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⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Will) I can't think of a movie that's more visually stunning than this and part one. I'm not creative enough to make it look half this good in my head when I read the books. Denis Villenueve has perfected his visual style, and this is the perfect movie to show it off. Austin Butler was magnetic as Feyd-Rautha. I didn't love Rabban, though Baron Harkonnen was also perfect, so they nailed two out of three Harkonnens. Christopher Walken was an odd choice though - he seemed so normal, very unexpected, after that memorable Sardaukar scene in part one and after seeing e.g. the Harkonnen leadership. It worked though, somehow. I love that Chani's character gets more fleshed out here. I was curious how the movie would handle the whole situation with the badass Fremen freedom fighters (the good guys in part one, seemingly?) turning into Arabic jihadist terrorists. Blame it on the fundamentalists, I guess - which it turns out is all of them exc...

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Will) I'm not done the season yet, but I'm reviewing it anyway because it's been fun. I mean, if you like Japanese Samurai stuff that's gorgeously animated, super not for children, and avoids most of the cliche stuff that's typical of the genre, anyway.

⭐ 7.5/10 (Originally written by Will) This is a Netflix adaptation of the Roald Dahl book starring Benedict Cumberbatch, coming in at a total of 40 minutes long. It's a very unique format - basically a reading/narration of the entire book word for word, with the characters themselves doing the reading. I read the book as a kid and found it really memorable, so this was a lot of fun to revisit.

⭐ 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).

⭐ 9.5/10 (Originally written by Will) This is a true story that was lots of fun. Some of the details are lightly fictionalized, but it's largely from the author's research and available historical documents. It's got treasure, shipwrecks, scurvy, Robinson Crusoe vibes, and so much more. Recommend for everyone, but docking half a star because the book would have been 10% shorter if the author cut out half his descriptions of how wild the waves were at any given point in time.

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Will) While we're talking about Christmas movies, just wanted to put this one out there as clearly the best of the Home Alone series!

⭐ 7.5/10 (Originally written by Will) This is the first book in a YA series by Sanderson about a post-apocalyptic world where a bunch of humans started manifesting super powers, but turns out humans are terrible and so they mostly turn themselves into kings of their own cities all over the place, and governments everywhere collapse. A group of regular humans bands together to start assassinating the super heroes in various clever ways. I haven't watched The Boys, but this sounds like a pretty similar thing? This book came out in 2013 though, so Sanderson beat them to it, though the book is YA of course, so not super dark. Overall there's nothing groundbreaking here, but it's plenty of fun if you don't think about it too hard. I'll probably skip the sequels because I'm not too interested in a series right now (there's four books total).

⭐ 7.5/10 (Originally written by Will) This is a juvenile fantasy novel by Sanderson - I had suggested Evelyn give it a try because she loves fantasy stuff and figured Sanderson might be able to put out some good juvenile stuff, and I guess I wasn't wrong? Shockingly, it's short enough to read in a few hours. The book is pretty absurd overall, and the humor is definitely juvenile - too much so for me, but I heard Evelyn laughing out loud a few times. I didn't bother with the sequels, but Evelyn is going through the rest.

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Will) I typically love about 25% of Metric's songs and think the rest are bad, but this album was a lot more consistent for me. I love the general vibe, and it's brought me back to some of their other best older stuff as well. I skip the first song every time, but otherwise every song is solid at minimum. My highlights are All Comes Crashing and Paths in the Sky.

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Will) I was looking for something in the Marioverse that I could play with my kids, and this delivered. Each level is a mini 3d puzzle with all the usual baddies, and you have to navigate with Toad/Toadette who can't jump. This was fun! Cooperative mode was good, and even a four year old was able to meaningfully contribute as long they played with someone a bit more advanced. It's a pretty easy game to complete, but there's extra difficulty in finding and collecting all the optional stuff along the way, and I found myself replaying some levels to do so. The only real issues are that the game is a bit short for $60, and sometimes you just can't get a remotely useful camera angle when you're playing two player, but that's rare enough.

⭐ 7.0/10 (Originally written by Will) Another space opera, I picked this up because it's the first in a series that the show The Expanse is based on, and the show is pretty good according to reviews. This was compelling enough that I flew through it over a couple days, but in the end it didn't feel unique enough to really stand out much. I don't think I'll read the rest of the books, but I'll probably try the show since reviews are solid and there's not enough good sci-fi tv.

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Will) Heartwarming and sad at the same time, you're not likely to get through this without tears. Tom Hanks did an incredible job - I really notice how talented actors are when they play a real person. I recommend every human get familiar with Fred Rogers, through this movie or the documentary.

