July – Aug ’25 Media
Recommended
Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age (Book) — I mentioned this earlier, finally got around to (starting to) read it.
The Producers (Movie, not Musical) — Still holds up.
Sandman — Disappointed that this only got two seasons, and while a dedicated fan will find plenty to quibble over; it was done well and with respect. The pacing suffered; but even compressing multiple arcs into a single season there were still moments they let the show breath. Changing mediums is always a red flag; but they mostly pulled it off. Special Kudos to Esme Creed-Miles as Delirium.
Taskmaster — A British TV game/comedy show. Think Hollywood squares but instead of answering trivia the contestants spend three-six months doing stupid things for points then watch the (edited) results live in front of an audience (then edited again). Binged the most recent season because it had Jason Mantzoukas and wasn’t disappointed. If you just want to see his highlights, there’s a video for that. After that I started going back through the old series and have now watched about 2/3rds of all of them … on in the background while playing video games, etc. Not serious TV, but consistently amusing. They have a youtube channel with all the episodes. Skip season 1 (at least at first), the kinks were being worked out.
Maybe
Ghost in the Shell (The Scarlet Johannson movie) — OK. Not as bad as I’d heard, not great. Watched because I heard Beat Takeshi was in it. He didn’t disappoint.
The Price of Victory: A Naval History of Britain, 1815-1945 — Not just the Royal Navy, but naval politics, etc. A very long book I admittedly just skimmed here and there. (The author has two earlier books covering the prior thousand-ish years). The first 10 pages have a few anecdotes about Thomas Cochrane (on whom Patrick O’Brian based Jack Aubrey) (“…dismissed from the Navy for fraud in 18141, made a second career in the navies of Chile and Brazil in succession. There he gained new reputations for boldness in the face of the enemy, and weakness in the face of temptation….”) The sort of thing that I suspect several of my readers will really like, and that I should love in theory …
Tsukiji Wonderland — A documentary on the Tsukiji fish market. Watch it if that interests you. My favorite moment that emphasis how big it is was a subtitled sign — “Sea Urchin Auction Room.” (It was a big room. Not as big as the shrimp auction room, but still big).
Vicious Fun — An OK horror/comedy about a horror movie buff who stumbles into an affirmation group for serial killers. A few decent gags, many at the expense of the 1983 setting. “You do not mock a guy’s mustache!”
Maybe Not
Apothecary Diaries — I mean, I finished it. But I’m not sure why.
Sphere — Not part of my movies rewatch …. I never saw this. At 30 minutes I was intrigued, but this turned out to be a retread of an SF classic and the reveal lowered this quite a bit in my opinion.
Powaqqatsi — I consider Koyaanisqatsi a masterpiece, one that I tend to watch once a decade or so. This was not. I’m not sure what the message was, it seems to directly undercut the first film, and the music was less intriguing.
Not Recommended
Weird Science — Another 80s rewatch failure.
- The Reverse of the Medal also depicts Aubrey’s dismissal due to the great London Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814.
︎