Thoughts on "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"

So I finally got around to watching Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves the other day.

I'm upset it took me this long to see this film. This is one of the most enjoyable fantasy romps I've watched in ages!

Set in the D&D fantasy world of "Faeun" (sp?), the film centers around the bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine), his barbarian friend Holga Kilgore (best name ever, played by Michelle Rodriguez). Imprisoned after attempting to steal a magic artifact from Edgin's previous employers, the heroic Harpers, the pair escape prison and recruit the dubious sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) and shapeshifting druid and Tiefling Doric (Sophia Lillis) to rescue Edgin's daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) from their treacherous former teammate, Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant). And there's of course many shenanigans in the way.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is thematically a lot like the Guardians of the Galaxy films. A rag-tag team of quirky misfits unite to stop a terrible evil in the form of the sorceress Sofina (Daisy Head). Along the way, the group befriends the paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page) and jump through hoops to become a quasi-family.

It's a formula and a predictable one, but it's perfectly executed in this film. The casting was rock solid, with every actor really making her or his character distinctive and entertaining. I'm hard-pressed to come up with a favorite, truth-be-told. I'm kind of torn between the humorless and earnest Xenk Yendar and the badass but blunt-spoken Holga Kilgore, though I really loved all the characters. Edgin could have easily been annoying, but Pine's portrayal really walked a good line to keep the character's flaws entertaining but not excessive.

I really hope they make sequels! Good sequels!

It's May, it's May, the merry month of May

No idea why "Camelot" popped into my head, but there it is. The month's more than half-over and the song's been lurking in my brain on-and-off for about a week now. It's a relief to get it out of my system. You're welcome.

Thoughts as April winds down

It's going to be May tomorrow. Time truly flies.

2023 so far has been four months of allergies with a job layoff added, just for shits and giggles.

I've found a few distractions as I hunt for new employment by watching a few shows in streaming, but honestly most of the stuff I've watched has been kinda crappy. Even season three of "The Mandalorian" was kind of disappointing. Oh, it was tons better than "The Book of Boba Fett", but once you've included space-vespas in a show, everything is going to look better.

I'm thinking I'm going to ditch Disney+ anyway. Everything Disney seems to touch is kinda shitty and I'm a bit tired of it.

I've discovered a new author I like, which has been a little ray of sunshine in this shitshow of a year. Ryan Cahill, who authors a fantasy series known as "The Bound and the Broken", is quite delightful. I'm on book three of his series so far (not counting novellas) and am very much enjoying his stuff.

Too bad I'll be done soon and out of good authors to read.

On the plus side, I've taken advantage of my unexpected free time to sort out a few things (like my previously-mentioned trip to the hazardous waste disposal dump). It feels weird not to be working. Unnatural, somehow. Though I do have to say, it's nice to be able to sleep in everyday.

Adventures in Hazardous Waste Disposal

I have no idea how long I was holding on to those propane canisters.

Since before the pandemic, certainly.

I haven't used them for my BBQ in years. My landlord came down hard on all residents who had BBQs on their balconies, so I moved mine into the common area. During the pandemic and the height of the fire season, some twat got on the property and decided to use my BBQ to cook up a steak during a red flag day. After I got his ass arrested, I got rid of the BBQ. I had the propane canisters stored away until I could figure out what to do with them.

In a bought of housecleaning, I recently assembled a pile of things I need to get rid of that need special treatment. Used batteries, fluorescent bulbs, an old and dead generator, an old microwave, a very old computer monitor, and, of course, those propane canisters.

So I investigated my county's options for hazardous waste disposal. There are several options, but none exactly close and convenient to where I live. So I made an appointment and set aside some time to deal with this.

So here I am, my car's trunk filled with flammable crap, driving in heavier-than-I'd-like traffic to a shitty part of a local city, following very dubious directions, to get rid of this shit.

I swear I thought that truck was going to rearend me and blow me up. The potholes in the fucking roads were like bomb craters. I got lost twice finding the goddamn place.

I've never felt so relieved to have all that shit taken out of my car's trunk. I'm pretty sure I'll need an alignment done on my car after driving those shitty roads, but it was worth it just to have that crap off my hands.

Next time, I go to a different drop-off, though.

Wow, March is almost over already?

I can't believe we're reaching the end of March already!

2023 has been a bit of a shitshow, all told. It's certainly had the side effect of having time blaze on by.

Let's see... what's going on? I'm enjoying season three of "The Mandalorian". I tried watching "Andor", but I really couldn't get into it. I'm also making my way through "Lucifer". It's enjoyable, though a bit predictable. I tried to watch "The Witcher: Blood Origin" and I might still get through it, but it's really terrible. It's not Sapkowski's work, but more like someone at Netflix wanted to do a show about their D&D campaign and had to call it a "Witcher" spin-off so as not to get into a licensing tiff with Wizards of the Coast.

Hilarious, really.

I read somewhere that the "Willow" series got canceled. Can't say that shocks me at all

Okay, yeah. All I'm doing is wingeing on about streaming shows. I could get huffy about real life - and there's lots to get huffy about - but honestly, why bother? The real world is just a hot fucking mess and that's not changing anytime soon. Easier to get snarky about trivial bullshit like entertainment shows.

... the hell did I just watch?

So I just finished the "Willow" series on Disney Plus.

I am unsure what the hell I've been watching for the last month or so.

Was this a comedy? A young adult romance thing? Was it intended to be a proper fantasy? Was it a bad music video? What the hell was this?

The series purports to be a sequel to the 1988 film. Sure, it has some of the cast but... uh... I'm really not sure anyone took time to figure out if there was supposed to be a connection. I mean sure, there's wizard guy in there, in the background, named Willow. He does magic, except when he doesn't. There's references to the movie. Kinda. In a poorly-written sort of way.

The Willow series is half-assed fan fiction of the movie as though written by some college students who did mushrooms while playing D&D and making out while high.

There's some cool villains built up in it. Fuck if I know what actually happens to most of them. I honestly think the main villains are whomever does the direction of the episodes. Good lord I've never seen such choppy scenes outside of some halfassed college productions. Disney, what the fuckity fuck were you thinking by putting this on your streaming site? And the writing... the scriptwriting is pretty much a crime against screenplays everywhere.

The series did actually a good job with the casting and the actors. I want to hate them. I really do. The writing makes the characters so unlikeable that I was hoping for an apocalyptic ending for the series, but the actors are really kinda good despite the shitacular writing and horrific direction.

There might be a sequel to this. I really sorta hope not, but if Disney dumps money into a season two for this show, I hope they immediately shitcan the directors, the writers, and whomever is in charge of the soundtrack.

Like shoot them. Not with bullets, but maybe a powerful stream of water? Piss? Something that'll stain? I dunno.

First off, do away with the rock music. It takes you out of what the hell you're watching, which given how bad that was isn't entirely a bad thing, but it doesn't help. Stick to the instrumental music, guys. Then find some scriptwriters who can stick to an actual solid theme instead of jumping all over the goddamn place. And, finally, find directors who don't mangle scenes to offer such a weird screen sausage of unsatisfying crap.

Ah, that felt good to write! Okay, after making myself watch all those episodes, I need to kill braincells...

Hello 2023

It's 2023. We've a break in the rain. The sun is shining. The birds are singing (or whatever crows call the sound they make). It's chilly, but not unpleasantly so. Places that serve booze are open.

A promising start to the year.