Managed to again review all the movies that I watched throughout April separately so I’ll just rank them below & include the review links. Also managed to watch a full series of a new show (hated it), read a book, and listened to some new music which is rare since music sucks now (but it’s from an old fart band, of course, because I’m an old fart).
MOVIES WATCHED IN APRIL (ranked best to worst):
In The Mood For Love – 8/10
La Haine – 8/10
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc – 8/10
Man With A Movie Camera – 8/10
Resurrection – 7.5/10
A Good Person – 7.5/10
I Want To Eat Your Pancreas – 7/10
Nope – 7/10
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre – 6.5/10
We Have A Ghost – 6.5/10
Piggy – 6.5/10
Minions: The Rise Of Gru – 6/10
The Super Mario Bros. Movie – 6/10
Murder Mystery 2 – 6/10
Black Bear – 6/10
Bullet Train – 6/10
The FP – 5.5/10
A Boy And His Dog – 5/10
The Death Of Dick Long – 5/10
Clock – 4.5/10
Movies Rewatched In April:
Terminator 2: Judgment Day – 8.5/10 (Absolute classic. Obviously.)
Shorts, Documentaries, Etc Watched:
An Irish Goodbye – This won Best Live-Action short at the Oscars. The only other one I’ve seen is Le Pupille, which I didn’t like as much as this one. Thought this was a very sweet & funny look at two brothers dealing with the death of a parent. Good stuff. Am glad it won, although I obviously can’t compare it to all the others. I’ll try to watch the rest if they pop up on services like this one did.
BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS IN APRIL
TV SHOWS WATCHED (not ranked)
– The Mandalorian: S3 E6-8 – Loved it. Love Grogu. My favorite show in years. Is it still as great as at first? Nah, probably the weakest series of the three but still great. And I’m now heartbroken to have no new Grogu content to look forward to each week. 😭 Was saying to the hubby “You know I’m not on my phone looking up sexy men or something – It’s most likely I’m searching for cute Grogu clips to rewatch”.
– Beef: S1 – Pretty much hated this. Could any of these characters have been any more hateful? (Except for the daughter – she was adorable). I just didn’t see the point of this show? I guess it was showing how road rage can escalate but this story was just fucking ridiculous. And why did that one specific person have such a gross & violent death compared to everyone else who was an asshole as well & deserved no better? I mainly watched this as I like Steven Yeun (and Glenn was my favorite Walking Dead character). But when I saw it was an A24 thing I knew it might be a pretentious piece of shit so it’s my own damn fault for watching it I guess.
– Sweet Tooth: S2 E1 – Liked Season 1 so was looking forward to finally seeing this. But, honestly, I’ve forgotten too much of Season 1 so was a bit lost during this first episode of Season 2. Need a shorter wait between each series. I’ve watched a million other things since then! Including Cocaine Bear, which this boy was in. So I kept thinking “Cocaine Bear kid!”. Will try to watch more, though. Still an interesting story.
– Schitt’s Creek: S1 E12-13, S2 E1-2 – Continuing this as it’s honestly the perfect sort of thing to stick on in the background while you’re doing other shit. Like writing a blog review. Super insulting, probably. But I do like it.
– Grey’s Anatomy: S19 E1-14 – I have a love/hate relationship with this show. 19 years, man – I can’t stop watching now. I actually think this season has been better than other recent ones so far. The women’s clinic stuff has been really good & needs to be shown because things are f*^king crazy over there. And I quite like the above new batch of interns or whatever they are. Sometimes the group of newbies they get on the show each season are just annoying as hell.
– The Amazing World Of Gumball: S1 – Daughter was obsessed with this show when younger & I only ever saw bits & pieces of it. It’s absolutely fucking nuts. Now I know why she’s such a (lovable) weirdo. 🙂 She was very happy it suddenly became available again on one of our services for the first time in years so I decided to watch them with her as she’s still a big fan. But now it’s disappeared from the service again. Not happy! Was enjoying this way more than I probably should as a grown woman… For a taste of Gumball, I posted about it in my Anthropomorphic Cuteness series here (I miss those posts).
– Heavenly Delusion (天国大魔境, Tengoku Daimakyō): S1 E1 – Japanese dystopian anime – Seemed right up my alley! Hubby & I watched a couple more episodes in May & we’re losing interest. It’s a bit of a mess. Not sure if we’ll continue.
– Outer Banks: S1 E1-3 – Meh. Daughter & I decided to check this out. We’re not really feeling it & probably won’t continue. For me, everyone is just too young & too good looking & too unrealistic. Annoying teenage bullshit.
BOOKS READ
– The Other People by C.J. Tudor – C.J. Tudor is my new favorite author. She’s a combination of my two faves: Dean Koontz crossed with Stephen King but with a bit less of the supernatural shit I love (but still some) & a bit more “crime” (it’s the section where they put her books in my local library). The Chalk Man was great & I liked The Burning Girls a lot. I liked this one & The Taking Of Annie Thorne a bit less but still found the story very enjoyable. She does love to take you on a twisty turny journey. Actually, she’s probably mostly influenced by Harlan Coben but I have less experience with his work (mostly just the TV adaptations). Yeah, it’s lightweight but that’s what I like to read – I’m too busy watching movies to read a heavy book. Although I’m still working my way through Watership Down, so I do attempt to read some classics! Here’s the synopsis for The Other People (via Amazon):
“Driving home one night, stuck behind a rusty old car, Gabe sees a little girl’s face appear in the rear window. She mouths one word: ‘Daddy.’ It’s his five-year-old daughter, Izzy. He never sees her again.
Three years later, Gabe spends his days and nights travelling up and down the motorway, searching for the car that took his daughter, refusing to give up hope, even though most people believe that Izzy is dead.” – My Rating: 3/5
MUSIC LISTENED TO IN APRIL
– Metallica – 72 Seasons – Yay! New music for us old farts! I like what I’ve heard so far. I haven’t given it a really good listen yet as have had it playing while working. I wrote a bit about how much I loved Metallica in high school when I used to do my Music Video Friday series & I posted the video for The Unforgiven.
Must admit I’ve ignored Metallica’s newer stuff for many years now & continue to just listen to their oldest albums (up through the Black album, then Load & Reload were disappointing, then I loved Garage, Inc – anyone else have a Garage Days cassette at the time? I loved that thing. God I’m old). Nothing will ever top Lightning & Master, though. Those albums are amazing. I can only think of one song I’ve liked since Garage, Inc (The Day That Never Comes). Am I missing out? Should I give their last few albums a chance too?
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
Probably gonna sign up for one month of Apple TV to binge the latest season of Ted Lasso & watch Tetris & all the 2022 Apple TV movies that I missed. And it looks like Halloween Ends is being added to one of my services in May so I’ll be checking that out.
Might as well end this post with the title track from the new Metallica album…
Cinema Parrot Disco 