Alright, I've got a little time to type something up here. Last night I watched this one...

The Last Days (Los últimos días)
2013, David and Alex Pastor

As I grow more cynical about big-budget film, it takes longer and longer every time I open Netflix to settle on something. Last night I got somewhat lucky with this movie which, despite plenty of problems, jumped out at me as a post-apocalyptic journey, which is something I'm always into.

The movie's absurdly stupid premise is that agoraphobia has gone viral due to a volcanic eruption. Thankfully, the filmmakers ask us to just go with it rather than attach some unlikely science. Anyone who goes outside ends up dying, which gets us farther from agoraphobia, but whatever. The rules are inconsistent; cars offer no protection but in a couple of scenes, several characters enjoy open windows and nothing happens. I forgave all this for a couple of reasons: one, it was rather well-acted. There are scads of extras in this film but only two or three characters important to the narrative. Two, it was artfully shot. Three, I liked the two lead characters so much that I truly wanted them to succeed in finding one's pregnant fiance, from whom he was separated when the world went to hell.

You'll have to shrug off some other nonsense - a GPS is used frequently and with pinpoint precision underground - but all in all, I'm typically glad when I make an unlikely selection, and this was no exception.

I have Django Unchained next up and otherwise the month's been light on film, heavy on video games and a couple of books. What have you seen, Citizens?

This was on my mind for weeks, until today, when someone had to point it out to me.

This month I continued sort of enjoying the highs and eye-rolling lows of Dexter and the starting-to-feel-played-out Archer. I watched the first two episodes of Bob's Burgers, which shows some promise, though the belly laughs aren't coming yet. I braved the first episode of Hemlock Grove (a Netflix original about werewolves that the Netflix algorithm insisted I would hate) and it could probably be interesting if it weren't so hammily acted. I also saw the first two episodes of Sword Art Online, an anime series with a preposterous premise (a game developer has enslaved thousands of players into an MMO and is forcing them to try to survive the tower. If they die in the game, they die for real!!1!11). It's fun so far, as it's just so committed to the idiocy. I saw but a single movie: It's a Disaster. It is hilarious. I loved the performances and relationships all the way through and by the end I truly cared what happened to the characters, despite the fact that it was just a bit of absurdist comedy.

And you?

Hey, it's also this. It's been a bit more TV for me and not much else.

My schedule is such that I'll miss most of this. It's not much of an issue, as I saw a few episodes of Justified (I'm still in season one), finished season four of Dexter (it's still a show that should be awesome but is merely good) and...I don't know, something else. I'm about to try for another big movie month here. There's too much I want to see before I die.

I haven't been this busy in a while. I feel like I'll never see another movie.