Thursday, February 23, 2017

Couch Potato: Oscars, Arrival, The Santa Clarita Diet

The Oscar Nominees


The Academy Awards are coming up and I don't think I've seen many of the nominees - Amazon has an Oscar Central page if you'd like to check the ones they have available. Of them I've reviewed Kubo and Deepwater Horizon. I saw Zootopia (it was ok, a bit heavy-handed on diversity propaganda but the twist was deliciously ironic) and I very much want to see Hacksaw Ridge.

Arrival


I also watched Arrival this weekend. It's a movie with a very cool concept and nice special effects, great likable actors, and it runs at least 30 minutes too long. They really should have gone with a faster pacing.

To be fair, the film is meant to be a mind-bender rather than an action-packed movie, but still it dragged. Arrival is based on a science fiction short story by Ted Chiang titled "The Story of Your Life," originally published in 1998, but now available in a single-author collection.

The Santa Clarita Diet


On to something different - I also recently ran through the first season of the new Netflix show "The Santa Clarita Diet." It stars Drew Barrymore and Tim Olyphant as husband and wife realtors whose lives get wacky when Drew suddenly and mysteriously dies and comes back to unlife as a zombie.

This show is not for kids - it's gross, gory, violent, has a lot of profanity, sexual innuendo and suggestions (but no actual sex scenes). It is also hilariously funny. I think Netflix has another hit. Check out the trailer below.


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