I rewatched the first episode of Game of Thrones and was surprised at how far the show has gone. So many characters that were important to the show then are long dead now. Today’s main characters were so young. The younger ones were mere babies.
Ned, Catelyn, Robb, Khal Drogo, all gone. So sad. At least Khaleesi was willing to show off her butt then.
This was another talking episode. A lot of talk around the post white walker battle dinner table. A lot of advancements though. Gendry is an official Baratheon and there’s a mounting problem with John Snow’s claim to the Iron Throne.
Khaleesi lost another dragon. And her BFF. She is not happy.
Thoughts?
The hot girl and the nerd hook up.
BQB here with a review.
You know 3.5 readers, when the women folk say the world is biased against them, they might be onto something.
After all, you never see a movie with a studly dude who gets charmed by a chubby nerd girl. (This is where someone points me to that movie to prove me wrong.)
At any rate, Charlize Theron is the super hot Secretary of State Charlotte Field. At a swanky cocktail party, she is reunited with her childhood friend Fred Flarsky, Seth Rogen as the windbreaker loving, foul mouthed out of work journalist in need of a job.
When an actor turned president played by Bob Odenkirk decides he’d rather return to acting, Field is the frontrunner. She taps Flarsky as a speechwriter and soon enough, a romance is kindled.
Potty humor and most jokes revolve around getting the hot Theron to say naughty things.
It’s funny and that’s saying something with the state of comedy today.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Hey 3.5 readers.
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Hey 3.5 readers.
BQB here.
So, this episode was a long time coming. It’s the end of the road for many characters, their purposes and story lines coming to a final fulfillment.
We lost Dondarion – we always wondered why the Lord of Light favored him and now we know why.
We lost Jorah – fighting to the death to protect the girl who kept him in the friend zone.
We lost Theon, who was finally forgiven by the Stark he wronged.
I think we lost Brienne but I’m not sure.
We lost Lady Mormont, the little hero being squeezed by a giant.
We lost the Red Woman, her purpose finally fulfilled.
Overall, a great episode. And that the Knight King was dispatched so early and yet there are so many episodes left makes me think we’ll get the Khaleesi vs. Cersei battle we’ve long waited for.
Was the show too dark? Yes, as in it was literally too dark. They’re doing this thing now where they want realism. So when it is night, they make it so dark you can barely see anything. Occasionally, a fire will light up and you can see. Some people like this. I don’t. I think it’s possible to show a scene at night and still light it so it is watchable.
Sure, it’s not realistic. It’s like when some genius points out that a movie taking place in China yet how unrealistic it is that the characters are speaking English. Yes, it is, but on the other hand, I don’t have time to become fluent in Mandarin just to watch a movie.
But Hollywood seems bent on the dark night scenes now. I see this in movies and also other TV shows. Sometimes I’ll spend whole episodes of the Walking Dead just squinting at the screen.
I think I might be the only one who thinks it stinks.
BQB here with a review of what will apparently be the last Avengers movie.
It’s good. It’s flashy. It’s got all the usual razzle dazzle.
By the way, they did a good job of keeping the plot under wraps. There are some major changes that happen to the universe in this movie so if you haven’t seen it yet, you probably should not read on.
SPOILERS ABOUND.
So, it’s over three hours and there’s a lot of very confusing time travel. Basically, Ant Man informs us of quantum technology which is used by the Avengers to go back in time and grab the infinity stones before Thanos can.
The result is sort of a quasi-highlight reel of the past films in the franchise. The scenes aren’t all taken verbatim but the characters from the future are doing things while the characters from the past. In some ways it’s cool and leads to a lot of poignant wrapping up of a number of character arcs. In others, it feels like one of those final episodes of a TV show where the writers didn’t know what to do so they turned in a clip show.
I had a hard time following it and sad to say, it’s the first Avenger movie where I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
The ending is sad and sets up for new films with other characters taking the lead.
I’m not sure what they could have done differently and there are fun parts. It’s still worth the price of admission and wraps up the series well.
