I just finished Season 5 of The Americans. It picked up towards the end. I thought it was a nice touch, what they did for Martha. I can't help but feel Stan is going to get his heart broken. On to the 6th and final season.
One thing The Americans does really well is music placement. I guess personally being a teen in the 80's, the nostalgia is strong.

Just finished episode 2 of Season 6. D@mn. That Elizabeth is really is ruthless. Good start to the season.
Quite the image for Paige to see, in the final scene.

Andor. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9253284/ 3 episodes drop this morning. Watch first one. Slow slow slow. It ain't exciting like the Mandalorian. Plus there is no Baby Yoda. Gotta have Baby Yoda. Baby Yoda is cute.

I saw two movies last weekend:

1) "Zodiac" -- Older film that I had never watched. Pretty good, actually, but not surprising considering was a bigger budget crime drama based on a true story. I had never heard much of the Zodiac killer, as most of what happened was before I was born. Very interesting and well put together, despite knowing before watching the film that the guy was never caught and prosecuted. Jake Gyllenhaal was excellent as always, as well were other actors who played supporting roles. *** 1/4 out of **** stars.

2) "Stranger in Our Bed" -- Late night sleaze produced in... 2022, and only 90 minutes in length? I was intrigued. Studios seem to have forgotten the art of a tightly written 90 minute film, opting nowadays for drawn out CGI heavy slogs. Boring. Well, this one wasn't a slog and had no CGI. It also wasn't sleeze in the sense one would expect from a 40s noir or 80s or 90s erotic thriller, either. Oh, there was sleaze--the two main characters were scumbags--but such things typically are so in the noir genre. At least one of them must be scum. In this case we have a cheating wife and a closet psychopath husband with quite a shocking fetish--one that could have been more adequately presented. I appreciate the subtlety, though--somewhat of a lost art that we saw lots of way back in the original heyday of noir. This one wasn't bad! I doubt I would watch again, as I've certainly seen better, but I did not fall asleep or doze off. Lines and scenes were not wasted and there were quite a few twists and turns. ** 1/2 out of **** stars.

I just finished Season 6 (The Americans). We never did find out about Renee.
I wanted a better ending for Stan.

Well they did resolve Renee in arguably a subtle way when she looked over at the house after Phillip and Elizabeth left. Essentially it was implied in that scene she was a spy, after all.

I would have loved *SPOILER ALERT* Stan to have shot both of them and hauled their bleeding bodies in. If I had to choose, then Phillip would have survived to eventually become a citizen after spilling his guts and becoming part of the agency ratting out his fellow comrades. Elizabeth was beyond redemption. She had no soul. She was a husk. Phillip at least had remorse. Regardless, she got what she deserved when her daughter ditched her.

I wanted to see Stan come out ahead, I really did.

I feel exactly the same way. Stan Beeman became my favorite character. And I was hoping good things would come his way. I had sympathy for Philip for awhile, but the "axe" scene dissolved that. And Elizabeth deserved a bullet, or at least prison.

Maybe the Jennings should have moved, after an FBI agent moved in across the street. They chose to stay there 6 yrs.

Now I need something to watch. I need a palate cleanser, something humorous, or at least positive.

Alone: Frozen

I enjoy watching the Alone series and this is the latest offshoot of it. It's interesting seeing how people cope with being out there by themselves to get shelter, food and deal with the isolation. I think I could successfully deal with the shelter and isolation part but the food... yeah...probably could not deal with that. During one of the more recent seasons a contestant ate the contents of a muskox's stomach he had saved because his berry stash went rancid.

This is lit https://www.amazon.com/16-Days-in-Berlin/dp/B09SQCCGXX Free with Prime

Not available in Canada, bummer.

Just watched episode 5 of "House of the Dragon".

Every single aspect of this series is top notch. Excellent acting, excellent writing, excellent production values, excellent everything.

**Applause**

House of the Dragon episode 6: A lot of huge events here plus a 10 year time jump from episode 5!