⭐ 7.5/10 (Originally written by Will) This is a historical drama on Netflix, set in the fifteenth century. Sometimes when you're sick of the entire world being at stake in every movie it's nice to watch something a little smaller in scope. This was pretty solid! Joel Edgerton might have the sexiest voice in the world, plus Robert Pattinson and Timothee Chalemet were also good. Also, perhaps the most realistic duel I've seen between two dudes wearing heavy steel armor - slow, awkward, tiring etc. Recommend!

⭐ 7.5/10 (Originally written by Will) I generally enjoyed this quite a bit, though there are unfortunately some significant flaws as well. I'm cautiously optimistic that season 2 will get better, given a little more budget and some lessons learned from season 1 about what worked and what didn't. What Worked For Me They chose some really great shooting locations that looked great on screen. I'm thinking of the scene in episode 1 or 2 where they're leaving the village and looking back, and you can see the trolloc torches in the distance, for example. I was nervous about the budget and how all the magical stuff would look - the trollocs turned out pretty solid, and the fades were pretty badass, especially the first fade scene where it gets stuck on the other side of the river. I was pretty happy with the casting, especially Moiraine and Nynaeve. Perrin was the one that stood out to me as a weak spot though. What Didn't Work For Me Tar Valon and The Ways both looked rea...

⭐ 7.0/10 (Originally written by Will) I do love a good heist movie, so I thought I'd try out this new one on Netflix. It was indeed a heist movie, almost exactly like every heist movie that's come before it. There's nothing original here, and in fact it seems like they're just trying to start a new Ocean's 11 franchise. Ryan Reynolds plays the standard Ryan Reynolds character, The Rock plays the standard The Rock character, and Gal Gadot is also pretty much what you'd expect. That all being said, it was reasonably funny at times! And there was main characters stealing priceless art, because we the people could never feel bad about stealing useless stuff from rich people! And it was all just totally fine and entertaining enough, and if you like this sort of thing I recommend it. I looked it up on Rotten Tomatoes and it was like 93% audience score, and 39% from critics, which sounds about right to me.

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Will) I discovered that Anita had never heard of Fyre Fest, so I had to introduce her to maybe the funniest fiasco of the decade. The documentary is pretty standard stuff, but it shines because the source material (all true!) is so ridiculous and amazing. Also, the ability of people to be swindled by charismatic-yet-clueless people never ceases to amaze me.

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Will) Was this objectively a perfect movie? No. Was it everything I hoped for after waiting years for it? Absolutely, except for the fact it ended after 2.5 hours and we're gonna have to wait forever for part 2. Visually this was clearly a Denis Villenueve movie, with slow lingering scenes all over the place that really let you take in the scenery. I loved Chalemet as Paul. Oscar Isaac + Josh Brolin are so sexy and charismatic it's unfair. Baron Harkonnen was fantastically terrifying and disgusting. Shout out to the one Sardaukar who talked - for whatever reason I loved that guy. The spice harvesters, ornithopters, and sandworms were all super cool. Objectively, there were a few imperfections. I would have loved subtitles myself, so if you haven't read the book you might be a little clueless. There wasn't enough screentime to give to so many great actors. Everyone's uniforms/suits were so similar it was a bit hard to tell factions ap...

⭐ 7.0/10 (Originally written by Will) Nothing but the finest art in this house lately! We were looking for an adventure movie we could watch with the kids and saw this was somehow rated decently so gave it a shot. This was basically a National Treasure or Indiana Jones type of adventure, but mixed with Dora the Explorer - and somehow it worked! It was super cheesy of course, but also fun, and even funny at times. I also got Jumanji vibes throughout, though it's definitely not that good. If what you're looking for is a family friendly adventure film, this is worth a look.

⭐ 8.0/10 (Originally written by Will) This started as a classic kung-fu movie and then turned into a full blown eastern high fantasy, and I happen to love both of those things. Definitely upper half of Marvel movies I've seen, and it's mostly fun. Extra points for (minor spoiler) dragons!

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Will) This is essentially a documentary that follows the 2018 Formula 1 race season (to be clear, not nascar - in case you know as little about racing as I did two weeks ago). I watched the first episode of this on a whim with Thomas because he loves cars, and almost immediately found myself hooked. I can love almost any good sports documentary to be fair, but this was really well done and got me hooked on a sport I knew nothing about. Season 1 follows the 2018 season, but it focuses on the human storylines: which young drivers are trying to break out, how some teams scrape by with way less money, rivalries between drivers on the same team, etc. It's a great mix of short race clips, behind the scenes footage, and interviews with drivers, team managers, etc. I'll be watching season two!