Wow, my last post on here was about The Peanuts Movie. So much has happened since then. The Packers suffered heartbreak, the Badgers had a fun run in the tournament... it always comes back to sports for me, I guess. Better than thinking of other things, like politics, which I don't much like to discuss anyway. People's veins and eyes start to bulge when politics and politicians are being discussed. Want to really get your blood boiling? Get on Facebook and see what's trending, and then start reading the responses to the stories.
What's safe, then? Entertainment, of course. It's what I usually do on here. Last month the story broke that the new head of AMC Theatres wanted to open up some theaters to texting. Said that not allowing it basically told millennials to cut their arms off above the elbow. I believe that to be true. People can't part with their phones long enough to walk across a street, let alone live without them for two hours. There should be a commercial showing someone texting and walking to illustrate the dangers of texting and driving. Seems like the more technology we have, the less attention we pay to what matters.
Eye In The Sky was a gripping and engrossing film that really highlights the way wars are fought now. A drone mission to eliminate high-ranking terrorists in the Middle East is complicated by a girl who starts selling bread outside a house where the terrorists are preparing to carry out a suicide attack. No-win decisions have to be made by a team with members in multiple places, and most of the film is very tense.
What's safe, then? Entertainment, of course. It's what I usually do on here. Last month the story broke that the new head of AMC Theatres wanted to open up some theaters to texting. Said that not allowing it basically told millennials to cut their arms off above the elbow. I believe that to be true. People can't part with their phones long enough to walk across a street, let alone live without them for two hours. There should be a commercial showing someone texting and walking to illustrate the dangers of texting and driving. Seems like the more technology we have, the less attention we pay to what matters.
Enough talk about the tiny screens. I've seen some good stuff on the big screen this year. I decided to let the Star Wars hubbub die down a little bit before hitting the theaters, but installment number seven is still the best thing I've seen all year. I was a little worried when I arrived (half an hour early, which gives a person time to worry), but it took all of five minutes to completely hook me. I loved just about everything, but the pacing was fantastic and I loved the blend of new and classic characters.
I've been ranking the movies I've seen this year on Letterboxd, and the worst one I've seen so far this year is the new Pee Wee Herman movie Pee Wee's Big Holiday. The second worst was Concussion, which could have been the worst, but at the end of the day Concussion had a purpose and a story to tell, while Big Holiday just felt kind of stale and pointless.
Eye In The Sky was a gripping and engrossing film that really highlights the way wars are fought now. A drone mission to eliminate high-ranking terrorists in the Middle East is complicated by a girl who starts selling bread outside a house where the terrorists are preparing to carry out a suicide attack. No-win decisions have to be made by a team with members in multiple places, and most of the film is very tense.
TV-wise, I watched the fourth season of Veep, in which Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) must now campaign to win her own term in the White House. This was my least favorite season to date. It's not that it wasn't funny, but a couple of the episodes were more obnoxious than amusing.
That'll do it for now. I'm hoping to see a couple of movies in the next couple of weeks, most notably Sing Street (directed by John Carney, who also directed Once). I've also read a lot of good books this year (including some Pulitzer Prize winners picked out by my brother), so I'll get into that next time. I'm currently in the middle of Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo, which is his follow-up to his early 90s novel Nobody's Fool. So far so good. It'll be interesting to see what twists and turns Russo throws in.
Letterboxd list:
