House of the Dragon

I watched a little over the first half of the first episode of House of the Dragon. By the way, I'll take the brunette (friend of the blond dragon-rider).

There's no way to do a review of this without insulting people. I will say that if you like Game of Thrones, you'll love this. It's the same style. And, most of all, the same level of excessive, gratuitous, and, I would say, pornographic violence.

I gave up on GOT after two or so seasons because it simply had become so violent. Clearly this kind of series is meant to appeal to a kind of prurient Roman Coliseum Christians-and-lions bloodlust.

It's a shame, because there's no reason they couldn't have taken a more Lord of the Ring approach to telling the same story.

That said, from what I saw, you once again have what is typical and what that one reviewer noted above as: "expensive mediocre entertainment produced by mega-corporations." However, the first five minutes or so were rather stunning and looked promising. The scenery and city really immersed you in another time and place. The visuals are very well done.

And then we come to the reality: Bland stories and bland actors (with a few exceptions). No wonder there is so much blood. It's to distract from the fact that this isn't Shakespeare. In fact, while watching this, I couldn't help but think that Shakespeare had stolen all the best material for stories centuries ago and all that's left for others to do is this kind of mediocre fare.

What I like: The king. He's well-acted and seems like a real character. And David Horovitz (Inspector Slack, Miss. Marple) plays a doctor or advisor. Not that his part is big. But I just like seeing this guy.

Although his age is not right for the part, he should have been the king's brother (the villain) who is played by the very weak actor, Matt Smith, who was little better as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in The Crown. What GOT had was good villains. This guy is just a weak and floundering douche-bag.

I gave up on the first episode mainly because of the violence. But I would have left soon anyway. This is the kind of HBO/Netflix stuff you've seen a hundred times. They are trying to do a sort of Shakespeare (or perhaps Tolkien). But it all comes off as more made-for-uncouth-13-year-olds fare.

And I watched this first episode for free. When I tried to sign up it told me I already had an account with HBO. So I went through the "lost password" routine and got signed in on the app via Roku. I could browse everything (nice feature). And I started playing the first episode of House of the Dragon and wondered how the heck I was able to do so without actually paying for anything. The account info in the app said that my account had expired in 2019. I must have done a free trial back then.

Yes, for sure. It's not crap like The Rings of Girl Power is crap. I'm sure the story gets better as you get into that. But, honest to god, that level of violence is not something I can watch for purposes of entertainment.

Still, it did give me a chance to look around HBO Max. And there seems to be enough decent stuff that I'd want to watch that I subscribed for the annual with-ads subscription. They have some 40% off deal so that basically makes it $5.84 per month plus tax. And I've read several reviews that the ads aren't annoying in regards to length and frequency. And given that I think I've harvested all I'm going to from ScreenPix, we're talking about an increase of $2.84 per month in the streaming budget once I cancel that.

I'm starting Blade Runner 2049 right now which I expect to have problems with. Yeahs, sucks to be me, comparing everything against high expectations. If I could just lower them I'd be a lot happier.

I may re-watch the LOTR extended trilogy. And I do find that the extended version is supreme. It's not just a "director's cut" bunch of add-on malarkey just to sell yet one more version. (Are you listening, George Lucas?) This is arguably the only "extended" or "director's cut" of any film I've ever seen that actually enhances the story.

And it's easy to tell. There are just too many rough cuts and gaps in the original series. And I totally understand that you can't run 4-hour movies in the movie theatre.

I may watch The Hobbit Again and try to love it more. Glutton for punishment comes to mind. I might also watch Aquaman. Quit laughing. I know damn well I'll probably be throwing my shoes at the screen a quarter of the way into that. But I want to check it out. How bad can it be? Don't answer that.

To some extent, yes. But I think it's more a factor of the human condition. We like blood and violence. For every one On Golden Pond there are fifty films filled with violence.

Funny thing is, most Christians are generally fine with their children watching this stuff...maybe not as hardcore as GOT, but nearly so. But put one titty on the screen and they freak out. I can't say I understand it. But it does seem to be so.

I don't have a problem with appropriate violence. But for some series, it does seem to be the main point, not just one element of a multi-dimensional story.

I finished Blade Runner 2049 with Ryan Gosling. My expectations were low because of the previous reviews I had read on this. But I agree with one aspect...it does tend to drag a bit, even for my taste. I can see where this would not be the kind of movie for those who need an explosion per minute.

But, surprisingly, this was very reminiscent of the first Blade Runner movie in look and style. The only real flubbed aspect is Jared Leto as Niander Wallace. Not only is the acting amateurish, but the part is superfluous. Or possibly the villain character is spread too thinly among several characters. The story surrounding him is blurry and not particularly interesting.

But Princess Buttercup is excellent as Lieutenant Joshi, Ryan Gosling's (K's) boss. And there are some nice sci-fi elements such as the stunningly gorgeous Ana de Armas as sort of a A.I. pal of K's.

There are some good themes in this that kind of get thinned out by a story that runs on too long and is a little softly written. Clearly the Replicants – just like Commander Data in Star Trek – are trying to be more human...or accepted as their own species...or whatever. A lot of this is left murky and not well articulated.

The central point is K, who is a blade runner (and a replicant of some kind), who is in the middle of a mystery and on a search for his own "humanity," if you will. But "humanity" has built slave races of replicants so it's probably not "humanity" proper that the replicants aspire to.


It's a murky world. And I suppose the story suits it to some extent. But it's not junk. It's not woke. It's an honest attempt to make something of quality, and they mostly succeed.

