutes per episode with these characters and ideas, you'd almost always rather have a show be too tight than too loose. Bonding feels like a show that has a thing it wants to say in each episode, it says that thing, and it immediately gets out upon saying it. I'd be happy to see more of it, but Netflix elected to cancel the series after the second season. And in truth, the ending of the second season felt crisp and complete. As the saying goes, part of the story is the end.


Want to watch Netflix's Bonding, but not sure where to find it? We'll set aside your inability to connect ideas in your mind, and offer you this direct link to the show on JustWatch, where you can see where to stream the show today!

Thursday, September 19, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Darkman

I remember seeing commercials for Darkman ages ago, except I think they were commercials for the associated Nintendo game. I never played the game, nor did I watch the movie, until now!

Ehh.

Look, you can abide a certain amount of cheesiness or inconsistency from older movies (although Jaws is fucking tight). The film-making world of today offers different sensibilities, different styles, and obviously vastly improved CGI and effects options. Some movies age better than others, and that's understandable. But Darkman has a few other issues to go along with that.

First, the good. As Peyton Westlake, Liam Neeson does a good job, when given lines that sound like something a person might ever say. And I thought Frances McDormand was quite good as the love interest. I also liked the premise of the movie in general: a "superhero" but one who mostly follows the same laws of physics as everybody else, and a protagonist whose first instincts upon getting powers are A) check on the love of my life, and B) fuck up the people who fucked me up.

But the actual execution of the movie just doesn't land for me. Part of it is that I think I just don't like what Sam Raimi puts on the movie screen. I've watched a fair amount of his work, the best of which (according to other people) includes Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, and I just don't get it. I'm aware that other people like this content, but I just cannot get behind the dialogue in any of these films. It feels so janky and unnatural.

Watch this opening scene from Darkman. It's got five minutes of the most non-human conversation I've ever seen in my life. It's as if the script was written by aliens who are trying to approximate a human conversation, with all the believability of a goo monster writing lines.

The effects are old, and look old, but that's fine, that happens. And in the end, the actual beats of the story are satisfying, and the action is decent. I'm not explicitly upset that I watched the movie, which is a low bar, but hey, it's better than Anaconda.

Anaconda was so bad.


If you'd like to watch Darkman right now, and prove to yourself that Sam Raimi is a genius and Joe doesn't know what he's talking about, click here to check JustWatch and find out where you can stream it today!

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - 3 Body Problem, Season 1

Unlike a lot of people, I knew nothing about 3 Body Problem until it came down the pike. I saw it advertised on Netflix once it had been released, and I said oh okay, maybe I'll check this thing out... but probably not. Then I started to hear people talk about it like it's the next Game of Thrones (sometimes using that exact literal comparison), so I felt a bit more compelled to investigate.

One season in, it's a decent show. Game of Thrones, it ain't.

It's a nice little sci-fi show that becomes a massive sci-fi show, as it takes on an interesting idea about how we might encounter beings from another planet. I don't want to go too much into detail about the specifics of the show, because there are a lot of little (and sometimes very big) reveals that you don't want to have spoiled for you. There are some surprising deaths, and some pretty foreseeable deaths, and a couple of massive set pieces that are a spectacle to see.

The characters are... okay? So far I haven't been inspired by any of them, not really. I find that the overall premise is more interesting than the individual character arcs so far, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it puts a lot more pressure on the story. And the story is good, not great.

I will give it this, though. The first season ends with a lot of big moments and a lot of big questions, and it does a good job of piquing interest for future seasons. It's also got two actors who played two of my favorite side characters in the past decade: Liam Cunningham, who played Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones, and Benedict Wong, who played Wong in Doctor Strange (and subsequent MCU properties).

I'll watch more 3 Body Problem when there's more 3 Body Problem to watch. I'm interested to see where the story goes, particularly the Wallfacer idea. And I'm always interested to see where an alien story ends.


3 Body Problem is a Netflix series, so it's going to be on Netflix. But just in case you live in a weird land where up is down and Netflix is Paramount, click here to check JustWatch and find out for sure!

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Interstellar

I've heard for years about how good Interstellar was, from people whose movie opinions I respect. Not only that, these people told me that while yes it was an objectively good movie, I would like it specifically. That's a tall order, but from the right people, that's a recommendation you take to the bank (see Justified) (but NOT Justified: City Primeval).

So I finally watched the movie, and for the most part, I'd say their recommendations were...right on!

The movie gives us a near future with humanity on the brink of extinction, due to massive and permanent crop failures. Our story follows Matthew McConaughey's "Cooper" as a widowed father and an exceptional pilot who is called upon to attempt to find a suitable destination planet to which Earth's inhabitants can be transported to start anew. The bulk of the story follows Cooper and the rest of the crew as they explore, facing off against time, space, and inevitably, each other, in the pursuit of the ultimate goal of saving the human race.

The space adventure is excellent, probably the best non-combat space adventure I've seen since Apollo 13, one of my all-time favorite movies. The additional layer of Cooper's family relevance is what sets this movie apart, though. Cooper's relationship with his daughter Murph in particular is something that resonates throughout the film, despite their fairly limited in-person interactions. Every decision Cooper makes is colored by his desire to save the world for Murph, but also to get home to see Murph again. It's an emotional rollercoaster, and one that I wasn't totally prepared for, but was happy to experience.

One striking resemblance for this movie is to a movie that I actually did not enjoy very much at all: 2001: A Space Odyssey. But where 2001 dragged (for example, with a long orchestral sequence simply showing a variety of planetary bodies), Interstellar is able to offer exceptional visual effects while not feeling like you're stuck in a terrible sixth-grade music video project.

Finally, and perhaps completely predictably if you know my love of droids, I absolutely loved the robot characters in the movie. Both TARS and CASE offered interesting logistical considerations as well as the occasional lightness of humor to cut some of the tension. I would watch a whole movie of just Cooper and TARS yukking it up in the great unknown.


Want to watch Interstellar today? Click here to go to JustWatch and find out where you can stream it right now!

Monday, September 16, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Dredd (2012)

I've always been a pretty big Karl Urban fan, as much as one can be a Karl Urban fan. I loved Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Eomer was a big part of that. My fantasy baseball team was named the Riders of Rohan for like, fifteen years.

So it's a bit surprising that it took this long for me to get around to watching this movie. It's a fairly straightforward action movie, where the no-nonsense Judge Dredd takes a rookie (Judge Anderson) under his wing for assessment. Things go sideways (of course; it's a movie), and Dredd and Anderson have to fight their way through wave after wave of murderous psychopaths. Lena Headey plays the primary criminal antagonist in the movie, and Wood Harris (another all-time favorite actor of mine) serves in a supporting role.

