What I Watched: The Lincoln Lawyer season three. Good stuff. The show is based on Michael Connelly’s book of the same name, featuring Los Angeles attorney Mickey Haller, half-brother of Connelly’s character Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch. Unfortunately, the characters can’t cross over because one show is Netflix and the other is Amazon (spoilers).
From The Guardian’s best seven shows to stream this week: Would you hire a lawyer who did his business out of the back of his car? We’ve reached the third season of this drama so perhaps the premise isn’t as absurd as it seems. Mickey Haller’s latest case is personal: Gloria Dayton, an old friend and client, has been murdered. However, he has serious doubts about the suspect arrested for the crime and does some digging himself. Before long, he’s making some well-connected and dangerous enemies. But as Haller goes deeper into an apparent conspiracy, how many of his colleagues will he take with him?
What I Read: Trouble Brewing in Harrogate: A DI Adams mystery – magic, menace, & snark in a Yorkshire urban fantasy (Book Two) by Kim M. Watt. This is very much a Ben Aaronovitch-Rivers of London style book. I think it might appeal to both @HammerZeitgeist and @SplinterRIP.
Book blurb: This beer festival’s going off with a bang . . . A call from an old colleague has DI Adams off her patch and out of her depth, investigating a mysterious new beer with unexpected side effects. Side effects far more dangerous than a simple hangover. Deadly brewers. Super-powered DJs. Raging florists. And it’s not just them. Half the police in Yorkshire have fallen for the beer’s spell, and Adams is barely keeping a step ahead. If she doesn’t figure this out before festival opening night the whole county will be under the influence of Niddered Ale, and there’ll be no sobering up from it. Not ever. But she’s got her invisible dog, her trusty duck, and her really big stick. Plus she’s just dying to arrest someone. If she can get past those superpowers and stay out of jail, of course . . . The DI Adams Mysteries contain no graphic violence, scenes of a sexual nature, or strong language, but they do contain some blasphemy, as well as a truly disturbing level of caffeine consumption.
What I Listened To: Father John Misty – I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All; Matt Nathanson – Pablo Picasso; and Bakermat – Save My Soul (feat. AMANZI) @Farscythe, our guy still has it:
Thank you for playing Brain Drain! How are you, dearest ones? Darling DeadSplinterites, what’s going on? Please do share with us!
I watched more Detroiters on Netflix. It had the misfortune of running on Comedy Central when it decided to kill original programming and just become South Park rerun marathons and coast off basic cable subscriber dollars.
At any rate, it’s really good stupid crude fun that still manages to be affectionate toward the characters and city.
Nothing actually new since the Tragically Hip Miniseries
I ended up rewatching a few things:
Shaun Of The Dead. A great film, worth watching if you haven’t more for the humor and less about the zombies. The one character I wish had died sooner was Ed (Nick Frost’s character) because I know how his stupid would have gotten everyone killed. I think Ed was written that way to piss off people like me who suffered from the brain dead (literal) decisions of morons. Still a fun movie despite my own PTSD.
The World’s End. Last of the Coronetto trilogy. I enjoyed it, but it was a painful watch especially during the time it was released and sort of ironic as I just came back from Homecoming. Still a variation on a theme with Nick Frost winning me over as the competent solicitor being a complete 180 from Ed/Shaun of the Dead.
Re:read Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. One of the great SF novels from the 1970s. One of the first novels to deal with effect of time dilation on relationships and motivation.
It is too bad that one has tried to film this classic. Based on Joe Haldeman’s actual combat experience in Vietnam and the temporal disorientation caused by rapid societal changes from even just a single one year tour ‘in Country.’
…the forever war stuff is really great
…that old man’s war run by john scalzi isn’t as good…but…if you like haldeman & are familiar with modern pop culture there’s a decent chance you’d like those
…it’s a bit like saying the same thing about ancilliary justice…or a few others that deal with disillusioned far-future warriors in various different kinds of artificially embodied scenarios…in much the same way as saying this or that tale of a wizard child overcoming their nemesis to achieve the fullness of their powers is “a bit like the wizard of earthsea”…but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true?
I enjoyed Old Man’s War too.
The one thing I liked about The Forever War was how the element of luck played as the character was a reluctant soldier/unremarkable in combat but with a talent for getting missed unlike the typical hero type charging into a wall of lead/lasers/plasma/explosives and somehow surviving (which how I suspect Joe felt he was as a soldier, no John Wayne type)
The trope of the heroic anti-hero is still strong in this part of SF.
