Call Me by Your Cop Car

I still haven't seen either March pick. Thanks a lot, Mike O’D.

Since my last post, I’ve watched:

Ocean’s 11 and Logan Lucky. It turns out that I kinda hate Soderbergh’s takes on the heist film. Both movies play more like over-the-top Mission:Impossible fantasy than any sort of plausible heist. These are no Rififi or Asphalt Jungle. I was thinking about it, that maybe there have not been any great heist films recently. Then I remembered the Breaking Bad episode “Dead Freight” and a few other solid episodes. Still ridiculous and implausible if you think about it too much, but Breaking Bad always worked at a slower pace and made the criminal escapades believable, anchored in a heightened realism.

I gave up on Ocean’s 12 after 20 minutes.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 somehow still succeeds as thrillingly violent pulp entertainment in spite of featuring the most blatant Mary Sue protagonist I’ve seen in a while. Which I guess just might be part of the genre trappings.

Dirty is a grimy low-budget crooked cop movie from 2005 that no one needs to ever watch. It’s stupid, but almost willfully so, to the point which makes you almost kind of like it for being so stupid.

I want to re-watch Chris Rock’s new special, Tamborine. It is evidence of a performer working at the top of his game. He makes it look effortless. I’ve always liked Rock and really began to respect him after Good Hair. Tamborine is mature Rock. He’s still crass and vulgar, but beneath the surface is sadness and regret, a grasping at repentance and penance that is quite striking. In a surprising way, Tamborine might be the most conservative movie of the year, a call to treasure and conserve the things in our lives that really matter, clinging to those you love instead of chasing worthless distractions.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is an action remake of The Breakfast Club. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting that. I don't know what else to write about it besides that sometimes a man just needs to sit in the dark eating popcorn and candy. This movie provided me an opportunity to do that and for that I am grateful.

TV Club?

Not much. I did watch another episode of Future Man, then completely gave up on it. The joke wears thin.

I watched a few episodes of Rick & Morty. Then gave up on it.

Both shows were recommended by a couple of old friends. 

I do get the appeal of the shows. They’re adult, naughty twists on geek stuff we loved as children. I get it. But it just makes me sad. Geek culture becomes something so masturbatory that it ceases to appeal to me.

More than that, I hate that these shows are now what 11-year-olds are experiencing as their introduction to science fictional ideas. There are appealing gonzo ideas, but they’re smothered in casual cursing and sex jokes. I’d give a meh sigh except that it actually makes me angry that I know kids are watching these, because I would have been watching them. (I feel the same way about Black Mirror; I feel sorry for children raised on the dark cynicism of Charlie Brooker instead of the gentle humanism of Rod Serling.)

So much for my Hulu trial.

On Netflix Watch Instantly, I watched the new episode of the Dave Letterman show. George Clooney. It was fine. Better, I watched a YouTube clip of Letterman inducting Pearl Jam into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Finally, the usual odd miscellany of YouTube videos. The best of which was probably an hour long informal discussion about “the psychology of why we play.” I disagreed with plenty of it, but it was refreshing to hear an intelligent and fun conversation about games.