I enjoyed the movie a lot! I think one of the things I appreciated is that, while the setting is very interesting and potentially offers a robust world to explore, this movie knows what its mission is: to deliver big time action and highlight the titular character. Urban plays Dredd extremely well, as a by-the-book enforcer who also (at least to some extent) understands the complexities of enforcing law and dispensing justice in a near-futuristic dilapidated quasi-war zone. He's not sympathetic to those who break the law exactly, but takes a fairly pragmatic approach to dealing with nonviolent criminals.

I found the story believable enough, in a John Wick sort of way. The violence was great, the gore was appropriate, and Dredd's rapport with Anderson was humorous and endearing in a mentor/mentee sort of way. I never saw the original Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone, and apparently according to reviews across society, that's okay. This might be a situation where I don't go back and try to fill the gap in my movie-going history. I'm not saying that I for sure won't do it; you never know what might drop on TNT sometime when I'm stuck without internet. But I'm much more interested in a potential future Dredd project than going backward to the widely panned original.


I watched this movie on Prime Video. Where can you watch it today? Click here to go to JustWatch and find out!

Saturday, September 14, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - The Queen's Gambit

You know, I don't know if this is a more recent development, but it seems like there are a lot more female protagonists on shows these days, specifically non-sitcoms. House of the Dragon, Arcane, Ahsoka, countless others. I guess maybe it's just a matter of how many non-sitcoms I watch, which was admittedly precious few when I was in middle school or high school, but still, this does seem like a golden age of women when it comes to entertainment content.

Anyways, Queen's Gambit is another female-led show, starring Anya Taylor-Joy. Her character Beth is orphaned at a young age and finds herself in an orphanage, where she meets a janitor who (reluctantly) teaches her to play chess. The show then follows her as she grows up, endures hardships, and becomes a prolific chess player.

None of this probably sounds particularly interesting, but the story and the characters make it a very enjoyable watch. The child version of Beth is the right balance of damaged and sharp, and I'm a sucker for any sort of wayward souls' home dynamic, a la Girl, Interrupted.

Taylor-Joy's Beth meanwhile is supremely watchable. She's funny, scathing, and complicated, and the way she interacts in a male-dominant world is incredibly compelling. The soundtrack kicks ass, the supporting characters are great, and the pacing in particular is fantastic. I never felt like I was lingering in any one spot for too long; even in the pauses during chess matches, the tension and the little details of the moment keep you in rapt attention.

It's a sports story in every sense, with the troubled origin story, unexpected mentor, nemeses turned allies, and naturally, a final clash against the Soviets. It's a great story from front to back, and I strongly recommend The Queen's Gambit, to any of the eleven people who still haven't seen it.


It's a Netflix original series, so you know where you're gonna be able to watch it, but nevertheless, here's a link to JustWatch, my favorite site for finding out where you can stream various content!

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - The Flash

SPOILERS FOR THIS MOVIE BELOW. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE THIS EXACT MOVIE SPOILED FOR YOU, DO NOT READ FURTHER.

So I listen to a few podcasts that talk about movies and shows, most of them done by The Ringer. I enjoy the Midnight Boys, House of R, and The Big Picture. And basically everybody I listened to talk about The Flash was pretty quick to shut it down. There was a fair amount of anticipation for the movie, and almost everybody to a person was disappointed with the film. But, this was a solid reminder that not everybody likes or dislikes the same stuff.

Now don't get me wrong; there were some very big problems with the movie. The CGI ranged from decent to absolutely abysmal. I don't know what those things were that Barry was saving from the hospital nursery, but they were definitely not human babies. Some sort of gelatinous hypothetical human-slug hybrid, maybe. And the couple of "cameos" at the end of the film that were very plainly CGI inclusions were unnerving examples of the uncanny valley, and someone at some point ought to have put their foot down and stopped all that.

But that said, I actually enjoyed the film.

I'll be the first one to admit that I had big time nostalgia feels when we saw Michael Keaton's Batman on screen, and every needle drop of that old Batman theme song was effective. Sometimes I'm an easy target. But the adventure itself was also pretty decent, a classic superhero story of a hero becoming their own worst enemy. The movie didn't have a single over-arching villain, not exactly, but not every movie needs to follow the same exhausted formula. I liked the characters, liked the journey, and liked the destination.

I'm not sure if it was just the terrible CGI that turned everybody off to the movie, or if people were just predisposed to dislike the movie because of the many problematic encounters that Ezra Miller has had over the past few years, but I think The Flash was a solid film in the end. Certainly not the train wreck that I was led to believe it would be.


Click here to go to JustWatch and find out where you can watch The Flash today!

Monday, September 9, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Pitch Perfect 2

NOTE: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR PITCH PERFECT 2.

I really enjoyed Pitch Perfect. I like music, I like cover songs, and I like sports movies (and don't fool yourself; Pitch Perfect is essentially Hoosiers). Plus Anna Kendrick is both incredibly talented and eminently watchable. So, it follows that I would watch Pitch Perfect 2 at some point, if the opportunity presented itself.

And so it did.

Pitch Perfect 2 hits a lot of the same notes (haha, pun!) as the original, with a compelling primary story of teamwork and achievement, and secondary stories about coming-of-age, perception-vs-reality, and personal priorities versus expectations. It's all well-written and well-acted, with the trademark humor and needle drops that made the first one such a hit.

One thing I do sometimes is think about what sort of changes I might've made to a show or movie. I'm not sure if it's such a great habit all the time, but someday maybe I'll put forward all the changes I would've made to the last two seasons of Game of Thrones, and you can tell me if it wouldn't have vastly improved that monstrosity.

Anywho, here comes the spoilers!

I thought the ending of Pitch Perfect 2 was good, but in kind of a cheesy, classic sports movie (see?) way.  The Bellas come out victorious as world champions, with a rousing rendition of an original composition, bringing a number of past Bellas onto the stage for the end of the performance. Lovely.

But, what if...

The Bellas finish with the highest score, and the crowd delights in the performance's combination of originality and nostalgia. However, because the performance included singers who are not current members of the Bellas, the team is disqualified, and the Bellas must disband for good. It puts a tight bow on this chapter of these characters, and also gives immediate prominence to Hailee Steinfeld's character Emily as the only? underclassman, and the new steward of the Bellas' acapella legacy. On top of all of that, it's not what people would expect from a sports movie (I'm committed to this bit), so it would be a fun twist.

Anyways, if you've read all the way down here, one more note. There's a scene where Chloe and Beca are laying super close to each other late at night, and Chloe tells Beca she wishes she had done more experimenting in college. There's a whole other Pitch Perfect movie that I would watch the hell out of that starts right at that moment.

Ahem. Anywho, fun movie!


If you'd like to watch Pitch Perfect 2 right now, click here to see where you can stream it on JustWatch!

Friday, September 6, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I'd heard years and years ago about how this movie was a calamity, and the specific reason that most people brought up was the lack of realism about the ability to survive a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. While I can't speak to whether or not that's particularly realistic, I also am not too sure about the realism of the Ark of the Covenant burning away the bodies of the unworthy, or the realism of a hundreds of years old Templar protecting the Holy Grail.

