Category: Movies

Just got back from Hidden Figures.

My wife had off, so we went to go see it.  Short version: oh, yeah, go see this movie.  This is a really easy call to make.

Slightly longer version: good, solid movie that did an excellent job at making you understand what it was like to be black, female, and good at math while working at NASA in the early 1960s.  The three leads were all fantastic. Of the three, the one I liked the best was the Dorothy Vaughan character: she was the one who most thought like a player-character. I enjoyed how she finessed things in that movie. I do love a good, morally sound scheme that goes off without a hitch.

Seriously, Hidden Figures is a fun flick with lots of space stuff in it. My wife also felt that it did a good job with making the math cool, although they could have done more to show how WHOMP WHOMP, WHOMP WHOMP, WHOMP WHOMP (I’m not a math guy). So you should have a good time.

Good Omens coming to TV THANK YOU GOD THIS IS THE BEST NEWS EVER

Everything is awesome, the world is a wonderful place, and things will be OK:

Amazon has confirmed Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens will be adapted into a TV series to air next year.

It’s appropriate timing as the 1990 novel is set in 2018. Something of a dream collaboration among sci-fi fans, it’s a comedic tale of an angel and a demon who try to stave off the Apocalypse, having decided they enjoy life among humans too much. There’s also a mix-up about the true identity of a young boy identified as the Antichrist.

Ignore the petulant whining from the BBC about the state of the universe: clearly a world where Good Omens is coming to the screen isn’t a horrible place.  By freaking definition, in fact. Comes out in 2018, six part series, don’t know who is directing or starring in it yet.  And I do not care.

The latest ‘Power Rangers’ movie trailer.

Well. The Power Rangers movie may not suck, but my kids aren’t going to go see it. I guess that there are enough adults by now who grew up watching the show that it won’t matter that it’s not geared towards the under-ten crowd.

I’m not really disapproving. I didn’t watch the Power Rangers myself when it was on – I was a decade too old, more or less – so I don’t really know if this is even annoying to the folks in their twenties and thirties. For all I know, they’re going to be on a full nostalgia kick over it.

So I hear that ‘Hidden Figures’ is worth your time.

Excellent box office and getting A ratings on both sides of the Rotten Tomatoes line, which is noteworthy. I’ve found that either the Tomatometer or the Audience Score can give you a good idea about whether you’ll like a particular film; hitting the center ring on both usually suggests that you may want to catch the flick.  My wife was going to see it yesterday, only (surprise surprise) Hidden Figures was sold out on MLK Day. But she has off on Friday, so we’re going to do lunch and go see it together. Hopefully it’ll be a thing.

Some short films by Tomasz Bagiński.

So I got turned onto these films by a buddy on Twitter. They’re short films by a Polish animator named Tomasz Bagiński and they’re science fictional adaptations of Slavic legends. I’ve only had the chance to watch the first one so far, but if the rest are of the same quality – well, Smok/Dragon was just flat-out FUN. Enable the subtitles.

 

The ‘The Wizard of Lies’ Teaser trailer.

This one is hitting HBO in May, and getting DeNiro and Pfeiffer for the roles is pretty sweet. The Wizard of Lies is about Bernie Madoff, and let me tell you: I do not know how this man is still alive. Probably because you can’t use GoFundMe to crowdfund an assassination.  There are a lot of victims of Madoff who would cheerfully put fifty bucks towards ensuring an early funeral for the guy*. Continue reading The ‘The Wizard of Lies’ Teaser trailer.