Ted Lasso has been a fixture in my house for a long time. We watched the first two seasons all at once, once they were available in their entirety. Then we worked our way through the most recent (and final) season as it aired with the rest of the world.
As the weeks went on and the characters I knew and loved only matured more and more as their personal growth continued. No spoilers because many people may not have had time to complete their journeys and this show is too precious to take anything away from it.
This show has been a solution to the problem of the 2020s. It’s been a bright light and a relentlessly safe and positive place to dwell in a world that has been anything but.
We are now watching the series again from the beginning to reintroduce ourselves to our friends on the pitch for the second time. To meet them and see them as old friends, knowing where their lives would take them.
Ted Lasso is a salve. It’s not a cure, but a medication I look forward taking and hope to never develop an immunity.
It struck me tonight, as I was watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds why I love this franchise. I grew up as a The Next Generation kid so Captain Picard is my captain. I watched the show originally piecemeal as an episode would re-air on network television. I had never seen the entire series until Netflix got the rights and I could make my way through it. I binged it over the summer and fall of 2011 (which is somehow 12 years ago???)
Some of the episode didn’t hold up. I enjoyed the space jellyfish, found the Just Say No to drugs episode and didn’t care for the episode which revolved around the crew getting stuck in the holodeck for one reason or another.
But as I laid in bed tonight, watching the latest version of my beloved space show, I connected with my friends on the pitch. I love Star Trek because it’s positive. Because it’s a happy show where problems are solved and the world, while terrifying and deadly, is still full of good people trying to do their best.
Sure it has its problem. It’s not a perfect show but a reflection of the world. There’s still bigotry and hatred. There’s plenty of war and generational struggle to overcome. Just because our crew doesn’t need money to pay their bills doesn’t mean there isn’t inequality and class struggles.
As long as there are new treks to the stars, I will ride alongside my friends in space as I have my friends on the pitch.
Category: Movies & TV Page 1 of 3
Do you love woodpeckers? Have you grown an intense interest in birding in the past few years? Then you’ll enjoy this documentary from PBS.
Paul Giamatti tells you about all the different kinds of woodpeckers in the world and how they live and thrive in various environment. I was able to put in my local PBS station and watch the entire thing. It’s worth your time if you enjoy watching birds.
We have little downy woodpeckers that are so fluffy and sweet. We also have large red-bellied woodpeckers and every so often a northern flicker comes to visit.
“I love product placement in movies,” Spikes said. “I love the cars, I love the watches, I love the clothes. I’m that person that sometimes has a notepad and I’m writing down, is that Hugo Boss?”
Stacy SPikes
From MoviePass is back — and it wants to track your eyeballs
Sir, we have a very different appreciation of movies.
The only time I notice a product in a movie is when it disrupts the film. When computer hardware is obviously Apple but they remove the branding. Or when the UI on what a screen is hilariously unlike any real UI ever shipped with a product.
You can watch ads to earn credits for movies. And they’ll track your eyes to make sure you’re watching.
Using a feature called “pre-show,” MoviePass customers will get credits in exchange for watching ads on their phones. To make sure they’re actually watching, the app will track users’ eyeballs, Spikes said.
But don’t worry about that data. They wouldn’t possibly ever use it for anything to make money.
“Your phone, your device uses your own facial detection,” Spikes added. “It doesn’t go to the cloud, nobody goes through anything other than you and your information in yours. And you opt in to do it on your own.”
“And you opt in to do it on your own.”
And the moment you do, we’ll sell it to the highest bidder, the lowest bidder and every bidder in between. It’s nice to see MoviePass come back in its final form, as the worst version of itself. I’m shocked the credits you earn aren’t cryptocurrency on a blockchain somewhere.
Moviepass first hinted at its plans for … testing a “new proposed business model with a sample group of 1,000 customers… The filings did not provide details of the new business model…
It’s absolutely going to be a crypto currency plan with NFTs of your favorite movie stars, posters, trinkets from the films. Anything and everything because hyperlinks are free!
Watching HBO content on Roku is so easy. Just follow this simple process.
- Resume Search Party.
- Press play. Fails to play .
- Get sent back to the same screen.
- Restart Roku.
- Resume Search Party.
- Fails to play.
- Check HBO app for updates.
- Try to play Search Party.
- Remove HBO app.
- Reinstall HBO app.
- Resume Search Party.
- Enjoy Search Party.
- Question how HBO’s app is so bad this is the process to use it every time I try to use it.
As bad as Hulu’s app is to use, at least it works. Some content from HBO is available there and works on the first try.
It’s the Original content, which is very good, that requires using the HBO app that absolutely fails to play without manually updating the app, rebooting the Roku device, or removing and reinstalling the HBO app.
