The Bondsman (2025) - 2.5/5 Demons
Kevin Bacon is entertaining enough to keep me watching, but the show is quite middling.
One thing that struck out to me was a plot of episode 3, 'Maphos':
To which an online acquaintance gave me the answer I was looking for:
The plots are similar on the surface, but in truth quite different. The Adventure Zone episode plot takes place at a waterpark, not a swimming pool like on the show. The Bondsman episode refers to the demon as a 'marphos,' which isn't a real demon in history or fiction; but I would bet that both drew from similar sources in history and mythology.
|
Road House (2024) - 2/5 Stars
Earlier this week the wife and I sat down to watch this movie on Amazon Prime. As ardent lovers of action movies, we expected to enjoy this one. It's definitely meant to be in the Fast & the Furious genre of the modern day, but truthfully we just found much of it dumb and disappointing.
Connor McGregor, as you might imagine, is not exactly destined for the silver screen. The plot has so many problems. And sadly the action scenes were largely just... disappointing.
Satisfied watching it on streaming rather than paying to see it in theaters.
|
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Season 5: 3/5 laughs
I felt the last season was a bit disjointed as I didn't really enjoy the hopping around in time as it worked to make a cohesive story which answered questions.
Entire Series: 3.5/5 laughs
Overall, I thought it was a fine show, which had some high highs and some low lows in the narrative.
|
Watching Air on Amazon with Katie and while I am enjoying the movie, I have to say it has an absolutely incredible soundtrack.
|
Rings of Power
I tweeted the following last night:
I am so excited to be back in Middle Earth and I am looking forward to this show. The first two episodes were great.
|
The belief that Middle Earth is onlly populated by white characters is not only faulty, it misses the spirit of Tolkien entirely
This title is my modification on the article's subtitle section. It's an opinion piece which pushes back on the beliefs that Tolkien was racist and wanted only white characters.
Yet, there remains the idea that because Tolkien sought to create an English mythology that he intended Middle-earth to be comprised only of white people. This ignores the individuals of color who have populated England throughout its history, and that the first modern Britons had dark skin, based on DNA evidence taken from the Cheddar Man, a 10,000-year-old skeleton discovered in 1903.
And while there's no sense in speculating on the reactions of a dead man who could not possibly fathom the 21st century by the time of his death in 1973, Tolkien was notably anti-racist, even for the time period. Biographers have noted Tolkien was very much opposed to the Aryan ideology popularized by the Nazis, and of colonialism in South Africa. While there are those, as a number of Twitter accounts have to sought to remind me, who believe orcs are intended to be Tolkien's perspective on people of color, there's no evidence from Tolkien's writing or life to justify that (as opposed to, for instance, the wide array of evidence that speaks to the racism of his contemporary H.P. Lovecraft in both his writing and personal life).
But here's the thing: Even though Tolkien's early 20th century progressiveness was not analogous to the progressive attitudes of today, it has no bearing on an adaptation or extension of his works. Things change. The movies and television released in 1954, when The Fellowship of the Ring came out, obviously look very different in terms of casting choices than what we see today. As such, Rings of Power looks different from Peter Jackson's films from 20 years ago. Systems adapt, people formally denied opportunities to showcase their talent are afforded a spotlight in which they can and do earn it. Audiences of color, who have been asked to, and excelled at, empathizing with white people throughout the history of visual media, can wish to see themselves onscreen and see those wishes validated.
|
"Amazon is teaming up with Dude Perfect for alternate Thursday Night Football streams"
Reminds me of the Nickelodeon streams done for the last few seasons. NFL trying to pull in younger audiences.
|
Amazon's Lord of the Rings show will be the most expensive season of TV ever produced, and it isn't close
That the total price tag for the first season of the show is estimated to come in at $450 million. (By comparison, a season of “Game of Thrones” was estimated to cost $90 million, or about $15 million an episode.) According to New Zealand publication Stuff, the amount was ascertained by the NZ$160 million tax credit the production will receive for filming in the country. To receive a tax credit of that amount, the budget is estimated to come in at just shy of half a billion American dollars.
|
