A very cheerful Saturday morning to you all, fellow Deadsplinter… ites? Deadsplinterians? Deadsplinterens? Well, whatever we call ourselves, happy Saturday of a potential long weekend. Sadly enough, not for me, but both my wife and son are off Monday for Indigenous Peoples Day. And I know our Canadian contingent are celebrating Thanksgiving, so huzzah for that!
What I Watched: U.S. Marshals (1998)
This was not entirely a for-pleasure watch, I must admit. I think I’ve mentioned that I was a repeat guest on a movie-by-minute podcast about “The Fugitive” (If you want to listen, I was on again this week!) The hosts have invited me to create a new podcast with them, this time instead of doing a movie by minute format we are watching and chatting about whole movies that one of the three of us has not seen.
Before we do that, though, we’re soft-launching the new pod on the movie-by-minute feed with “U.S. Marshals,” which is a Fugitive sequel, sort of. I have seen “U.S. Marshals” before, but because of the podcast, I was watching it this time as homework. So grain of salt, noting that viewing it in that way can impact how you much you enjoy something but … it’s not great. “The Fugitive” was taut and tense basically from the first minute; “U.S. Marshals” trades a lot of that tension for plot convolutions, which is decidedly not an improvement. It’s a “sort of” sequel because there’s the marshal team from “The Fugitive” but there’s a different fugitive, which means no Harrison Ford, a catastrophic loss. But even Tommy Lee Jones — who just crackles in the first one — is bland and sort of vaguely hero-y in ways that don’t entirely fit him. Bleh.
What I Read: Well, I guess I’ll be honest and say “Matilda” by Roald Dahl, which I’ve been reading along with my son the past few days. I loved it as a kid; he now loves it as a kid. I’m in my busiest season of work and my reading — other than our DOTs of course — has been curtailed of late. But I did read this, and I highly recommend it: She Voted For Trump. Then She Had Two Terrifying Miscarriages In Texas
What I Am Excitedly Waiting For: Less than two weeks until the fifth and final season of “Lower Decks” which I has been everything I hoped for and more as an animated and funny version of Star Trek. It really has blossomed into one of the best versions of Trek, and I’m going to be sad when it’s over.
What I listened to: Tori Amos “Little Earthquakes” (among some other blasts from the past)
A younger coworker told us she’d grown a little bored of her usual music and asked several of us for recommendations of “no skip” albums we love. It’s such a fun exercise to think about, and I gave her some of mine from the ’70s to the 2000s (aka before her time, sigh). But please drop your no skip can’t miss albums in the comments, maybe I’ll pass along a few more to her!
The movie adaptation of Matilda directed by Danny DeVito is good. Not exactly faithful, but has a lot of the mean spiritedness, including how he plays the dad
I saw the finale of Slow Horses. I liked the season, but it was much less of an ensemble show this year, which I think made it a bit less fun than previous seasons.
I have seen it and I liked it, especially DeVito (though I love him so again grain of salt and all that).
Mara Wilson’s mom was dying of cancer during the filming, and Wilson has talked about how much Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman basically stepped in as parents to her during that work.
Also, Danny DeVito snuck a rough edit videocassette of the film into the hospital so that her mom could watch it before she died.
Ten – PearlJam
Thriller – Michael Jackson
Born In The USA – Bruce Springstein
Top Gun Soundtrack – mostly Kenny Loggins
I’m waiting for Below Decks, too. Star Trek was meant to be fun and it’s pretty much the only show since TOS that captured that fun for me. I liked TNG, but there are too many episodes that made me roll my eyes with their utopian nonsense. I preferred the ‘original’ B5 over ersatz DS9. Voyager put me to sleep. Enterprise… meh. Never got into the other stuff despite watching an episode or two but Below Decks is what hooked me.
I’ve seen US Marshals… it sucked.
I also suggested Thriller to her as a “this was inescapable” album of the 80s.
Appetite For Destruction – GNR
Thank you for this BrainDrain!
Albums:
Point of order! The best song on the Rumours album is “Go Your Own Way.”
LindsayBuckingham’s hair and blouse. He must have had a live-in plumber to clear the drains every time he took a shower. Stevie Nicks’s top hat or whatever it is. RIP Christine McVie. Oh, Fleetwood Mac, the soundtrack to my misbegotten youth. The first time I ever got drunk was in a suburban rec room listening to Rumours at a party. There was a (female) European exchange student staying with the family so she and I made out for a while. The parents were very progressive.
You tell me how, in any way you can think of, the 2020s are superior to the 1970s. You would be wrong. So very, very wrong. Unless of course you have children, in which case you are fully justified in welcoming the March of Time.
Hard to pick the best/my favorite song on Rumours! I do like “Go Your Own Way” a lot. But the sheer messiness of “You Make Lovin’ Fun” — written by Christine but written not about her husband WHO IS ALSO IN THE BAND — is just so deliciously petty.
Finished Bad Monkey. Love Carl Hiaasen and enjoyed the adaptation. Watched Wolfs with Pitt and Clooney. It kind of sucked.
👻 the Spooky Season is upon us! 🎃
I read and loved A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon). It was fantastic. Sort of like if a beguiling evil sorceress arrived at Downton Abby with designs on Cousin Matthew and Lady Mary had to plot to fend her off. I highly recommend it.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195790847-a-sorceress-comes-to-call
I just finished House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig. It gave me goosebumps at times and I have the next book on hold at the library. I’m not familiar with the twelve dancing princesses fairytale so some references flew over my head. My only complaint is that the author relies on magical deception/illusions as a plot device but gave very little indication of what baseline magic was real in that world to begin with.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39679076-house-of-salt-and-sorrows
As I wait for my library books to pop from my hold list, I’m reading Demon World Boba Shop: A Cozy Fantasy Novel by R. C. Joshua. 😅 It’s got demons so it’s kind of fitting for the Spooky Season even if they are all friendly, kind, and helpful.