{"id":4762,"date":"2019-02-10T21:41:23","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T20:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/?p=4762"},"modified":"2021-01-02T17:59:14","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T16:59:14","slug":"mixed-media-sunday-10-february-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2019\/02\/10\/mixed-media-sunday-10-february-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Media, Sunday 10 February 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Films:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/high_flying_bird\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"594\" src=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2019\/high-flying-birb.jpg\" alt=\"High Flying Bird movie poster\" class=\"wp-image-4763\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2019\/high-flying-birb.jpg 400w, https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2019\/high-flying-birb-202x300.jpg 202w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>\u2b50\ufe0f <strong><em>High Flying Bird:<\/em><\/strong> Soderbergh at his best, with a powerful script about race, wealth, sport and passion. Compelling and subtle.<\/li><li>\u2b50\ufe0f <em><strong>How\u00a0To\u00a0Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World:<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0lovely cap on the trilogy. The bad guy was kinda <em>meh<\/em>, and the comedy more subdued, but it makes up for it with gorgeous animation and a sweet, emotionally resonant story.<\/li><li>\u2b50\ufe0f <em><strong>Thoroughbreds:<\/strong><\/em> Deadpan murder girls. Not a comedy, more of a Hitchcockian tension-building thriller. Anyone with a teenage daughter should be suitably wary.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong> Books:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>\u2b50\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2019\/02\/10\/why-we-sleep-by-matthew-walker\/\"><em><strong>Why We Sleep<\/strong><\/em> by Matthew Walker: potentially life-changing, as previously mentioned<\/a><\/li><li>\ud83d\udca9 <em><strong>Gathering Prey<\/strong><\/em> by John Sandford: dull. The last 200 pages are essentially a single shootout scene. The &#8220;Prey&#8221; books are at their best when protagonist Lucas Davenport is investigating and executing political manoeuvres. This has practically nothing of either. The only redeeming factor is that Davenport&#8217;s daughter Letty gets some good protagonist time. She needs her own spin-off series.<\/li><li><em><strong>All-new Inhumans<\/strong><\/em> vol 1 (<em><strong>Global Outreach<\/strong><\/em>) and vol2 (<em><strong>Skyspears<\/strong><\/em>) by James Asmus, Charles Soule, Andr\u00e9 Araujo, et al: lovely art, but the characters failed to ignite my attention.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;TV&#8221;:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/tv\/russian_doll\/s01\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"593\" src=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2019\/russian-doll.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4764\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2019\/russian-doll.jpg 400w, https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2019\/russian-doll-202x300.jpg 202w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong><em>The Blacklist seasons 2,3,4,5:<\/em><\/strong> I kinda went on a binge during January, and finished the remaining seasons I could hoover up from Netflix. Feels like that was almost the <em>only<\/em> thing I did in my spare time in January. I continued to enjoy it, apart from the first part of season 5, in which they briefly tried to turn it into a weird buddy comedy heist show. There are some shockingly good episodes of TV in here, though, with <strong>&#8220;Requiem&#8221;<\/strong> in season 4 as my standout favourite (the one where we see how Mr. Kaplan became Mr. Kaplan.) They wrapped up a lot of plot threads at the end of season 5. Although there was a notional &#8220;cliffhanger&#8221; ending in which the next volume of secrets was teased, I&#8217;d be okay if I didn&#8217;t see any more. The show takes a lot of moral liberties for the sake of story, and the compromises the characters make don&#8217;t land with enough impact.  <\/li><li><strong><em>The Punisher season 2:<\/em><\/strong> follows the standard Netflix Marvel show template. Sincerely made but unremarkable. It may be superfluous to say that it&#8217;s &#8220;very violent&#8221;, but, well. I keep thinking I don&#8217;t need more shows like this in my life, and then I keep watching them.<\/li><li>\u2b50\ufe0f <strong><em>The Good Place season 3:<\/em><\/strong>  continues to be adorable, fast-paced, witty, and continues to drive the premise further and further.<\/li><li>\u2b50\ufe0f <strong><em>Russian Doll:<\/em><\/strong> This is straight up amazing. Takes the time loop of <em>Groundhog Day<\/em> and twists it. You may think you know where this is going to go, but you&#8217;re wrong. <em>(Or\u00a0are\u00a0you?)<\/em> Hilariously funny \u2014 I laughed out loud while watching this through headphones and my iPhone on an <em>airplane<\/em>, with a stranger sitting next to me \u2014 and moving. Natasha Lyonne is a cranky whirlwind, and a sheer joy.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Podcasting:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedream.fm\">The Dream season 1<\/a><\/em><\/strong> was a fascinating deep dive into multi-level marketing, and the people who take part in it.<\/li><li>The most recent episode of Willa Paskin&#8217;s Decoder Ring, <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/culture\/2019\/01\/decoder-ring-brett-johnson-grifter.html\">The Grifter<\/a><\/em><\/strong> has some nice parallels with Jason Scott&#8217;s recent instalment about <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/textfiles.libsyn.com\/the-robert-hoquim-extra-episode\">Robert Hoquim<\/a><\/strong>. In it he refers to an old (2015) episode of Reply All, <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gimletmedia.com\/reply-all\/30-the-man-in-the-fbi-hat\">The Man In The FBI Hat<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. These three episodes make for a fascinating look at con artists, and why they make for such engaging stories.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Films: \u2b50\ufe0f High Flying Bird: Soderbergh at his best, with a powerful script about race, wealth, sport and passion. Compelling and subtle. \u2b50\ufe0f How\u00a0To\u00a0Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World:\u00a0lovely cap on the trilogy. The bad guy was kinda meh, and the comedy more subdued, but it makes up for it with gorgeous animation and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2019\/02\/10\/mixed-media-sunday-10-february-2019\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Mixed Media, Sunday 10 February 2019&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1782],"tags":[1840,1839,1838,1852,1747],"class_list":["post-4762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mixed-media","tag-books","tag-films","tag-mixed-media","tag-podcasts","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4762"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4977,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4762\/revisions\/4977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}