February sure is a short month. It feels like I just did part one of this.

Nevertheless, we are moving full-bore into MARCH, the month that has something to do with lions and lambs; I could never keep it straight. Does it come in like a lion (fierce) and out like a lamb (soft?), or does it come in like a lamb (white and fluffy) and out like a lion (sunshine?).

They both… KIND OF make sense. But also not really.

Hey, it turns it out I am immortal now! I got my second COVID-19 vaccine on 2/22. That one was… unpleasant! The first one beat the holy hell out of my arm; the second did that again, but it also gave me a day’s worth of weird waves of unwellness. I would say I don’t recommend it, but that would be a lie because I want literally everyone on Earth to get it, okay?

That weird feeling is all gone now, though! So all that is left is the senses-shattering invulnerability that comes with being immune (?) to COVID! It’s time to re-enter the public sphere! I hope all of the restaurants in the world didn’t close forever.

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MOVIES

There are two fives in that lot, but neither is anything brand new. I’ve seen both Scott Pilgrim and Ragnarok before. I did bump Ragnarok up to a 5/5 from a 4.5, though; it’s so enjoyable and rewatchable.

The Thing… should be higher. And likely would have been if not for one thing: despite never having actually sat and watched it, I knew everything that happened. I knew the end scene. I knew the defibrillator machine bit. I knew the blood test part. If I had managed to go in blind to a 40 year old movie, that would have been ideal, but as it was, I was sitting thinking “Oh, this is going to be the scene where [X] happens”. It’s still good. But I imagine seeing it unspoiled would be best.

I knew nothing about its prequel, though, and it was just FINE. What bothered me about the prequel honestly might have bothered me about the Carpenter version if I had watched it first–why is it called The Thing when there are, like, SO MANY Things?–but it also had Mary Elizabeth Winstead, so… who cares?

Also, I saw The Matrix trilogy, though only Revolutions was a movie I’d never seen before. Here’s what I learned: if you have exactly enough good ideas for one move… don’t make three movies.

All told? I got through nine movies in the back half of a short month, so that’s pretty swell.

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TELEVISION

Twitter has been a GOD DAMN whore lately with WandaVision spoilers, which is the pits because I work in the office Fridays. So I WANT to Tweet, but I also don’t want to know what happened before I get home and get around to watching it.

As of this writing, there is just one episode left! I’m all aflutter, even if the penultimate episode was a bit of a drag after how great its immediate predecessors had been. It was very “And Now We Explain The Plot” of an episode, but at least did it in a Showing, Not Telling kind of way.

In WandaVision’s shadow remains Resident Alien, which is the best show not enough people are talking about. Every episode evokes a few belly laughs from the wife and I, and I hope it has a pretty clearly defined plan, a la The Good Place. It’s not a show that can last indefinitely, so give me four seasons with a definitive goal, and I’m IN.

I also caught the premiere episode of Young Rock, which I was hesitant of if only because its title made me wonder if it was just going to be Young Sheldon. It wasn’t bad, though I try not to judge shows based only on their pilots. The premise works–The Rock is running for President in 2032, and is divulging his history to be more relatable to the electorate–and I appreciated how prominently wrestling was featured (most notably in the youngest Young Rock’s storyline).

Will I keep up with it? I’ll see the next episode or two to figure that out. It’s a few weeks until Invincible starts, anyway.

Somehow, I am STILL going with Hell’s Kitchen, too, as the wife and I are about seven episodes deep into what I think is the most recent season. And we are totally the kind of people that sit in our big comfy chair together and judge who should “ACTUALLY” still be around or not, despite the fact that we never get to eat any of the food they make.

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READING

Not too terribly much this back-end of February, but after having recently re-read as much of Peter David and Todd Nauck’s Young Justice as I could get my hands on, I moved onto Geoff Johns and Mike McKone’s Teen Titans run from the early-ish 2000’s.

I still remember when this book started, I bailed on it a few issues in because I basically just wanted more YJ, and it had a decidedly different tone.

Time ended up proving me wrong, though, and it’s another brilliant run from back when Johns was just hitting home run after home run for DC. It was different, yeah, but it was also the inevitable growth of the characters.

How much does that matter? Very little, because DC has, by and large, decided it hates almost all of these kids. Bart was dead for quite some time. Tim just keeps getting shuffled into new personalities. Kon-El was just completely MIA for years. And Cassie was simply not being used.

Bendis did end up using these characters within the last two years or so for a twenty-issue Young Justice revival, but… it wasn’t great. It’s the kind of book that should be BMB’s exact wheelhouse, but it never got out of second gear before getting canned.

I do have a bunch of comics loaded up on my Kindle for a future article series, though…

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And that’s it! Tomorrow is March! We will see if I can keep up this feverish movie pace, or if I will do, you know, actual work instead.

Until next time… take care!