Media Logs

Three words: “amaze, amaze, amaze!” I adored this film. I understand that it has received some criticism for being a bit “hand-wavey” re: the science and linguistics of it all, but I don't care. It’s a lovely story about empathy and self-sacrifice at a time when I really needed it. I look forward to reading the novel.

My husband suggested this one; he watched it a few years back without me, much to my mild annoyance. 🙂 (I’m the horror movie buff in our family, dammit.) I wouldn’t say Midsommar was scary as such, but it was a deeply unsettling take on unresolved trauma, failing relationships, and creepy cults.

My husband and I loved this dramedy about a recently-widowed therapist, his teenage daughter, and their friends. We binged through the first two seasons in May and finished up season three in June. I did not enjoy this latest season as much as I enjoyed the first two, but I’m still excited to see where the series goes. It was nice to see Michael J. Fox on screen again — “fuck Parkinson’s,” indeed.

This film is extremely Wes Anderson. I mean that neither as a complaint, nor as a compliment. It just is. If you’re in the mood for a wacky comedy set at some point in the vaguely-distant past, beautifully colour-graded cinematography, an all-star cast that seldom smiles while delivering all their lines deadpan, an overabundance of wide lens shots, that “classic Hollywood” feeling, and Bill Murray, Wes Anderson has yet another offering for you.

The classic 1954 Hitchcock thriller. I hadn’t seen this one before and my husband hadn’t either, so we decided to check this one off the list last night. It’s not hard to tell that the screenplay was originally written for the theatre stage; an impressive amount of action occurs in one location! An extremely well-directed and well-performed film, as is to be expected, given the cast and crew.

An entertaining critique of wealth disparity in South Korea. The flood and bunker scenes were something else...

This movie, though it is monumentally stupid, is an all-time favourite of mine. I’ve seen it dozens of times since its 2001 release, but I’ve never watched it with my husband! We decided to rectify that. “... but why male models?” remains one of the funniest moments in any film ever.

Despite the writers’ rather tenous understanding of how tenure works, we enjoyed the first season of this wholesome comedy starring Steve Carell.

We didn’t have a chance to catch this one in theatres — a shame, as it was a visual treat! I found the second instalment of the 28 Years Later trilogy a bit better than the first, but nowhere near as good as 28 Days Later or 28 Weeks Later.

Alas, Abbott Elementary continues its recent trend of falling anywhere between “meh” to “just OK.” It’s something quick and occasionally amusing for us to watch over dinner. That’s it. While I do still enjoy the characters for the most part, the writing took a noticeable dip in quality this season.

Couldn’t get into it. My husband and I stopped watching after the first episode. It’s highly rated and has a good cast, so we may return to it at a later point and give it another chance.

A baffling disappointment, given that the first season was pretty decent. We gave up after three episodes.

A tightly-written, welcome departure from the royal intrigues of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.

A solid conclusion to the series. Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins were exceptional in their roles right up until the end. I’ll miss that bromance!

Dreadful writing. A waste of Emma Thompson’s talents. My husband and I threw in the towel after two episodes.

A slow burn that I really enjoyed. It’s fun to see Vince Gilligan getting back to his X-Files roots with this sci-fi/post-apocalyptic drama.

The latest season of Slow Horses was a fun romp, as always. It never ceases to amaze me that you can practically smell Gary Oldman through the screen!

Mick Herron’s excellent spy novel about MI5’s best rejects. I seldom read books after watching the film or television tie-in; the opposite is what usually occurs. In this case, I’m so glad I watched the TV series first, as I don’t think my own brain could have done quite as good a job of conjuring up a mental image for Jackson Lamb.

I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that this is only my first time reading this sci-fi / horror classic by H.G. Wells. I knew the basic story and understood the cultural significance of it, of course, but never actually read it. I’m glad I finally got around to it! The novel feels surprisingly fresh for something written between 1895 and 1897. “Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity—pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion.”

Antonia Hodgson’s first foray into fantasy could have done with a few more edits and it was a bit of a slog towards the end, but it was nice to finally read a well-imagined modern fantasy novel that wasn’t simply a delivery system for smut.

I quite enjoyed John Scalzi’s second installment in the Old Man’s War series. I didn’t find it as good as the first novel, but it was worth reading nonetheless.

AoE II was my favourite game to play at LAN parties as a teenager (oh, the friendships I almost ruined...), and I was delighted to find out that there is a native MacOS port now available on Steam. The port performs extremely well on my M4 Mac Mini, and it looks fantastic! My understanding is that the online multiplayer scene on MacOS isn’t great, since there is no cross-play between PC and Mac, but I’m content to just replay the old campaigns and run skirmishes for now. My husband is also a big AOE II fan, so we may soon test the strength of our marriage by playing against one another locally!

Another blast from the past that has been running pretty well on my Linux-powered laptop, with only a few audio-related hiccups from time to time. I unfortunately can't use sims2pack mods, but regular package mods from MTS work great!

A blast from the past that I’ve been playing with a crappy old laptop running on Linux (Kubuntu). The UI is as clunky as it ever was, but that only adds to the old-school charm!

An adorable, extremely well-designed game that’s worth playing if you’re into roguelikes and sims. It ran very well on my M4 Mac Mini.