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March 14: I think I read the book, but I didn't remember enough of it to anticipate most of how Doctor Sleep was going to pan out. Also, face-a-likes: trying to persuade myself that Billy wasn't being played by Aasif Mandvi, and Crow Daddy wasn't being played by Snoop Dogg. The story worked nicely, and I'm sure someone spent hours poring over The Shining just so that I could look at the scenes in the Overlook Hotel and wonder if someone had spent hours poring over The Shining... I got a tiny bit lost at the end but it's inconsequential in the overall arc of how things panned out. I might read the book again on the strength of this, so I guess that's a positive recommendation.

We're both coincidentally on time off work - well timed, as it turns out - and doing ok healthwise, in case you're wondering.
March 13: Just finished Agency, William Gibson's latest. A bit disappointed with it, to be honest. Its predecessor (The Peripheral) was good enough that I reread it cover-to-cover because a desire to do so was triggered by reading an interview about Agency. Let me give you someone else's words: A 2-star Amazon Review of Agency (and the followup comment. The power supply got mentioned so often that I was sure it would turn out to be a Signficiant Plot Point, but no, it was just mentioned a lot). I don't feel quite as strongly about it as that, but it does feel like a loosely-connected bunch of vignettes with a background story arc that's more there by necessity of connecting the vignettes rather than the driver of them.

I'll be fair, there's some magnificent dialogue in there, though.
March 06: To Kill A Mockingbird: Gregory Peck! Robert Duvall, although I wouldn't have known that without the benefit of the credits! A Bunch Of Other People! I've not read the book, but I had vague inklings of the story from, I dunno, cultural osmosis or something. Also I knew the names Atticus Finch and Boo Radley, the latter through obviously the 1990s UK band but also an oddball mistaken belief that the name had been taken on by some activist group - I can't figure that latter one out; I've clearly mixed the name up with some other group but for the life of me I can't figure out what. Anyway. The movie is, as Mrs. Waider noted, a bit slow, but then that was the norm for the time it was made, and we both remarked on the controversial nature of such a movie at the time it was made. The courtroom setpiece at the end is every courtroom drama you ever saw, and the epilogue where we actually meet the aforementioned Radley (a youngish Robert Duvall, who I believe I first saw in Apocalpyse Now some 30 years after this movie was made) is surprising but reading some background it makes a bit more sense as we don't quite get how Ewell lost face from the movie portrayal. In any case, I guess I have to read the book now.

Oh yeah. Of course we're watching Picard and of course it's excellent. Engage!
February 28: I could've sworn we had already seen The Last Man on the Moon before but I guess maybe we saw one of other docus on the same topic or by the same name. In any case, an engaging story about Gene Cernan, starring Gene Cernan, apparently written by him as well.
February 21: Atomic Blonde was... slower than I expected. I think they were trying to make a thoughtful movie that just happened to feature Charlize Theron kicking ass, but I found it just felt like an action movie that lacked pace. I mean, fine, lovely recreation of 1989/1990 Berlin, I'm sure, and the whole "Toby Jones was good in Tinker Tailer let's use him in this Cold War Spy Story" bit was ok. I couldn't take John Goodman seriously as CIA guy, between the ridiculous beard and his movie back catalogue. And James McEvoy was sort of his character from Split and Glass but slightly less supernatural. I dunno. It just didn't really gel for me.
February 15: Watched Blade Runner 2049 again. I think I'd forgotten a few bits since last time, but I enjoyed it in any case. One thing I did notice a lot more this time was Character Who Verbalizes Subtlety Of Plot In Case You Missed It.

Not enjoyable was that the AppleTV chose to stop talking to the Internet literally 30 seconds before the movie ended, so I spent five minutes turning things off and on again just to get that last 30 seconds. Never happened with my DVDs...
February 14: Postcards from the Edge was fun, but I wouldn't rave about it. There's a lot of sharp dialogue in it, and a few good laughs, but I guess in places it feels like it's trying a little too hard or something.
February 07: Enjoying Star Trek: Picard so far.

Hidden Figures was excellent, but I felt the sheer awfulness of Virginia's persistent segration was diluted rather a lot by humour in the movie, and shouldn't have been. But then you'd probably lose a chunk of the audience, so whatcha gonna do? Anyway. Great movie, incredible people who did incredible work and struggled to get even a fraction of the respect they deserved. Read the book, btw.
February 01: Loving how Google's spam detection is effortlessly able to flag legitimate emails I've received for literally years as junk while adding spam calendar invites directly to my calendar.
January 25: Did my 25th Parkrun this morning. I've actually been walking the Parkruns since injuring ligaments in my foot last year; it's probably fine now, but (a) I'm paranoid and (b) it's always good for the Sanctuary Runners to have someone walking as some people are put off by the running. I'd hoped to do 25 inside 2019 (it's not hard; it just means running every second week, really) but the fun and games with the house meant that I wound up missing quite a few. Anyway, aiming to break 50 this year!