What I Watched: Season three of the Umbrella Academy. Most links contain spoilers, so fair warning. Quick synopsis: the timeline the Umbrella Academy group comes to has, instead, a Sparrow Academy with a (mostly) different group of superheroes. As usual, fighting, plot twists, angst, and dark humor ensue. Of note, the series incorporates the transition of actor Ellen Page to Elliot Page with respect and support. Oh – and I am totally team Klaus – yes, baby, I will join your cult.
What I Read: The Fire in the Glass (The London Charismatics Book 1) by Jacquelyn Benson. I liked it enough to get books two and three. Here is the series blurb: “Enter a dangerous and arcane Edwardian London. A boy who speaks to birds. A woman who dreams of the dead. A man who steals secrets with a touch. The Charismatics are those with the power to know impossible things. With her dark visions of things to come, Lily Albright is one of them. To stop the horrors of the future, she must master her terrible ability—and learn to trust an eclectic group of strangers with everything that matters most to her. Join The London Charismatics and journey down gaslit streets rife with murder, conspiracy, and supernatural forces.” A good choice for fans of Tilly Wallace (Manners and Monsters).
I read other things, including the No Life for a Lady (Ladies of the Order Book 5) Adele Clee. This is the closing of her series (started with the gentlemen), and it is another pleasant, easy mix of historical romance and mystery.
What I Listened To: Man Alone (Can’t Stop the Fadin’) (Charles Webster Mix); The Goon Sax – In The Stone; and Blood Red Shoes – Morbid Fascination.
Thank you for playing Brain Drain! How are you, dearest DeadSplinterites? Do tell!
Finished the latest Lost Fleet installment (ebook) for my purely space opera escapism. Enjoyed it. Starting to feel more Star Trek… ish now.
The Lost Fleet subplot with regards to politics in the Alliance seems to arch a bit as SF metaphor of the Obama/Trump years. Only thing is that Alliance justice is much swifter than US justice.
Various senators remind me of real life politicians
Then here’s to Alliance justice…
I just finished episode three of Umbrella Academy. What a great show. It diverges significantly from the comic books, but unlike most comic nerds, I’m perfectly fine with NOT watching a slavish recreation of the comic. I prefer a different take. Otherwise I can just read the damn comic.
This week’s Strange New Worlds was somewhat depressing, but hey, it’s been that kind of week. We’ve finished Season One of Hacks, and … I don’t like it all that much. It’s not particularly funny — more poignant. That doesn’t necessarily upset me, but it’s not what I was looking for. It goes on the back burner for now.
I agree, Umbrella Academy is a grand take on the super hero genre. Unlike The Boys, of which I saw the newest episode drop last evening. I really don’t need to see or hear someone beaten past death until they are just squishy.
Have you played Neon White? I hear it’s a good one. Spiritfarer is on my list.
Not yet, it’s on my list too. I’m going to play Hades when I finish Spiritfarer.
I watched S4 and started S5 of Search Party on HBOMAX. It’s so dark and funny, I’m sorry this is the last season. Mostly played Spiritfarer with the rest of my free time.
Hi @Hannibal! Happy long weekend to you.
And to you @Elliecoo You work too hard!
What I read: I stopped by The Takeout. Sigh. Get/Out Media has finally come for them, too:
https://thetakeout.com/10-relationships-ruined-by-food-best-reddit-aita-posts-1849124244
More and more of the posts are slideshows. This is no big deal for me because I read this on a monitor, so it reads as one scroll. A drawback, though, is the comments (what few there are) don’t automatically load, so you have to click on the comments link at the top. As the commenters pointed out, what makes this one a new low (although right in Get/Out Media’s “wheelhouse,” do cubicle drones still say that?) is that it is a reddit round-up. So there is nothing original about this, except for maybe the “authorial” choices involved.
How depressing. Happy 4th, my fellow ‘Muricans. Here in the Empire State/”Excelsior!” our legislature is actually working, called back into session to hastily throw in as many regulations and pass as many laws as they can to blunt the recent Supreme Court setbacks concerning Roe, guns, and the EPA. I will give this crew half-credit for this. I’m sure they’re sneaking in all kinds of other, unrelated stuff, but who cares, this is the important stuff, and as for the other grifts, carveouts, and paybacks, well, it’s only money, right?
248 years later, Independence Day lacks resonance when one compares the healthcare and gun laws within the United Kingdom and it’s Commonwealths. At least your fair state is trying. In my state, we may well be represented by Dr. Oz. Sigh.
