What I watched: Top Gun: Maverick. Honestly, I don’t get what all the fuss is about. I mean, it wasn’t a bad movie—but it certainly wasn’t this earth shattering masterpiece that people keep talking about. Especially considering how much of the original film was just recycled into the sequel and the general fact that the writing was about what you would expect from a Top Gun film. It was fine, it was entertaining, I’d say go ahead and watch it. But, it had no business being nominated for Best Picture. Come at me.
What I read: Yeager, which is Chuck Yeager’s autobiography. I’d decided to read it after finishing The Right Stuff, but I’d always been fascinated by the man because I was aware of some of his exploits outside of the sound barrier flight. This was the true Most Interesting Man in the World. The book is very readable and I would recommend it. It’s too bad that the last years of his life were so sad.
What I listened to: Erick Steckel, who knows how to do some solid covers.
Tom Cruise sort of grosses me out. Out that manic grinning. And Scientology.
Same. He’s visibly unstable, and I really have trouble watching anything he does. Plus I wasn’t a big fan of the original Top Gun, so no real desire to see the sequel. I saw the very first Mission Impossible, which largely missed the point of the TV series, so that + Cruise means I’ve never watched another.
I finished Secret Invasion. Listen there are lots of thoughts I have about this series, and a shit ton about this last episode. But I don’t want to rant and share spoilers.
So I’ll stick with 3 main things.
I’m consistently annoyed that the one character’s name in is Gaia but spelled G’iah. That’s…not how phonetics work and all they had to do was spell it Gaia or Gaea or even Ga’a if they were so focused on getting that apostrophe in there.
I was highly unsatisfied as well. I will add that the final fight, between two aliens with the same powers, ended with one dead. How? A. They’ve been shown to regenerate and B. SAME POWERS.
The radiation bit bothered me too. It’s bad for you, but unless you’re walking into an actual reactor, you’re not going to start coughing and passing out right away. As for the captives I’m just going to assume there was some kind of dampening field or something. But take two seconds to say that.
Characters seemed to be thrown away without regard, which I always think is stupid. The whole “open season” is stupid. How are you going to fit that into other Marvel projects now?
Finally, I hate it when they have situations that have massive ramifications but ignore the large Marvel Universe. The Skrulls need a planet? Fine. Turn this project and the Skrulls over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s more their jurisdiction anyway. I’m sure they can find something. It’s stupid to say, no, we couldn’t find something to help you out. Plus it clears out all this nonsense so we don’t have to think about it during the next movie/show.
Right? But you can’t show us Fury struggling to walk and function and popping iodine pills like skittles and then be like “all these humans are fine though.”
I too had a lot of confusion about that battle scene. I was expecting her to have help. Or something. But just “hey I outsmarted you bro” I guess sort of works? But then dude could heal from a gunshot to the head in a previous episode, so again, confused.
I also still don’t understand why the Skrulls need a planet. There’s a million of them on Earth. That’s the population of St Louis county. We don’t get any real indication that lots of them aren’t fine just chilling on Earth. Also, they just need the Kree to stop trying to kill them. They can go live anywhere they want really as long as the Kree stop killing them.
Good point. Y’all radiation-proof? Heat is radiation so I assume it doesn’t bother you either. We’ve got large and growing swaths of the planet that are basically uninhabitable or well on their way. How ’bout you set up in this desert? Or, I dunno, just stay there in Chernobyl and mind your business. We damn sure can’t use it.
I watched more of Swedish Dicks. It’s a decent low stakes comedy. Keanu Reeves pops in from time to time on an erratic basis based on his unusual circumstances. Pretty much every case they have is deliberately ridiculous — the last one I saw involved rival pet cemeteries, for example. It’s good for killing time on the exercise bike.
I also watched some old No Reservations. There are a million hints in retrospect what Anthony Bourdain was struggling with, and I’m sure they played a lot differently when they first aired around 15 years ago.
A lot of the food looks amazing, but it’s interesting how much of the high end stuff does not. The multicourse tasting menus with indistinguishable little slices of protein and dabs of purees and bits of microgreens all blur together. There’s an obvious irony how supposed celebrations of local food and creativity turn out to be so homogeneous, while the big pots of stew in different places seem so much more interesting.
I watched the first two episodes of Justified: City Primeval. Raylan hasn’t changed much. He’s still a product of the Kentucky hills that he despises, all toxic masculinity. But now he’s toting his teen daughter around Detroit and I suspect he’s going to learn some lessons. The premise is a little silly. I don’t understand why he doesn’t put her on a plane and send her home, but whatever. Timothy Olyphant has aged really well. His real-life daughter, Viviane, plays Willa, his on-screen child. I’m not very impressed with her so far but she hasn’t had an awful lot to do so we’ll see.
I read Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. It was not an easy read emotionally. Loosely based on Vuong’s own life, and I hope very loosely, Little Dog is an immigrant from Vietnam. His grandmother and mother were both deeply impacted by the war, there’s mental illnesses, child abuse, and the complication of Little Dog coming to terms with his own sexuality. It differs from other accounts of generational trauma in that Vuong places no blame on anyone. Not the mother that beats him, or his drug-addicted white love interest. Without excusing poor behaviors he recognizes where it comes from. And seems to accept them flaws and all. It’s also mildly challenging because Vuong is a poet and the book veers from a traditional narrative, it meanders and is full of metaphors. If you have no patience for that sort of thing it may not be for you. But I found it to be very moving.
I thought there were only two episodes of the new Justified. I set my tivo to record it and it only got the two. Are there more coming to streaming or something?
There will be 8 episodes in total airing on Tuesday nights.
I finished Titans & moved on to The Crowded Room on Apple TV…
It is really good and well made. That is about all I can say without spoilers but I do recommend it highly.
Listening to Ghost Hounds
ok, I tried to edit the title to The Crowded Room and lost the links…
and listening to:
I rather enjoyed the story of Maverick more than Top Gun because it had an actual plot besides F-14 Tomcats, homoerotic innuendo, hot chicks, Migs and Kenny Loggins tracks. Personally, I found it amusing Maverick followed the MC career path of pissing off superiors and telling/blurting out the truth which is actually true to a number of ace pilots who were good flying but horrible at the office politic.
The grand finale was a rehash of the Star Wars Trench run which was a rehash of the DamBusters based on the RAF 617 Squadron’s actual attack on the Ruhr Dams in 1943 using spinning bombs.
Oscar worthy? Not really. A fun movie? Yeah.
As for Chuck Yeager, he was quite the Maverick himself and the reason why US military pilots subconsciously all sound like they come from West Virginia on the radio.
Too bad his 2nd wife was so money hungry when Chuck started to lose his marbles from Alzheimers. Chuck’s P-51s and X-1 used to be a popular subject in model world till he or she decided to trademark Glamorous Glennis then sue any decal maker who printed his plane’s markings. No one gets rich or even makes a living with aftermarket model stuff (it is more a passion) so everyone just stopped making decals of his P-51s.
I submitted a P-51 Glamorous Glennis model for display at the 357th Fighter Group museum in Louisianna which was the only P-51B that was entered. His P-51D is the most common one modelers build. Apparently, Chuck was taken with it as it was the plane he flew and became “ace in day” by shooting down five German fighters on one mission. He was photographed holding it but the motherfucker who organized it fucked over a lot of modelers and never sent the photos as promised so I don’t have actual proof only that asshole’s “word”.
i…somewhat predictably didnt watch or read anything again…
least…no movies,series or books
and listening to babybeard
having now learned the moves badly….that routine is quite the workout…
(also everyone in the house including the cats now think i have mad cow dissease)