After watching a sci-fi such as Blade Runner 2049, I really need to sit down and chew the fat with someone to find out what I just watched.

Spoiler alerts everywhere here, and big ones. The gist of the film is that the old Tyrell Corporation created a replicant (Rachael, from the first movie...played by Sean Young) who could have a baby. We don't learn this fact until near the end of the movie where, of course, the bad guys just have to tell the good guys their plans.

Deckard (Harrison Ford) and Rachael had a daughter who, in Star-Wars-like fashion, Deckard goes to great efforts to hide. The mother died in childbirth. The implication in this film is that the meeting between Rachael and Deckard at Tyrell Corp. headquarters in the first film was no accident and instead was part of a breeding experiment. That stretches credibility as a tack-on, but what the heck.


That's part of the weakness of the movie. You don't know who is who. And although there is that Data or Pinocchio element of replicants wanting to be more human (and you certainly sympathize with their desire for freedom), I found these themes to be murky at best.

At the end of this we set up another sequel, seemingly Dune-like. Apparently there is a growing army of replicants bent on revolution. Were these replicants born rather than manufactured? I think so. Again, it's a bit murky.

The atmosphere of the movie carries it when the story itself is murky or plods on. I think the one (and probably only) character who elicits any sympathy is K's personal A.I. babe, Joi, played by Ana de Armas who is simply stunning.



The best job is done considering the metaphysical implications of her being. Early in the film K upgrades her to be more solid. But (I guess) not quite as solid as we see later when she merges with a designated bimbo in order to have sex with K in a scene that is imaginative and works very well.

But at the end of this, we're left unsure whether she is a mere A.I. toy that mimics being conscious or is really conscious. And that's intentional and actually a good piece of writing. It's ambiguous but not murky like a lot of the rest of this movie.

Okay. Can't argue with any of that other than to say that I found it enjoyable enough. I thought it was going to be rotten. And although I agree about the murkiness of the story, I was surprised that they did catch the tone and the visuals of the original Dykstra look-and-feel. Of course, other than Frank, the soundtrack was far inferior. And I want one of those A.I. bots for my home. I'll trade in the eBike in a heartbeat if that's what it takes. It's the T&A rule of Guy Movies. I will sit through some real shit if there is  pay off of some good T&A. And there was.

I'm now watching Aquaman. What's all the fuss about Amber Heard? She can't act. Let's move on. As Johnny has now done. We hope.

Early in the movie. Not much to say other than that at 15 minutes in it doesn't totally suck. No shoes thrown at the screen yet.

About 2/5 of the way into episode three of season one I started to see new material. So that seems to be where I just left off a few years ago.

This is old stuff to you so probably of little interesting. But so far this seems to center around the oldest Host in the park, Dolores, played gorgeously by Evan Rachel Wood.

Dolores is one of the first to experience some kind of budding consciousness and Bernard Lowe (played well by Jeffrey Wright) is secretly following her development and even encouraging it.

You can't look too deeply at the what-ifs. Lots of stuff doesn't make sense. For instance, despite paying $40,000 per day for the adventure, there's no way that's enough money to pay for all this. And there's no way they could simply let dozens of their hosts get gunned down each day and have to rebuild them.

Of course, I think it's in the first episode where it's let on that this theme park is more or less an R&D proving ground for some other project. And we don't know what. So if the government is feeding them billions to develop soldiers, for instance, then the economics and sheer destruction of the park's assets make sense.

But don't look too deeply. Don't wonder why the Hosts interact with each other when no humans are around, although this is explained as a way for them to practice.

But through Dolores we can see how perverse, delinquent, and just downright evil many of the guests are. Yes, you could rightly (in a normal world) dismiss this as no more "evil" than shooting pixels on the screen in some realistic video game. And, of course, if the Hosts are mere unfeeling robots with no consciousness, this would be true.

But we know this is not the case. And they serve us up some real scumbag Silicon-Valley-like rich boys who you can't wait to see get their comeuppance. And I'm sure it's only a matter of time until a few will. That would certainly be a great way to clear out some of the tech giants and do sort of a reset.

Now I vaguely remember (from reading a review or something a while back) about this corporation being able to control heads of other corporations and such. Good plan, really.

I'm willing to give this first season a wide latitude of suspension of disbelief. I'll not nit-pick the flaws in the emergence-of-consciousness schtick. After all, something like this is entirely plausible, if not necessarily possible.

Plus, the idea of going from automaton to a conscious, free-will human being is high on our agenda here as we critique the MPM (Mindless Programmed Mob)...the very people who resemble some of these robots who have inklings of some new idea emerging…

"What….you mean white people aren't to blame for the plight of black people?"

"What...you mean there isn't just a Free-Money Tree that government can pull dollars off of?"


Etc. We are arguably dealing with no less than the emergence of consciousness over and above the rote programming when moving people to a conservative or just rational outlook. And this exactly tracks what is happening to Hosts such as the beautiful and not-naked-enough Dolores.

I thought it was going to be something real shocking, such as that the African-American Bernard was secretly a Republican.

Yeah, interesting twist. Ford really is the puppet master of that place. And the implication is that he's fully involved in the Master Plan of the place because he says the board knows he is too valuable to them to eliminate hm. Every once in a while they send a Theresa Cullen to bother him, but it seems to be just a game.

I wonder if Ford with replace Theresa Cullen with a Host. Maybe that had been done in the past to Bernard because he was sticking his nose in where it didn't belong.