Saturday, February 14, 2026
BSG
I've tried a couple of times over the last few months to restart watching Battlestar Galactica. I didn't get very far, partly because I felt obligated to watch the streaming services I'm currently paying for. I also hesitated to watch it again because, over the last 22 years, I've watched the entire series three times. I've seen the pilot miniseries and season 1, episode 1 several times, and they are both fantastic. Because of that, I figured I must have the show memorized by now.
Another concern was that the series is more of a soap opera than I remember it being.
However, I watched the first half of the miniseries last night and fell in love with the show all over again. The acting and the drama are outstanding. Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell have screen presences that are truly remarkable. The entire supporting cast is excellent as well, especially Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, Aaron Douglas, Michael Hogan, and James Callis.
The special effects are starting to look dated, but they were movie quality at the time of the release.
I'd like to watch one episode per night until I make it all the way through the series.
Katee Sackhoff Watches Battlestar Galactica for the FIRST Time
@SerilaBuck
9 days ago
"i' played starbuck 25 years ago" don't do this to me. it was 10 years ago, right?
@Confederation1867
9 days ago
All this has happened before, and all this will happen again
@GinSnakken
7 days ago
@Confederation1867 So say we all!
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?
@john2001plus
0 seconds ago
As a parody of a Budweiser Clydesdale commercial, I thought it was cute. It seems like enough to make casual fans curious.
Unfortunately, it sends the message that the next Star Wars movie is more of a comedy and less of a science-fiction fantasy adventure. Still, die-hard fans like me are going to watch it.
I hold out hope that the movie is good, and if it is, then word will get out, and people will want to see it.
0 seconds ago
As a parody of a Budweiser Clydesdale commercial, I thought it was cute. It seems like enough to make casual fans curious.
Unfortunately, it sends the message that the next Star Wars movie is more of a comedy and less of a science-fiction fantasy adventure. Still, die-hard fans like me are going to watch it.
I hold out hope that the movie is good, and if it is, then word will get out, and people will want to see it.
Saturday, February 7, 2026
Thursday, February 5, 2026
Friday, January 30, 2026
The Imitation Game Got Alan Turing Wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOXaGBmx2OY
I have a beef with historical movies that distort history, and most of them do. For example, the movie Sully distorted the way the NTSB treated Captain Sullenberger to add drama to the film. As good of a movie Titanic was, I think that the real story is more interesting than a bunch of fictional characters.
I knew enough about the code breaking at Bletchley Park to find the movie suspect. Decisions about whether to use the intel were made at the highest level, like Winston Churchill, and not by the code breakers.
The movie has a spy subplot that strikes me as fictional. If it is true, then we have heard nothing about it from other sources.
Alan Turing had a distinguished career outside of code breaking. I was hoping the movie would acknowledge his other accomplishments, but instead it gave us a soap opera.
Saturday, January 24, 2026
Variations on the Kanon by Pachelbel - George Winston
I saw this piece of music on Facebook with no title. I am no expert on music, but I really enjoyed this piece. I wanted to know what it is called. I found it on YouTube with the title "Variations on the Kanon by Pachelbel".
So, being the curious person I am, I wanted to know what the "Kanon by Pachelbel" meant. So I found it...
The first version on this page, "Arranged for violins, harps, and bass", is a piece of music that I have heard many times, as it has been used in TV shows and movies. Mentally, I hadn't made the connection between the piano solo and this version, but I had previously been curious about where this music came from. Some of the other versions of this page are interesting.
Friday, January 23, 2026
SELF SERVE POPCORN AT MOVIE THEATRE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKjWAs93T04
Not sure this is a good idea.
Movie theaters are becoming obsolete.
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Last Days in the Desert
I wrote this 8 years ago:
If you want to see a low budget gem of a movie, watch "Last Days in the Desert" where Ewan McGregor plays both Jesus and Satan.
There is something compelling about watching a man on a journey, especially on a journey to find himself.
Actually this is not a very religious movie. There are no miracles. The question of Jesus' divinity is left up to the viewer to decide. He could just be a crazy man wandering the desert.
The final scene feels out of place, because the movie goes straight from the Crucifixion to modern day tourists taking snapshots of the same desert Jesus supposedly wandered in. Had they given us a hint of resurrection, even a slight stirring under the burial cloth, it would have given the movie a religious meaning. Such an ending, regardless of if you believe or not, would be a satisfying conclusion to the story, because it would have shown that everything that went before it served a purpose. Instead, the story is ambiguous.
Thursday, January 15, 2026
"The Blackout" movie
The joke here is that the biological weapon launched 200,000 years ago to subdue the planet was the human race.
This movie has borderline ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. It is a Russian made film that is dubbed. The last part of the dialog doesn't sound great to me.
The premise seems interesting. It is streaming on multiple services. I will have to watch it and see if I like it.
The look and sound of the alien reminds me of characters on the TV series Stargate Atlantis.
