Spot Reviews 06/07/24
Jun 07 2024
Easy A (2010) [+] Nerdy student Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) sees a small boastful lie blow up until she becomes the school harlot with a nod to The Scarlet Letter. At first she takes advantage of it but as her infamy grows she finds that school ostracism is not as fun as she thought it'd be... Great performance by Stone. Charming characters in her witty parents Dill and Rosemary (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson). This is a rewatched movie and it's still quite good (with a few misses).
Argylle (2024) [-] A spy comedy action film. Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a best selling spy novelist but one day Aidan Wilde (Sam Rockwell), a real spy, shows up, saves Elly's life from a team of assassins, and tells her she is also a spy who lost her memory... Other than Elly is the real spy twist the rest of the story is quite bad in terms of plot, dialogue, and action scenes. $200M budget but it looks like an over-ambitious $100M CGI-filled action movie (maybe too much money spent on name stars). This is like the third Apple TV+ recent spy film but The Family Plan (2023) is good and Ghosted (2023) is ok both having better writing and better chemistry between the leads. Argylle is a hard pass.
Aiko (2023) [/] Mac app that uses OpenAI's Whisper (running locally) to transcribe audio to text. Very simple UI: drag an audio or video file to the window, or you can use a microphone. When you start the app it warns that it's meant for Mx CPUs not Intel and when I tried a video it was transcribing about 1/2 speed of the video using 800% CPU. When it's done you can copy/paste the output. It seems fairly accurate and splits up sentences into paragraphs.
Impossible Burger Patties [+] Mom bought me a 6-pack. Fries very well and tastes close enough to a beef patty that it's satisfying. Though once I looked at the nutritional label there's a lot of protein and fat and sodium. I guess it makes sense why it tastes good though this is a product for vegans (no meat) rather than vegetarians (want to eat healthier).
Trader Joe's Italian Tomato & Red Onion Focaccia [/] Small pizza crust with cheese, tomatoes and red onions on top. About 20 minutes to make from frozen and when it comes out it's hot and bread-y goodness. 830 calories. This would not be my favorite pizza-like meal at Trader Joe's but for $3 this is perfectly fine.
Argylle (2024) [-] A spy comedy action film. Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a best selling spy novelist but one day Aidan Wilde (Sam Rockwell), a real spy, shows up, saves Elly's life from a team of assassins, and tells her she is also a spy who lost her memory... Other than Elly is the real spy twist the rest of the story is quite bad in terms of plot, dialogue, and action scenes. $200M budget but it looks like an over-ambitious $100M CGI-filled action movie (maybe too much money spent on name stars). This is like the third Apple TV+ recent spy film but The Family Plan (2023) is good and Ghosted (2023) is ok both having better writing and better chemistry between the leads. Argylle is a hard pass.
Aiko (2023) [/] Mac app that uses OpenAI's Whisper (running locally) to transcribe audio to text. Very simple UI: drag an audio or video file to the window, or you can use a microphone. When you start the app it warns that it's meant for Mx CPUs not Intel and when I tried a video it was transcribing about 1/2 speed of the video using 800% CPU. When it's done you can copy/paste the output. It seems fairly accurate and splits up sentences into paragraphs.
Impossible Burger Patties [+] Mom bought me a 6-pack. Fries very well and tastes close enough to a beef patty that it's satisfying. Though once I looked at the nutritional label there's a lot of protein and fat and sodium. I guess it makes sense why it tastes good though this is a product for vegans (no meat) rather than vegetarians (want to eat healthier).
Trader Joe's Italian Tomato & Red Onion Focaccia [/] Small pizza crust with cheese, tomatoes and red onions on top. About 20 minutes to make from frozen and when it comes out it's hot and bread-y goodness. 830 calories. This would not be my favorite pizza-like meal at Trader Joe's but for $3 this is perfectly fine.