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⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Joseph) Season 1 is the season of Ned, 2 is Robb, 3 is Tywin, 4 is the Hound, and 5? Season 5 is none other than the season of Stannis fricken Baratheon!! Who would have thought? The most intentionally boring character somehow steals the show this season, acting the part perfectly. So, season 5 is a clear downgrade in most respects. You get some really terrible arcs, like Arya in Bravvos, the Sand Snakes, Dany in Mereen, and the fricken High Sparrow. It's insane to me how I'm in the next season, and most of these arcs are STILL going. These all feel like 1 episode characters that are waaaay overstaying their welcome. Guess that's what happens when you kill off all the actually cool and interesting characters 🤔 However, Stannis is still there, and his arc interweaves with Jon's who is still really great. The whole thing here is still pretty good, and you love to see Jon move up the ranks with Stannis brooding, nodding approvingly in the c...

⭐ 9.5/10 (Originally written by Joseph) I watched this because it is from Chazelle and has Ryan Gosling and is about space, and those are all my favorite things. I watched it about a week ago and have thought about it often since then. I think this movie is a phenomenal look at grief, masculinity, and that terrific Martin idea that love is the death of duty. I think Chazelle does this great job of taking a story we all know and making it incredibly human and personal. He somehow takes this epic, sweeping narrative and shrinks it down to the conflicts between Niel Armstrong and his wife, and also Neil Armstrong and himself. So, this movie is actually just like Free Solo, and predictably Tim has the incorrect opinion on both. I think there is a lot going on under the surface, and I think Gosling does this amazing job of portraying a man who is just assaulted with tragedy time and again, and he starts coping with it in very human ways. Armstrong was known as a stoic guy, and you wonder if...

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Joseph) This movie is anime. Now go look at that score. It's true. There is one good anime movie. This is a super simple movie about a woman going on vacation to the countryside, and doing that brings back memories of growing up. It flashes back and forth in time from her girlhood to present day, and all the flashbacks are just funny little moments like when her crush talked to her, or when she wanted to become an actress as a kid after having one line in a play. It's cute, it's wholesome, and you can very clearly tell that these are essentially quirky little stories that happened to the writers. I almost always love these kinds of movies. It was a little relatable, like A Boy's Life, and it was kinda funny like Anne of Green Gables. While those have other qualities I liked better, this one definitely has the art direction going for it. I will readily admit I adore Studio Ghibli's visual art, and it's in full force here with thei...

⭐ 7.5/10 (Originally written by Beans) This is Olivia’s second studio album and at only 20 years old she has the whole world watching her with the number 1 album. I feel ancient and out of place as a 27 year old man listening and liking her music, but it’s inevitable eventually. Even if I’m not the target audience, I think it can still be enjoyed by all, if not all of it relatable. There’s a lot of good to this album. Her pop/punk bangers go hard and are a lot of fun. Her ballads are heartfelt and swell with a lot of emotion. That being said, this feels like Side B to her first album SOUR, except weaker. There are a few too many skips on this compared to SOUR. I think it’s unfortunate but impossible to not compare artists work to their previous stuff, and I don’t think anything on this album will match or be as lasting as anything on SOUR. Bad idea right, get him back, and making the bed were my fave tracks.

⭐ 7.5/10 (Originally written by Beans) This is a wild comedy about two lesbians that start a fight/defence club at their high school in the hopes of talking to their crushes. It’s really over the top and goes hard with all of the high school movie tropes, but I laughed really hard at a lot of it so I enjoyed it. The two main leads, Rachel Sennot and Ayo Edebiri, are both straight playing a queer role. Obviously you can’t ask a persons sexuality at a work place, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but I think it raises some interesting questions about who can play which roles in media. It’s not a hill I’m willing to die on, just something it made think about.

⭐ 6.5/10 (Originally written by Joseph) This is a movie I watched with my seniors, so yeah, I literally got paid to watch it. Which is good because it's not really worth watching otherwise. It's an 80s movie about parents who need to leave town, and can't find a sitter for their kids, so they get dysfunctional John Candy to watch them. He's not even married! What a worthless person!! Anyways, there's a few minor laughs, but it also has some kinda touching relationship moments between Candy and the sulking teenage daughter. Some elements have aged not super great... or have they? Honestly it's hard to to know these days, but this movie toes the line a few times. Anyways, this movie is fine. I think it's a family movie, but there are a few scenes that are quite adult. Why am I saying this? Nobody here is going to watch Uncle Buck.

⭐ 7.5/10 (Originally written by Will) Overall season 2 was still uneven, though less so than season 1, but the ending got a lot more interesting and has me looking forward to season 3. A highlight is still Lee Pace as Empire (Brother Day). He's charismatic, ever so arrogant, and even a little introspective this season - I found myself looking forward to all his scenes. The sets are gorgeous often, though other times feel like cheap daytime TV where they couldn't afford enough extras (Terminus is a little village of a few hundred people still?). Still a solid epic sci-fi worth watching if you like the genre. Also, watching in real-time as they release weekly episodes makes the experience so much more memorable (though occasionally frustrating).

