Just watched Captain Philips starring Tom Hanks – true story about a cargo ship that gets taken over by Somali pirates. Without knowing the story beforehand, the movie was A+. Felt super accurate, none of the Hollywood tropes, just matter of fact dramatization of what happened.

Mission Impossible 3 was a bajillion times better than 2. A whole different movie lol. Jesus christ, Mission Impossible 2 was bad. So many ridiculous moments. TV writing plus filmed like a kung-fu movie, oh my😂

Red Cliff was a solid Chinese war/historical movie. Saw the shorter U.S. version unfortunately, not the 4-5hr long Chinese version. Felt kinda like LoTR and 300, very stylized. Packed with action, awesome cinematography, beautiful shots of China, and actually not beating you over the head with CCP worship (no way! Lol)

Drunken Master with young Jackie Chan was amazing. Finally got around to watching it. Peak skill and athleticism from all actors. When the theme music came on… oh man oh man. You knew shit was going down!

Oh and I watched Life with Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds. Goddang that was a terrible movie. I thought it was space horror, kinda like dead space or something. But these NASA top of the class astronauts were SO dumb and melodramatic, sat around crying and in their feels for half the movie. Like get your shit together, people! The death scenes were ok. The alien design sucked (based on what the cells can do, why does it need a face?) The ending felt cheap, not earned. (Sci-fi horror movie with Ryan Reynolds, I shoulda known…😂.) Give me Alien or Event Horizon any day!

The only film I’ve watched this week was In Bruges which I really enjoyed.

Thinking of finishing the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy but after the dreadful second film, I’m not looking forward to it. 😆

Highlights from this week:

• TV - Here We Go season 2 - The initial one-off special was one of the best things to come out of COVID in terms of TV (with the first season of Staged being the other (and taking prime position)). Season 1 didn’t reach the same heights, but was still pretty entertaining. The first couple of episodes of S2 have both been winners again as far as I am concerned.

• TV - The New Avengers - the '70s follow-up to the classic '60s show. It never recaptured the magic of the Steed and Mrs Peel years, but it did have Joanna Lumley, which counts for a lot in my book. The opener also had Peter Cushing, so there’s that. I enjoyed it back in the day, but I doubt that we’ll do more than dip into a couple of eps this time around.

• Film - The Holdovers - a well written dramady that did nothing original in the way of plot, but peeled back the characters’ layers to show that you can never know what people are living with. A well told tale with plenty to engage the viewer.

Just finished Giri/Haji (which was pretty great!) and started watching a new korean series “Killer Paradox”. Gotta suspend disbelief a bit for this one, but it’s ok so far, as I’m only on episode 2. I’ve read that some people didn’t like it as the show goes on, so we’ll see if my opinion changes.