Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Narcos, Season Two:
The second season of Narcos feels pretty obligatory, focusing on the real-life decline of Pablo Escobar's drug empire. It's pretty slow-paced for only being 10 episodes, and it introduces too many minor characters with minimal payoff. It's okay if nothing else is on and you don't mind endless Spanish subtitles. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: C+

10 Cloverfield Lane (PG-13):
I'm torn on this movie. For the first 90 minutes, it's a claustrophobic psychological thriller featuring John Goodman as an unsettling doomsday prepper. Then, the last 15 minutes changes tone completely and feels utterly out of place with everything that came before it (apparently in an attempt to tie this movie to the world of the Cloverfield movie, which I never saw because shaky cam is dumb). I loved it up until then.

Final Grade: B

Blurryface by Twenty One Pilots:
Songs from this album of well-crafted pop music comes up on multiple Pandora stations I have, so I finally bought the whole thing. It's great shallow pop music with few duds, although it feels a little ridiculous to hear twenty-somethings sing about how they're too old and want to be kids again.

Final Grade: B

Civilization VI:
I gave this turn-based world conquering game a try because LA Mike is super into it. After 8 hours, I can see why fans of this genre enjoy it, but it didn't do much for me. There's too much complexity in the various game systems and an overabundance of micromanagement and clicking required to coordinate your empire. Units have such restrictive turns that it feels like nothing ever gets done in a single turn -- that's the whole point in an epoch-based timeline, but it just felt too slow for me. Luckily, I got 20% off with my Prime discount.

Final Grade: C