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.

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, ...