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!

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, ...