Zootropolis | Life Vs Film

Oh jeez. It’s been… holy hell it’s been months. I’m sorry. Really I am. Things just got away from me and kept on going. That’s the past now though, let’s celebrate the here and now. If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to for the past half a year, well:

I designed, made, wrote instructions for and recorded a video of an origami Blade Runner unicorn for Total Film magazine, which can be seen here. I used to read Total Film a bunch growing up, so this was kind of a bucket list item, even if it wasn’t really in a movie capacity.
Built a Lego Millenium Falcon (the one from The Force Awakens, not the new giant one) and a Lego First Order Heavy Assault Walker.
Started watching E.R., and finished series 1 & 2
Met up with fellow LAMB friends from America and the UK – some for the first time – and found many snarky things to bond over
Archived a bunch of Lambcast shows, though still not up to date
Made 1,000 origami cranes
Spent a solid 10 hours making fudge
Spent a solid 6 hours making brownies
Watched a bunch of Harrison Ford movies
Planned an extended James Bond marathon
Failed to accomplish said James Bond marathon, instead just watched two movies over a period of a month
A new 1001 book came out and I’ve barely even looked at the new additions.
Became an uncle
Saw Jurassic Park on the big screen for the first time, at my first outdoor screening, and still found new details even after all these years.
Attended my first funeral (my partner’s grandfather passed away) and gave a reading at it, despite probably being the person there who knew him the least.
Attempted to write this post at least 26 times.
Visited Canada, specifically Victoria, Tofino and Vancouver, where we saw bears, whales, otters and raccoons, and I tried a bunch of new food including poutine (I know it’s just chips, cheese and gravy, but I really thought it’d be more than the sum of its parts), fish tacos and artichokes.
And oh yeah, I went and got married, no big deal. That’s what the cranes, fudge and brownies were for.

Anyway, in all that time I have also watched a bunch of movies, so let’s get down to business. Here’s everything I saw since the last one of these posts:
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I’ve been busy and stressing out a lot about work this week so there’s not all that much to report on my life in general, so instead here’s an update on what I’ve recently been watching TV-wise.

I’m still introducing Aisha to The West Wing, and we’ve made it over halfway through Season 2 but I can sense she is starting to get a bit annoyed with some of the characters, or at least the high-pressure fast-paced world within which they live, due to the concentrated nature of our viewing, so I think we might take a break from it for a while. Maybe we’ll try a season of The Wire in between. In contrast I’ve recently worked my way through the entirety of Veep, all five seasons, and it makes an interesting comparison to The West Wing. In TWW, all the characters – at least the ones we follow week-by-week – are inherently good people, all trying to do what they believe to be best for the greater good and, for the most part, they’re all great at their jobs. In Veep, on the other hand, the main cast is comprised of detestable and incompetent fools spending every moment fighting for themselves at the cost of anyone and anything, and I think both shows are fantastic in their own way. I also appreciate in Veep how with each season they try to write in someone even more vulgar and foul-mouthed than they’ve had previously, with Season 5 introducing Jonah’s uncle, Jeff Kane, played by Peter MacNicol. He doesn’t have an awful lot of screen time, but pretty much everything he says is an insult towards Jonah (Timothy Simons), and that’s OK with me. In fact about half of everyone’s dialogue is insults to Jonah.

After finishing Veep the other day I found myself at a loose end for half an hour, so tried the pilot of Vice Principals. I hadn’t been overly impressed with the trailer, and a prominent role (or in fact any role) for Danny McBride never works out, but the involvement of Walton Goggins showed some potential. Alas I failed to find any moment of the pilot entertaining, and Goggins, who seems to work best as an unhinged, unpredictable psychopath, is forced uncomfortably into a fey, almost straight-laced role he seems entirely wrong for, and instead of being on relatively equal pegging with McBride screen-time-wise Goggins seems very much in a supporting role, which is hugely disappointing to me. I won’t be continuing with this show.