My point being, I don't come to Indiana Jones for aggressive realism. I come here for fun, and that's the most important meter for measuring the quality of this particular movie. So, was Crystal Skull fun?

Yes!

While I'm not particularly sold on Shia LaBeouf as "the next generation of Indiana Jones," the movie overall is a success. It's got the same classic framework of pursuing some legendary treasure, assorted unsavory foreign authoritarian regimes (Soviet-era Russians this time) pursuing the treasure with less discretion, and investigating a combination of urban and wilderness environs in pursuit of clues.

For me, the first 40-45 minutes of the movie were absolutely top-notch Indiana Jones content. Harrison Ford's performance is pristine, purely Indy, and every supporting character, scene setting, and line of dialogue hits just exactly right. LaBeouf's character falls a little flat for me personally (in a Marty McFly sort of way), but not so much that it makes the movie unwatchable. And the film has the right number of callbacks to give you some nostalgia bumps without falling completely into "he said the thing!" territory.

Watching the movie also reminded me just how much fun a good Indiana Jones story can be. So in the time since I watched it, I've also re-watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I'm fully ready to tune in for Dial of Destiny soon. Who knows, maybe that'll be one of the additional movie reviews I'll write up before the end of the year?


If you've been waiting around forever like I have but want to finally watch Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, click here to go to JustWatch and find out where you can stream it today!

Thursday, September 5, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Twisted Metal, Season 1

I know, I know, I said I was moving back to movies, and now this is two more shows in a row. Well guess what, you sons of bitches, there's more shows coming, too. Just buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Speaking of riding, Twisted Metal! I was excited to see the existence of the series; my brother and I played the hell out of Twisted Metal: Black, and before that, I played a fair amount of Twisted Metal 2 and 3 back in the PlayStation days. I'm not much of a racing game guy, and honestly Super Mario Kart never really did much for me, but a demolition derby? Yeah, I can get into that.

As I mentioned when talking about Mad Max, we've got another post-apocalyptic wasteland full of ridiculous, over-the-top characters who have sort of a casual relationship with right, wrong, life, and death. And honestly, during the first two episodes, I wasn't sure if the show was going to hit. Even the first time we meet Sweettooth, perhaps the essential character from the games, he strikes as a little outlandish for outlandishness' sake.

But somewhere around episode 3 or 4, I realized that the show had hit its stride. It finds a good balance of levity, violence, sexuality, and heroism between a wide variety of characters. You find yourself appreciating and rooting for not just a single protagonist (or two protagonists in this case), but a bunch of different folks, people who are trying to get by in this brutal world while still holding onto some semblance of their humanity. The action, the humor, and the character connections are all really compelling and highly watchable, and the cast is really well chosen.

The end of season one leads directly, aggressively into a season 2, which has been confirmed thankfully. I'm ecstatic to see the next season, and unlike a lot of stuff I've watched, this will be a show that I do watch right when it comes out. I can't wait for more murder-on-wheels with funny, sexy, insane people. What more could you want??


Twisted Metal was released by Peacock, so you'd better believe you can watch it on Peacock. Where else? Check JustWatch to find out!

Monday, September 2, 2024

One Good Point (show) - Harley Quinn, Seasons 1-4

Technically I started this show last year, but I didn't review it in my end-of-year stuff, so I'm reviewing the full series to date right here, right now. And I also just discovered today, as I wrapped up season 4, that there'll be a season 5 starting this November. Will I watch it on time? I think you can say with some certainty that I will not. But on the off chance that I do, I'll post my little review thingy right when it ends.

But for now, we talk about the content we've got!

Season 1 of Harley Quinn was an absolute tour de force. It was everything I hoped it would be, from the action and humor and subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) shit-talking of dumb people. There are shows that hit with too heavy a hammer when it comes to "woke" ideals, but somehow this show managed to be completely irreverent and confrontational in an unapologetic way, while utterly avoiding the cringy sort of content that bogs down some newer shows. The first season was legitimately one of the best seasons of television I've ever seen, animated or otherwise.

Season 2 was good, it draws on a lot of the same ideals, and continues to build the characters that it established in season 1. It doesn't quite hit on all cylinders in the same potent way, but still a very solid season.

Seasons 3 and especially 4 seem to have sort of lost their way a bit, though. By the time we got into the middle of season 3, it seemed like the show was more focused on trying to advance a spiderweb of storylines, and not as focused on being entertaining. The jokes feel a little more "sprinkled on top" rather than a natural part of the characters' interactions. I'm hoping that season 5 gives us some more of those clean, early-season interactions, but based on the cliffhanger from the end of season 4, I'm still expecting lots of story focus, so we'll see.

One last thing. I like Bane a lot, and he's got some awesome lines in this show, but his voice absolutely kills me. I get that it's an animated series and a little bit sillier than what you'd get in a live-action product like The Dark Knight Rises, but the voice actor does like a clownish impression of that Bane voice, and it's just a mess to me. Other people might like it, it wouldn't be the first time I was the only person who hated someone's voice (I'm looking at you, 2000's jam band O.A.R.), but I stand by my opinion.


As with a lot of these series, this is a show specifically created for a streaming service, so you're almost certainly going to see Harley Quinn on Max and nowhere else. But for all you completionists out there, here's yet another link to the show's page on JustWatch, still one of my favorite sites for finding where to watch movies across my many streaming services.

Saturday, August 31, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Mad Max: Fury Road

Okay, back to movies!

This is another of those "modern classics," the movies that everybody talks about, that pierced popular culture and that gets referenced nonstop, with memes and references and nostalgia. And now I'm finally caught up! Over the course of 2 hours, I "got" like seven hundred jokes from the past ten years. Most of them were about "bait," but still, worth it.

So how was this as a movie, outside of memes? It was pretty good! The characters were eccentric, entertaining, and over-the-top violent, basically exactly what you would expect out of post-apocalyptic characters these days. I've played enough Borderlands to know that in general, human life is minimally valued, and explosives are the name of the game. I enjoy Tom Hardy a lot just as an actor, and he did a great job of being kind of on the edge of sanity for most of the movie, although sometimes his maddened mind settled almost too much, enough to form calm, coherent thoughts, but again, in the wastelands, you expect people to be a little bit nuts...or a lot nuts.

One thing that didn't work quite as well for me were the moments where they seemed to speed up the action slightly, accentuating the frantic-ness but in an unnatural way. I found those spots a little bit jarring, and they took me out of the fiction for a brief period. Ultimately they weren't enough to fully detract from the movie experience, but it's a little ding for me.

The prequel Furiosa came out this year, and Max is constantly shoving it in my face as a recommended movie to watch, so it's possible I'll crank that up before the end of the year. Anya Taylor-Joy is supremely watchable, and I'll watch most Marvel alumnus in stuff, so the inclusion of Chris Hemsworth is a positive as well. We'll see! The queue remains... massive.


