Spot Reviews 04/26/24
Apr 26 2024
The Challenger Disaster (2019) [/] TV movie about the engineering team at an unnamed corporation (referred in the film as the company that made rocket boosters) as they realize that with a launch temperature near freezing the O-rings on the space shuttle Challenger might fail and their efforts to warn NASA which eventually fail due to bureaucracy and NASA's insistence on launching as scheduled after multiple previous attempts were cancelled.
Has a poignant scene where the television shows an interview with teacher Christa McAuliffe being interviewed and saying that even after several launch cancellations she still believed that the thousands of people working on the launch were doing their best to keep everyone safe. There's also footage of President Reagan's speech after the disaster.
Although a talky drama film I found it interesting and watched it in two sittings. Note that there's a 2013 tv movie of the same name with more star power so it comes up first in searches.
Napoleon (2023) [-] I watched the first 1-3/4 hours then parts of the last 45 minutes. This Apple TV+ movie focuses on the adult life of Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix) and his love and relationship with Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby). A lot of talking, politics, and more talking. A few battle scenes with Austerlitz and Waterloo getting enough coverage to be interesting. Sadly though it was quite a struggle to watch.
Cut the Rope Remastered (2021) [/] In this Apple Arcade game you are trying to get all the fruits in the level into the mouth of a gremlin. The fruits are tied to ropes tied to anchor points and you swipe to cut a rope so that the fruit(s) swing down correctly. You try to hit three stars for extra points. There are also other gadgets like blowers and bubbles or the level might be underwater in which case stuff floats up. Physics based and cute. Puzzles get tricky and require timing.
Hellboy: The All-Seeing Eye (2008) [-] In this novel Hellboy, Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien travel to London to stop a bunch of cultists from releasing the All-Seeing Eye using sacrificed victims. Hellboy meets a nice coroner and they go on a date and then she gets kidnapped and eventually sacrificed but I kind of expected that Bonanza-like subplot. In the end though our heroes do very little to solve the problem: the cultists release a great evil that consumes them then Hellboy fights said evil but it's with the help of two other NPCs that he wins. Overall I think this is a churned out mass-market paperback novel and a waste of time to read.
Has a poignant scene where the television shows an interview with teacher Christa McAuliffe being interviewed and saying that even after several launch cancellations she still believed that the thousands of people working on the launch were doing their best to keep everyone safe. There's also footage of President Reagan's speech after the disaster.
Although a talky drama film I found it interesting and watched it in two sittings. Note that there's a 2013 tv movie of the same name with more star power so it comes up first in searches.
Napoleon (2023) [-] I watched the first 1-3/4 hours then parts of the last 45 minutes. This Apple TV+ movie focuses on the adult life of Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix) and his love and relationship with Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby). A lot of talking, politics, and more talking. A few battle scenes with Austerlitz and Waterloo getting enough coverage to be interesting. Sadly though it was quite a struggle to watch.
Cut the Rope Remastered (2021) [/] In this Apple Arcade game you are trying to get all the fruits in the level into the mouth of a gremlin. The fruits are tied to ropes tied to anchor points and you swipe to cut a rope so that the fruit(s) swing down correctly. You try to hit three stars for extra points. There are also other gadgets like blowers and bubbles or the level might be underwater in which case stuff floats up. Physics based and cute. Puzzles get tricky and require timing.
Hellboy: The All-Seeing Eye (2008) [-] In this novel Hellboy, Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien travel to London to stop a bunch of cultists from releasing the All-Seeing Eye using sacrificed victims. Hellboy meets a nice coroner and they go on a date and then she gets kidnapped and eventually sacrificed but I kind of expected that Bonanza-like subplot. In the end though our heroes do very little to solve the problem: the cultists release a great evil that consumes them then Hellboy fights said evil but it's with the help of two other NPCs that he wins. Overall I think this is a churned out mass-market paperback novel and a waste of time to read.