Thor: Ragnarok / Justice League / Crisis on Earth-X

I’m currently on a vacation at home – or as it called now: staycation – and on Monday I had lunch at one of my favourite Italian restaurants (Actually, it’s an Italian deli that also serves warm food and it’s soo good!). Upon driving home in the early afternoon I thought to myself: what a wonderful world what now to do with the rest of the afternoon. And it just so happened that I drove past a local movie theatre. So at 3 in the afternoon on a Monday I decided to check out what was playing (I had a decent enough idea going in though). And what have you: At 3.15 an airing of Thor: Ragnarok. And at 6.00 an airing of Justice League. Quick calculation: Is Thor done when JL starts? Probably. OK, so both tickets were bought. Both movies were in German dubbing because watching O-Ton as we call it would have required a bit more planning (not every theatre shows them and only on specific times).

At the Thor airing we were three people in the theatre. A mom with her kid and I. Which is not suprising considering it was the afternoon of a regular workday in week 4 of the movie. Justice League at 6pm was also only watched by six people (including myself) in week 2 at a bit more accessible time.

Then two days later I had also caught up with the episodes of Supergirl, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow to watch the big crossover event (Arrow being the fourth show to cross). And so I watched Crisis on Earth-X.

And here’s what I thought about all of them:

Thor: Ragnarok

Plot: Thor’s long-lost sister Hella comes back and wants to destroy Asgard. Thor gets banished to an intergalactice waste disposal and has to find his way back.

I liked the first Thor movie. I don’t remember much about the second one. But nor do I remember much about the second and third Iron Man movies. To be honest, I don’t remember much about any MCU movie that doesn’t have Loki in it, except maybe for the Norton Hulk movie.

That’s one of the issues of the Marvel movies. They are great fun while you watch them (and that’s where and how they make their money) but they are not for the ages. They’re like a good rollercoaster ride. You remember the thrill but you don’t remember the details.

The same will be true for Ragnarok. The villain was once again pretty forgettable and to be perfectly honest not really needed at all for the movie. Because the best parts of the movie took place on the waste planet. Especially all the interactions with Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster (Gamemaster? Whatever.).

I did have a problem with the jokes. Not any one in particular, most of them were at least amusing. More with the frequency of them. Sometimes this felt like it tried to be a laugh-track comedy were every sentence had to have a punchline. IMHO, that was a bit too much. In this regard I loved the more sporadic approach of the first movie where he’d just randomly smash his glass after he’d emptied it, praising the brew within.

As for CGI, Marvel has this part down. Although I could have sworn that the Hulk looked different than before, even a bit smaller. This nagged at me for a bit. Also, I noticed that for the sake of the plot the pathway to the Bifröst was changed, especially what’s supposed to be – or not be – under it.

I loved that Thor wised up for once and predicted Loki’s inevitable betrayal. When I saw that scene, the opening scene of Firefly sprung to my mind:

When I saw Karl Urban, I just thought: You’re in this, too? Considering how small his part was, it was astounding – or depressing depending on the point of view – how much more developed his character was in comparison to Hella’s. And at least he had a part to play in comparison to the disposal of the Warriors Three.

All in all it was once again an enjoyable ride but again no deeper meaning to be gained from it.

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Honig im Kopf

The title literally means “honey in the head” and this is how a main character is describing how Alzheimer’s feels like (an analogous pun would…

Chuck Lorre, Where Art Thou?

I used to love Chuck Lorre shows.

I loved them back in the days of the first few seasons of Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory and even the beginning of Mike & Molly.

But now? Not so much. But let me break this down by series.

Two and a Half Men

Let me preface this by saying I don’t care what happens behind the curtains. I never did. Not with this show, not with others. What I care about is what happens on the screen.

TaaHM used to be funny. Back in the days when Jake was still a cute kid, back when Charlie wrote things like the Oshikuru theme song, back then when Alan had no success with women.

Long before Angus T. Jones grew up and pulled a sort-of Kirk Cameron, Jake was used less and less and had to endure the fate of many a sitcom character: His character traits were exaggerated until (in his case) he was basically too dumb to live. Does anyone remember that cool kid from the Pilot who out-bluffed grown men at the poker table?

Charlie (the on-screen character) didn’t change all that much over the season until he was killed off-screen.

And Alan? I found Alan never that funny to begin with but his ability too mooch and his inabilty to find a decent job (has he been working at all in the past two seasons?) have just stretched way beyond the breaking point.

All in all, I’m going to cancel TaaHM for myself at the end of the season.

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Star-Crossed

Star-Crossed is a new teen sci-fi show on The CW but given the ratings it’s quite possible it won’t last long.

The basic story is that an alien spaceship publicly crashed on Earth and had survivors on board.
Ten years later these survivors are slowly allowed into the general public which doesn’t sit well with everyone.

Personally I quite liked it but I’m a self-admitting fan of teen drama series.


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"Not do: Dead." – Monday Mornings

Monday Mornings @ Wikipedia
Monday Mornings @ IMDb

“Monday Mornings” are conferences within the Chelsea General Hospital and these conferences are about all the things that went wrong. Malpractices, patient deaths and social misbehaviour. But it also shows parts of the private life of the doctors working there and their different approaches to their chosen profession.

Monday Mornings was developed by David E. Kelley who’s more known as a developer of law(yer) shows just as Ally McBeal or Boston Legal. And in the end this show is not so different, because the MM conferences are basically the closing arguments of a trial where everyone explains their point of view of what went wrong.

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