To find out where you can watch Mad Max: Fury Road these days, click here to go check out its entry on JustWatch!


Wednesday, August 28, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Gen V, Season 1

Remember all those middling comments about season 4 of The Boys, how it was a little much sometimes, and the various stories felt like they weren't really tied together, and the characters felt incomplete? Yeah, so Gen V isn't like that at all.

Gen V fucking rocks.

I actually did watch Gen V before I started season 4 of The Boys, which was mildly important. Gen V introduces a couple of small-time characters that show up in The Boys, and while you don't really need to know the full extent of their backstory, it does help to give some explanation as to why these two random attractive super-powered people showed up here, what their powers are, and why they would side with Homelander in all of this. But that's not what makes Gen V worth watching.

Gen V takes place largely at the Godolkin University School of Crimefighting, a perhaps overly self-described college setting where aspiring young heroes try to prove their mettle and become fully established "heroes" (as much as anyone in the mainstream becomes a hero in the world of The Boys). The protagonist is a young woman named Marie Moreau, who has the power to control blood, and who has a predictably horrifying backstory. But admirably, from this trauma comes a desire to do good in the world, something that's not so easy to come by in the world of The Boys, and something that sets her against some powerful forces.

While Gen V does a good job of creating questions about every character's... well, character, those questions make the heroism of the protagonists even more impressive. There are the customary betrayals and turns, and some of the worst folks at the beginning of the show end up as some of the folks you're rooting for at the end, but it all feels so naturally written that these characters do exactly what you believe they would do. One problem a lot of shows have is that people do things that make no sense. A betrayal happens because it's "entertaining," but when a betrayal isn't earned, it just feels like a way to get a cheap, short-term pop. It's the difference between season 3 of Game of Thrones and season 7 of Game of Thrones, full characters versus fragments. Gen V has full characters.

The show isn't perfect, as there are a few characters who feel kind of flat, too flat for The Boys universe. But then you get a scene like the one where Sam attempts to evade capture from a military response team, and you know this production team knows exactly what they're doing. I won't describe it any further than that, to avoid any sort of spoilers, but if you've seen the show, you know the scene I'm talking about. It's just perfect.

I'm looking forward to the second season. The writing for these characters is I think at least as strong as any season of The Boys, and I'm hopeful that a second season can keep up that prolific performance.

Click here to see where you can watch Amazon's Gen V! (Spoiler alert: It's gonna be on Amazon Prime Video)


One final tragic note: Chance Perdomo, who portrayed Andre Anderson, one of the main protagonists in the show, was killed in a motorcycle accident in March of 2024. The character won't be recast. I don't really have any other notes on that, I just felt like it would be weird for me to not mention it in this article.


Monday, August 26, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Seasons 7 and 8

So for starters, I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed Brooklyn Nine-Nine. From the little previews and clips I saw online, the show looked too absurd for me to really enjoy; I like sitcoms as much as anybody, but there's a level of silliness that sometimes I find off-putting. And while 99 gets pretty silly here and there, it's actually a gentler sort of silliness than you might expect.

So then, seasons 7 and 8! Well, the show continues the same general format: diverse but slightly over-dramatized police work, occasional silliness, occasional heartfelt moments, and overall satisfying conclusions. Season 7 is pretty eventful, lots of character progression, people have babies, classic guest stars return, and it's all very entertaining and very much what you would expect.

Season 8, however, is a whollllle different animal. Season 8 debuted in 2021, after Covid, and more importantly for this particular show, after the George Floyd protests. Plenty of shows, especially sitcoms, could've just gone about their business and done another standard season of episodes, with the standard police-related hijinks that the first seven seasons offered. But Brooklyn Nine-Nine did something pretty daring. They acknowledged the importance of George Floyd's death and the aftermath, and the evolving public perception of police, and they did so in a way that was true to the show while still being pretty responsible.

Rosa leaves the police force to become a private investigator, specifically focusing on improper police behavior. Jake wrestles with the classic concept of being "one of the good ones," and is confronted with his own bad behavior, even while doing "good things." The series hits on the ideas of ally-ship, mortality, identity, and (as all good final seasons ought to do) turning the page on a part of your life.

There are a ton of emotional moments in the final season, and the two-part series finale is saturated with them (possibly over-saturated with them, but that's how it goes with TV). The jokes are good, but I found the social commentary to be a refreshing way to buttress the final season. Sometimes at the end of a run, a show can get too attached to old jokes, tropes, repeat guest stars, and overall less creative content. Brooklyn Nine-Nine stayed compelling to the end, in different ways perhaps, but compelling to the end.

And R.I.P. Andre Braugher. Holt was the best character on the show.


You can click here to find out where you can watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine right now on JustWatch!

Friday, August 23, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - The Boys, Season 4

ALERT: This review has some major SPOILERS. Usually I try to avoid them, but this show in particular feels like it needs some specifics. So, you have been warned!

If you know me (and if you're reading this, chances are you do; I don't get a lot of widespread appeal over here), you know that there are things about The Boys that aren't going to hit quite right for me. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate violence and gore, and brutality and villainy, and sexuality from all angles. 

But The Boys has a habit of taking those sorts to the extreme, sometimes to the point where you wonder, is this a thing that advances the show at all? Or is this just to give people something to talk about the next time they see each other? A certain urethral scene from a previous season comes to mind when I bring up this point.

This season of The Boys was no different in that regard; there were multiple extended scenes in multiple episodes that just felt unnecessarily crass, even if you forego my own general lack of appetite for such content. The scene with Hughie impersonating Webweaver and getting himself into a sexual abuse scene with Tek Knight went on way too long, with way too little story relevance, and way too many punchlines. And then the entire episode at the farm felt like someone's personal fan-fiction idea given way too much air.

But despite these (in my opinion) missteps, The Boys has historically been a show that has been able to appeal to a broad group of fans, myself included. Some fans enjoy watching superpowered beings blow each other up (or just blow each other), some fans like the modern pop culture references, and most fans enjoy the wild adventures, dangerous heroics, and compelling, three-dimensional characters engaged in four-dimensional storylines. This season, however, failed to deliver on that last key component.

The characters this season felt almost dumbed down, and not just to make Sister Sage look good. Each member of The Boys felt like their story had gotten a little less interesting, and pieces of the story dragged so much from episode to episode. Frenchie spent like four full episodes agonizing about having murdered his new lover's family. Then he goes to the police to admit his crimes, goes to jail, and then... is released. And that's kind of the end of it. Like, what? Why did we spend so much time with Frenchie's agony over that situation to have it just brushed aside in the end?

I'm fine with the things that happened at the end of the season (Victoria Neuman's demise, Butcher's turn, Sage's reveal), but it felt like half of the characters could've been left out of the season, or (preferably) given storylines that had more relevance to everything else. The characters felt much more like they were having individual stories this season, instead of the interweaving of numerous stories into a single, cohesive narrative.