…it’s not sci fi…but along with the thief of time…I think interesting times is the pratchett where cohen the OAP barbarian & his silver horde attempt a coup that relies on their extensive experience of being where the thing someone is trying to kill them with isn’t
…it’s sort of their superpower?
Shaun of the Dead gave me a new appreciation for cricket bats.
And bad records😉😁
I love that movie!
I watched the new season of The Diplomat on Netflix. It’s so good. I watched the whole season in one night. I comfort watched Gosford Park and The Cat’s Meow last night instead of eating ice cream.
We’ve got the new season of The Diplomat queued up for next.
…ok…maybe instead of letting things drive me to drink I should try the beer-centric detective thing…my liver thanks you?
…only got as far as season 2 of the old man so far…but my man the dude & mr lithgow have also been a pleasant change of pace
…as has what we have so far of another season of lower decks
…maybe I’ll try upping my escapism to the realm of fantasy…think there’s another batch of vox machina…&…there’s always things like bleach…or my daemon…or…well let’s just say a lot of anime involves things that get translated as “spiritual pressure” in a way that makes me think “mystic energy” might work better?
…& I’m feeling like things that are “real” right now make less sense than believing in seeing things that other people swear aren’t there…so…there’s undeniably some appeal?
…might be more of the arcane/league of legends thing, too…& sundry other such things
…I might rewatch hit monkey, even…the casualties in that riff on the war against evil might be vaguely cathartic
…the boy with the heron might be more of a balm, though
…not sure I’m ready for another season of the diplomat…but once I get my strength back I probably will be
…& I don’t know if it’s new, new…or just new to me…but another season of tulsa king with sly stallone…isn’t more lillyhammer…but…any port in a storm?
I read Pumpkin Spice and Poltergeist. It’s a super cozy quick read.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214500539-pumpkin-spice-poltergeist
I’m finishing up Star Trek Discovery and wow is season 5 just shitty. I’ve got 2 episodes left, so I feel like I’ve seen enough episodes to have this opinion.
1. Did they use different writers than seasons 1-4? Seriously? The dialogue is just consistently trite and doesn’t feel like earlier seasons.
2. Ok apparently every person on the ship is just a super genius. Totally plausible.
3. The tech does not feel grounded in reality at all anymore. Fucking “time bug”? I keep thinking of that line from Rob Lowe’s movie producer character in Thank You For Smoking making fun of how you solve problems in scifi — Probably. But it’s an easy fix. One line of dialogue. ‘Thank God we invented the… you know, whatever device.’
4. Apparently we’re not caring about development of any other crew members except Michael Burnham.
5. The Breen are a stupid villain in this season. I didn’t watch/remember enough Deep Space 9 to remember the Breen from anywhere else. I still don’t understand why the Breen are involved on this scale this season. LIke the stupid ‘oh go get all the creator god mcguffins’ would work without the Breen threat.
6. The idea that this violent militaristic xenophobic race would suddenly accept the idea of Moll as a functional political figurehead and that she isn’t just in the Breen equivalent of the Tower of London awaiting execution blows my mind. Like it makes the Breen look stupid that they went along with this.
7. Finally, the whole tone is basically “Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones/National Treasure IN SPACE”!!! Gotta go get all these puzzle piece mcguffins for the big reveal about the Progenitors or whatever that’s gonna turn out to be. Underwhelming.
I wish they had just ended with season 4.
This review makes me glad I stopped watching when I did.
I thought you were talking about Lower Decks…
Whew.
I thought McConaughey made a better Lincoln Lawyer because the new guy isn’t as sufficiently sleazy as the Michael Connelly books made him.
apparently netflix picked up on me thinking about the benefits of a giant asteroid again for some odd reason and recommended i watch goodbye earth…so i did
well…technically i am…as when the credits suddenly rolled after an hour i realized its a twelve part series…not a movie….sometimes i need to pay a little more attention to detail
anyways..2 episodes in so far and its pretty good if not exactly cheerful watching…tho im still not quite used to how much korean shows flit between current and flashback to tell the story…is a little harder to follow…course part of that is also down to me not speaking the language…so i cant do my normal half pay attention and still follow trick
course all things considered i understand if nobody exactly feels like watching a series about the world ending right about now…. but i do