Bald Move Pulp is where you can get your fix of robots, aliens, action space adventures, and everything in between; on television or on the big screen. Pulp was not made for serious drama, if that’s your thing, you might be looking for Bald Move Prestige.
Jim and A.Ron give some brief thoughts on the brief episodes of Netflix’s new gonzo animated anthology, Love, Death, and Robots, before beginning deliberations on HBO’s new documentary, The Case Against Adnan Syed. We’ll be off on vacation all next week! See you when we return!
Cecily and A.Ron take over Bald Move TV to talk about the new season of Stars American Gods. While we have previously discussed the show in passing, we’ll be taking longer looks at it this season, beginning with this premiere episode, “House on the Rock”. There are a lot of reasons to be excited for this show; it’s unique world and lush visual style, the performances and characters are delightfully over the top, and it’s an adaptation of a highly regarded work where the literary creator is deeply involved in the production. But, there are reasons to be skeptical, as the production of season two is a story filled with delays and creative differences, leading to the firing of several showrunners, and has lead to numerous negative reviews of at least the early goings of season two. Still, we’re committed to seeing this show to whatever end it meets, either of running it’s natural creative course or at the hands of the hammer swinging execs at Stars. They don’t call us the “Undertakers” for nothing!
Jim and I cover two semi-related topics, the horror genre take on #metoo that is Hulu’s Into the Dark: Treehouse, as well as the documentary on Michael Jackson, Leaving Neverland that paints a compelling, credible, and disturbing picture of the pop superstar. It’s also an excellent primer on understanding and preventing child abuse, which every parent or potential parent should watch.
We have seen the latest Marvel super extravaganza, Captain Marvel, and come away with the suspicion that it’s missing something from the usual Marvel formula. If anything, it feels DC-esque in the way it’s attempting to shoe horn in a new, unknown super power into the MCU. Uninspired fights, plot twists that are seen for miles away, and lacking engaging supporting characters (aside from Jackson’s Nick Fury, whom Brie’s Marvel has very good chemistry with) that give the main character emotional stakes, Captain Marvel is good, perhaps, but not great, and maybe that’s overselling it.
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Jim and A.Ron watched a near record amount of television this week! We finished The Umbrella Economy and Lorena, as well as offering first looks at the third season of Documentary Now and the new Prime Original, This Giant Beast that is the Global Economy. Buckle in, this is a mega round up with lots of deep dives into political and economic topics!
Jim and A.Ron have seen The Umbrella Academy and Lorena, Netflix and Amazon originals respectively. The Umbrella Academy is a smart, fun take on the X-Men universe with some Noah Hawley DNA mixed in. Lorena is a four part documentary examining the 1993 dismembering case of Lorena Bobbitt. While the case is no doubt interesting and probably a big landmark in the struggle for equality of the sexes, we’re not sure this production is doing a great job of raising these issues or presenting the facts in a straightforward way. We’ll be back next week to give The Umbrella Academy and Lorena another whirl!
Jim and A.Ron saw Alita: Battle Angel tonight, and declare it a mess, albeit a beautiful, groundbreaking one in terms of effects work. This feels like the first half of the third part of a movie trilogy; everything is mysterious, nothing makes sense, the world is being built hastily and right in front of our eyes, and the movie ends right at the beginning of what promised to be a kick ass third act. But if you want to see what state of the art CG looks like in 2019, this is a shining $170 million example.
Jim and A.Ron have seen The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and it’s almost if not just as good as the first one. Father/son relational dynamics take a back seat to big bro/little sis dynamics for the sequel, but Everything Remains Awesome. This movie is bright, colorful, funny, inventive, and packs a lot of heart. Go see it unless your inner child is dead and your heart is gripped by icy black despair. In which case I’d recommend The Lego Batman Movie, instead.
Jim and A.Ron take a look at Netflix’s new darkly comedic take on the Groundhog Day concept, Russian Doll. Starring Natasha Lyonne, it offers a funny, inventive, and interesting take on the human condition, what being happy and connectedness means, and what obligations we have to our fellow humans around us. At a binge time of less than 4 hours, we both feel like it’s worth just about everyone’s time to check out. We also circle back around to Black Earth Rising, which is still phenomenally interesting at its core, but can’t decide which of a million sub-plots and character details it wants to focus on and remains a bit of a jumbled mess.
