I’m halfway through this great podcast episode that’s essentially about the current state of Star Trek in general as much as it’s about Starfleet Academy (it’s nice to hear a conversation where one person really likes SFA and the other definitely doesn’t but the talk is still always relaxed & fun)

Firefly is getting an animated revival series, but what this video presupposes is... maybe it shouldn't? The latest episode of The Backdrop from @darrenmooney.bsky.social and @janjozone.bsky.social is live. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY8X...

In about an hour @darrenmooney.bsky.social, Marty, and I will be talking about Space Movies! Mostly the overwhelmingly adequate "Project Hail Mary", a movie so charming and predicable that it's no wonder it is cleaning up at the box office! Watch/Listen Here:

#NowWatching #ODEONScreenUnseen I suspect t this one is a… killer.

In his latest Patreon column, @darrenmooney.bsky.social takes a look at the very familiar notes played throughout Project Hail Mary. www.patreon.com/posts/153730...

Do you want a five and a half hour podcast on “Starfleet Academy?” Well, @nemesis4909.bsky.social & I have you covered at @kneelbeforeblog.co.uk. We talk nineties nostalgia, Holly Hunter, space logistics and more. It’s a real minefield. Check it out, if you want! open.spotify.com/episode/0tS8...

Shoutout to Film4, programming “Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Behind Enemy Lines” back to back on a Sunday evening, for all the dads out there.

That thing that happens on every media logging site where your reviews/half-thought-out opinions wind up attracting comments from strangers in the user base and you discover that maybe they aren’t used to critical engagement.

Mooney Family Movie Night. #NowWatching “Marty Supreme”

As somebody who doesn't follow American basketball, but knows lots of people who have strong opinions about it, I'm just glad that Anthony Edwards seems to have found a second career that he cares about.

The latest episode of The 250 is online, with the great @siddhantadlakha.bsky.social joining us to chat Aditya Dhar's "Dhurandhar", just in time for the sequel. We chat violence, propaganda and how to deal with a problematic movie that is "a banger." A good ep. www.soundcloud.com/the250/443-d...

As somebody who liked “Project Hail Mary” - Rocky is a star! - the weird “enforced fun!” tone of some of the posting around it gives me pause.

Had a lovely time with “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice”, a delightful slice of high-concept comedy that exudes a clear love for its various genre trappings. A game cast, a good sense of humour and a surprisingly sweet meditation on guilt and growth. Wish I’d seen it with a crowd.

#NowWatching “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice”

Invincible's new season is off to a great start, as the series transitions from conquest to consequences. @darrenmooney.bsky.social's latest column is live now on Patreon -- www.patreon.com/posts/column...

We can talk about “Daredevil: Born Again.” The good news is the second season’s better than the first, as it doesn’t feel cut together by a hacksaw. Otherwise, it suffers from a lot of the same flaws, and is a revealing snapshot of the limits of Trump era superheroics.

Hello, beautiful.

Some quick bus-ride home thoughts on #ReadyOrNot #HereICome. boxd.it/dzUOAp

#NowWatching #ReadyOrNot

Mooney Family Christmas Movie sorted.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! This week at @secondwindgroup.com, the recent releases of “Scream 7”, “Joker: Folie á Deux” and more got me thinking about a particularly prevalent trend in contemporary franchise cinema. The Self-Hating Sequel. youtu.be/L7VtpYqqhuM?...

It feels entire appropriate for Timithée Chalamet, who has been doing press in character as Marty Supreme, to go into awards season as the dominant favourite and then leave with nothing.

For today's column on Patreon, @darrenmooney.bsky.social posits that hey, maybe we don't actually need a Firefly revival? READ -- www.patreon.com/posts/column...

Coming out of the screening of “Cabaret” at the Lighthouse, I will say it’s heartening how much of the audience that turns out for these repertoire screenings of older movies (like “The Godfather”) is under twenty-five. Maybe the kids are all right.

“Cabaret” remains a masterpiece. Maybe the single best musical ever made, capturing the sensation of doing the cancan on the edge of the abyss. A portrait of a decadent culture dancing towards oblivion, too lost in its own little dramas to see the writing on the wall. Timely.

#NowWatching “Cabaret” at @lighthousecinema.bsky.social.

