Alphabetical order, continued (sort of)
The only movies I finished on my alphabetical list were Little Big Women and Magic Mike's Last Dance. Neither were good. Probably both had potential in their own way, but actual movie was just not enough. In the former, there probably wasn't enough plot. In the latter, there wasn't enough stripping and too much plot and Tatum Channing's (sp?) face and not-attractive body shape.
Asides from those two, we watched:
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - not as bad as 4, but worse than 1, 2, 3, obviously. Ranking is 3>2>1>5>4.
Mission Impossible rewatch (2-6) - pretty good to rehash the movies before watching 7a. But I still feel that it's hard to differentiate each plot of the individual movies and it's easier to remember them by stunt.
Fear Street trilogy - watched out of nostalgia of all the books I read as a pre-teen/teen. Characters in the 1990s and 1970s were a lot more annoying than I can ever imagine from what I remembered of the books. 1660s characters were less annoying so I would say the third movie was the best. The other two made me want to strangle everyone.
Avatar the Way of Water - I guess it looks okay visually? And I say "okay", because I never thought the Navi (sp?) looks that great. It's not the CGI marvel people claim it is. The scenery looks nice, though. But plot, dialogue, character development were all crap. It's basically the first movie plot plus annoying teenagers and people who forget they can swim (very well) at crucial points. I also fell asleep (drunk) during the underwater Hogwarts part of the movie. Didn't miss anything.
Kandahar (or Gerald Butler Extraction) - It's okay. Villains were more fleshed out than villains in Avatar, though. Action is just meh.
Krull - I watched this decades ago and I had no idea it's a space fantasy. But also, my strongest memory of this movie was from the horse wrangling scene onward. Everything from the beginning is super fuzzy. So maybe I never watched the entire movie from the beginning!
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I also finished playing Stray finally. It's not that it's a long game. I think I spent less than 10 hours combined on it. But I get nauseous playing more than an hour. So the play was broken up. Overall, I enjoyed the gameplay and story. Just less spinning and looking around at odd angles next time, Jabba.
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We finished Copycat Killer awhile back but I just forgot about it. It's not exceptionally bad that I need to rant about it. But it's also not exceptionally great that I need to rave about it.
In short, it's about a serial killer and the prosecutor trying to catch him.
Cast and Characters
Punchable-face Chris Wu (The Crossing Hero, Love of Sandstorm, The World Between Us, On Children, Light the Night (1-3), The Making of an Ordinary Woman, Mom, Don't Do That!, Shards of Her) plays the prosecutor, Guo Xiao Qi.
Punch here.
I mock his punchable face a lot, but I would probably watch most things he's in. He does an okay job here as the prosecutor - which I found out that Taiwanese prosecutors are like detectives? Who knew.
Alice Ke (Office Girls, Marry Me or Not?, My Queen, Someday or One Day, Rainless Love in a Godless Land, Mom, Don't Do That!) gets second billing as Hu Yun Hui, psychologist and Guo Xiao Qi's ex. But I feel like she's barely in the drama.
Probably actual second billing should have gone to Cammy Chiang (Love of Sandstorm, On Children, Tears on Fire, Light the Night (1-3)), who plays reporter Lu Yan Zhen. But I'm guessing she is less famous than Alice Ke.
A lot of random people (including Ruby Lin) pop up in this drama
Thoughts
Instead of the usual pros and cons, I'll just post thoughts. There's very little wrong with this drama. It starts a little slow, but I feel like the bulk of the drama is interesting and engaging to watch. Once the killer is revealed at the end, it gets a little boring. I thought it was unnecessary to have the killer narrate how/why he did what he did. I would have preferred it if they just let the previous plot reveals and audience intellect fill in the blanks.
But I would say the drama does the whodunit portion of the story fairly well.
Is the killer this shifty guy?
or DJ Vampire?
Why are masks always so creepy?
And that's all.
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I'm subbing Legend of the Condor Heroes (2008) in my spare time. My love of Ariel Lin must have affected my rating of this drama a lot. Re-watching it, I can totally see why it's annoying and draggy. I can put up with some of the changes to the book (mainly Yang Kang's character - being more conflicted and less of an asshole, though still a dick). But too much focus is given to Yang Tiexin/Bao Xiruo/Wanyan Honglie (12-13 episodes of these ppl!) and then Yang Kang/Mu Nianci. Also, dubbing. Those fake giggles are getting on my nerves.