Christopher Robin and New Amsterdam...

1. Saw the flick Christopher Robin not to be confused with the bio-pic Goodbye, Christopher Robin about A. A. Milne. This was a live-action fictional take on the "character" of Christopher Robin in the "stories of Winnie the Pooh" by A.A. Milne and E.H Shepard that Disney adapted for animation. I haven't seen the bio-pic, so can't comment on it. Not a huge fan of bio-pics generally speaking, have yet to see one that doesn't fall into all the traps and bores me silly.

That said? Can't say this was all that much better. ( Read more... )

It's an okay movie. Not sure it was worth $5.99 rental for on demand. Glad I did not see it in the theater at $15. Didn't seem to be all that long though. Did find the theme/message to be a tad cliche.

2. It's a cloudy gray day here this morning, although been flirting with that all weekend. So could become pretty and blueskied by afternoon. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees and everyone is blowing them into piles to be removed.

Since fall came rather late this year, it wasn't all that pretty. By the time the leaves turned they fell. And many were sort of a burnt umber.

We've had an unusually damp Summer and Fall. Not to mention a weirdly warm one to start and then all of a sudden -- it got cold. Mother Nature I think is laughing at us.

3. I've made it all the way through the first five - six episodes of New Amsterdam -- which I'm enjoying. The cases of the week get resolved each week. It's not focused on the sex lives of its characters/doctors the way that Grey's Anatomy is -- and is far more realistic. But, we don't really delve into the lives of the nurses or support staff either -- which makes some sense since the focal point is the medical director and his staff or the head attendings on his staff. The series is adapted from a non-fictional memoir - Twelve Patients - Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital

Using the plights of twelve very different patients--from dignitaries at the nearby UN, to supermax prisoners at Riker's Island, to illegal immigrants, and Wall Street tycoons--Dr. Eric Manheimer "offers far more than remarkable medical dramas: he blends each patient's personal experiences with their social implications" (Publishers Weekly).

Manheimer was not only the medical director of the country's oldest public hospital for over 13 years, but he was also a patient. As the book unfolds, the narrator is diagnosed with cancer, and he is forced to wrestle with the end of his own life even as he struggles to save the lives of others.

The television series changes the names of the characters and the hospital, and to a degree fictionalizes it. But the medical director, Max, does have throat cancer. And the series does blend it's patients stories with social implications -- rather well actually. It does some things that surprised me.
( Read more... )

Doctor Who - The Demons of Punjab

Enjoyed this episode far more than I expected. I was expecting it to be preachy, but it wasn't. Or over the top with cheesy bad guys, it wasn't. Their special effects have improved dramatically over the past few years.

To date this season is sort of panning out for me the same way the previous one did. I like some episodes, I don't like others. The ones I like focus more on the companions relationships. But overall, I've enjoyed more than I thought. The Doctor herself isn't really registering for me anymore than the last one did. And seems to be more of a doorway or gateway into all of these tales. Not that this is really much of a problem for me -- in some respects, I think it works better that way. OTOH - I do miss some of the delves into the Doctor's character. She seems to be merely reacting to everyone else, and a bit of a passive participant. But that may just be me. I'm admittedly not a long-term viewer of the series, nor an obsessed fan. (I only watch the episodes once, and only own one set of DVDs. Also, not British, which depending on your pov may or may not make much of a difference. The British fans seem to think it does, the die-American fans do not.)

That said, I rather liked the episode. And was happy to get a bit more on Yaz. Spoilers below.

( Spoilers )

The Incredibles 2 - film review

The Incredibles 2 - which I saw courtesy of On-Demand for $5.95. Eh, it's worth $5, but not much more than that. Granted I'm probably not the right audience for this movie -- it's targeted towards families with small kids, not middle-aged single women who well, do not have small children nor any desire for them. That said, it was sort of fun and breezy. I liked the first movie better, more entertaining -- better plot, better dialogue, better jokes. This one relied a bit too heavily on two jokes...which got stale fast. (Well, unless you have kids, then, maybe not.)

[As an aside the annoying hammering upstairs is back. For reasons that escape me -- they hammer between 4:30-6pm on Sunday. If it happens next weekend, I'm complaining.]

( vague spoilers )