Digested Ham

Media Digest: January 4, 2017

What I'm Watching

• So, I finally finished watching The Following. On the one hand, it was certainly good enough to watch, but on the other, I really had to suspend my disbelief more than usual. How many times must Ryan Hardy go rogue when it's clearly dangerous and stupid to do so? Frankly, I was shocked at one point toward the end of the series when he actually included some other law enforcement in his plans. And the show seemed odd in its focus. Season one made sense, as it's centered on serial killer Joe Carroll. Season two was weird and less satisfying. And in season three the focus was quite scattered. I don't think the series could have sustained another season. After all, how many psycho serial killers in a row could reasonably be obsessed with killing the same guy? I also didn't love the show's final scene.
      One thing I did like was how Ryan and Joe's relationship sometimes turned into a cute (albeit one-sided) buddy movie thing. On those occasions you could see something of Joe's allure, which was not obvious earlier in the series, even though loads of people clearly were attracted to him for some reason. 
• Sully, unsurprisingly, was very good. I was surprised by the non-linear storytelling, and was briefly worried that we'd be cheated out of seeing the crash, but we're not. Tom Hanks is always great.
• True Memoirs of an International Assassin is a cute enough movie. Kevin James is a fiction writer who winds up living a life like the one he wrote a bestselling novel about.

Media Digest: December 16, 2016

What I'm Watching

• So, I watched Sex Lies and Videotape. After hearing the title for so many  years I thought the movie surprisingly uninteresting. But maybe it was shocking in its day. What's really disturbing, though, is the picture of Andie MacDowell on the movie cover, because it looks like it's going to be a story about a psychotic killer drag queen (hello, Dressed to Kill).
• The Following. I'm enjoying this Kevin Bacon series, though I don't like watching it alone in the house at night on the treadmill with earbuds in for some reason. 

What I'm Reading

• I'm working my way through David Richardson, Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language.
• I finished, but need to write a review of Brain Trust, by Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore.

 

Media Digest: November 26, 2016 -- Mr. Spader

What I'm Watching

• Secretary: Having finished season 3 of Blacklist, I was interested to see some of James Spader's earlier work. Yowza. 

Media Digest: November 1, 2016 -- Red Reddington and other heroes

What I'm Watching

• Faster:  Dwayne Johnson pairs up in this one with Billy Bob Thornton. It's very okay, not bad, not great, but there is an unexpected twist at the end.
• Spectre: I watched this one a second time because I'd forgotten I'd seen it already. Why? Because one James Bond movie is much like another: pretty, and fun to watch, but I can never follow the plot.
• Star Trek Beyond: This was also a pretty movie, and I bet it was really impressive on a larger screen than my Kindle Fire. 
• The Blacklist: Catching up on Red Reddington. I don't care about anyone else in the show particularly, but I do love his character.

Media Digest: October 27, 2016 -- The Rock

What I'm Watching

• Central Intelligence:  Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart are old high school acquaintances who team up for a spy caper. A cute movie, chiefly because it's hard not to like The Rock. Stick around for the closing credits.

Media Digest: October 25, 2016 -- Plot twists

What I'm Watching

• Shattered:  Pierce Brosnan kidnaps Gerard Butler's daughter! It's a decent thriller with a couple of twists.
• Favor: A friend helps you move a couch. A good friend helps you move a body.... This had a low budget feel to it, but I thought the story itself was really good. 

Media Digest: October 15, 2016 -- Jason Bateman

What I'm Watching

• Disconnect:  Jason Bateman stars in this movie that tells three loosely connected stories, all of them involving the internet. One's about cyber crime, another about cyber sex, but the most poignant has to do with cyber bullying. The victim is Bateman's screen son, a high school music nerd who falls for some mean-spirited catfishing. An excellent movie, primarily because of the bullying storyline.
• Identity Thief:  Jason Bateman's identity is stolen by pretty much the worst person in the world, or so Melissa McCarthy initially appears. It's a cute movie. 
• The Change-Up:  Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds star in this Freaky Friday remake. It's cute-ish, and I like both stars, but it's too vulgar to be really good. Some of it had me wincing rather than laughing. The Jamie Lee Curtis/Lindsay Lohan Freaky Friday, on the other hand, holds up very well, is genuinely funny, and doesn't wallow in crudity.

Media Digest: August 4, 2016 -- Just one more thing...

What I'm Watching

• Bad Words: Jason Bateman swears a lot in this funny/interesting movie about a 40-something infiltrating kids' spelling bees for reasons not initially revealed.
• Columbo 1.1 (Murder by the Book): Jack Cassidy kills his mystery writing partner. 
• Columbo 1.2 (Death Lends a Hand): Robert Culp plays a private investigator who kills a client's wife.

Media Digest: July 31, 2016 -- Wart, Lorelai, and JoJo

What I'm Reading

• Bill Bryson, Notes From a Small Island (print): Now I get why he's so popular. He's a good writer!
• T.H. White, The Once and Future King (Kindle): Reading this at the same time as my daughter, who has to read it as summer homework before high school. It's enough to turn someone off books.
• Zygmunt Miłoszewski, Rage (Kindle): I seem to have gotten this for free as a Kindle First selection and I'm glad I did. Great writing. Enthralling plot. I'll be buying the other books in the series.
• J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (audio): I've never been much of an audiobook person, but I'm enjoying reliving the series aurally. 

What I'm Watching

• Gone Girl: A good adaptation of the book.
• The Gilmore Girls, episode 7.8: [SPOILERS] This show is driving me crazy. At least half of it is about Lorelai's relationships and now she up and marries Christopher in Paris and they decide to not even show us? And we're supposed to be happy with her selection? I would have been years ago perhaps, but not now. Not now. And apparently we're still supposed to think Rory is super gifted and super responsible even after she steals a boat and drops out of Yale. But that's all forgiven now because she's back to being super Rory, the poor little not really rich girl who has not one but two familial sources who want to pay for her education so bad they practically fight each other for it—not to mention a rich boyfriend to live with so she doesn't have to pay rent. So, so much in this show is maddeningly unrealistic, and so many of the characters annoy the hell out of me (looking at you, Sookie St. James), and yet I can't stop watching it.
• The Bachelorette: [SPOILERS] Jojo ditched Luke for no good reason and is now deciding between Robbie and Jordan. 

What I'm Playing

• slither.io: My highest score to date is 37,749.