Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) [/] Apple TV+ Movie. Contemporary drama. Recent college graduate Andrew (Cooper Raiff) is sort of aimlessly going along searching for a meaningful career when he stumbles upon being a party starter at bar-mitzvahs — the guy who is there to make everyone is having fun and arranging things so that everyone can have fun (e.g. introducing people to each other, encouraging participation in dancing and party games, making sure small problems are resolved so that the hosts don’t have to stress). Anyway he falls for a decade-older single mother Domino (Dakota Johnson) who has a teen autistic daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt). Though maybe Andrew is a bit too young for Domino who is also engaged to a lawyer (and the only problem I have is that the lawyer is supposed to be a loving guy is is right for Domino but it just does not come off so the characters actually have to say this fact out loud)… Sort of a 20-something coming-to-adulthood story and not bad.

Secret Invasion (2023) [/] Secret Invasion is a 6-episode Disney+ drama series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s current timeline. Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) returns to Earth (apparently he’s been self isolated at the SHIELD space station after coming back from The Blip). A Skrull revolutionary, Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir), wants the Skrulls to rise up and secretly take over Earth. Fury needs the help of Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) and his daughter G’iah (Emilia Clarke) although it turns out the relationship between the three is going to be rocky… Marvel’s non-superhero secret agent stuff is not that interesting to me and Secret Invasion got mixed reviews. The lone light is Olivia Coleman’s standout performance playing MI6 field director Sonya Falsworth, an ally of Fury’s but also cognizant that the UK’s interests trump the USA’s in her book.

Raid: Shadow Legends (2020) on macOS [/] The base RSL is a great free-to-play game though a bit annoying trying to make you purchase stuff. Still worked great on my iPad Pro (top of the line back in 2017) though not on my iPad 5th gen from 2017. On my MBP (top of the line, last Intel version) it also works fine though it makes the fan kick and will use 200%+ CPU cores at times (and also you have to have Plarium Play running beforehand otherwise the game locks up in the start screen). Does feel clumsy using a mouse rather than tapping because you have to move around and click stuff a lot and I don’t think there are any keyboard shortcuts. So overall because it’s such a repetitive game I’d prefer to play this on a bigger screen touch device like an iPad (iPhone SE3 screen is still too small for this game). (On a PC there are automators that will play for you so that’s an advantage but I don’t think the terms of service allow that.)

Foundation: The Official Podcast s2 (2023) [+] This continues be a great companion to the Apple TV+ series. One podcast per episode and there are spoilers for the episode. Jason Concepcion is the host and drives the show. Executive Producer David S Goyer is in every episode and there is one guest per episode (actor, writer, production, etc). We do get a bit more on the tech and world of Foundation without spoilers and they're fairly good at bringing up things you may have missed on a first viewing.