TV #33 of 2017: Marvel’s Jessica Jones, season 1 My wife and I watched/rewatched this season respectively before binge-watching the new Defenders season with friends. It remains a really great examination of male privilege and rape culture, using the heightened storytelling language of superpowers to explore those issues. Like the best of the fantasy genre, …
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TV #29 of 2017: Game of Thrones, season 2 As mentioned before, we are watching this show for my wife’s first time and my first time since catching it live as it first aired. It’s fun to rediscover the beginnings of everyone’s stories, especially the ones that have changed the most over the years. On …
TV #28 of 2017: Party Down, season 1 If you don’t enjoy The Office or Veep’s brand of awkward humor, then this is probably not the show for you either. But it’s a pretty hilarious sitcom about an LA catering crew largely made up of struggling actors, and there are so many famous guest stars …
TV #27 of 2017: Game of Thrones, season 1 We’re watching this show for my wife’s first time and as my first rewatch after catching the seasons basically as they aired. (I believe I binged season 1 just before season 2 started, then watched live from then on. But I’ve never before gone back and …
Movie #13 of 2017: Snakes on a Plane (2006) It’s hard for me to be objective about this movie, or to say anything new about it. (The closest I’ll probably get on this viewing is to note that the Julianna Margulies character is about to go off to law school, and it’s pretty hilarious to …
Movie #11 of 2017: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) This movie is overshadowed in two directions: it doesn’t quite reach the storytelling heights of its predecessor Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) that revived the series, nor does it ever get as bonkers as Battle for the Planet of the …
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Movie #10 of 2017: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) I’ve seen every Planet of the Apes movie multiple times, and this one is definitely my favorite. It helps that it’s modeled closely on Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972), my favorite of the original series, but Rise definitely carves out …
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TV #25 of 2017: The West Wing, season 5 This show never quite gets bad during its run, but this season is probably the closest it gets (which makes it all the more surprising that 5×17 The Supremes is one of the show’s all-time best episodes). Josh’s annoying intern is a big part of the …
Movie #5 of 2017: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) I hadn’t seen this movie since it was in theaters, and my wife hadn’t seen it at all, so we streamed it through Amazon before heading out to see the sequel. Even three years later, it’s still really impressive how much this movie stakes out its …
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Movie #2 of 2017: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) I saw this movie for the first time in ages, and it was better than I had remembered. The digital aging / de-aging effects are neat, and the script taps into some grand poetic longing of the Anne Rice variety. It’s still way too …
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