I'm semi-retired and work from home since before the pandemic. So weekends are the same as every other day: work 3-4 hours first thing in the morning, then do what I want the rest of the day.
I saw Spider Man: No Way Home the other day, and saw Matrix: Resurrection and the Hawkeye finale today. They all have post-credit scenes that are worth waiting for. Spider Man has a mid-credit scene, and then a post-credit scene, but the post-credit scene is really just a standard looking trailer for Dr Strange. The Matrix post-credit scene is ALL the way at the end, after the thanks for the tax credits stuff.
The Matrix wasn't bad. It's not as good as the original trilogy, but I had fun watching it. I don't know why the characters do a lot of the things they do, but the film makes it easy to turn off your brain and just enjoy the show. I think Lana Wachowski took on this project just to stop WB from letting Zak Penn ruin her legacy (he's the guy who ruined Ready Player One). I don't want to spoil anything, but it's self conscious about being another franchise built on nostalgia and old ideas. It does it in a funny, genuine way. I do miss Lawrence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving, but they wrote around their absence well. Neil Patrick Harris is a great villain. He gives Dr Horrible vibes, which fits the tone of the film.
If it's been a while since you saw the original trilogy, you might miss that Neil Patrick Harris is the Oracle, who took the architect's job and became evil.
Hawkeye ended nicely. They didn't keep going with the meandering long cuts during fight scenes, which was a little disappointing. Maybe they blew their cinematography budget on the first half of the show or something. It's still a fun show, though, and I look forward to seeing where the spin offs go.
Spider Man was allright, but not as good at Matrix or Hawkeye. I think it had a lot of call backs to older Spider Man films that I didn't get, because I only saw the first two Toby Macguire films, and then I totally lost interest when they started rebooting it all the time.
Daredevil has a cameo. Put that together with Kingpin's cameo in Hawkeye, and it looks like they are making the Netflix Daredevil series MCU canon again.
The worst part of Spider Man was the combat. It's full of quick cuts in the dark, and aerial combat. Quick cuts in the dark literally put me to sleep, because I mentally check out until the fight is over when I can't see it. Aerial combat is a bad idea. I mean, I get it... when you have characters who can fly, or fling themselves through the air, you want to make them fight in the air, because it looks so cool in comics. That doesn't translate to film, though. You can have one character throw a train at another character, but if they are in the air, it will always look cartoonish, because there's no mass like there is if you do it to characters on the ground. They do this stuff in Sony films a lot, though, so it's not like I went in expecting fantastic combat. I'm just always a bit annoyed when I see the same mistakes over and over.
I sorta liked them. Real people need to take breaks during a fight! Might as well fill the huffing-puffing lets catch our breaths before going at it again with important exposition.
Taking the Rockefeller xmas tree down during the fight scene was pretty great, imo!
I also want to put somewhere that Kate's monologue to Clint about heroes was possibly the best defense of characters like Black Widow and Hawkeye being part of the Avengers. I rewound and watched it through 3 times; I found it pretty stirring.
I sorta liked them. Real people need to take breaks during a fight! Might as well fill the huffing-puffing lets catch our breaths before going at it again with important exposition.
Taking the Rockefeller xmas tree down during the fight scene was pretty great, imo!
I also want to put somewhere that Kate's monologue to Clint about heroes was possibly the best defense of characters like Black Widow and Hawkeye being part of the Avengers. I rewound and watched it through 3 times; I found it pretty stirring.
. It does it in a funny, genuine way. I do miss Lawrence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving, but they wrote around their absence well. Neil Patrick Harris is a great villain. He gives Dr Horrible vibes, which fits the tone of the film.
I honestly did not see the point of Smith at all. He added nothing and basically existed to be Deus Ex Machina during the finale. They never even really explained how he survived or how he could avoid the Deja Vu time manipulation. Wait, wasn't that the name of the company he and Neo were running?
Plus the Merovingian was pretty random.
All of the meta level referential bits started to feel really awkward as well. It was ok, but the script really could have used a bit of polish and a bit less, "Look! Remeber the old Matrix movies!"
Also I can't believe they made the Deja Vu cat the villain.
I just saw Don't Look Up on Netflix, and I found every moment of the film absolutely gripping. Part of that is because I recently read Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion, and I'm still digesting that. I should have read it years ago, but avoided it because Lippmann hung out with bad economists.
Anyway... the acting and writing in Don't Look Up are superb. Everybody thinks it's really about global warming, but I don't think that's the case. It's about how power structures work in modern society, to prop up an incompetent, cruel ruling class. They keep power through marketing, incendiary polemic, and sometimes black bagging people.
When the shit hits the fan, even the hardest empirical scientists return to the comfort of family and religion, rather than seizing power, or punishing the elites who caused the problems. These mechanisms are so powerful in this film, the ruling class can even survive destroying the planet, killing all of us.
Hated it passionatedly. For enough reasons to fill a few pages. I had to stop part way through, the level of cringe was causing physical discomfort and I felt like I was watching actors (that I normally enjoy) going through the career equivalent of food poisoning.
A better title would have been "Two Cassandras, One Comet"
Tracking 11 years of price hikes—now as part of the competitive 2022 streaming world.
arstechnica.com
Unlike many previous Netflix price hikes, this year's bump hits all three subscription options. In the United States, the "basic" tier, which is capped at 720p and includes other limits, receives its first increase in three years, jumping $1 to $9.99 per month. The 1080p "standard" tier goes up $1.50 to $15.49 per month. And the 4K "premium" tier jumps $2 to $19.99 per month. Canadian customers can expect similar jumps in prices for all three tiers as well.
Netflix thinks they are the hot shit but honestly they will likely be the first to go if I were trimming back. Highest price and I don't watch them as much.
My brother has Netflix, I have Disney, and we each made the other their own profile. If he decides to drop it I wouldn't miss it really, though since I'm thinking of dropping cable entirely, I'm going up be looking at everything to see what shows I watch on cable are also there.
I don't think he will, though because of my nephew.
Very last episode of The Expanse dropped on Friday. Yeah, things end a bit abruptly, but there's an amazing battle sequence in it. Here's a screenshot of the good guys' assault teams roster.
www.rollingstone.com
arstechnica.com
