williamjm

I saw this meme earlier: https://ifunny.co/picture/in-the-beginning-there-was-only-one-david-tennant-doctor-Wl8ER663B

I read N.K. Jemisin's The World We Make. In the author's afterword Jemisin comments that it was originally intended as a trilogy but they were finding it difficult to write a fantasy story about a troubled New York in such a troubled time in the real world so the series ended up being a duology. I think that does explain some things about the book, although the story is brought to a satisfying conclusion it does sometimes feel a bit rushed along the way and some plot points are skipped over. Since it has seven protagonists it does struggle to find something for them all to do so while some do get some character development in this others such as Bronca don't get much. It does have some interesting twists along the way, such as the revelations about Manny's background, and I liked the vignettes where New York's avatars meet those of other cities. Overall, it was a good series but does not really compare to Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. I've now started Kate Elliot's Furious Heaven, the second book in her space opera trilogy. After reading a hundred pages I think I've mostly managed to remember most of the plot points from the first book, there is a lot to keep track of. I think it does have a timeless feel to it that would make it difficult to really place when it was written. It doesn't necessarily feel like a book that would be published today, but I think that would also have been true when it was first published in the early 90s.

I rewatched it a few days ago and I think that it is far ahead of any other superhero film released this year aside from Across The Spiderverse (and at least GOTG3 has an ending). Probably GOTG1 is still better, but I'd say 3 is better than 2.

I think it's definitely possible that we do miss out on some good films due to the relative obscurity of the subject. I think A League of The Own is the other baseball film I've seen other than Moneyball.

I watched Godzilla : Minus 1, which I thought was very good. I think where it really stands above the American Godzillas is having characters who the audience can actually care about, that means that the film is about more than just waiting for the next scene of Godzilla destroying things. Towards the end there are a couple of bits of manufactured drama which I think are a bit unnecessary, but despite that it's still a satisfying ending to the character's story arcs. I think they are probably watched a lot less than they would be in America. I haven't seen any of the films you mention and other than Field of Dreams I've barely heard of the others. I think there's probably a couple of issues, for a start it's inevitably going to be more difficult to market a film about an obscure topic and I think a lot of audience might be nervous, rightly or wrongly, that they won't be able to properly appreciate it without a good understanding of the sport. For example, I did watch Moneyball a few years ago and I thought it was an okay film but I think without having a background in baseball it's difficult to really understand why the things that happen in the film were so revolutionary.

If wonder if we're going to get to see a Sanctuary Moon show-with-the-show? I guess we'll be getting a lot of narration to give us Murderbot's monologue.

I rewatched Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and seeing it a second time did make it even more clear how superior it is to every other superhero film out this year (with the exception of Across the Spiderverse).

I read Morgan Stang's Murder at Spindle Manor. I saw one review describing it as 'fantasy steampunk Poirot' and I think that's mostly an apt comparison, although I don't remember Poirot being so heavily armed. The protagonist is a Huntress, employed to track and kill dangerous magical creatures. She tracks a shape-shifting monster to a remote inn, but her mission becomes more complex after one of the inn's other guests is the victim of a more conventional murder. In classic murder mystery fashion all of the travellers at the inn have dark secrets of their own and potential motives to wish each other dead. The twin mysteries are both well constructed and although the book almost entirely takes place in one building the bits of world-building about the wider world are interesting. The characters are memorable, although there's not a huge amount of depth to any of the characterisation. I think it could have sometimes done with a bit more proof-reading since there are some awkward sentences. I thought it was an enjoyable story and I will pick up the sequel at some point.

In some of the recent coverage of Shane MacGowan's death I saw people pointing out that Fairytale isn't the only duet he did and recommending this which I'd not heard before. There's definitely a big contrast in the vocals but somehow it works.

I finished Roger Zelazny's A Night In The Lonesome October, which I thought was excellent. It is definitely a unique book, written as a series of 31 diary entries through the month of October by an unusually intelligent dog who, together with his master, is part of a metaphysical game whose stakes are the future of the world. In his introduction to this edition Neil Gaiman described reading it as being like attending a Halloween party where all the guests have come as famous literary heroes and villains and who are playing a game whose rules you only gradually start to understand. It is a lot of fun trying to work out what is going on and who is on which side (even the competitors don't initially know who their allies or opponents are). There are also some clever twists along the way - just when you think you have started to figured out what is going to happen the picture changes. It does also have some interesting characters in it, particularly among the animals. Snuff is a likeable narrator and there are some good subplots as he finds himself becoming friends with others when he knows there is a risk they may end up being foes when Halloween comes along.

That's one I haven't seen yet, perhaps I should since Nicolas Cage and Sam Rockwell sound like they should be an interesting combination.

I had forgotten that this was a Ridley Scott film. I thought it was an okay film, but nothing special. It's probably most interesting when focusing on Christopher Plummer's Getty senior and his refusal to pay his grandson's ransom but as a thriller it isn't particularly thrilling.

When I was in Italy last year we were at a restaurant on Capri and there were some British tourists at the next table who ordered a Hawaiian pizza, I've never seen a waiter look so shocked and offended at an order. He did come back to argue with them that it wasn't really pizza, although since it was on the menu perhaps he should have taken it up with the owners.

