Sydney’s Super Tunnel Truth be told – this was my favourite show of the last quarter. Goddamn I love this shit – trains, infrastructure, design, engineering – and in my home city. What’s been done for public transport and infrastructure in the last five-ish years in Sydney has been impressive (and long overdue). I can’t wait to see more.
Feels Good Man I discovered Matt Furie in the relatively early days of the internet. I still own three t-shirts with his designs which I bought back in the days where I prided myself on my unique tee collection. His art and illustration was unique and I loved it. Fast forward a few years and I started seeing his Pepe character being used for memes. His art had been hijacked by a bunch of Trump fanboys. I had NO idea how deep the rabbit hole went, and felt sorry for him. Great doco, which raises questions around who owns art.
Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds This was really charming and showed both the strengths and limitations of the two age groups.
Seaspiracy Hang around me long enough and I’ll have a rant about “pescatarians” who won’t eat meat for animal cruelty reasons (which has merit) – but yet happily consume a product (fish) whose industry wipes out one species after another with little scrutiny. So what I’m saying is, I watched this for validation of my meat consumption and minimal seafood consumption.
Series
On Cinema Oscer Special 2021 I am amazed by how brilliantly this show continues to deliver year after year. This special in particular was innovative in that it ran two separate live streams at once (one for Timheads, one for the Greggheads) as we witnessed the repercussions of Gregg’s murderous car attack last year. Heidecker in particular continues to impress by subverting expectations and playing with the medium itself.
For All Mankind (Season 2) This season started way too slowly and took far too long to get to the meat of the story – but it ended so well and reminded me why I loved the first season so much. That Mrs Robinson plotline was a little forced – but I’m willing to forgive it for Shantel VanSanten. Oof. One gripe – it doesn’t have enough fun with the alternate history of the world. Most of the history of the world outside the space program is identical to our own. Same songs, same leaders, same culture.
Manhunt: Deadly Games I remember the Atlanta bombing back in the day, although at only twelve years of age I was unaware of the details. Richard Jewell went through hell and this captures it in a really engaging way. Clearly the militia plotline was tacked on. I’m not sure how wise it was but I get why they did it. It rounds out the end of the story a lot better.
Wellington Paranormal (Season 3) Good for a laugh as always. Some gags hit, some miss. All a bit of fun.
Made For Love There’s been no shortage of shows which have clearly been pitched as Black Mirror or Twilight Zone -inspired. Any mention of the aforementioned shows will pique my interest. The trouble is though, for every brilliant Zone story there were six lacklustre ones. This is a lacklustre one. And one of my pet peeves – implausible bullshit sci-fi tech – was in abundance.
Mare of Easttown How about you assemble a whole bunch of characters I couldn’t give a fuck about and follow a bunch of dead-end plotlines, then introduce some more characters who have no relevance to the plot – and culminate them in a weak ending – but next time don’t tell me to watch it.
Last Week Tonight John Oliver is a funny guy, but this show is not particularly funny any more. It used to be a nice balance between comedy and insightful commentary and information. I’m not sure if it was Trump that broke him (like Trump-super-fan Stephen Colbarf) or the lack of an audience, but he just comes across as preachy and condescending now – which is guaranteed to shit me even when I agree with the points being made.
Movies
The Dry Beautifully made Aussie murder mystery. Cinematography and acting were fantastic.
I Am Mother Another clever Aussie sci-fi movie I missed from 2019. Really slick, great cast, the last act was a bit too long but not enough to spoil it.
Coherence Really clever sci-fi grounded around a group of friends at a dinner party. Must see for anyone who loves a thinker or a twist.
Richard Jewell I followed up the Manhunt series covering the same content by watching the Clint Eastwood cinematic version and found it felt a lot cheaper. While the series tacked on a phoney militia plotline, at least it handled the main story points a lot better than this.
Bad Trip Hilarious. Andre is brilliant.
Waterworld I’d never seen this and had known only three things – at the time it was the most expensive movie ever made, it was a flop, and it was a Mad Max ripoff. There isn’t even any subtlety to the ripoff. I enjoyed it enough, but it felt like a hard slog.
Run Simple thriller, well executed.
Godzilla vs Kong About what I expected.
The Mitchell’s vs The Machines Stunning visuals, with an oddly dated feeling plot (that dad is, say, 40 maybe? And he doesn’t understand smartphones? Screen-time as a theme feels more 2010 than 2021). Hopefully more animated features push visual experimentation.
Happily This sucked massively.
Games
Prey This was really cool and gave me flashbacks to the original Half-Life. The story was engaging and intricate, the balance between tasks and combat was right (I get so bored by too much of the latter), and the visuals weren’t anything remarkable but they were solid. Loved it.
Control Loved the visuals, the geometric art, the story, the concepts, and throwing bodies around. However, this game has such a godawful map and confusing spawning system which makes you replay sections of story and dialogue even though it remembers your progress beyond that point. Enemy spawning seemed buggy as hell in some sections too, with endless respawns. I’m certain it’s a bug, not a feature. Still, all in all, a fun ride, but I was bored of it long before I got to the end.