I finally watched Spartacus for the first time. I got the Blu-ray a couple years ago for Christmas and just now got to it. I'd say a pretty good movie and I enjoyed it. I know it is a highly applauded movie. One thing I was kind of surprised about though, maybe even slightly disappointed was that we did not really see any fighting of Spartacus and his band of slaves once they were free. You only see the suggestion of them moving through an area of Italy and ransacking villages being victorious wherever the went on their way south but you don't really see any post bondage combat scenes except for the big battle near the end. I was thinking there'd be multiple combat encounters with Spartacus such as in Braveheart. That being said the gladiatorial school stuff was fun to watch. The Roman elites discussing the unimportant aspects of their lives right above the four gladiators in training that were thrown together for an abnormal death match within the school was well done, portraying the total disregard for other human life for one's own entertainment. I also thought the scene where Spartacus drowns the lead trainer in the pot of stew was quite brutal and disturbing. Kirk Douglas really had that barrel-chested physique and always seemed to be in such good shape. And of course the scene where all the post battle captured prisoners stand up saying "I'm Spartacus" in an effort to protect the identity of the real Spartacus was moving. However it just did not seem like they gave enough time to character building and progression in the middle of the movie. There is character development early on but once the gladiators break free we're just kind of fast forwarded to Spartacus' fame and legend with once again, no real opportunity to see him in action until the final, fairly short battle. There's no real sense of his progression from the jail break slave to the legendary leader, its just sort of implied. I think the middle could have been fleshed out more. Maybe I need to watch it again but it wasn't quite the epic I was expecting. It is epic in the sense of the effort, work, extras, scenes, physical skills of combat action and horseback riding, movie-making, design, acting and all the rest but the the story felt skimpy in the middle and slightly rushed. Maybe I'm misremembering. Its the kind of movie though that warrants another watch.

Thanks for that review Coot and I should rewatch Spartacus some day. I think it's been at least 25 years since I've seen it.

Police Squad! the precursor to the Naked Gun series.
So dumb, so stupid, and I laughed constantly. Only 6 episodes and they're each jam packed with loads of jokes and visual gags.

One of those rare cases where the tv series failed but the movies were very successful. This was the exact opposite of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where the movie was a box office flop but the tv series was very successful.

The movie version of "Buffy" wasn't bad, but the TV series was so well written.

Yes back in the good ol' days when Joss Whedon wasn't an absolute pariah in Hollywood. LOL

For the pilots here, I am watching this Pan Am doc on Amazon Prime

https://nhpbs.org/schedule/series.aspx?progName=Across+The+Pacific

free here if you don't have Prime

https://www.pbs.org/video/across-the-pacific-airborne-8ms7qa/

https://www.pbs.org/video/across-the-pacific-latin-laboratory-zjiib7/

https://www.pbs.org/video/crossing-the-pacific-across-the-pacific-another-ocean-a456bz/

This just drop on Netflix. The cute girl in James Bond No Time To Die is Marilyn Monroe



4 Reviews I found on IMDB are not good

#1 Hollywood has ruined another woman legacy in Hollywood. Ana should be ashamed of herself for taking this role. Hollywood continues to ruin women and make false lies about them.Poor Marilyn can't even Rest In Peace with out these Hollywood snakes making money off her. This is one of the worst movies of the year. It's an insult that Hollywood keeps doing this to women in the industry.

#2 Disgusting Depiction Of Who Marilyn Was... This is not a movie about who Marilyn Monroe was... It is insulting to her name and sad that many will take this as fact of who she was. And graphic r*pe scenes? Really? Don't waste your time. It's artsy and pretentious and pretends to be better than it is. It's style over substance and far too long, but will probably win an oscar... sigh...

#3 The film is just "Marilyn" being hysterical, infantilized, and abused by every man in her life. I'm also certain that the only reason people are saying Ana de Armas is deserving of an Oscar nomination is that she's crying most of this film. They believe that any actress who can do that is riveting. Her attempts to hide her accent result in a very whispery tone that's distracting and detaches her from Marilyn. It's obviously a fictional story, but it is degrading to attach Marilyn Monroe to this and a terrible disservice to her legacy.

#4 A disgrace to her legacy. The script is based on essentially a fan fiction biography. There's some liberties taken and I feel it is done in extremely poor taste. This is a terrible way to introduce Marilyn Monroe to a younger generation as a biopic. The talking fetus scene was where I officially checked out.