Pop Culture
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j’étais nourrisson pour France-Allemagne en 82 et toujours pas bien grand pour France-Brésil en 86 ↩︎
- Some scenes are hilariously absurd. Peggy skating to Roger’s piano in an empty office, Megan singing Zou Bisou Bisou, Ken losing an eye to client idiots.
- Other scenes are iconically great. The Carousel pitch tops the charts.
- The songs at the end of every episode are all worth listening to at length. Here’s the Qobuz playlist with the full collection.
- The acting and the cast are all top-notch; with special credit to Elisabeth Moss.
Watched: Ted Lasso Season 4
I loved the first three seasons of Ted Lasso. When Season 4 was announced in August 2024, I wrote a note to myself: “There might be a season 4 for Ted Lasso. Not sure it is a great idea.” I still think so. I like things that are contained, things that end. I do not like things that get dragged back out because they sold.
Season 4 was OK. Not amazing. Not lame. OK.
The premise is the point: AFC Richmond gets a women’s team. It is an important idea, and the show knows it. It still leans on caritas, the notion that a community is built through the work of drawing strength from one another, the same engine that ran the first three seasons. It runs fine. But it felt like déjà vu.
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Watched: The Odyssey
Quite a movie. To be honest, while I was watching it, I didn’t think much of it. I found it a bit formulaic, not very imaginative—maybe even boring at times. But during the few hours after leaving the theater, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and my opinion of the film was growing with each passing minute. It’s a movie with a delayed impression.
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Watched: Ice Age: The Meltdown
I used to love the Ice Age series. While my affection for Scrat remains strong (here is a best of), I find the rest of the narrative to be very subpar. I often hoped my kids wouldn’t ask questions about obvious inconsistencies in the story and the animation.
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Watched: Cool Runnings
Cute family movie with heartwarming stories (the bromance between Yul and Junior, what winning can bring and what it cannot).
Hopefully, a good gateway for watching classic underdog sports movies when the kids are older: Blades of Glory and Dodgeball.
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Watched: Spy Hard
Neither the best nor the worst of my recent binge-watching of Leslie Nielsen movies.
While it’s not essential, the opening credits song by Weird Al Yankovic is worth a watch.
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Watched: Platini
Une série un rien trop formatée, mais avec des archives très sympa.
Je n’ai pas vraiment été contemporain de Platini joueur ou du moins je n’en ai aucun souvenir1. Mais j’ai vu Platini sélectionneur, organisateur de France 98, président de l’UEFA et candidat à la présidence de la FIFA. Tout cela n’avait causé ni sympathie, ni antipathie à son égard. Grâce à cette série, je connais Platoche un peu mieux, mais aucune attache ne s’est créée pour autant. Et le sujet chaud que je m’attendais à voir sur la table a été soigneusement évité.
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Watched: Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger
I saw this documentary at the movie theater, and it was great. It reignited the excitement from two years ago, when the reunion was first announced. It also brought back the joy and intense emotions I felt last year in Manchester. When the first notes from Fuckin’ in the Bushes started playing, I was ready to stand up, and it was actually painful to remain seated. I secretly hoped others would start standing, but nobody did.
The jokes about Liam looking cool with a tambourine on his head, or about Mick Jagger doing kung fu at every concert were hilarious. However, the most striking question — one that has no clear answer — was: why was everyone so emotional during Oasis concerts in 2025? It was nothing like this in the ’90s.
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TIL “Uptalk”. It reminded me about this excellent comedy skit with Ron Livingston about frying voice, and that it was coming from the Loudermilk show. It has joined my watching queue.
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Watched: A Real Pain
I really enjoyed it. At one point, I was worried the movie might take a dark turn, but it didn’t. Overall, it was moving but lovely. It captured feelings I can relate to. Kieran Culkin was fantastic. I learned after watching the movie that he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. No kidding! I also didn’t know Jesse Eisenberg directed films; he seems quite good at it.
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Watched: Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair
I wasn’t much into it until the last episode, that got me. It was both hilarious (Craig), and touching (with kudos to Vaughan Murrae’s acting). A timely ending to my Malcolm late discovery.
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Watched: Zootopia 2
Really good. It may be a bit too similar to the first one, as it addresses the same themes and employs the same narrative techniques. However, it is beautiful, features many good jokes, and its fast pace caused me to miss some hidden details. This might make it rewatchable. I recommend it.
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J’ai profité d’un post hommage à Dolly Parton (quelle femme !) pour glisser dans Dead Rooster un petit oeuf de Pâques. Amusez-vous à le trouver en écoutant The Moldy Peaches. 🥚
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Watched: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
It was my first rewatch since the DVD era. It was like I was watching the opening scenes for the first time. Kudos to two decades of image improvement. I found the movie as good as ever but watching it with my kids, I realized the pace might be too slow for this new generation. On the bright side, it was fun to see how good my son is at Cinema Sins.
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Ten years late to Mad Men
Finished watching Mad Men.
It was the follow-up to Breaking Bad in my project of watching TV shows from ten or fifteen years ago that appear to have passed the test of time. This one earns the claim.
Breaking Bad ran on plot; you watched to find out what happened next. Mad Men runs on character; you watch to find out who these people are. I’ve always thought of The Simpsons as a sociological show – I catch myself describing people I meet in terms of Simpsons characters. I suspect Mad Men will be my next instrument and will do a more subtle job of describing adults involved with power dynamics, ego, and the flinch right before someone says the thing they can’t take back.
Random notes:
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Finished watching Malcolm in the Middle. A little less than two years after I started, I am done watching all 7 seasons. It was a lot of fun. 🍿
Rooster S1
Finished S1 of Rooster. I couldn’t resist a Steve Carell comedy, especially one produced by Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Bad Monkey). Overall, it’s a decent show with plenty of lovable characters and heartfelt moments. However, the comedy doesn’t quite hit the mark—my biggest laugh came from Carell mimicking motorbikes and the disciplinary council scenes, which isn’t the best indicator. My recommendation: watch it if you’re a fan of Carell or Lawrence; otherwise, it’s not essential viewing. 🍿
Connemara, 2025 - ★★
Grosse déception.
J'avais beaucoup aimé le livre, de Nicolas Mathieu, d'une part, et j'avais beaucoup aimé Guy, d'Alex Lutz, d'autre part. Mais le slam dunk attendu s'est transformé en airball. Ça joue bien mais le montage est haché, la fin trop abrupte, et les ellipses sont trop généreuses. Certaines scènes me seraient passées complètement à côté si je n'avais pas lu le bouquin.
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I love Letterboxd. This morning, the website is down and this is what it shows. It makes me love it even more. 💻 × 🍿
Shrinking S3
After a few episodes of season 3, my wife and I were grateful to hang out with Shrinking’s characters again — but also surprised by how few real conflicts they faced. Conflict usually drives a story, yet here it barely surfaces. When it does, mid-season, it feels almost incidental.
Shrinking deals with conflicts at the opposite end of the spectrum from something like Seinfeld. Every internal struggle is discussed in the open and solved quickly, as opposed to a new drop in George Costanza’s already overflowing bowl of agitated anxiety.
It’s almost a literal feel-good show, with sharp fast-paced dialogue, a terrific ensemble cast — Harrison Ford leading the regulars, with the addition of personal hall-of-famers Michael J. Fox and Jeff Daniels — that you watch losing count of both laughs and tears.
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