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Joseph) Well now here is a weeeeeird movie and after a few days I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's a near-future sci-fi movie about lonely Joaquin Phoenix who's wife recently left him, and so he gets an AI companion to help him organize his things before his relationship with his companion begins to evolve. So right off the bat, I think this is actually a very timely movie that just gets more relevant as we have not only developing AI, but also increased loneliness. I once saw a comedian who said something like, "we'll all be bigoted when we're old, we just don't know in which ways. Just wait till your daughter starts sleeping with a robot." I think about that often. This movie asks a lot of those interesting questions, like how should we treat AI, should we consider their feelings, can we have actual emotional bonds with them, and if so, is loving them legitimate? Obviously the answers don't matter much right no...

⭐ 9.5/10 (Originally written by Tim) Looking back on my reviews of prior seasons I don't think I have given this show high enough scores. It is a miracle that something like this exists, and now that its final season is over I feel like I think about this show more often than anything else. Its basically an awkward guy with a camera documenting weird stuff he sees in New York (and beyond), tying it all together with a loose narrative. Things always go off the rails, in a way any Nathan Fielder produced show would, and its always incredible. When I watch this show I am amazing at how crazy real people are, and you don't have to look far to see something truly bizarre, especially in New York. But something I realized this season is that John is super weird too! He records everything all the time, so people probably see him as some crazy dude wandering the streets, so its not surprising that groups of weirdos always welcome him in with open arms. He attracts the strangest people, ...

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Tim) The start of another series in The Realm of the Elderlings! This one takes us back up to the characters from the Liveship series, but a lot of time has passed and things have really progressed. I don't really want to say anything about plot, but I loved the unique situation the characters are put in here. I feel like it does a good job subverting a bunch of fantasy tropes, but also has a lot of familiar ideas. A woman forced into an unloving marriage flexes her independence and follows her dreams. A kid born with deformities that makes them an outcast makes them the perfect candidate for a task no one else wants to do. I can't say I loved this book, since it felt like a bunch of setup for whats to come. Hobb's books are all a bit slow, which I never mind, but I felt like it was repeating things a bunch from different perspectives this time. I missed the multiple perspectives in the previous series, so its good to have that back, but I th...

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Tim) Decided to watch this on a weview recommendation and it holds up pretty well! I watched this a ton as kids, and its funny how now I watch episodes and think Hal is the best character! Its like I have forgotten the storylines of the parents but remember the boys' perfectly. My biggest takeaway was how solid the kid acting is. Seriously, right down to Malcolm's nerdy friends at school I thought the kids were all really good. Not sure why modern shows struggle with this so much. An enjoyable rewatch, although I can't say I was itching to watch every episode, mostly because I remember so much of it. Lois is also very annoying and her shrieking at the boys is my least favourite part of the show. I get it, and I like her parenting dynamic with Hal, it's just a lot.

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Joseph) This is an absolute classic 80s monster horror movie, and by classic, I mean they made like 6 of these exact movies. It is beat-for-beat almost exactly like Alien, but that's a good movie, so that's not exactly a bad thing. For the record, I think I like Alien's atmosphere better, but I like most other elements of this one more, being more of a psychological thriller in a lot of ways. So yeah, not a ton to add. The movie, for the record, is about a group of Antarctic researchers who discover a terrifying being that infiltrates their camp. The monster is super gross, but looks fantastic for a 40 year old movie. I always appreciate these more "realistic" takes on monsters, showing what it might look like when humans actually encounter aliens, and how we'd react. Like, these seem like they would be really campy, but both this and Alien are pretty slow, thoughtful movies in lots of ways. So yeah, if you're into classic h...

⭐ 9.5/10 (Originally written by Joseph) I've played tiny bits of Overcooked for years, and have always loved it but have never committed to actually beating it. But Jess and I have long been looking for things to do together at home that isn't watching TV, and co-op games have been something we've tried, but with mixed results. Mostly I feel like we will play things together when we make ourselves, but mostly prefer to play single-player stuff. That all changes now! We were always looking forward to having 30 minutes to play a few levels during evenings. This game is the perfect couch co-op in every way. The puzzles are tough enough where you really need to work together, communicating, and coordinating your efforts. The game is unique, it's cute, and really smart! It really is perfect. We played it at a perfect time too, which is to say after watching The Bear. Our kitchen definitely sounded just as profane as Carmy's, yelling things at each other that I won't ...

