Spot Reviews 04/12/24
Apr 12 2024
2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) [+] Recently rewatched this movie and I like it. Nine years after 2001: A Space Odyssey scientist Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) finagles himself and two other Americans on board the Soviet ship Leonov in a mission to recover the Discovery and investigate the huge monolith David Bowman (Keir Dullea) found. Meanwhile back on Earth tensions mount as the USA and USSR redo the Cuban Missile Crisis... Like 2001 ASO this is a low action film though fairly suspenseful at times with several 2001 ASO mysteries to unravel. Much like Star Trek: The Motion Picture this is a very think-y, high concept story.
Bloodshot (2020) [/] An origin film based on the super-hero comic book from Valiant. US Marine Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel) is murdered by a terrorist then brought back to life with nanite-infused blood by Dr Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) who then uses Ray as an unkillable assassination machine against Harting's former co-workers. KT (Eliza González), another enhanced soldier, helps Ray break out of his prison but Ray has to battle other enhanced soldiers and then finally defeat Harting who is also enhanced... Does have a bit of a deus ex machina ending and the plot is more complicated than I can summarize in two sentences. The movie is not bad though, other than the ending.
Trader Joe's Olive and Basil Pesto Sauce [/] It's a bit chunky and less saucy than other brands. It has bits of olive and definitely has that flavor (almost too much at times). Tastes fine but the chunkiness makes it a bit hard to use with pasta. It's like $2.50 for a 6-1/3 oz jar so for the price it's great.
Mini Metro+ (2021) [+] In this game you build a metro railway layout. Locations pop up, each with one shape. Connect the locations so that people of each shape can reach any location with that shape. Every week you get a new resource such as a new train line, passenger car, tunnel, or bridge. If too many people stack up long enough you lose the game so you need to build efficient networks (and it's easy to reconfigure networks on the fly or while paused). This Apple Arcade version is essential identical to the App Store version (released in 2015) and the gameplay is still quite addictive.
Bloodshot (2020) [/] An origin film based on the super-hero comic book from Valiant. US Marine Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel) is murdered by a terrorist then brought back to life with nanite-infused blood by Dr Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) who then uses Ray as an unkillable assassination machine against Harting's former co-workers. KT (Eliza González), another enhanced soldier, helps Ray break out of his prison but Ray has to battle other enhanced soldiers and then finally defeat Harting who is also enhanced... Does have a bit of a deus ex machina ending and the plot is more complicated than I can summarize in two sentences. The movie is not bad though, other than the ending.
Trader Joe's Olive and Basil Pesto Sauce [/] It's a bit chunky and less saucy than other brands. It has bits of olive and definitely has that flavor (almost too much at times). Tastes fine but the chunkiness makes it a bit hard to use with pasta. It's like $2.50 for a 6-1/3 oz jar so for the price it's great.
Mini Metro+ (2021) [+] In this game you build a metro railway layout. Locations pop up, each with one shape. Connect the locations so that people of each shape can reach any location with that shape. Every week you get a new resource such as a new train line, passenger car, tunnel, or bridge. If too many people stack up long enough you lose the game so you need to build efficient networks (and it's easy to reconfigure networks on the fly or while paused). This Apple Arcade version is essential identical to the App Store version (released in 2015) and the gameplay is still quite addictive.