I read Jodi Talyor's Just One Damned Thing After Another, the first book in her Chronicles of St Mary's series. I thought it was a very quick book to read, it's definitely a page turner and goes through events at a fast pace. I thought Maxwell was an entertaining protagonist to follow, although sometimes a bit exasperating because she does make some terrible decisions at times. For a book about time travelling historians it didn't spend as much time in the past as I might have expected but maybe that will happen more in the later books in the series now that the premise has been established. Out of the various time jumps I think the one back to the Cretaceous did the best job of conveying a sense of wonder about being able to travel to the past. I think there were some plot holes, even if you avoid trying to think too hard about the details of how the time travel works. The way St Mary's is set up doesn't make much sense, to some extent this is a plot point so things can be improved but it would still have helped if it was a bit more believable to begin with. The passage of time is also confusing, at one point Maxwell explains she has been at St Mary's for five years even though it feels like she has only completed her training recently. Overall, it was an enjoyable book to read despite some plot issues and I will pick up the second book at some point. I've now moved onto Roger Zelazny's A Night In The Lonesome October. I have heard a lot of praise for this and it has been good so far. I didn't know a huge amount about it beforehand so I was a bit surprised to find it was narrated by an admittedly very articulate dog.

It's probably difficult to know what the expectations are for historical epics now given how rare they seem to be. It has already made more than twice what The Last Duel did.

I watched The Marvels. I enjoyed it despite its weaknesses. I think Kamala is the standout of the three leads, Iman Vellani is good in the role and her enthusiasm for everything does help the film feel fun. As in the TV show Kamala and her family are very likeable. I think Carol suffers from too much backstory that didn't appear in any of the films about what's been happening with the Kree and Skrulls and this film doesn't really have time to cover all that. Monica was fine but it felt like she didn't get much time to explore her own character beyond her relationship with Carol. The three of them swapping positions when they use their powers did make some of the action scenes stand out a bit from other Marvel films, although it did end up in the traditional Marvel CGI climax. A couple of days ago I watched the most recent Dr Who episode and I think in some ways this has a similar feel to it, it moved along at a good pace and was fun to watch but ended up with a fairly daft ending. Overall, I enjoyed it more than Quantummania but it's not going to be remembered as one of the classic MCU movies.

I finished the third season of Only Murders in the Building. I think this was probably an improvement on the second season which had felt a bit unfocused at times but having everything revolve around Oliver's play/musical helped. Meryl Streep was a good addition to the cast and Matthew Broderick's portrayal of himself as an obsessive actor was very amusing. The Death Rattle musical was both absurdly awful and annoyingly catchy.

It was a lot of fun to see Tennant and Tate back and the episode definitely moved along at a good pace. The plot twist could probably be seen from orbit, but The Meep was a fun alien of the week. I also agree that the action scenes benefited from the increased budget. The end was the weakest part, the actors valiantly do their best to try to make something dramatic out of a scene in which they have to flick lots of switches while yelling technobabble but it did all feel a bit ridiculous.

I finished Martha Wells' System Collapse. I thought it was another entertaining entry in the series. It picks up directly from the end of Network Effect as Murderbot and its allies try to protect several groups of colonists from a predatory corporation. We never really get to know the colonists well so it's a bit hard to care too much about what happens to them but it does set up some good scenes as their protectors try to outwit the numerically superior corporate forces. This is particularly tricky as the main character has to deal with some newfound vulnerabilities as they try to adjust to the situation they find themself in after the end of the previous story. I'm now reading Jodi Taylor's Just One Damned Thing After Another, the first in what seems to be a lengthy series of time travel stories. It started off seeming quite whimsical but some more serious elements come in as the story goes along.

I think anybody watching the Godzilla films for their human cast is going to be disappointed, they're not really given much to much work with. This is particularly true if you are excited to see what Brian Cranston could do as the lead character in a Kaiju film.

The compressed the second and third books in the trilogy so season 2 ends at the ending of the third book (although there are some significant differences in how it ends). This does mean that it wraps up the main Darkling vs Alina storyline so there is closure there, although it does also has some set-up for the stories in the two sequel duologies so not everything is wrapped up.

So far I think the new story is on par with the previous Murderbot stories, it feels very much like part 2 of Network Effect. I haven't read Witch King so don't know how it would compare to that.

I don't expect them to do it, but it might be better if their inevitable X-Men reboot was explicitly not part of the MCU. Some of the recent MCU entries like Eternals or Moon Knight were already not gaining anything in terms of story from being part of the MCU and we seem to be passing the point where being part of the MCU is an automatic boost to the box office. It would avoid having to explain away why the mutants weren't involved in any of the previous events in the MCU. The obvious downside from Marvel's perspective would be that they can't include the mutants in Avengers films.

Some of the articles I've read pointed out that Milei's party did relatively poorly in the recent elections so they only have 38 out of 257 and 8 out of 72 seats in the two parts of congress. However, I've no idea how much power the Argentine presidency without needing congressional votes.

I think that ended up being a better grand prix than a lot of people had thought that it might be. The surroundings are probably still more interesting than the track but it did work well in terms of offering overtaking opportunities without making them too easy. Perez lost out right at the end for the second race in a row, but still a good result considering how far back he started. Le Clerc probably got unlucky with the safety car timing, he was probably the favourite for the victory before that happened. Perhaps Ferrari should have pitted him under the safety car so that the Red Bulls wouldn't have fresher tires at the end.