Fall has arrived and warm Summer days are over, but all is not lost... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Dark! Whilst looking for something new to watch on Netflix I happened upon Dark Tourist. The show was a bit meh until the fourth episode when host David Farrier visited Turkmenistan. Holy shit. If not for North Korea, this would be the most bizarre restricted country on earth! Even if you don't want to watch the show you owe it to yourself to at least watch the animated intro, which is fantastic...
And here's the trailer for the actual show...
If you're bored and like off-the-grid travel, Dark Tourist is worth checking out!
• Tourist! And speaking of travel...
It's funny because it's true.
• Tammy! And speaking of things that are funny because they're true...
Classic Redneck Tammy!
• Solo! It's difficult to sort through my feeling on a movie which was essentially two hours of Easter eggs. Most likely because this ended up being both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it firmly entrenches the film in the Star Wars universe. A curse because you spend the entire film going "So that's why that happens" and "So that's how that started." Fun as this was, it was a bit distracting. And not in a good way...
The story was actually kind of good, and having it constantly being interrupted with made for a bit of a slog. Even so, it's a beautiful film to look at. It has a great cast. The special effects and sound design are incredible and the action sequences are well-constructed. I just wish it had more of an imagination about it and broke new ground to keep moving the Star Wars Universe forward. Instead it's more of the same. Which puts it in the middle of the pack of Star Wars movies for me...
I was hoping for a bit more, but still liked it quite a lot. I wish I had seen it in a really good theater, but I bought into the rumors that Alden Ehrenreich was so terrible that he required an acting coach and the movie was going to be terrible. But he was terrific as Han Solo. Guess that's what I get for believing internet rumors.
• Caught! You know how you happen across a video and it's pretty great and you want to see more so you click over to YouTube to see what else there is? Yeah... this started it all...
Adorable. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all judges were like this instead of megalomaniac assholes? If you want to fall down a YouTube rabbit hole of entertaining videos, the Caught in Providence channel is worth a look!
• Heart! Ooh! The latest book from Thrice Publishing is out! This wonderful tale of growing up in Ireland from longtime Thrice Fiction contributor James Claffey is a perfect add to your Fall reading list, and is now in-stock at Amazon with Free 2-Day Shipping for Amazon Prime members!
And that's a wrap. Have a great week!
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Dark Tourist is a great show. As an adventure traveler myself (Uzbekistan, Tunisia during the early days of the Arab Spring, Disney World during Spring Break, etc.), I appreciate shows like this. I wasn’t sure at first, as I feared he would make fun of the novelty of these people and places. However, I soon realized that he is a genuinely curious and empathetic human being.
However that rural Alabama “haunted house” episode (in reality a sadomasochistic torture chamber run by a man with some serious psychological issues) caused me literal nightmares the night after I watched it, and is probably the most disturbing screen time I’ve had outside of a Quentin Tarantino movie.
Disney World during Spring Break? ARE YOU INSANE? There’s “adventure travel” and then there’s throwing your life away. Surprised that you survived!
Glad to read I wasn’t the only one who really liked Solo. It was just a fun caper movie set in the SW universe. And it all totally worked. Agree that Ehrenreich was fantastic. Also nodding at where you rank it among the canon.