The acting was still spot-on, and Karl Urban remains a must-watch talent for the small or large screen. Ever since he took off his helmet in The Two Towers, I've been a big fan. That reminds me, gotta add Dredd to my list of movies to watch. It never ends.

The Boys has built up enough goodwill with me that I'm still excited to see the final season of the show. And I'm hopeful that the stories that felt less important or unresolved from this season will come to a head in that final season, and it'll all feel worth it. We shall see.


The Boys is an Amazon show, so you can see it on Prime Video. But if you'd like to add it to your JustWatch lists, or see if it might be available anywhere else, click here to have a look at its JustWatch entry!

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Cowboy Bebop (Netflix)

This show started off with such tremendous promise. I'd seen a few episodes of the original anime series, and enjoyed it well enough, but not so much that it kept me engaged beyond those first few episodes. There's something about anime that seems to get in the way of my enjoyment, something about the visuals maybe. Regardless, the show didn't resonate with me.

However, somewhere in the first fifteen minutes of the live-action version of the show, I found myself completely enthralled with the whole... everything. John Cho as Spike Spiegel was great, equal parts brutal and pithy, and the explosive violence, reckless gunplay, and the intermittent clever quips made for a fun, outer space, wild west experience. Then when Daniella Pineda gets brought on board as Faye Valentine, I was riveted. The characters felt fun, dynamic, and unpredictable.

And then the show got wrapped up in trying to tell a story, and for me, it all fell apart.

The entire storyline involving Spike's history with organized crime just fell completely flat, and while there are a lot of reasons, I think one in particular is that that story didn't work in a ridiculous world. The story was too serious, too unsuited for this unserious world. We're talking about a world that smacks of Borderlands, with its over-the-top violence and outlandish characters. The brutal and utterly humorless tone of the Syndicate feels inappropriate for the show, and it's almost as if there are two completely different shows being made here at the same time.

The most prime example of that disjointed feeling is the character Vicious. We're supposed to hate him for his cruelty, and while he is cruel, and I do hate him, the two aren't really linked. The character is so uninterestingly written that it seems like the actor felt like he had to push the bombast to eleven, and then up, and up, and up again. But when you have a poorly written character and you crank them up, all you get is something even worse. It's like when I find a low-quality song on YouTube. I think that turning it up will make it sound better in my headphones, but all it does is amplify the flaws. Vicious is an incredibly flawed character, and ramping up the volume is just going to give you a headache.

I understand why the show wasn't renewed. I wouldn't have renewed it, not in its current form, with its existing storylines or the full cast. But there was a ton of potential here to do something fun and kooky and action-packed. I'm hearing that the Borderlands movie is a train wreck, so maybe this is just a really hard balance to nail. But somebody's gotta be able to do it. I mean Guardians of the Galaxy happened, right?


If you want to watch the Netflix Cowboy Bebop series, this is gonna blow your mind, but your best bet is to search for it on Netflix! But you can click here just to make sure.

For posterity, you can also click here to see where you might be able to watch the original Cowboy Bebop anime series as well!

Sunday, August 18, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Arcane

So, you've heard me talk about how animated shows and movies don't usually resonate for me. I had that same concern when I started Arcane, even though I generally like the idea of game worlds as a premise for a movie or show. I mean, Dungeons and Dragons was my movie of the year in 2023. But Arcane managed to completely overcome that predisposition against animated content. I absolutely loved this show.

The show was really well-constructed from top to bottom. The different sections of the city felt unique down to their bones, from an aesthetic standpoint of course, but also from the way that characters' behavior changed based on which "type" of people they were around. And you got a distinct difference in the characters as well: their mannerisms, their tone, the way they think about the world around them. And just in general, I love that steampunk magical type setting; it's my favorite type of magic/technology for D&D games, where yes, magic is a thing and it's a source of power, but people can use advanced technology to complement or combat magical prowess.

The first couple episodes focus on the experiences of a band of ragtag downtrodden youths from the undercity of Zaun, and their protective foster father figure, Vander, who is unsurprisingly the character with whom I identify with most: big guy, beard, heroic tendencies. He's not as funny as I am, but hey, we've all got our flaws.

But you can tell right away (even if you weren't paying attention to all the trailers or artwork) that the show centers around Vi and Jinx. And I've got to tell you, this relationship is executed in utterly pristine fashion. The way that this series shows the emotional dependence that Vi and Jinx feel for each other is so incredibly effective. This is one of those situations where sometimes animated series can fall short, but between the expertly crafted facial expressions and just the best voice acting I think I've ever heard, you feel every single moment between them. When things go sideways (that's not a spoiler, it's a TV show, things go wrong), the reactions of each of the characters is so... human. I felt tremendous empathy for Jinx in particular, but both characters are genuine, complex, and incredibly compelling.

Obviously, as you see me writing this now, I didn't watch the show when it was first released. It took me a couple years to come around to it, and this here, this is the onnnnnly situation where I'm okay with there being a longer delay between seasons of a TV show. The two years between House of the Dragon seasons? Fuck off. The like, nine years between seasons of Stranger Things? Get outta here. But this extra time we've had between season 1 and season 2 of Arcane has given me the time I apparently needed to actually watch the show.

And now I'm ready. Season 2 is scheduled to be released on November 2nd of this year. THIS YEAR. When that happens, I'll be watching the episodes immediately.

Can't. Freaking. Wait.


It's a Netflix show, so it's gonna be on Netflix, but just in case you're feeling weird and want to triple-check that, click here to go see the JustWatch entry for Arcane!

Friday, August 16, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - Blue Eye Samurai

So, basically everyone I ever talked to about Blue Eye Samurai was absolutely bananas for the show. "All-time great," "best show of the year," "award-worthy," etc. And...I thought it was good. I found it slow at times, and I'm not someone who's usually impressed by anything accomplished when it comes to animation, so the visuals were just fine, didn't add anything for me. It wasn't distracting at least, the animation quality; that's about as much as I usually hope for when it comes to animated shows/movies.

One of the things that bugged me on several occasions was the number of times that our protagonist Mizu got stabbed. It reminded me of the Punisher series on Netflix, where Frank Castle got stabbed, shot, mauled, hit by a car, blown up, a thousand different potentially fatal injuries, and he just kept going. If you want me to believe in the danger that this character is facing, you can't fake-kill them over and over. By the end of the first season, I was nigh convinced I was watching a superhero show, and not an historical fiction.

I also didn't love how the villains were sooooooo evil. Part of what we kept getting told by the narrative was how this character, Mizu, was being consumed by their thirst for vengeance. We're asked to question them, is all this bloodshed worth it, just for the vengeance of...being born, I guess? But then when you show me that the person Mizu is hunting is the absolute most despicable, vile, heinous person ever to walk the face of the planet, that conversation becomes less compelling. Yes, revenge makes sense, this guy is an absolute monster.

Don't get me wrong. There were some fun characters, a lot of interesting interactions, and the story was engaging and mature, which I appreciated (not just for the boobs... but I mean, nothing wrong with a few boobs now and then). I just wasn't as wowed as everybody else. Good show, not all-time great show.

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

One Good Point (Show) - House of the Dragon, Season 2

It occurred to me at the end of the season 2 finale of House of the Dragon that I have this whole second tab on my list of reviews to do that I've been ignoring. The name of that second tab is "Shows." So, buckle up. The next few quick-hitter reviews will all be about various shows that I've watched (or at least finished) this year.

The first season of House of the Dragon was imperfect, but I enjoyed it a lot. I found one of the primary protagonists in particular super compelling, and it's not the one everyone else likes to pay attention to (Daemon), but it is the one you would think I would find surprisingly interesting. Viserys Targaryan, depending on your point of view, could be anywhere from a terrible king, a serviceable king, a fine king, or even an outstanding king. And in fact, over the course of his long reign, he at different times matched each of those distinctions.

Season two begins shortly after the death of King Viserys, as sides are beginning to be taken, and blood is beginning to be spilt. This season begins with a pair of attempted assassinations (one successful, the other not so much), and though the early losses don't involve characters with whom we've established much of a rapport, they do a fair job of rocking the boat. The middle of the season sees greater conflicts with greater consequences, including the biggest non-natural death of the series so far, the first large battlefield clash on Westeros, and the first "dance of dragons," a glorious clash of the massive, terrible creatures, with flame and blood and ruin following close behind.

If I have one gripe about the season, it's that the pacing left us with a finale that felt very incomplete. I found myself checking the timestamp a handful of times during the episode, wondering if there's enough time for some tremendous, season-clinching event to take place. Though I did still enjoy it (I'm a big enough fan of great conversations in elegant rooms), the episode was building and building and building, and as the end credits began, it felt frustrating to know that it'll be YEARS before we get to see the great battles that we anticipate just moments after the final scenes of the finale.

Overall, while I believe the finale was a misstep, I recall most of the season very fondly. The penultimate episode had some tremendous moments, and an incredible ending scene, and the dragon fights did not disappoint. I'm still very much looking forward to the last two seasons of the show; it's been solidified that the show will stop at four seasons, as the story will be told in its entirety by then. Although it's another two years away, I do look forward to next season, and the untold calamity that will almost certainly populate those episodes.

Stay tuned soon for a follow-up post that combines two of my favorite things: Game of Thrones and lists!


The answer is probably going to be "HBO / Max," but in case you want some visual confirmation of that, you can click here to check JustWatch and ask the question, "Where can I watch House of the Dragon today?"

Monday, August 12, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

So shortly before Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness came out, all the talk in my friend group (and apparently in a number of other friend groups) was about this other multiverse movie. Then, after we all saw Doctor Strange, the chatter was all about how this other movie was the better multiverse movie. I resolved to see it... but of course, we don't rush into that sort of thing. So here we are, two years later, finally giving it a shot.

The premise is pretty conventional for a superhero-type movie: mysterious being threatens all of reality; dashing rebel seeks out a 'destined' savior who knows nothing of their fate; adventure ensues, with a revelation that the mysterious being has some connection to the savior; the culmination plays on that connection in an emotionally resonant way.

But really it's not about any of that. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (or EEAAO from now on) uses the idea of multiple versions of ourselves as a vehicle for examining where meaning comes from in our lives. The different lives of the various characters reflect various "levels" of achievement, failure, and connection, and the movie uses those reflections to not just consider all the possibilities that might've happened if one, two, or ten things had happened differently in our lives, but also the way we assess the value of our lives, based on how much of our imagined self-image's potential has been achieved.

I thought the movie was pretty good. The emotional beats of the story were a little drawn out and predictable, but the characters were compelling, and surprisingly realistic, in spite of the absurdity of so many of the situations they faced. My one main dissatisfaction was that the antagonist's mentality didn't resonate as well with me as I think it did for a lot of other people, but that's not terribly surprising. You're intended to feel some empathy for the character, and while I absolutely did feel that, I didn't feel any compulsion to forgive her behavior. I get why the main characters do; it just falls short for me.

Now, to answer the question brought up at the beginning of this review: Was EEAAO better than Doctor Strange 2?

Yeah. Although Zombie Strange was pretty rad.


Want to watch Everything, Everywhere, All at Once right now? Click here to check JustWatch and see where you can do that!


Friday, August 9, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Philadelphia

I present to you another in that list of "classic" movies that I'd never seen, and I'm pleased to keep crossing these movies off the list. There are a few more in the hopper already, and who knows, maybe this is the year I finally watch Titanic.

Probably not, but maybe!

Philadelphia (released in 1993) is an interesting movie about a very emotionally charged topic, especially at the time it came out. Tom Hanks plays Andrew Beckett, a gay man who contracts HIV and eventually develops AIDS, and who believes he was fired from his job because of it. Denzel Washington plays Joe Miller, an attorney who initially refuses the case, but comes to take on the lawsuit and represent Hanks as the plaintiff as he sues his former company for discriminatory conduct.

The core of the movie is powerful and realistic, and Denzel absolutely nails his role. He plays out exactly the point of view that so many of my "enlightened" peers (and if I'm being honest, myself as well) would hold, where it's fine if people are gay, but "I don't want to see it." In at least four different scenes, Washington illustrates the ways in which those of us who like to think of ourselves as supporting queer folks come up woefully short; so often we think of queer people as an "other" group.

One scene that struck me vividly took place in a pharmacy, where Miller gets asked out for a drink by a man he didn't initially realize was gay. Miller reacts with anger and disgust, using the sorts of words we don't use in polite company anymore, thank goodness. What's just as noteworthy in the scene, however, is how the rest of the folks in the store react. They seem to share Miller's disgust, and don't intervene when he gets aggressive, and then find the other man offensive when he simply responds by calling Miller an asshole, which, in fairness, is exactly what Miller is acting like in this scene.

He does evolve over the course of the movie, and though his evolution might seem a bit faster than you would expect in a real world scenario, it's slow and indirect enough that I think it's pretty powerful. Pushed into the position of seeing these scenes as an outside observer, a viewer in 1993 (and even plenty of viewers today) ought to consider their own emotional reactions to similar situations, and realize some of their own hypocrisy. There's a difference between "putting up with" queer people and actually accepting and embracing queer people as human beings, with every right to exist and be themselves as anybody else. Philadelphia points at some of the moments in a person's everyday life where they might fall short of being truly accepting.