Monday, January 12, 2026
Finch
After a major solar event destroys the ozone layer, most life on Earth dies. Finch is one of the last surviving humans, and he distrusts other people with good reason. He has witnessed humans killing one another over small amounts of food.
I looked this up, and after such a catastrophe it would take decades, possibly up to a century, for the ozone layer to regenerate. Such an event is plausible. The cosmos is filled with dangers, such as coronal mass ejections, gamma-ray bursts, and asteroid impacts.
Finch lives in a shelter but must venture out to find food for himself and his dog. He wears a radiation suit, but conditions outside are extremely harsh. He knows that he is dying from radiation exposure.
He loves the dog; it is the only thing he has left. Because of this, he builds an intelligent robot whose purpose is to take care of the dog after Finch dies. The robot is very smart but also a bit goofy, lacking common sense and still trying to learn. This is where the movie takes an unexpected turn, as it is really the relationship between Finch, the robot, and the dog that the story explores.
That said, the robot’s goofiness feels very familiar, as if this story has been done before. I was reminded of Short Circuit, Wall-E, and several robots from Star Wars.
Circumstances force the trio out of the shelter, and they head west in a makeshift armored vehicle, hoping to reach San Francisco. Along the way, they face danger from both the environment and other humans. The desolation of the terrain makes The Road look like paradise by comparison.
I was very moved by Tom Hanks’s performance as Finch. He conveys deep compassion under the worst possible circumstances. Some critics, however, felt that the robot storyline was recycled and unoriginal. The ending also feels truncated, as though the filmmakers could have explored this world much more. So while it is not a perfect movie, I did like it quite a bit.
Rating: B+.
Sunday, January 11, 2026
Finch - movie
I've never heard of this movie, which is surprising since it stars Tom Hanks. Watching it now on Apple TV.
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Friday, January 2, 2026
Thursday, January 1, 2026
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Sunday, December 28, 2025
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Wacky Races (2025) | First Live-Action Trailer | Jim Carrey & John Cena
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkZP9tRGsAk
Pity that this is just an AI generated parody. It might make for an interesting movie.
It is based upon a 1968 cartoon. I thought that it was dumb even back then.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Friday, December 12, 2025
Avengers Infinity War
There have been eighteen Marvel Universe movies since 2008. These have introduced a large number of characters, i.e. heroes, most of which come together in this movie to fight a single enemy named Thanos. Previous movies hinted at infinity stones being powerful and dangerous, and the need to keep them from evil. It turns out Thanos is getting his hands on these stones and has an agenda that involves wiping out half the life in the galaxy. Why? His world collapsed due to overpopulation, so he takes it upon himself to solve this problem for everybody else. If he gets all six stones he could kill every other person in the galaxy with just a snap of his fingers.
There have been a number of good Marvel movies in the last decade and many of the stories from the films pick up in Avengers Infinity War from where they left off. The action gets started early and almost never lets up. One might think that this would be bad, but the action is done so well and the characters are so good that the movie feels like something truly special on a grand scale. Never have we seen so many different stories and characters woven together so seamlessly. This isn't just a movie, but an event a decade in the making.
We see more of Thanos than we do any individual hero, making him in effect the main character. This is as much his story as it is anybody else's, and he is played wonderfully by Josh Brolin.
With so many actors and effects, it is not surprising that the movie cost $360 million to make. They got their money's worth. Some have compared the film to Star Wars in terms of entertainment value, which is not a bad comparison.
Rating: A+
1917
The movie 1917 is likely to be one of the best movies I will see this year. It follows a pair of World War I soldiers on a time-critical mission to get a message to another unit so as to avoid an attack that will end in disaster. This is based on a real story told to writer and director Sam Mendes by his grandfather.
The movie is filmed in such a way that it appears to be one continuous shot, except for a couple of obvious breaks. There are continuous shots that last at least 40 minutes. The camera follows the soldiers through long trenches, across fields, into farmhouses, rivers, underground bunkers, and troop transports. This is like another character because I spent the whole movie wondering how on earth did they film this? It is technically very difficult to have everything properly lit while the camera follows the actors through miles of territory.
The movie creates a suspense that is perfect. There is not much direct combat, but the horrible aftermath of combat is everywhere in this movie. On the journey, the soldiers are constantly passing dead bodies and destruction. The way the movie is filmed gives it an extra sense of realism.
The movie is rated R for war violence and a few swear words.
Rating: A+.
Contagion
I rewatched "Contagion" after seeing it in the theater when it came out in 2011.
I have never seen a more prophetic movie in my entire life. At least 80% of the film seems applicable to the current COVID-19 pandemic. The biggest difference is the deadliness of the disease, which instead of being about 2% for known cases is around 25%. But detail after detail comes up that I only recently learned about during the COVID crisis.
The movie has an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although not all the critics were equally enthusiastic. The audience score is only 63%, so I suspect that the subject matter might have turned off some people. Rotten Tomatoes describes it as, "Tense, tightly plotted, and bolstered by a stellar cast. Contagion is an exceptionally smart -- and scary -- disaster movie." I agree. It tells a fantastic story. My favorite movie critic, Richard Roeper, gives it 5 out of 5 stating, "Contagion" is a brilliantly executed disease outbreak movie."
