2015 action comedy, dir. Kyle Newman, Hailee Steinfeld, Dove Cameron: IMDb / allmovie. Number 83 grew up in a secret government training school for assassins, with no emotional connection to anyone. But when she's left behind on a mission, she decides to find what she's never had: a normal childhood. Pity that childhood ideal is built on 1990s high school comedies…
Back to the boardgame café. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
2010 modern fantasy, fourth in the Kate Daniels series. A bar fight that went a bit strange turns out to have been the first inkling of a deity-level supernatural threat to Atlanta. Just another day at the office.
2016-2017 romance, seinen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Scum's Wish". High-schoolers Hanabi and Mugi both have hopeless crushes on other people; they become a couple to tide them over until they get what they really want.
1994 collection of short mystery stories, in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco.
2013 action-horror, dir. Tommy Wirkola, Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton; IMDb / allmovie. After they escaped from the witch, Hansel and Gretel set up as witch-hunters for pay.
1989 mystery; seventh of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy. After the town's soap factory burns to the ground, it seems likely that the arson was cover for the theft of an antique weather vane.
1996 horror, dir. Andrew Fleming, Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk: IMDb / allmovie. When Sarah moves to a new high school, she reluctantly falls in with the witchy crowd; but first the power is surprisingly real, then it's surprisingly hard to handle.
It's finally got warm enough to work outside without having to be bold and manly about it.
2016 science fiction, 13 episodes. The motley crew of the Raza continues to try to stay alive, and maybe even do something worthwhile.
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey. (Pictures from new shinyphone.)
2018 romantic comedy, dir. Victor Levin, Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder: IMDb / allmovie. Frank and Lindsay have each been invited to San Luis Obispo for the flashy wedding of someone they don't much like. She's the groom's ex; he's his half-brother; they're both bitter people. Naturally, they meet.
1994 mystery, fourteenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Sharon's gone independent, though she stays on good terms with All Souls and even rents office space from them; but her first case is from an old college friend, who was a bit iffy back in the day and may be even more so now. He claims he's being persecuted, but his evidence isn't great. Then things change.
2016 comedy with romantic elements, dir. Jake Szymanski, Zac Efron, Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza: IMDb / allmovie. Manchild brothers Mike and Dave are told that they can't come to their sister's wedding unless they bring dates (to calm them down and stop them hitting on other women). Not knowing any women, they advertise. Alice and Tatiana, who are just as messed up but in different ways, decide that a free trip to Hawaii is worth a few days of good behaviour…
My Nexus 6P is jolly good, but its battery has become increasingly unreliable. So I now have a new shinyphone – also running LineageOS. This post covers all the gory details of getting it set up.
Apex is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Jason Sizemore among others.
2016 animated fantasy, dir. Ron Clements and John Musker, Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson; IMDb / allmovie. Moana lives on a Pacific island and has always wanted to see more, but the tribe forbids anyone from venturing beyond the reef; then Ocean chooses her to find the demigod Māui and break an ancient curse.
2019 alternate-history audio drama in six parts, by Robert Valentine. In 1979, both USA and USSR have lunar bases packed with nuclear missiles aimed at Earth. But Jack Sloper, former MI5 agent now in a dead-end job in the Space Liaison Department, is just concerned about an inventory mismatch…
Because circumstances are being, well, circumstantial.
Clarkesworld is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Neil Clarke.
We are looking after a Dog for a couple of months.
2016 minimal-budget horror, dir. Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski, Aaron Poole: IMDb / allmovie. Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Carter wasn't having a great day, but he's going to have an even worse night.
This small one-day boardgaming event has been resurrected with new organisers, but still at the same village hall in Deepest Buckinghamshire. Up to about 30-ish people this time. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.
2018 light novel adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody". After a thirty-hour stint working on two separate computer games, contract programmer Satou sleeps under his desk and wakes up in a fantasy world.
I read something unexpected, so I tested the claim.
2014 police procedural mystery, second in the Fiona Griffiths series. A woman's leg and foot are found in a freezer during a house clearance, and other parts are nearby; then a man's body parts start showing up in the same area.
This Meetup-based boardgames group continues to meet at the Marlow Donkey.
1920 comedy, first of the series. Mrs Lucas, "Lucia" to all, is the social arbiter of the village of Riseholme – in spite of the best efforts of her subjects.
2012 historical detection, nineteenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Pregnant girls are going missing from the Magdalene Laundry; an intrepid, if not too bright, reporter gets on their trail, then goes missing too.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: There is nothing like just indignation for fostering unreasoning hate.)