Whatcha Bleedin' Watchin'?

[Avaitor]

I just finished watching The Great, which mostly lives up to its title. It's from the writer of The Favourite, and it has the same kind of anachronisms that had, which will likely bother some. But that was one of my (heh) favorites from that year, and this is just as clever. It's also backed up by a strong cast, with an especially inspired duel lead performances from Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult.

Speaking of casting, there's one noteworthy thing I noticed. The cast is primarily British, which is to be expected in a European-based setting. Aside from Fanning, who is not only the one American in an English cast, but is already playing a German aristocrat in the Russian hierarchy. She's a fish out of water in every sense.

[Avaitor]

I'm really late to the game, but I watched the first episode of The Witcher out of boredom last night. I haven't read the books or played the games, although I do have a copy of III waiting to be played soon, but it was alright. You can tell that Netflix was really hoping to find their own Game of Thrones, but with a smaller cast and more of a willingness to embrace fantasy than D&D were. I know that it's only the pilot, but it doesn't seem as exciting or well-rounded thus far, although I did like Henry Cavill as Geralt. He honestly does have more charisma than Snyder allows.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, the payoff in the first season takes a while to happen. Definitely could've been tighten up more.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Fargo's back and it's pretty good. More fart jokes than I expected though.

In other news, some people I know have been complaining about the new Spitting Image, and it's awful. This is what people who hate South Park think a joke from South Park is like.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Watched The Boys season finale. The show's sending mixed messages. A few episodes ago, they mocked Endgame's girl power scene, but then the finale had a girl power scene anyway. Same thing with how much the show criticizes the superhero industry for its monopoly on society, when it's made by Amazon. It's almost like the show keeps saying "This thing you see in most media is bad unless we do it!", and while it's still much better than how the comic handled its satire, I'm not sure if the show actually knows what it's trying to say.

[Avaitor]

I've finally been getting around to PEN15, and it's pretty good. Cringey as all hell, but that's intentional.

On a side note, I think that Cuties movie would've been better received if it followed this show's suit, and had much older women play these pre-teen characters. That's really helped to make this show's use of raunchy, but relevant subject matter seem less creepy, like discovering masturbating or thongs. It comes close to being unacceptable in some episodes, like how you can see the thong strap in one of the actual 13-year-olds, but the heavier stuff is saved for the 30-year-olds, as it should be.

[Dr. Insomniac]

A little disappointed in this season of Fargo. Chris Rock is surprisingly great, but it isn't catching my interest as much as the prior seasons.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, while some of what I heard about the season sounded good on paper, I wasn't super drawn to this run of Fargo, which is why I bailed. Season 2 is still the one to beat, IMO.

[Dr. Insomniac]

This guy would make a good Wario though.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Wasn't expecting that Mandalorian ending. Season 2 had some better episodes than the last season, but when it takes a detour to do a backdoor pilot for an Ahsoka show or a Boba Fett show, it gets really fucking obvious.

Spoiler

Anyway, season 3 will inevitably have a scene where Grogu doesn't want to be trained by Luke and flies back to Mando, sparing him from Kylo Ren's lightsaber. Because not only is he the mascot of the show, he was also the driving force of the plot. It's hard to see the show and the main character going on without him. Unless season 3 is a heavy retool all about Mando saving Mandalore. Or worse, they give him a baby Gungan or a baby Grievous as a replacement.

[close]

[Avaitor]

I watched season 1 of Cobra Kai recently. Was not expecting to see Ed Asner in it.

But hey, it was quite good, I can totally understand the hype, and this is coming from someone who barely remembers watching the original Karate Kid ages ago. Granted, I'm only really into it when Johnny and Daniel are on- Miguel's fine, but the other teenagers don't impress me nearly as much. But I like how it shows how both characters have struggled with PTSD following the events of the original film, and how their lives have changed over the years. That does much better for me as opposed to when the show is trying to recreate the movie.

I do hope to get to season 2 soon, but I have some stuff going on over the holidays and probably won't finish it before season 3 starts on the first. But hey, I did find time to finish Lovecraft Country- meh.

[Dr. Insomniac]

First 2 episodes of Wandavision were cute. Maybe it's because he reminds me of David Hyde Pierce, but Paul Bettany's wonderful when doing sitcom fare.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Wandavision is kind of an interesting novelty so far, and I respect the commitment to making it genuinely feel like the era of sitcom that the first two episodes try to emulate, but it does also feel a bit plain on it's own. Like, if this wasn't connected to the MCU, I'm not sure if it would be able to hold people's interest with this content and format to stick around long enough to see what's going on.

Still, I'm genuinely curious to see where this goes.

Also binged through Cobra Kai season three. I don't care if it's over-the-top, much like The Karate Kid and it's sequels, it has the right combination of cheese and heart that's up my alley. That said, Hawk's face-turn was way too sudden given how much of an ass-hole he was being even up to the season finale. I also just don't care for Tory as a character, and I have a hard time really giving as much of a shit about Robby as the show clearly wants me to. To me, Johnny and Miguel are the heart of the show and it works at it's best when it centers around them. That said, Daniel has gotten plenty of good moments of his own, here.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I don't know. I've seen people who don't like the MCU gravitate towards Wandavision, so it must be doing something right. Also seeing people compare it to Legion, which I don't agree with since Legion was far less willing to hold the audience's hand.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, that's definitely a good thing if it's managing to attract fans outside of those already invested in the MCU. I imagine it's no accident that this strays very far from the expected MCU content in no small part as a response to criticism that the movies are too formulaic. While I can acknowledge some of that, though, I still like the MCU for what it is, so while I'm glad that Disney is at least willing to allow for some creative experimentation, I also hope that they don't try to over-correct and be different for just for the sake of it. Then again, I suppose that's what FatWS is supposed to be. In that regard it makes sense to debut WV on Disney + first as their experiment and then have something more familiar to fall back on shortly after so as not to completely alienate the pre-existing fanbase.