Listings here make no entailment on date of original viewing.
Ratings Guide
A rough metric for the meaning of the numbers below:
- 10: An excellent movie. Meets at least two out of super original, extremely well done, or specifically targeted for Joe Kopena. The crucial factor: It not just holds up to, but demands repeated play.
- 9: Very good, holds up to repeated play. Stops just short of being pitch perfect.
- 8: Definitely a good movie, but maybe not quite engaging enough or a little flat.
- 7: An ok movie; watchable, entertaining, not something to really come back to.
- 6: Maybe watchable, not noteworthy in any way, just short of entertaining.
- 5: Terrible; not worth watching without compelling reason to do so.
- <= 4: Wow! Don't put this in your DVD player unless you have a warranty on it.
Note that films and shows are definitely judged with some view to their genre and medium (e.g., TV), and certainly within my likes, as opposed to some objective quality scheme. Titles in bold are a definite general recommendation.
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2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010--2006 ]
2024
May
- The Batman. 8/10.
- Blue Eye Samurai. 9/10.
- Bodkin. 7/10.
April
- Baby Driver. 8/10. Kind of hard to know what to make of this. It's really stylish and well done. But an awful lot of innocent people are killed or seriously hurt by the end, by protagonist-adjacent characters, and the very end is just kind of absurd.
- Joker. 10/10. Can't believe I had slept on this movie until now. Absolutely incredible.
- The Accountant. 7/10. Somehow better than it should be. But the movie is weakened by struggling sooo hard to establish a franchise.
March
- Chernobyl. 10/10.
- True Detective: Night Country. 9/10. This new fourth season of True Detective wholeheartedly adopts the formula of the first and third: Two cops who used to be close partners but had a major falling out are brought back together by a new case that links to an old case, in an unusual locale, with a healthy dose of the supernatural and mysticism thrown in. But it's also a significant departure as this season has a new writer/director, notably a woman, and the two lead protagonists are also women. So in addition to taking the action way up inside the Arctic Circle during the weeks-long polar night, there's also a marked shift from the prior seasons' heavily male gaze to a new female viewpoint.
I'm a big fan of both the first and third seasons (the second is fine, but I argue it's basically a different show) and this season is at least as good. It comes across as less artsy, which can also be taken as being less full of itself. Perhaps an extension of that, this season is also more contemporary and has a more specific, down-to-earth message about women and indigenous peoples in modern society. All of the characters are well developed, and the show portrays a fair bit of the fabric of their lives outside the police station. The plot has a couple segments that seem ludicrous to me---nobody in their right mind would take some of the actions portrayed. But I guess that's the question: Are they in their right minds? Regardless, those objections are minor. Plot-wise the final resolution of the initiating crime did hit me from way out in left field, but it fits and I'm all for it. Long story short, Night Country is a great new installment of this show.
February
- Resident Alien. Seasons 1 & 2. 7/10.
- Band of Brothers. 8/10.
- Fury. 7/10.
January
- Cowboys & Aliens. 6/10.
- Asteroid City. 8/10.
- Reacher. Season 2. 7/10.
- Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. 7/10. An affectionate and very lighthearted take on DND. Lot of subtext poking fun at roleplaying cliches, especially in the early phase of quickly reeling through the backstory and then assembling the party. I appreciate a number of the references, especially the movie's take on Themberchaud the pudgy dragon. Unfortunately Chris Pine is kind of distracting as he's very distinctly Chris Pine and in my opinion just doesn't fit into this fantasy setting, in addition to playing a blatant amalgam of Star-Lord and Dandelion. There's also no real depth to any of the characters or plot. The action scenes are fine enough but not especially interesting. All in all though the story moves along quick enough, the characters are charming enough, and there's enough funny bits ("Jarnathan!") that the movie is a forgettable yet enjoyable two hours' entertainment. With further thought, would revise this upward to an 8/10.