Blu-Ray/Movie Review: The Aftermath

 

The Aftermath is a 2019 movie set in 1945 Hamburg Germany, five months after the Allies defeated the Germans. As some may know, after the war, the Allied powers divided Germany into zones with England getting the area around Hamburg, which happened to be the most destroyed portion of the country after Operation Ghamorra, which was a massive bombing operation that wiped out the city. The English army was then tasked with rebuilding the city and ferreting out what was left of the Nazi resistance. This meant that the British troops basically moved into the town, put the Germans in camps, and took over whatever houses and buildings that were still standing. 

The movie was directed by James Kent, produced by Ridley Scott, and stars Kiera Knightly as Rachael Morgan, the wife of a Colonel named Lewis Morgan (played by Jason Clarke) who is a part of the effort to rebuild the city. Alexander Skarsgard plays Stellan Lubert, a German architect who lives in a mansion with his teenage daughter Freda (played by Flora Thiemann) that the Morgans will be moving into. Lewis decided to let the Luberts stay in the house, much to the chagrin of Rachael, who hates the Germans because her eleven-year-old son, Michael, was killed during the blitz. She comes to learn that Stellan's wife was killed during the Allied bombing of Hamburg. The crux of the movie is about Racheal overcoming her hatred of Germans as she begins to fall for Stellan as her already strained relationship with her husband becomes even more strained as he becomes more distant. The plotline is equal parts historical drama and love story and also is heavy on the theme of letting go of hatred of the "other side". 

The A/V quality of the blu-ray is very good. There are some digital effects in the movie that blend in seamlessly with the practical sets that were used. It is well-written and very well-acted. There are a handful of extras including about six minutes of deleted scenes that can be played with or without commentary by the director, a commentary track on the movie by James Kent, and an HBO first look segment that runs about twelve minutes, give or take. So, while there are not a ton of extras, what was included is good. 

Overall, the movie is very good. It runs about an hour and forty minutes (minus the credits) and never really seems to drag. The movie does have some adult content including some sexual content and nudity. It is a lower-budget movie for certain, but I would say it is somewhere between an independent film and a Hollywood blockbuster. So, if you are looking for a good drama, this is definitely worth checking out.

Book Review: The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe

 

The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe was a biography published in 2000 by Sarah Churchwell. She took a bit of a different track when writing the biography basically summarizing many of the various things that have been written and said about Monroe, both while she was alive and after her death, pointing out inconsistencies and contradictions, etc. Churchwell also summarizes many of the more popular books that have been written about Monroe over the years, going into detail about how those authors engaged in speculation, made things up, and either used very sketchy sources or essentially used themselves as a source (by citing to a different author whose work cites to their own work). Then, in the last chapter, Churchwell gives her take on who she thinks Monroe really was, and what she was like.

The book discusses Monroe's life, both things that were rumored and facts that were verified, from her childhood to her days of modeling, breaking into acting, and transforming herself into a Hollywood icon. Churchwell addresses the rumors of her sleeping around (including her alleged trysts with women), her mental state, her drug use, etc. Churchwell does a great job breaking down the various inconsistent reporting on Monroe's life (depending on who is telling the story she either had multiple abortions or none, she was either bisexual or homophobic, she was either stupid or brilliant, she was either naive or cunning, she either slept with Robert Kennedy or she didn't, she either could barely remember her lines or she purposely messed up to make a point when feuding with directors and producers) and explains what could things could be verified and what could not.

The book is just over 330 pages, but it reads fairly quickly. My only real issue with the book is that the print used is pretty small and light, especially for the notes that are at the bottom of some of the pages that flesh out detail from the text. That might slow people down a bit when reading, but if you are a fast reader you can get through it in 2-3 days pretty easily.     

DVD/TV Series Review: Baywatch Season 3

 

Season three of Baywatch aired during the 1992-1993 TV season, and was another transitional season for the show. This was really the season that the show became a huge hit with Erika Elaniak, Billy Warlock, Tom McTigue, Monte Markham, and Richard Jaeckel leaving the show. Jaeckel did appear a couple of times toward the end of the season using a cane and seemed to be far less mobile than he was in season two. Elaniak and Warlock did appear in the two-part season premiere but then were written out of the show at the end of the second episode. Gregory Alan Williams was bumped back up to a series regular, and the big cast additions were Alexandra Paul, Nicole Eggert (best known for the series Charles in Charge up to that point), Kelly Slater, David Chokachi, and probably the biggest addition to the cast in the entire run of the series, Pamela Anderson as C.J. Parker.

