Movies and television:

“American Assassin” is a decent by the numbers thriller. It is somewhat hampered by the fact that both the protagonist and the antagonist are very physically similar, and are essentially interchangeable in low light, high speed sequences. There are a LOT of low light, high speed sequences. We liked it well enough anyway.

“Ninjago” begins and ends with a live action framing story featuring Jackie Chan as the Old Chinese Shopkeeper. That ten minutes is ALMOST worth the price of admission. Almost. The rest of the movie fails to make up the difference, though.

“Friend Request” is a “vengeful ghost” horror movie with a few interesting ideas, but not really enough of them.

“Home Again” is a slice of life dramedy. It’s a lot of fun. We enjoyed it a great deal.

“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is very much of a piece with the first “Kingsman” movie. Given that that is exactly what most people want out of sequels, this is fine. We enjoyed it.

Television:

We have recently worked our way through all of the Marvel-Netflix street level hero shows: “Daredevil”, “Jessica Jones”, “Luke Cage”, “Iron Fist”, and “The Defenders”. They are all good, and a lot of fun. “Luke Cage” is the best of the lot, and “Iron Fist” the worst, but still quite watchable. “Iron Fist” suffers from being furthest from the “street level” theme of these shows; much of the action takes place in corporate boardrooms, and apparently no one on the staff knows how to write boardroom drama. Still, the supporting cast in all of the shows is simply stellar, and more than makes up for the occasional lapses at the top of the ticket.

“The Orville” is for the most part a “Star Trek” homage show, with occasional minor injections of Seth MacFarlane’s lame and vulgar humor. After the first episode, I said, “We’ll give it three,” and so far it has been just good enough for us to watch one more episode. So far.

“Star Trek: Discovery” is a train wreck. We might have given it the same three chances we gave “The Orville” (even though it was significantly less fun to watch), but for cash up front? Nope.

Uncle Hyena