Spot Reviews 12/05/25
Dec 05 2025
The Family Plan 2 (2025) [/] Wholesome action-comedy sequel. Dan Morgan (Mark Wahlberg) is a former criminal with a very sordid past who reformed, got a new identity, married Jessica (Michelle Monaghan) and fathered two kids. In the first movie his secret was revealed to his family when Dan's father and his criminal organization went after him. In this movie it's Dan's half-brother Finn Clarke (Kit Harington) who is after Dan -- first to recover the Key to dad's criminal database and once Finn has control of the empire to go after Dan for revenge. The story mainly takes place in London and then Paris to give it an European flavor. This is a nice and safe family action film.@
Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance (2024) [/] 6 episode series set in the Gundam universe. During the invasion of Earth a Zeon mobile suit unit (of four Mechs) led by Captain Iria Solari (Celia Massingham) encounters the new Federation Gundam mobile suit. After her unit is wiped out she and other survivors find themselves behind enemy lines and have to make it back to their lines even as the Zeon forces retreat... Good Mecha action. I think the regular Gundam stories are told from the Gundam side so seeing them from the other side's perspective as unstoppable killing machines is kind of neat. A bit of a sad "war is hell" ending though.
Iron Marines+ (2023) [/] Iron Marines is an RTS Warcraft/Starcraft sort of game where you have a base with buildings and guns and generate units to send them out to complete the mission (e.g. kill enemy base or rescue someone). Humans vs aliens. Get XP to upgrade units. Mobile friendly in that there are few units and you don't have to jump around the map taking care of multiple battles. Nice cartoony graphics and sounds.
PPKP+ (2023) [/] A simple retro-graphics fighting game on Apple Arcade. There are only two big buttons: kick and punch. You face a bad guy and get first strike -- some bad guys take more damage from punches than kicks. Then the bad guy attacks and you can defend with a kick or punch -- if you miss you take damage, if you're early you take some damage, if you time it right you counterattack and do damage. Once you die you can refill your health to 100 (using 10 coins) which also gives you XP and eventually you level up. Later on there are upgrades but I lost interest after a few minutes since the gameplay loop is rather repetitive.
Trader Joe’s Manchego Cheese [/] Apparently they have their own branded Manchego cheese from Spain, aged 6 months. Doesn’t have the strongest flavor but does taste like Manchego. Was $15 per pound and I’m not sure if that’s a good price or not.
Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance (2024) [/] 6 episode series set in the Gundam universe. During the invasion of Earth a Zeon mobile suit unit (of four Mechs) led by Captain Iria Solari (Celia Massingham) encounters the new Federation Gundam mobile suit. After her unit is wiped out she and other survivors find themselves behind enemy lines and have to make it back to their lines even as the Zeon forces retreat... Good Mecha action. I think the regular Gundam stories are told from the Gundam side so seeing them from the other side's perspective as unstoppable killing machines is kind of neat. A bit of a sad "war is hell" ending though.
Iron Marines+ (2023) [/] Iron Marines is an RTS Warcraft/Starcraft sort of game where you have a base with buildings and guns and generate units to send them out to complete the mission (e.g. kill enemy base or rescue someone). Humans vs aliens. Get XP to upgrade units. Mobile friendly in that there are few units and you don't have to jump around the map taking care of multiple battles. Nice cartoony graphics and sounds.
PPKP+ (2023) [/] A simple retro-graphics fighting game on Apple Arcade. There are only two big buttons: kick and punch. You face a bad guy and get first strike -- some bad guys take more damage from punches than kicks. Then the bad guy attacks and you can defend with a kick or punch -- if you miss you take damage, if you're early you take some damage, if you time it right you counterattack and do damage. Once you die you can refill your health to 100 (using 10 coins) which also gives you XP and eventually you level up. Later on there are upgrades but I lost interest after a few minutes since the gameplay loop is rather repetitive.
Trader Joe’s Manchego Cheese [/] Apparently they have their own branded Manchego cheese from Spain, aged 6 months. Doesn’t have the strongest flavor but does taste like Manchego. Was $15 per pound and I’m not sure if that’s a good price or not.