I do wish the show had a little more courtroom time, but part of that is just me being a courtroom drama kind of guy. I love rules, I love talking about rules, I love solving puzzles and answering questions. That's really the second priority of this movie though, and it's understandable that we didn't get quite as much court time as I would've liked.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, though I think I enjoyed the grounded performance of Washington more than the sometimes overly dramatic performance by Hanks. Still, I found it emotionally powerful, realistic, and the sort of movie that gets you to think about your own place in the world, about your responsibility to your fellow human beings.


Click here to check JustWatch and find out where you can watch Philadelphia today!

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

One Good Point (Video Game) - Helldivers 2

Over the past two years, I've bought two sequels to games whose originals I haven't played: Baldur's Gate 3 and Helldivers 2. So at this point, I feel pretty silly for putting off playing games like The Witcher 2.

Early in 2024, there were a couple of games that took off like a rocket, and Helldivers 2 was one of them (the other one was Palworld, which I've never played). I had it recommended by a friend whose gaming taste I trust implicitly, and I also heard a rousing endorsement on a media podcast that I trust less, but still trust some. I waited a full month to see if a discount might drop on Steam, but I finally pulled the trigger at full price (which at $40 is still perfectly reasonable).

And I gotta say, this game met all of my expectations and then some.

I remember the first time I opened the game. I watched the intro movie and was tickled by the Super Troopers hyper-patriotic vibe. That vibe continued just as strong into the tutorial, with fantastic humor in addition to helping you get acclimated to some of the game's unique mechanics, which brings me to the first, most important point about this game:

It's fun.

Sometimes you can play a game and find certain mechanics disjointed from the rest of the game, or half of the game is fun, but then there are some tedious escort quests, or it takes way too long to progress and expand your abilities. Helldivers 2 seems to be a game designed solely with "fun" in mind, and the strategems are the best example of this. You immediately get access to a destructive orbital cannon and a machine gun, but you also verrrrry quickly begin to unlock other options. Exploring new weapons and utility items becomes a natural part of the game's progression, and the pace is well-constructed, doing a great job of empowering you with new options at a pace that is neither too fast nor too slow.

But the game also has a number of long-term goals to pursue. You can upgrade modules on your ship to improve your various strategems, unlock new primary and secondary weapons to take into the field, and gain access to special boosters that apply not just to you, but to your entire team, increasing your survivability, stamina, vision, and more.

And that's one other vital part of this game. It is utterly and completely a team-oriented experience. Your group gains exactly the same experience, medals, requisition slips, samples, all the various things that you accumulate, you accumulate together. You get bonus XP if you get your team out alive, but your mission is a success if you accomplish your goals, no matter how many of your Helldivers make it out alive... even zero. But by the same token, friendly fire is permanently enabled. Cooperation and coordination are essential to a positive gaming experience, and while you do get the occasional knucklehead, my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Your fellow Helldivers want to be victorious with you.

Does the game have long-term staying power? I believe it does, as long as "long-term" means "a couple years" to you. There's a plainly untouched 1/3 of the galactic map that clearly beckons a new enemy faction, and there's a broad base of strategem and weapon/equipment ideas that could definitely be implemented still. Based on the fun-first outlook that I believe the developers take when working on this game, I expect they'll continue to offer interesting twists and new opportunities to fight for managed democracy and defend Super Earth.

Helldivers to hellpods!


Click here to buy Helldivers 2 on Fanatical today!

Monday, August 5, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Deadpool & Wolverine

Continuing my many-years legacy of only watching MCU movies in the theater, I headed out to the local cinema to watch Deadpool & Wolverine with my brother the other day. My most recent theater trips were to see Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 and The Marvels, both of which were fine, but a continuation of the downward trend that Marvel movies have had of late.

This... was not that.

Deadpool & Wolverine is the first officially MCU "canon" movie in the franchise, although without getting into the specifics of the storyline, it's a little bit debatable how much the story actually interacts with the MCU. Still, it's under the Marvel umbrella, and Deadpool's fourth-wall-breaking humor plays on that fact extennnnnsively throughout the film. Every scene is punctuated by clever asides and quips, and the movie delivers on its title and promise, giving the audience a great deal of interplay between the titular characters.

In predictable fashion, it's incredibly violent, terribly vulgar, and somewhat sexual, keeping the faith with previous Deadpool movies. The cameos are almost all executed flawlessly, and even the ones that didn't hit perfectly were still fun to see. And without spoiling the deets, you've absolutely got to watch the end-credits scene. For pure entertainment value, there might not be a better one in the history of the MCU.

"Will this movie save the MCU?"

I don't know if it can do all that, but I will say this: Deadpool & Wolverine is a blueprint on what to do with other movies. The next Doctor Strange movie should be a Doctor Strange movie, with mysticism, sorcery, and Steven Strange's pompous, witty self. The next Shang-Chi movie should have incredible fight scenes, moments of hilarity, and those Ten Rings should continue to be some of the coolest artifacts in the Marvel universe. The new Blade movie should be dark and bloody and gothic, with over the top violence. Somewhere in the course of Wakanda Forever and Thor: Love & Thunder, the movies got distracted somehow, and forgot the only really thing that matters: you gotta make a good movie. Deadpool & Wolverine is a good movie, first and foremost. If you get back to making good movies, the "greater story progression" becomes less important.

Anyways, we'll see what happens. I'm looking forward to Captain America: Brave New World, and the rest of the upcoming calendar. Capture this momentum please!


Deadpool & Wolverine won't be available to stream for a little bit, but when it is, this link will take you to see where on JustWatch!

Saturday, August 3, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Network

 You can check another classic film off the list!

I've always been interested in movies about the news, shows about the news, stories about the news. I loved the last season of The Wire, where they explored a newsroom and the various pressures and motivations that go into that sort of environment. The Newsroom had its moments, and if they had focused less on the not-terribly-endearing romantic relationship between the two main characters, I think they might've had something. But long before either of these was Network, a movie about a newscaster who goes off the deep end on live television, and how his corporate overlords and the world at large reacts to that.

There's a different sort of essence to older films. There's often a bit more high-minded dialogue, or maybe it just seems that way, as slang from the 60s and 70s feels less informal than modern slang. But there's no denying that the language in Network was heavy; while the actual conversations might've felt a little scripted (which of course they are; it's a movie lol), the terminology and literature references used feel like the sort of level of discourse you would get from the brilliant writers, editors, and thinkers of the era. To simplify, the dialogue has a naturally unnatural feeling to it. It doesn't sound like the way average people would talk to each other, but it could very well be the way that this certain subset of people talked to each other.

The story is completely wild, and yet in today's modern media environment, it doesn't seem nearly as far-fetched. The things that Howard Beale says that nearly get him canned from his job and draw rabid attention from the masses would barely lift an eyebrow in today's diverse news media menu. In a world with people like Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, Bill Maher, and others, Beale's commentary would feel almost right at home.

While watching, I found myself constantly struck by the way today's world would react, and you do actually see a lot of overlap between the way Beale speaks and the way Donald Trump speaks. The main differences would be that Beale always finishes his sentences, and that he works with complete, full-thoughted sentences to begin with. Trump kind of seems like a person trying to cosplay as Howard Beale in front of his friends.