The film puts much emphasis on how easily disease can spread and this adds to the tension.
The ending is great, giving a nice emotional catharsis followed by a revelation about how the pandemic started.
Rating: A+.
Rating: A+.
Eye in the Sky
Eye in the Sky is a 2015 war thriller starring Helen Miran, Alan Rickman, and Aaron Paul. This was Alan Rickman's last movie before succumbing to pancreatic cancer.
A military operation uses a Predator UAV to track a group of highly wanted terrorists to a house in Kenya where a couple of suicide bombings are being prepared. Since the Predator is equipped with a couple of Hellfire missiles, and there is an imminent threat, the logical thing to do is to blow up the house from the air.
However, there is a problem. A little girl from the same neighborhood starts selling loaves of bread baked by her mother just outside the house with the terrorists inside. The conflict of the film is what to do about the little girl? This is a decision that goes up and down the command chain and gets debated hotly as a moral conundrum.
The movie also uses a couple of micro-drones disguised as animals that may not really exist. We don't know for sure what secret technology the military may have.
Is this an anti-war film? Maybe. But it also debates the morality of fighting a war with drones from thousands of miles away where the participants are safe from the consequences.
The tension in this movie is fantastic. It also shows how competing political interests might fight over life and death decisions. Although this is a work of fiction, it is easy to imagine that scenarios like this have played out for real.
Rating: A.
The Wild Robot
If you have seen the trailer for The Wild Robot, you might ask yourself, "Haven't I seen this movie before?" The Iron Giant gave us a robot that fell from the sky but didn't know its origin or purpose and eventually rebelled against its creators. Over the Hedge gave us animals that talk and must cooperate to survive, along with a bear that is a bad guy. Zootopia gave us an unscrupulous fox who helps the main character. Logan's Run gave us humans living in a dome. Silent Running gave us plants being grown in a dome. Wall-E gave us robots with compassion while on a voyage of self-discovery, along with an evil robot trying to do them harm. Bicentennial Man gave us a robot that rewrote his own programming to become more than he originally was, and so therefore the robot is wanted by his creators to find out what those changes are.
Many of the elements we have seen before, but the movie is so well-written and well-executed that it is one of the best films I have seen in a while. I was impressed.
Rating: A-.
The following section contains spoilers:
I have one big complaint about a plot point that doesn't make sense and is likely there to push an agenda. The robot is on an island with animals that normally compete with and kill each other. While the animals are hibernating for the winter, a massive snowstorm threatens life on the island. The robot takes it upon itself to bring some of the hibernating animals to a large shelter that it has built. While in the shelter the animals agree to overcome their natural instincts and cooperate for their mutual survival.
Logically this makes no sense. If the animals are adapted to hibernate on the island, then they have already found shelter to survive the weather. The robot, which has overcome its own programming, gets the animals to do the same and make a permanent truce. So if the animals aren't going to hunt each other, how do they survive going forward? The message is that competition is bad, and cooperation is good, which reminds me of Our Daily Bread, a Great Depression-era movie with a socialist message. Both movies have a climactic scene about diverting water.
The Right Stuff
When The Right Stuff was released in 1983 it was not a commercial success despite high praise from critics. There was maybe a sense by audiences that it was too overtly political or patriotic, which overtly it isn't. However, the movie found some success in VHS and DVD sales.
This is essentially three stories: The story of Chuck Yeager, the story of the Mercury "7" astronauts, and the story of the media and political circus over the early space program.
The film doesn't pull any punches. It likes to make fun of just about everything. The movie spends much more time satirizing Lyndon Johnson or showing the indignities the astronauts had to go through than it does any form for space exploration. This is not a film that is particularly interested in science; it is much more interested in the human drama of its characters. This combination of humor with patriotic heroism ends up being the perfect mixture. In fact, the three-hour film feels like a perfect movie and 32 years later it is just as watchable.
This movie loves trivial details which give the film an authentic feel. It could have been 30 minutes shorter, but then it would have lost some of the atmosphere it gained from focussing on minutia.
The musical score is wonderful.
I regret waiting at least 20 years to watch it again. This is the kind of movie that would be fun to watch again roughly every 10 years.
Had I made the movie I would have put more emphasis on science, but that might have been boring to most people. Maybe future generations will wonder why there isn't more science in the film?
Rating: A
Andor
The Disney+ Star Wars series Andor is shockingly good. Just how good is it? It is on par with an average Star Wars movie. I liked "The Mandalorian" series even better, and I regard it higher than any of the Disney sequel trilogy movies.
With Disney+ you can watch all 11 Star Wars movies, Andor, The Mandalorian, and the really excellent animated series such as The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, The Bad Batch, and Star Star Wars Visions. In addition, you could watch 37 different Marvel movies starting with Iron Man, and some fairly good series such as Wandavision, Loki, and "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier"
Plus you get all the Disney and Pixar content.
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