I just…I don’t know. Meh.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Hey 3.5 readers.
So, there was a lot of payoff in this episode. A lot of things that rewarded you if you’ve been watching since the show began:
#1 – Jaime now feels like a dick for pushing Bran out the window all those years ago. The show is a miraculous piece of writing that it has a character who started out the series pushing a kid out a window to cover up for his incestuous affair with his sister and now all these years later you feel sorry for him because he has grown and become a better person, a person who wouldn’t do such a thing now but he will always carry the guilt of having done so.
#2 – Jaime isn’t trusted by Dany because he killed her father though that seems silly because even she admits her father was a dickcheese. Brienne of Tarth vouches for him, rewarding you for watching that season where she and Jaime became the traveling odd couple.
#3 – Brienne is formally knighted. It seems like a sleight of writing hand to make it so any knight can appoint another knight because she’s known so many damn knights for so long. Then again, maybe she just needed to vouch for one and then he owed her a favor. It was a nice feminist moment though the show has long had women in positions of power. The GOT world is ancient and backward but damn if it doesn’t let women be in charge of things.
#4 – Arya and Gendry get freaky. This is bizarre and I’m not sure they should have done it. Problem is the actress who plays Arya still looks very young for her age though I guess she is of age now. I assume Gendry is her age but he looks like a full grown man getting down with a kid in this scene. I believe the characters are both of age at this point. I don’t know. They might have handled this scene better. Maybe they could have just alluded to it. Masie Williams just looks too young.
#5 – Khaleesi seems to really be up Tyrion’s ass for every little mistake. Jorah Mormount who doesn’t like Tyrion stands up for him, pointing out that no hand would ever not make a mistake and he as at least gotten her this far.
#6 – Sansa and Khaleesi are at odds. Also, she isn’t happy to learn Jon Snow is a Targaryen.
#7 – Tormund is a giant titty sucker.
#8 – Overall you just had a lot of characters who finally come together after years of infighting and so far the last season is progressing well.
I’m old.
This will probably be hard to explain due to a lack of exact dates and keeping things anonymous but I’ll try.
When I was young I really wanted to be a writer. I got internships in that both summers and then in my last semester I had a really big internship where I spent a semester in a big city working as an intern for a big organization. Honestly, I was basically a coffee fetcher, but it was fun and I fetched coffee for some big names.
After college, I returend to Podunk and got a small writing job locally. There was a part of me that wanted to go back to the back city and pursue a life there as a writer. It didn’t seem far fetched. As a young person in my early 20s, I’d already gotten a lot of experience. The rents wanted me to pursue something more practical and while I don’t want to throw them under the bus for doing what parents do and I realize it was up to me follow through with what I wanted, I ultimately chose the practical.
Do I blame them? A bit. Do I blame myself the most? Of course. There comes a time in adult life where you have to realize your parents don’t know everything and you will have to defy and disappoint them. Don’t worry though because either way it will work out great for them. If you defy them and do what you want and it fails, they can say I told you so forever. If you defy them and do what you want and it succeeds, they’ll say they were behind you all along and it was their idea. Also, fun fact, if you obey them and do what they want and it fails, they’ll say well you should have been your own man and what do they know.
Anyway, I blame myself entirely. It is a week man who blames others for their failings.
I told myself I’d do the practical for a while and then after I’ve made some money I’ll do what I actually want. (Kids, FYI this doesn’t happen. Don’t buy that shit if someone tells you it does.)
Long story short, the practical thing didn’t work out. At that point I thought maybe I should go back to my true love of writing.
But I was a wuss. So I did another practical thing. This practical thing actually worked out.
I do feel like I cheated myself though. The writing world had accepted me early and I ended up worrying that I’d end up 30 and failed because I wasn’t being paid much at 20. Now I realize that yeah, that just happens. You have to pay your dues but good for you, your foot is in the door. Your feet are on the first rung of the ladder, so keep climbing.