But I digress, this isn't a politics blog... most of the time.

The romantic storyline between Max and Diana felt a little out of place, but Max is ultimately kind of the audience avatar, looking at Howard as a person who needs help, rather than a resource to exploit. And Faye Dunaway's character Diana is terribly, terribly interesting. I would've been (and would still be?) interested in a spinoff movie following that character, exploring her casual acquaintance with actual humanity, and how focused she seems to be on fame, success, noteworthiness. Even just a spiritual successor would be cool; if anybody knows of such a movie, let me know!

All in all, Network was a very good watch. It was a reminder that there are some real bangers in this massive list of unwatched movies, and watching them isn't just about crossing films off the list. Sometimes, the movies are actually really, really good.


Click here to go to JustWatch and see where you can watch Network today!

Thursday, August 1, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Clue

Click here to find out where you can watch Clue right now!

At some point in everyone's life (literally everyone), you find that you like Tim Curry a lot more than you realized. For people older than me, it was probably earlier, probably after they saw Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time. For younger folks, it might've been his voice work as Nigel Thornberry in the Wild Thornberrys. But at some point in everyone's life, he becomes someone whose appearance on screen brightens your day.

For me, it was seeing The Three Musketeers, one of the seminal movie events of my youth. It was one of the first times I was excited to see a movie before it came out, and mostly lived up to my expectations. But one of the key components of this whole experience was the revelation of Tim Curry as Cardinal Richelieu. As a youth, I only ever hated the bad guys in movies and shows. They were just something for the good guys to triumph over. But something about Curry's incredible charisma made something click in my mind, and I realized villains are what make the story meaningful. It's only a good story because of how much you hate the villain. Plus the bad guys get all the best lines.

Anyways, this was all a roundabout way to say that Clue has been on my radar for a long time. Then one fateful afternoon, I made a show of jumping into the pool for my nieces and nephews and managed to rupture my Achilles, which put me in a chair for the day (and, you know, weeks). So, without much else to do, I was wandering around on the various streaming services and found myself face to face with the movie I'd thought about for so long.

And the verdict? It was quite good! Though the movie occasionally suffers from what I call "drama kid syndrome," (where it slips into humor that's so off-the-wall that it feels like it's written specifically for the amusement of the performers), it's got plenty of clever wordplay, which is precisely what I was hoping to find. Curry is fantastic, and each of the other performers rises to the moment as well. The banter in this movie is top notch.

Now that I've finally seen Clue, I feel fully prepared to watch Knives Out... but alas, it's not on a streaming platform at the moment. Sometime soon though; be prepared!

Click here to find out where you can watch Clue right now!

Monday, July 29, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Dune, Part Two

SPOILER - TO ANYONE WHO HASN'T WATCHED BOTH DUNE MOVIES YET, THIS REVIEW WILL HAVE MASSIVE SPOILERS, IN THAT IT WILL TALK ABOUT THE MOVIES IN ANY SORT OF DESCRIPTIVE TERMS. BE WARNED, ALL YE WHO ENTER.

Ahem, now that that's out of the way.

Dune has always been a story that's enticed me, but like so many things that entice me, I've somehow managed to avoid watching or reading any of its content for decades. I like sci fi, I like grimly realistic future settings, I like monsters, I like palace intrigue, but it took this long and this many entries into the fiction before I finally got into it. But hey, better late than never right?

I enjoyed Dune a lot, though I specifically enjoyed the first two hours more than the ending. I found the interactions between the great houses, the grand schemes, the brutal warfare, and oh my goodness, that confrontation between Baron Harkonnen and Leto Atreides, *chef's kiss*. The stuff with Paul Atreides and his mother was less compelling to me, as it felt more whimsical and spiritual. So when I heard more about Dune, Part Two being more closely tied to Paul and his journey, I was a little wary of what I might find.

But it turns out, it was fantastic.

The film does focus heavily on Paul Atreides, and while there's definitely still some spirituality and whimsy to his adventures, it feels less tacked-on, and more essential to the story at large. But the movie also offers plenty of grand-scale happenings, the politics of the great houses, the machinations of various other factions, and a whole host of stellar acting performances.

The movie also dives headfirst into the idea of Paul as a messianic figure in this world, which is understandable; he's got a unique combination of martial prowess and spiritual destiny. Whatever you might think of the reality of sorcery in this world, there's no denying that Paul does things that other people cannot do, and he is widely seen doing these things. You can only pilot a sandworm the size of an aircraft carrier so many times before people start to notice.

If you liked Dune, Dune Part Two is gonna have more of the stuff you liked, more of the characters you liked (and hated), and does a great job of expanding the world and driving the story forward. And it gets you absolutely jacked for what comes next. I haven't read the original books (yet?), but there's apparently a good bit more canon content available, and with where this movie ends, you're fiending for more. Bring it on!

If you want to watch Dune, Part Two right now (and you really should), click here to check JustWatch to find out where it's streaming!


Sunday, July 28, 2024

One Good Point (Movie) - Annihilation

I've discovered my prime locations for finding movies to watch, at least on Netflix and Peacock: the "leaving soon" lists. Something about the knowledge that a movie is leaving a streaming platform and the potential convenience of watching said movie will decrease in the near future gives me that spark of motivation I need to go from "I should watch that sometime" to actually hitting Play.

One such movie that benefitted from its classification in that category is Annihilation, starring Natalie Portman. I didn't know much at all about the movie when I started it, but someone had mentioned it favorably on a podcast so the name rang a bell, and the preview image showed people looking worriedly at the corpse of a massive crocodile. So, monsters, accolades, and impending departure from a streaming service, the holy trinity for me when it comes to watching a movie.

Without giving up too much of the story, the movie mostly takes place in a mysterious and dangerous wilderness, inside a strange looking barrier where people and technology have been disappearing. The team finds... more than they bargained for? Or more realistically, exactly what they bargained for: danger and mystery. 

The movie has a definite classic "prestige" movie feel, with lots of intense emotional moments to go along with some tense action and thrilling revelations. I actually found myself reminded of 2001: A Space Odyssey during the second half of the movie, but in a surprisingly unannoyed way. Those of you who know my movie opinions know that I find 2001 to be overly drawn out to the point of being boring...exceedingly boring. But while this movie definitely had some long scenes, the tension was such that I was thoroughly engaged the whole time.

Overall I found this to be an interesting and enjoyable watch. The final "twist" was fairly predictable, but still well-executed, and the whole last half-hour is a really great culmination to an already pretty good movie.

If you'd like to see where Annihilation is available to stream right now, click here to check JustWatch!

GoodPointJoe's 2024 In Review - Games

Games are a little tougher to judge, because frankly I play a lot of games that I don't finish, but often I don't finish them like, ...