Blogocentric Formulations

May 2024 Watch List

To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish.


Movies

          Anyone But You
          Atlas
          Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
          Lift
          Rebel Moon - Part 1: A Child of Fire
          Rebel Moon - Part 2: The Scargiver
          War for the Planet of the Apes


Television

          FBI: Most Wanted (Season 1)
          FBI: Most Wanted (Season 2)
          FBI: Most Wanted (Season 3)
          Knuckles
          Law & Order (Season 23)
          Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Season 25)
          Punisher (Season 2)
          Tales of the Empire


It was a very productive viewing month, thanks in no small part to the fact that my wife has been binge watching procedurals for the past several weeks. Procedurals aren't my particular cup of tea; they're mostly background noise while I work on other stuff. Knuckles is a spinoff of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise and my kids really seemed to enjoy it. Tales of Empire (a Star Wars anthology series) was pretty good, but like Tales of the Jedi from a few years ago, it's a little too disjointed and random for it to be truly great.

Speaking of Star Wars, on the feature film side I watched both installments of Rebel Moon a.k.a. Zack Snyder's Star Wars Movie. Both installments were pretty bad. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that Snyder is basically Michael Bay; he knows how to create some stunning visuals, but really isn't very good at telling a story or developing character. And on the topic of bad sci-fi movies, I can also enthusiastically not recommend Atlas which was basically Jennifer Lopez acting alone in a room talking to an A.I. for more than half of the movie. I also watched both the new Planet of the Apes movie and the previous film that I somehow didn't even know came out years ago, and I just don't get the hype about this franchise. People love it, but all four of the recent films have been pretty mediocre. Lift was a cheesy heist movie, and Anyone But You was an entertaining, if predictable romantic comedy.

All in all, even though I watched a lot in May, I didn't love a lot of what I saw. The best was probably the second season of Punisher, but even that wasn't great. It was a pretty lackluster month, to be honest.


TOP PICK: Punisher (Season 2)