Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
The Gunk: Directed by Ulf Hartelius. With Fiona Nova, Abigail Turner, Victor Engström, Bethanie Monroe. The Gunk stars Rani, part of our duo of gritty space haulers, struggling to make a buck as they chance upon an untouched planet brimming with life. They came in search of valuable resources, and it looks like they’ve hit the jackpot.. A perfectly short enough game to pick up and play for 30-45 minutes every day for a week or so, then feel like you did enough when the story closed. It was on sale for $5 a few week ago, so if you...
Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld: Created by Dave Filoni. With Nika Futterman, David W. Collins, Lane Factor, Corey Burton. Follows the galaxy’s criminal underworld. Asajj Ventress, a former assassin, flees with a new ally, while Cad Bane confronts his past when meeting an old friend turned Marshal. While the on the surface of things, May 4th would seem to be a great time to release new Star Wars content, it was right in the middle of Andor’s triumphant second season and imho should have been released after Andor had finished blowing everyone’s minds. Tales of the Underworld is a...
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonised planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize. But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can...
When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people–who knew?) Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans. Perhaps I missed a mention of this at the beginning of the book, but this is apparently a prequel to the previous story, set between the time Murderbot is brought to the main world of PresAux, during...
You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you’re a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you’re Murderbot. The first full length book for Murderbot, the story gets more room to breath, which is great, but at the same time I missed the faster pace of the novellas and there were times that I was...
Landman: Created by Taylor Sheridan, Christian Wallace. With Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Jacob Lofland, Michelle Randolph. A modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of West Texas oil rigs. As a piece of Pure Petroleum Propaganda, this is an effective look at how the oil industry feels about itself, from the guys working the land to the guy that owns the entire thing. Pretty much everything you hear or see in the show needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt, but it’s an incredibly entertaining show. One thing I didn’t understand though was how everyone...
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid – a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as ‘Murderbot’. Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who...
Tulsa King: Created by Taylor Sheridan. With Sylvester Stallone, Martin Starr, Jay Will, Max Casella. After being released from prison after 25 years, New York Mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi is exiled to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sylvester Stallone is so unbelievably bad in this series, but he’s the whole reason that I’m watching the show, so I guess that gamble paid off for Paramount. The series however is pretty good, but that’s more to do with the support cast than anything else, it’s still the story of horrible people doing horrible things to other horrible people, all while ordinary reasonable...
Andor: Created by Tony Gilroy. With Diego Luna, Denise Gough, Stellan Skarsgård, Kyle Soller. In an era filled with danger, deception, and intrigue, Cassian Andor embarks on a path that is destined to turn him into a Rebel hero. The recent Star Wars content has been as varied as it has been fantastic, with Andor being on the vastly more series side of things in comparison with the equally as good but much more light hearted Skeleton Crew. Season 2 of Andor fits seamlessly with Rogue One and features some of the most dramatic and beautiful acting from some of...
Thunderbolts*: Directed by Jake Schreier. With Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lewis Pullman. After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap, an unconventional team of antiheroes must go on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts. The MCU is back baby! It also never left! I was somewhat disappointed that they didn’t go with the golden age origin story, but the one they had for the movie works in context of the wider universe that’s been rolling for nearly 20 years now. Buy On Amazon!
