Week 2: Am I Still Doing This?

 I made it to a second (well, third) post! Good god. Anyway.

Watching:

The Book of Boba Fett Episodes 1 & 2: Episode 1 was fine but holy shit, the second one utterly blew the doors off. Even included a Fast & The Furious action scene that beats the pants off anything they've done since Fast Five. Loving this show and also how much Temmura Morrison seems to be working his own indigenous culture into the culture of the Tuskens, doing great work moving them from "savages" to a real culture. Also, MY BOY.  (Disney+)

The Irishman: I watched this way back when it first dropped an always meant to get back to it. Shockingly, it holds up, despite the 3.5 hour runtime, it's a prefect kind of hangout movie. The relaxed pace only adds to the feel that you are seeing a man's entire life, and the back half of the 20th century, move by. There's definitely something to be written about how this film and The Wolf of Wall Street are Scorsese's final words to be said about how the mob of his youth morphed into the government and big business of today, but I don't have the brain cells for it right now. 

In The Heat Of The Night: As you do when a famous person passes on, I immediately grabbed my copy of this off the shelf when I heard that Sidney Poitier had died. I bought this bluray back during Criterion's sale over the Summer and never got to it but man, I wish I had sooner. One of those films that's so perfectly crafted that is stuns you while watching it. People often say "You can't make that film today" and for this one it's 100% true, not because of the realism of the ingrained racism of that time in America, but because there's not a "good" liberal white person to make the audience feel good about themselves. Everyone in that town resents or outright hates Pitier's Virgil Tibbs for simply being a black man who has status and demands respect. Rod Steiger's police captain is perfect because even though he eventually grows to have a base of respect for Tibbs, you know that doesn't even put a dent in his racist worldview. But it's not homework, at its heart the film is a pure murder procedural that never goes out of its way to make judgements, it just shows things as they were, and still are. (Also streaming on HBO Max now)

That's the hits, as always you can head over to Letterboxd for the full list of what I've watched. 

Reading:

The Divide Series by J.S. Dewes: Blew through the first two books in this series this week and I'm now waiting with bated breath for the trilogy capper (due in 2023, maybe). If you've enjoyed the Murderbot series this definitely fills that hole, with a crew of human disasters sentenced to guard the edge of the universe and find themselves as the only people who have the ability to save it from disasters both natural and political. Definitely check them out.

The Green Lantern by Grant Morrison & Liam Sharp: I know that the conventional wisdom on this has been that it's Morrison's weakest DC work in a while, but I was surprised to see last arc show up on both Graeme and Jeff's best of 2021 list during their year end show on Wait, What so I decided to read through the whole thing via the library. The first volume is fine, it's really a showcase for Liam Sharp's art but that's not a knock as his work is gorgeous (with lush colors by Steve Oliff). I had read up to maybe issue 8 when it originally was coming out so I'm eager to dig into stuff that is new to me with the next volume. 

Speaking of Wait, What, Graeme has a new newsletter going and I can't recommend it enough. The last one is a dive into Marvel's decision to bring Miracleman into the Marvel U proper and whether that is inadvisable (spoilers: it likely is) and also the recent win for employees at Image Comics in their union election. Great stuff, the kind of deep dive opinions that is sorely lacking in the current comics journalism sphere.

I've also started this twitter thread that will document every single issue comic I read this year. That's all for this week.

This Week In Concerts

Welcome to an irregular feature for the next year, I unearthed a pile of concert ticket stubs from my younger days and I'll post whatever I was up to that week, though it may be thin on the ground for the next bit because January and February always seemed like lean months on the concert schedule. 

Anyway this week's only show was Sarge at Metro back in 1999. Sarge was a three, later four piece indie rock group fronted by Elizabeth Ellmore and they were one of those bands that seemed to open for everyone for a few years ago. Think I first caught them opening for Sleater-Kinney at Lounge Ax. They were a good band but they eventually faded away. 

Here's a fave track, I also really dug their cover of Wham's Last Christmas.

2022: The Year I Post Through It

 I have let this blog lie dormant for over ten years, but thanks to Bully, I am going to try and do something with it. My plan is this, every week, hopefully Sunday night, I will throw up something about what I've been reading/watching/eating/feeling. I make no promises, but we will see what happens. But anyway, this year is two days old and here's what I've gotten up to.

Movies:

The beauty of working from home is that I often need something on in the background, because silence drives me nuts. Here's what I got up to in the last two days (full reviews, if I feel like it, at Letterboxd).

Crime of Passion: For the new year, Criterion Channel put up a collection of Sterling Hayden movies and this was one I hadn't heard of before. He and Barbara Stanwyck are great and Hayden plays understated and upstanding for once. It's good stuff, check it out if you have a sub to the channel.

Throne of Blood: With the Coen Brother (singular) The Tragedy of MacBeth dropping soon I decided to catch up on some other cinematic takes on the story. I'd seen this one before but it's a firecracker with Mifune doing incredible work. 

Fiend Without A Face: We watched a movie the other day which featured this on in the background, decided to give it a watch since black & white monster movies are usually a relaxing way to do Sunday mornings for us. This is a good one.

Conan The Barbarian: Why isn't this in 4K yet? Watched my old DVD and it's still incredible cinema. The high point of Milius's career and I'd love to have a count of all the knock-offs this spawned that clogged video store shelves and cable in the ensuing decade. 

Reading:

Geiger Vol. 1: Geoff Johns has made his bed and is basically dead to me but Jeff Lester of Wait, What podcast mentioned this in his year end list and I had some use it or lose it borrows at Hoopla so I grabbed this first volume. Johns and Gary Frank do a pretty good post-apocalyptic Mad Max take that has a whiff of superheroes to it. You can tell this was intended to be a DC book, before he got shown the door there (including a GI Robot cameo that I'm amazed didn't get changed more drastically). It's fine, I wouldn't pay for it but I'd grab a second volume on Hoopla again. 

Video Games:

Finally got through the Grasp of Avarice dungeon on Destiny 2. That sparrow part was a slog but the rest is a blast. You can tell Bungie had a good time putting it together.

Music:

Still winding down Christmas music over here. This is my rolling Christmas playlist (disregard the 2K19, I had intended to do a new one every year, but I just kept adding to this one). 

That's all I got for the week. Gonna try another new feature on Wednesday. Hope you all survive the first week of the year.