At this point now, I’m 40. I’m self sufficient. I suffered a lot though and to be honest, a lack of stability made relationships difficult. I had to come to grips this year with the fact that it’s too late to have children. Technically, I can have them forever but all the women in my age bracket are closed down for baby business.
Could I adopt a little Chinese kid? Sure. Do I fear they’ll send me a faulty one on purpose and refuse to take it back? All the big ticket purchases I’ve made in recent years where I open the box only to find that the item is missing a part such that someone at the factory was asleep at the switch tells me yes. (Was this meant as a joke? Partially.)
There’s nothing I can do about it now, but the regret is palpable. I had my foot in the door in what I wanted at an early age. Then I talked myself out of it. Then when that failed I was free to go back to what I wanted but I chickened out again. Ergo, had I just stuck like ten straight years in what I wanted, I probably would have gotten to be where I wanted.
Although sometimes now I think maybe it worked out because I guess I’ll never know for sure writing would have worked out.
I guess we never know how things work until we do them. When they don’t work, we are certain the opposite course would have been a success.
Question – How do I cope with this regret?
My answer – Keep writing self published books and hope one of them hits.
Feel free to offer your answers in the comments.
I hope all 3.5 of you have a good one.
God, this movie sucks.
Let’s get this review over with.
I rarely give a movie a bad review. After all, I’ve never made one before so any movie is better than my non-existent one, but this one is pretty bad.
The original two were great. That was largely due to Director Guillermo Del Toro’s ability to make the scary and macabre seem beautiful. The plots were well paced and succinct and you cared about the characters.
The reboot is garbage, like the writers weren’t sure what they wanted to do so they just threw a bunch of random crap into a blender and pushed the on switch.
It’s not just the deviation from the source material. Though fans will be disappointed to see Abe and Liz didn’t make the cut in this one, I’d be totally willing to be cool with the franchise going in a different direction. The problem is it went in like, 50 different directions.
David Harbour plays the titular demon gone good this time. There’s a wrestling match with a vampire and a team of giant hunters. The literal Alice in Wonderland and a were-cheetah are Hellboy’s companions. There’s a ridiculous amount of exposition and large chunks of backstory are simply spoonfed. There’s way too much telling and not enough showing. Somehow, this all leads to a battle royale with a witch (Mila Jovovich) and a pig man. How they are all interconnected? Your guess is as good as mine.
I might be willing to forgive all of this. Sometimes there are great properties that come out as steak and years later, all the studio is willing to give it is the potato chip treatment. Potato chips are good, now and then. At least they are tasty.
The problem is that amidst the lack of surety of which plot point the movie wants to focus on, there’s also some confusion over what it wants to be. The entire theme is juvenile. A big dope with filed down horns with potty humor galore. That’s not necessarily bad, but then the F bomb is dropped with reckless abandon, often for no added effect, just because they could do it apparently. I’m not against a good F bomb when it is timed right, but the first two put story over shock value while this one relies on swears and grossness. At least Del Toro made the grossness beautiful.
Ultimately, it’s a simpleton movie with ghosts and goblins that is the kind of stuff that is geared toward kids but then again, it’s riddled with gratuitous cussing so you can’t take a kid to it. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem because shows like “True Blood” have taught us there is room for adult themed horror but the problem is the movie is so dumb that the adults who can handle the swearing aren’t going to enjoy it. It’s too dirty for kids and too dumb for adults so who this movie is for I don’t know.
Ian McShane, who appears as Hellboy’s father, appears lost in this drek. At one point, there’s a scene where his face gets grafted onto a monster and one wonders if he either fired his agent or decided the money is worth it. At any rate, he’s too good for this and frankly, David Harbour is too.
I’m always sketchy about reboots, but done well, they can be great. And I always try to leave room that updates to long beloved properties are done to reflect youthful tastes and I’m not the target audience. Still, this just sucks. Hellboy is better than this and if he sees this movie, he’ll probably bash it with his rock arm.
STATUS: Not-shelfworthy.
Bookshelf Battle 