I’m on
Since the pandemic started, I have time off work so it’s time to light a fire, break out the whiskey and settle into a movie marathon. Over the past two days we’ve watched a pile of movies. I enjoy movies. My motto for 2020 has been “I miss going to the movies.” There is nothing better than getting a treat and escaping the world into the land someone else has created for me.
Synopsis: After the Evil Queen marries the King, she performs a violent coup in which the King is murdered and his daughter, Snow White, is taken captive. Almost a decade later, a grown Snow White is still in the clutches of the Queen. In order to obtain immortality, The Evil Queen needs the heart of Snow White. After Snow escapes the castle, the Queen sends the Huntsman to find her in the Dark Forest.
This was a beautiful movie. The cinematography was breath-taking and the sets were gorgeous. The acting and story left much to be desired. Before we started it, I looked it up on Letterboxd to see what the overall rating was. It was a 2.5 and this bit of information paid off.
white horse shows up at the perfect time “Oh. Right. 2.5”
girl screams at troll and stops it from attacking another charaters “2.5”
“I guess the 2.5 is for the cinematography. It is a beautiful movie.”
Synopsis: A mid-level corporate employee finds out he’s not getting the Christmas bonus he was expecting, but his boss invites him to earn a promotion by beating his professional rival in a violent competition.
This movie was a Blumhouse film. Their general movie theory is “make a lot of films. They won’t all be hits, but enough of them will do well to pay for the others.” And this one is a lot of fun. It’s been awhile since I saw a good use of title cards between scenes. I enjoyed them and this film.
Synopsis: A zombie apocalypse threatens the sleepy town of Little Haven – at Christmas – forcing Anna and her friends to fight, slash and sing their way to survival, facing the undead in a desperate race to reach their loved ones. But they soon discover that no one is safe in this new world, and with civilization falling apart around them, the only people they can truly rely on are each other.
Move over Elf! Out of the way Kevin! There’s a new queen of Christmas movies. Ella Hunt sings and smashes her way through this film. This movie had:
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Unecessarily sexy Christmas school song
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Rap song about fish
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Zombies
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The saddest “Merry Christmas” ever captured.
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Candy cane melee weapon
I absolutely loved it and would rewatch it every year. The film feels authentic. Each one of the characters were an archetype I could place from my high school. They’re making decisions I would make. They’re not heroes. They’re impulsive and live the day one moment at a time.
The songs are fun and catchy. This one has been stuck in my head.
(•_•) <) )╯ WHEN IT COMES TO KILLING ZOMBIES / \ \(•_•) ( (> I'M THE TOP OF MY CLASS / \ (•_•). WHILE YOU’VE BEEN HIDING <) )> I’VE BEEN KICKIN SOME ASS / \
Synopsis: A young woman’s plans to propose to her girlfriend while at her family’s annual holiday party are upended when she discovers her partner hasn’t yet come out to her conservative parents.
Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie David (took my while to place her from Halt and Catch Fire) are the focus while Aubrey Plaza and Alison Brie are relegated to minor characters. It was a romantic comedy with an excellent cast. Dan Levy is the friend we all hope we have when we need them most. Maybe without the tracking.
“Any luck on getting a man’s permission to take ownership of an adult female woman?” – John (Dan Levy)
Synopsis: A sorority house is terrorized by a stranger who makes frightening phone calls and then murders the sorority sisters during Christmas break.
The algorithm kept pushing the 2019 remake of this film that wasn’t well-reviewed. However, the 1974 film has excellent reviews and was the first(?) slasher movie.
The plot partially centers around a series of obscene phone calls and boy are they. It also gives us the spectacular line:
No, it’s the Mormon Tabernacle Choir calling with their annual obscene phone call.
This fits the category of “horror movies that could have ended very quickly with competence.” Every character is unique. There’s no interchageable pieces. This entire film is a mood. It perfectly embodies the loneliness of being alone at Christmas (a theme that runs through every holiday film we watched.) I’m curious to watch the remake now to see how they handle certain parts and how sensibilities have changed between 1974 and 2019. Those are some obscene phone calls.
Synopsis: Drew Latham is an executive leading an empty, shallow life with only wealth on his side. Facing another lonely Christmas ahead, he revisit his old childhood home in the hope of reliving some old holiday memories – but he finds that the house in which he was raised is no longer the home in which he grew up.
Ever been so lonely on Christmas you paid the family who lives in your childhood home a quarter of a million dollars to spend a few days with them?
What about if that family was James Gandolfini and Catherine O’Hara? They amost make the film watchable. Almost.
Ben Affleck is so unhinged and manic throughout. I saw this review and thought about it. A lot.
It was never quite clear if Affleck’s character was meant to be mentally challenged. –
It’s hard to know where being an absolute dick ends and mental issues may begin.
Synopsis: In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.
This movie may have had potential. But it just kept going…
This is a pretty good 90 minute movie. Unfortunately it was 125 minutes.