Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
The shows and movies I like (or don’t).
It: Chapter Two: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Not bad, but not nearly as strong as the first. Good character building and creepy scares became too much CGI and too many jump scares. In the end, the creepyness of part one becomes just another collection of loud noises and CG monsters in part two.
Book forty-nine of 2019: Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series, by Aaron Harvey and Rich Schepis. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
TAS finally gets its behind-the-scenes episode-by-episode review. Artwork, trivia, and memories from those involved make this a must for TAS fans. 🖖
Book forty-seven of 2019: Starfleet Academy, by Diane Carey ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A quick and simple bit of fluff, based on an early CD-ROM game. As such, not exactly the most complex or demanding of novels, even among Trek books, but that’s about what I expected, so no disappointment.
Aquaman: ⭐️⭐️
Completely ridiculous, and in the constant-eye-rolling sense, rather than the this-is-fun sense. Admittedly, it was nice to see a DC film that wasn’t as dark (thematically and literally) as most have been, there were occasional gorgeous images, and I did get an occasional laugh. But there were just so many things that didn’t work for me, from the weird underwater effects to the soundtrack — the first time a character gave a dire pronouncement and it was immediately followed by a literal “bom-bom-bommmmmm”, I laughed, but when it became a recurring theme, it went from a sly wink at the audience to simply annoying — that this just ended up continuing DC’s nearly uninterrupted streak of uninteresting and unsatisfying superhero films.
I love this remembrance of an old newspaper summary of Top Gun.
★★ TOP GUN
(Drama, 1986) Trivializes war by turning it into a music video. Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer. (1 hr. 50 min.)
Book forty-four of 2019: The Enterprise War, by John Jackson Miller. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Filling in the blanks of Pike’s Enterprise up to the start of season two of ST: DIS. Not a bad romp, and helps to flesh out some of the secondary characters we see in Pike’s crew.
Just (finally) watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and wow, does that film deserve every accolade it’s received. A great film, and absolutely gorgeous – that animation work was incredible, and just as groundbreaking as I’d heard. I’m a fan.
In memory of Mad magazine and Alfred E. Neuman, 1952-2019. What, me worry?
The one issue I keep is part of my Star Trek collection; the bust I inherited from my dad, and dates from around 1960.
🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E14 (Late, because I was at Norwescon.) So many explosions! I’m not exactly opposed to getting a little Star Wars in my Star Trek, but this may have been a bit much. Ending on the Enterprise was pretty, but odd. Overall: imperfect, but satisfactory.
🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E13 So many questions; quite glad there’s still one more episode. Enjoying the Short Treks tie-ins (maybe even Calypso?). But…wow. The Enterprise bridge! That was an incredible modernization that still obviously respected the original. I was blown away.