The show continued to be a procedural drama with most of the episodes (with the exception of some two-part episodes) being self-contained and not tied into earlier episodes at all. The storylines could go from horribly bad and downright stupid to okay. It is not what I would call a well-written, award-winning masterpiece, and as a result, the acting could be pretty cheesy as well. The show still continued to use the music montages, which were again mostly to show off the ridiculously good-looking cast for a couple of minutes without any actual dialogue. The show did get some recognizable guest stars this season including a returning Danny Trejo (in a completely different role than he had in season two), Elizabeth Berkley, coming off her role on Saved by the Bell, and Lou Rawls. 

Ultimately, you know what you get with Baywatch (or Babewatch). About 45 minutes of a very good-looking cast, most of the time a dumb story, and a couple of what amount to music videos that interrupt the story. The show was not ever really interested in continuity, making a lot of sense (for example having Hasselhoff's character in the hospital nearly paralyzed in one episode and kickboxing in the next), or being an award-winning drama. If you can accept it for what it is, it can still be entertaining. 

Video Game Review: Star Wars: Fallen Order

 

Fallen Order is a first-person combat game set five years after the fall of the Jedi (Revenge of the Sith). You play as Cal Kestis (voiced by Shameless and Gotham actor Cameron Monaghan), who was a padawan at the time the Jedi order fell. The game does not start out with Order 66, but it is not a major spoiler to say that you do see Order 66 from Cal's perspective during the video game. The game starts out as Cal is working in a scrapyard on the planet Bracca where he has to use The Force to save himself and a co-worker, which brought the main antagonist of the game, the inquisitor Second Sister to Bracca. Once Cal is outed as a Jedi he has to escape the Empire he is helped by Greez Dritus and former Jedi Cere Junda who has cut herself off from The Force. Cal joins the crew of their ship and embarks on a mission to find a Holocron that holds the names of a bunch of force-sensitive children, with designs to keep the names out of the hands of the Empire and to rebuild the Jedi order.

Throughout the game, you travel to a bunch of different planets, some of which are recognizable from the movies (e.g., the Wookie planet Kasyyyk) and others that you would only recognize if you have read the novels or seen some of the television series such as Rebels and Bad Batch. There are four different levels of difficulty you can play the game on, Padawan, Jedi Knight, Jedi Master, and Jedi Grandmaster. In the Padawan mode, Cal can more easily block enemies, and the enemies are not as aggressive (e.g., when there are groups of stormtroopers they attack in an "evil ninja" like fashion, mostly one at a time), but in the harder modes Cal is more vulnerable and the enemies attack you more aggressively. Basically, the Padawan mode allows you to finish the story/game easier, and the harder modes make the gameplay more challenging. But, even in the Padawan mode, you can be killed by a low-level stormtrooper. 

Overall, the game is a good blend of a puzzle or strategy game in which you have to find different things, figure out how to navigate past obstacles, and the like, and a combat game in which you have to battle stormtroopers and/or creatures. It is a lot like the Batman Arkham series of games for people who are familiar with those games. Cal is aided mostly by a droid named BD-1 who follows him throughout the game and can help him along the way and is aided by some of the other human and alien characters he encounters. There are a few different "boss fights" throughout the game that get progressively more challenging, and the game tells a very entertaining story, which is a part of the overall Star Wars canon. If you are a Star Wars fan and like playing video games, it is definitely worth checking out. 

Product Review: True fresh dishwasher cleaner tablets 18-Pack

 

This is a pack of 18 dishwasher-cleaning tablets that you run through a cleaning cycle (with the dishwasher empty) and it cleans the racks and sprayer arms, but will also remove lime scale from the heating elements at the bottom, clean the tubes and pumps, etc. Basically, it cleans all the parts of the dishwasher where water (and the food particles on your dishes go). You just put it in the door that will hold the cleaning pods or soap and run the dishwasher like you normally would. 

Obviously, unless you take your dishwasher apart you will not be able to see all of the parts that the packaging claims it will clean, but I can definitely confirm that what I can see on the inside of my dishwasher looks a lot better when I run a cleaning cycle with this. If you have an older dishwasher, you might want to run 2-3 cycles with this the first couple of months and then ease back to once per month. But, if you have a relatively new dishwasher, then this will keep it looking and smelling clean on the inside for a long time. I definitely recommend it.