Watched: Season 1 of Leverage: Redemption. It was…okay. I couldn’t help but get the sense that this version of the show has a different writing staff, because it seemed a wee bit on the cheesy side, compared to what I was used to with the original series. If there’s a season 2 I’ll watch it and see if the writing improves.
Read: 150 pages left…and counting.
Listened: Our latest stop on the tour of the best engineered albums of all time brings us to …But Seriously by Phil Collins. Engineered by long time collaborator Hugh Padgham, this was Collins’ fourth solo album as we would spend time in and out of his commitments with Genesis. Collins was concerned about radio listeners getting burned out by the high rotations of airplay for his songs, so he took a different songwriting approach here, taking on more serious themes.
As opposed to No Jacket Required, Collins shifted back to the live drum kit from the drum machine. Collins also insisted on fewer vocal effects, which allowed him not get washed out. The production itself is tighter than No Jacket Required, but still is still certainly focused on Collins’ primary instrument, which is where the sonics really stand out.
I always loved this video because it showed Collins’ ability to make fun of himself. The digs at Eric Clapton have extra punch now.
Leland Sklar (at age 75) is still touring and posting videos.
TIL Leverage: Redemption is a thing. I enjoyed the original series, but I had no idea they’d created a sequel. Now I’ve got another show on the list.
We’re watching The Responder, with Martin Freeman playing a seriously troubled, morally questionable copper in Liverpool. The accents are terrific and it’s more like a Ken Loach movie than the usual UK bizzie show. I highly recommend it, but it can be a tough watch.
We started it…and “put it away for later”, because I can only watch so much of “bad decisions all the time”. But as you say, it is good television. I will get back to it, sooner because of your recommendation.
I finally got around to watching Dr Strange Multiverse of Madness and ahhh great of that white straight man to give the brown girl autonomy over her own body. Also they fucking did Wanda real dirty with that plot and I’m not okay with it.
Watched Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Underwhelming. Ridiculous deus ex machina that I was like oh you did that huh. The town made no sense. Like economically or racially. The dialogue between Paul Rudd’s character and the mother was basically rom-com material and also made no sense.
I don’t know. Whole movie felt like a reaction to the 2016 Ghostbusters: Answer the Call being the “wrong” type of move because it was all women doing cool stuff. But include a girl character so no one can say that about this one and then make absolutely nothing about being a girl relevant to the charater because ew girls have cooties.
A bad review is also appreciated; thank you for adding to the “avoid this” list!
Several months back a very astute friend was ranting that the thing they hated most about MCU content was the “redemption death” trope where if an antagonist realizes the error of their ways, typically they die. Like Pietro Maximoff in Age of Ultron, Skurg in Thor Ragnarok, etc etc. Like we were both surprised Loki lived through the end of season 1 of his series. Anyways, that frustration carries through to recent MCU offerings.
Everything about Wanda was so paper thin and arbitrary and it was a terrible idea to try to have a centerpiece villain who made no sense. And the difference between the Spiderman – Dr. Strange relationship and the America – Dr. Strange relationship in the two movies is striking, where Peter Parker got far more autonomy and power in his relationship than she did.
The whole point of the movie made no sense. Like maybe Cumberbatch had a contract that obligated them to make it? Because the whole 2 hours was basically to introduce a character that can jump between multiverses. Okay swell. But we already saw that with the TVA in Loki that it’s possible. And Dr. Strange’s stupid spell that went wrong in the last Spiderman movie also showed it’s possible, so again, what’s the need even for a character that can do it since I’m sure that egotistical genius can just work out a spell.
Not to mention that not once can I recall anyone being able to resist Wanda getting into their heads, even before the end of WandaVision and her coming into her power more fully. So like the fortress battle early on in Dr Strange 2? The fuck was the point???
im currently about 4 episodes into an anime called bastard!!-heavy metal,dark fantasy
i mean….when you name it something like that…its obviously irresistable to me
i’m having a lot of fun spotting all the not so subtle metal references…but other than that it doesnt seem to be anything special..tho im not far enough in to really say much about where the story is going….that said… this one does look to be heading in a pretty t&a heavy somewhat pervy direction at mo
anyways…its on hold for a minute coz new episodes of stranger things turned up….and they are not short episodes
Blew through the first 2 seasons of Money Heist (Spain, Netflix), and started the third. Lots of unconvincing character motivations, but the heist plot keeps moving. In the running with Dexter for worst law enforcement in fiction award though.