Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
The shows and movies I like (or don’t).
72/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
As always, Trek is at its best when it’s looking at modern issues through an SF lens. On the surface, this is about Pike and Number One at Starfleet Academy, paired with a later mission that ties back to those experiences. But when dealing with minority ethnic groups reacting to years of oppression, there’s a lot more there as well. Plus, of course, some very entertaining ties to wider Trek lore.
🎥: Wolfs (2024): ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A thoroughly entertaining blend of Heat and Adventures in Babysitting. Clooney and Pitt play really well off each other. A good choice when you’re in the mood for a low-key action comedy.
69/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A mysterious and dangerous astral phenomenon threatens the Earth, and Spock, Uhura, and Chekov must try to solve a mystery that ends up being tied to Uhura’s forgotten past. Meanwhile, Kirk, overseeing Starfleet Academy, has to deal with some problematic new cadets. The Kirk-centric B-blot is okay, mostly interesting for fleshing out more of Kirk’s time between the films. The primary plot is more interesting, especially as it picks up the thread of how Uhura was affected by her loss of memory during the Nomad incident, something never (or very rarely) explored. That part of the story I very much enjoyed.
🎥 Twisters (2024): ⭐️⭐️
Oh, this was just dumb. Not that I expected much of it, but I was hoping for more enjoyably dumb instead of just…meh. Not so bad as to be a single star, just enough amusing moments for two stars, but definitely not any more than that.
🎥 Mad Max 2 (1981): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
While the first now feels like an unnecessary origin story, this is where you can really see the world of the modern Mad Max movies taking shape in Miller’s mind. The homoeroticism and queer coded villains are simultaneously hilarious and cringy, but wow, did this film ever solidify an aesthetic. The car chases and stunts, along with the customized vehicles, really set the stage for what will come along a few decades later. Once again, I have no idea when I last watched this, but I enjoyed watching this one again more than I did the first film.
🎥 Deadpool & Wolverine (2024): ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is not a good film. It’s two hours of profanity, obscene violence, and ludicrous fan service, with barely enough plot underlying it to string the fight scenes together. Basically, it’s a Marvel Cinematic Universe porno. It’s also rather entertaining, which I feel like I should feel bad about. I’m not disappointed to have watched it, but it’s not one I’ll ever really need to watch again, either.
🎥 Mad Max (1979): ⭐️⭐️
I don’t remember how long ago I last watched this, but it’s interesting watching this now, particularly with the more recent two (Fury Road and Furiosa) much more in my mind. Those are so woman-focused and nonstop, that going back to where it started, where very little happens for much of the film and women exist almost entirely as victims, is rather jarring. It’s most interesting to me as kind of a prologue to the rest of the Mad Max stories — in today’s franchises, it would be the origin story that no-one really asked for but the studio felt compelled to make, only in this case, it was actually the first one made. I can’t really say I like it, even, but I can see the impact it had and respect its place in kicking off a franchise that has just kept improving over time.
🎥 Wicked Little Letters (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Very funny, but dark and disturbing at its core. Olivia Coleman is wonderful. The mystery, perhaps, isn’t all that mysterious, but that’s not so much the point. The outrageousness of the story (based on true events) and all the wonderful characters really make it shine.
We’ve had two internet outages in the past week, one for most of Tuesday, the second for 36 hours from 2 a.m. Saturday to 2 p.m. Sunday.
During the Tuesday outage, I realized (once again) that Plex, home media server software that allows you to stream media over your home network, doesn’t do that if there isn’t an active internet connection. Having home media server software that doesn’t work as a home media server in a situation where you’re quite likely to want to use it because you can’t stream from external sources is more than a little frustrating, and finally pushed me over the edge into looking into alternatives.
So, I started getting Jellyfin set up as my media server, and when the internet went out again, it quite happily and easily let us watch a couple movies over the weekend. I’m still figuring out some of the ins and outs (Jellyfin doesn’t have its own native macOS or tvOS app, and the Infuse app that I’m using isn’t showing movie special features, but I don’t yet know if that’s a limitation or user error), but it was easy to set up, read my existing media files as originally set up for Plex just fine, and is doing what I wanted it to, which Plex doesn’t seem to be prioritizing anymore as they pivot more towards building their own streaming service.
All that said: Even when Plex was being a snit, we still have a DVD player, so between that and getting Jellyfin set up, we did manage to get three spooky-season movies watched:
Sleepy Hollow (1999): ⭐️⭐️⭐️: Tim Burton during his peak years still holds up. I’d forgotten just how strong the cast was in this one. Still a lot of fun.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992): ⭐️⭐️⭐️: This one doesn’t hold up so well. I still mostly enjoy it, but between the constantly varying stylization and Reeves’ and Ryder’s flatness, it drags on more than I remembered. Also, I’d totally forgotten just how horny this film is (not necessarily a bad thing, just didn’t remember that).
Young Frankenstein (1974): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Still and always a classic.
67/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This one was a particularly interesting and on-the-nose bit of “exploring today’s issues through SF”. Published in 2020 (and so, assumedly, written in 2019), the Enterprise is called into to observe the voting process for a planet having its first democratic elections. The contest is between a hardline conservative near-fascist military general whose followers use intimidation and assault, and a liberal reformist challenger who (minor spoiler) eventually steps down after a controversy and turns their candidacy over to a younger candidate. There’s a separate, more standard Trek adventure where Spock has to try to rescue McCoy and Chapel from other planets in the system, but reading the primary political plot just over a week before our election (between a hardline conservative fascist and a more liberal challenger who took over from the prior candidate) was an interesting experience. I can only hope we handle our election as successfully as this fictional planet does.
