Brian Behrend’s microblog
As a UT graduate, I of course knew of Daniel Johnston and saw his “Hi, how are you” on Guadalupe multiple times per week when in school. I knew he was an artist and a musician and I knew he struggled with mental illness, but had no idea just to the incredible details of all three of those facets of his life.
A heartbreaking story I should have watched years ago.
Rating: 4 stars
Crossposted on Letterboxd
Watch The Devil and Daniel Johnston on Tubi
Consistently creative and baffling in so many great ways. Not a huge fan of the just normal old shitty human storyline instead of more fun bizarre living planet that makes babies in you storylines, but didn’t take too much from the season as a whole. Binged all 10 episodes in 3 days including like 5 in a row to wrap it up.
Rating: 4.5 stars
Crossposted on Trakt
Watch Scavengers Reign on Max
What If…?: Season 2
Not quite as good as Season 1 and didn’t quite stick the landing after the great Kahorri and the 1602 episodes, but still a fun mix of stories with some good through lines. Looking forward to Marvel pulling Kahorri into some other MCU stories/movies.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Loved this. Not the fastest pace show but loved every episode and binged all 10 episodes in 3 days. Even stayed up late two nights which is super rare for me these days. Enjoyed the world building, character development, and the story reveals as well. Looking forward to Season 2 and also added Foundation and a bunch of other Asimov to my Goodreads backlog as well.
Rating: 5 stars
Crossposted on Trakt
Watch Foundation: Season 1 on Apple TV+
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
Four extra stars just for King Herod’s Song being the absolute funniest thing me and the kids have seen in months. They were so baffled and delighted for much of this musical but that song sent them over the edge and onto the floor laughing.
Rating: 4 stars
Worse than the original and the stage musical in every possible way but still pretty decent. I have same opinion of this as I seem to of all stage to screen adaptations, the big, unrealistic, fun stage-style numbers are great and every other song is ruined.
The last third is solid and Auli’i Cravalho is pretty fantastic as Janis. She deserves to be a star but of course I’m biased because I have a pre-Moana photo of her holding my infant in Hawaii.
I like Renee Rapp’s music but she was kinda just ok in this. World Burn is her best number in this.
Rating: 3 stars
Crossposted on Letterboxd
Watch Mean Girls on Paramount+
Finally the first Braves spring training game of the season that is available to stream on MLB.tv.
This is super well written and super funny and super sweet, but I had to fast forward through probably 15% of it due to the awkward moments because holy crap they get into my bones.
Very, very highly recommended despite my 3.5 rating if you aren’t like me and don’t have an unhealthy fear of slightly awkward situations even in fiction.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Crossposted on Letterboxd
Watch Enough Said on Paramount+
Nimona was one of my favorite movies of 2023 and the kids loved it too, if you don’t have Netflix it is now available in full to watch free on YouTube:
Also, very interesting move from Netflix and presumably a trial run at doing this more often?
Somehow I never noticed that the OCP headquarters was a composite of Dallas City Hall until a rewatch today. Apparently a bunch of exterior shots all over Dallas.
Also, I forgot how good this was. Maybe it’s been longer than I thought since I’ve last seen it?