The Bourne Identity, which introduced Matt Damon as human weapon Jason Bourne in 2002, was very good. Its 2004 sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, was great, as was 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum. Last year’s The Bourne Legacy, a spinoff focused on another agent played by Jeremy Renner, was not as good as any of them but had its moments nonetheless. I’ll expound a bit, without spoilers, after the poster.
More years ago than feels possible I drew up a cartoon like this for a Hillel seder in college. I’ve yet to come across it in my files but with today’s technology I was able to rebuild the thing better, faster, and stronger.
Not that I’m about to do a whole strip, but I kind-of want to read this.
Related: Bits o’ Matzah • They’re Magically
Suspicious • Nice Day for a Sprite Wedding
Hulu began streaming all five live-action incarnations of Star Trek today. You can watch The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise free through March 31st.
Also today on its Tumblr blog Hulu launched a March Madness bracket showdown
to supposedly determine Star Trek’s “Greatest Character of All Time”. While I realize that Hulu is just having fun, it’s put up an awfully shallow field. Never mind that Q is the only adversary listed; there are absences from the core cast of every series, including (well, not including) Uhura, Sulu, Chekhov, and McCoy. And somebody somewhere must be upset that no-one from Enterprise appears. The number of extant brackets would have to double to add characters, yes, but coming up with another sixteen names wouldn’t be difficult. Although more characters may not have changed matchups in the final rounds, especially if the presumptive favorites were seeded properly, fans are gonna ask where Bones is.
You can check out Hulu’s preface, bracket overview, and the categories open for voting so far to decide for yourself whether participation strikes you as fun or legitimizing a hopelessly flawed tournament. My knock on Star Trek Madness aside, Hulu is a great way to catch up on current and classic television.
Related: Eau de Kirk • 7 for 007 • What’s Future Is Prologue
I’m not sure what I can say about Celeste and Jesse Forever without giving too much away.
Celeste and Jesse, played by Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg, are best friends since college who married and then amicably separated while remaining buds. The entire plot revolves around whether they reunite and/or how they cope with drifting apart.
If I tell you Forever is a comfort film — not that I’m doing so — you’d probably guess that there’s a happy ending. If I tell you Forever should only be viewed if you can handle relationships going south — not that I’m doing so — you’d probably guess that there isn’t. If I tell you that Forever is good enough to withstand either the cliché of the happy ending or the bummer of the alternative, well, I’d be speaking untruth, albeit not of great magnitude; Celeste and Jesse Forever is good, just not quite good enough for me to honestly say I enjoyed [whatever happened].
Continued with spoilers after the poster, then...
As great as the political satire on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report is, sometimes the shows’ finest comedy is wrung out of human-interest stories on a very modest scale.
On Monday Colbert led off with an installment of its occasional series The Enemy Within about misplaced scallop gonads in Maine. It’s a great mix of making fun of these kinds of field pieces on the one hand and on the other simply letting the ridiculous nature of the incident speak for itself. You’re guaranteed to laugh or the next post on this blog is free. [Warning: Scallop gonads, in case you missed that, but they’re really just the MacGuffin. And... Update: The link is dead now that the show’s over.]
Related: Deft Wonk • Brittality • Not Necessarily Not the News
Is Argo worth a watch? No doubt.
Was it worth an Oscar? Not given its competition, in my eyes, as I wrote at the end of my post-Oscars post last week. But the fact that Argo is merely one of my top five or so movies of 2012 rather than the number-one pick ain’t bad. Some thoughts on it that include mild spoilers follow.
This post is currently down for maintenance.