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Joseph) *some spoilers* This is a weird season because the cracks are really starting to show here, yet the season itself still manages to be really great in most respects again. But we go from having this carefully crafted show that feels like a history documentary to something that feels altogether like a true drama. Lots of weird behavior from characters, lots of strange coincidences, a bit of fast travel, some melodrama. This season, to me, is firmly the bridge between the tight, well-written, grounded early seasons and the silly later seasons. I think one of the issues in this season specifically is that with a lack of organic conflict flowing in from previous seasons, they really had to cook up some strange stuff. In Joff's absence, we get some ridiculous villains. Joffrey was the one cartoon villain we tolerated because in a universe of morally grey characters, we can understand that there will be one inbred psychopath who's worst features...

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Tim) I thought I was a little apologetic to the Mario movie, so let me be clear, that movie is trash and good animated movies do exist. I love how such simple animation holds up 100x better than the ADHD style of today (Spiderverse excluded), and all it takes is a genuine story with nonstop great music. Great characters, great story, actually funny lines. I mean, Mushu could have said Mammia Mia in slow motion once or twice, but otherwise what a great dynamic for a movie like this. I also have no nostalgia tied up in this movie, so it was such a treat to not start a kids movie and feel obligated to finish it. So thanks for the 25 year old content Disney, you really knocked it out of the park. Time to go back to watching de-aged CGI Anakin Skywalker.

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Joseph) All hail the season of Tywin! My goodness does he absolutely steal the show in this season. This is Charles Dance at the absolute height of his power. He is perfect in every scene, and as the power structure gets some clarity in this season, it is very clear who the king of Westeros is. He is also king of my heart ❤️ However, he is not the main character nor even the good guy, so about 90% of this show happens without him. Most of the arcs are really good here. Stannis is going deeper down his path, Arya and the Hound find some chemistry, Dany makes meaningful steps towards her goals, Tyrion becomes a better person. I'm trying to not spoil this show too much, but man reviewing a middle season is kinda tough, especially this show, because just naming people is a spoiler in a way... Anyways, rewatching was nice because we did not suffer a single second of Ramsey Snow. The second he showed up we hit that fast forward button. I actually think it...

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Joseph) This was last year's indie darling that everyone was raving about. It's incredibly simple; basically you control a pixelated hero, walk around and gather power ups that help fend off hoards of zombies. You don't actually press any buttons, you just control your direction and choose power ups. Well, despite being simple in concept, there is actually a lot of depth to it. Lots of combos and powers that complement each other, a few different objectives to prioritize. But make no mistake! This is just a straight dopamine blast straight to your brain, and it doesn't try to hide it. It's very addicting, and you can play for 3 hours straight but you sure won't feel good about it. There are so many flashing lights and gems and level ups and treasure chests that it really is an overwhelming positive feedback loop. You can't go more than a few seconds without getting the next shiny thing which helps you get more shiny things. By...

⭐ 9.5/10 (Originally written by Joseph) I'm not really sure what led to me rewatching this movie. I watched it when it came out and thought it was solid but ultimately a little too slow and weird for me. But I've been feeling a little melancholy as summer is ending and was looking for something a little more moody or understated. Man, this movie just hit the spot. I kinda think this movie is perfect, and I think Brad Pitt is incredible in this very un-Brad Pitt-like role. I love the slow speed this movie has, the eerie music, the grounded futurism. It asks some interesting questions without really answering them (I guess it does answer them, but in unique, untidy ways). I love the beauty of this movie, the sense of solitude, of loneliness, the dread of being alone in space. I really think this movie succeeds in all the goals it had, though unfortunately I don't think one of them was to make a big money blockbuster. Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, a big budget sci-...

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Tim) The dad books are here, and this was a solid start. I am already sick of reading short books that are so based on pictures, especially since I am reading more just for him to hear my voice, so this was perfect. Cute and clever stories that have some quirky humour. I think they will be fun to revisit when my son can listen and understand, but for now this was a very pleasant read. The meta-aspect of this story makes it fun, and each animal is so distinct. Their interactions are often funny, and Pooh being completely dim is heartwarming. Also, this book has a map! Its a simple map, but beautifully so, and each story has a clear spot on the map. I have dreams that this map will lead directly to an interest in the map of Middle Earth.

⭐ 5.0/10 (Originally written by Tim) I hesitate to fall back on "this movie wasn't made for me", but who was it made for then? I played Mario as a kid, do kids today even know who Mario is? Anyways, I didn't actively hate this movie it was just really boring. I do think there is a lot of potential, and I think the parts where it took inspiration from Mario levels and gameplay were the most fun. Does Mario need a real life family? I get that the plot in Mario games in non-existent, but this felt pretty flat to me as well. My major criticism is that Mario has a million incredible songs to use and they stuff this with real life popular songs instead. Are they playing Beastie Boys for me? Do kids get a laugh hearing Thunderstruck? Seriously the best part of the movie was hearing all my favourite songs in the credits, just play the hits in the movie! Speaking of playing the hits, its nice to see Peach's castle, but lets explore some worlds from the games! For example, ...