Rewatching "The Americans", season 5

Things have been going slower, but I since I received a diagnosis for Long Covid in the meantime, I guess "The Americans" for me will therefore be forever linked to the global pandemic. Cheery times! But oddly fitting, given the material. I now finished the fifth season, and with only one to go, let's take a look back at what was what.

Channingography, part 3: Step Up (2006)

 

After four movies that turned out way, way better than I expected, would Channing Tatum's filmography hold for the one that actually provided his breakthrough as a leading man and spawned a franchise that rivals the "Fast&Furious" series for longevity? Let's do the short version: no, the movie is shit. 

My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 26

Thursday is theory day.

This is the twenty-seventh article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 27. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously.  

Review: George R. R. Martin - The Rogue Prince

In the newest anthology he edited, "Rogues", George R. R. Martin included the aptly named "The Rogue Prince". Like with his previous anthology, "Dangerous Women", which included "The Princess and the Queen", "The Rogue Prince" is a fragment of a much larger text about the Dance of the Dragons and its inception, the shattering Targaryen civil war that happened way over 150 before the events of the novel series proper. This (shorter) issue concerns itself with the history leading up to the death of Viserys I, where "The Princess and the Queen" began, a story that by a benign reader might be read as dominated by the titular Rogue Prince, Daemon Targaryen. Alas, I'm not benign.

The only picture of the Princess and the Rogue Prince I could find.

The problem with biopics

I recently watched "Darkest Hour", the biopic about Winston Churchill in May 1940. I'm usually not a fan of biopics, which are oscar-bait at best and boring distortions at worst. "Darkest Hour" begins really strong, but it falters in the last third, falling victim to the problems it shares with many other biopics.