#StarTrekStarfleetAcademy season 1 #Podcast. @darrenmooney.bsky.social joins @nemesis4909.bsky.social to cover #StarTrek latest addition. They cover expanding the universe, fanservice & whether to go full #Riverdale. #StarfleetAcademy kneelbeforeblog.co.uk/podcasts/sta... pod.link/kneelbeforepod

Okay, @darrenmooney.bsky.social quoting Mark Fisher's "Capitalist Realism" re: Wall-E: "The film performs our anti-capitalism for us, allowing us to continue to consume with impunity" ripped my third eye wide open and now I feel compelled to analyse how I'm consuming.... Well, everything.

Coming up on the docket for The 250: 14 MAR: “War of the Worlds”, w/ @jaycoyle.bsky.social & @niallgglynn.bsky.social 21 MAR: “Dhurandhar”, w/ @siddhantadlakha.bsky.social 28 MAR: “Chainsaw Man”, w/ @grahamgeekeire.bsky.social 4 APR: “Hone Sweet Home Alone”, w/ @mistercinecal.bsky.social

A real LinkedIn post seeking "STARFLEET ACADEMY Haters" for a paid (I assume??) writing gig. Not reviewers, "Haters." I have no interest in the show myself but this is just further proof "geek culture" needs to be burned to ashed and the ground sown with salt.

Excellent video from @secondwindgroup.com! I hope it gets a few folks to watch NO OTHER CHOICE, which feels (as Darren rightly highlights) extremely undervalued in the awards season hubbub. Should be right up there with SINNERS and ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER as far as inescapable discussion.

Eat up this video--the latest Backdrop! Where @darrenmooney.bsky.social talks about Eat the Rich cinema. Only on @secondwindgroup.com! www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD5b...

This week on The Backdrop at @SecondWindGroup.com, we look at the hollowness of “eat the rich” cinema, from “How to Make a Killing” to “Ready or Not.” What’s with the trend? And why do so many of these films leave us feeling unfulfilled? WATCH: youtu.be/zD5bjq5lEBA?...

I liked #ProjectHailMary, more than I loved it. It is a beautifully crafted film, well-executed and designed to please audiences. Rocky is a star. That said, as somebody who also liked “The Martian”, I did find myself wishing it could be just a little less glib.

#NowWatching #ProjectHailMary

Found “Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere” to be an interesting watch. Nothing necessarily shocking to anybody even casually familiar with the space, but he does a good job contextualising it as an expression of nihilistic post-ideology capitalism. Boys playing at being men.

The Bride! is a necessary kind of bad movie. @darrenmooney.bsky.social's latest column is live now on Patreon -- www.patreon.com/posts/column...

#NowWatching “It’s Complicated” Maybe my favourite Nancy Meyers film. Just a warm hug of a movie.

Some quick busride home thoughts on “The Bride!” boxd.it/dpWAd1

@darrenmooney.bsky.social just spotted this on instagram

“The Bride!” asks the important question, “Can an entire film have actor brain?” Honestly, I admired the ambition of “The Bride!” and the big swings the film took, even if the execution was as frustrating as it was exhausting.

Wondering if it is safe yet to admit that I kinda miss “tryhard” Ryan Gosling and it feels like we’ve swung too far in the opposite direction.

Had a really good time with #SpilledMilk, a pint-sized detective story in 1980s Dublin, where a kid’s investigation into his missing elder brother reveals a more fundamental rot taking hold. The ending is a little neat, but it’s a clever, sweet film that recreates the era remarkably well.

Bob Haney and Jim Aparo’s “The Brave and the Bold” really is peak comics. Where the pair will casually reveal that, at some point in the thirties, Jim Gordon shot and killed what he assumed to be an innocent alien, buried the body, and never brought it up again. (tBatB #139.)

I still love that Jo Nesbø’s big central police character is Detective Harry Hole, and there is no attempt to work around that in the English translation.

This looks fun. And obviously has at least some ideas in it; mapping a nice clear lineage of the American superhero from cowboy to sheriff to space cop. It’s actually a proper Damon Lindelof HBO show.

Far more interesting than any of the nonsense happening on “comics twitter”, #Lanterns had me the moment it cast Kyle Chandler employing his “America’s Stepdad” energy as a washed up icon of American exceptionalism. Good casting, good framing.

#NowWatching #HowToGetAway

Finally getting around to watching the recent abridged edit of "The Sea Devils" released on the "War Between the Land and the Sea" blu ray. It is insane there is a recut version of a seventies "Doctor Who" serial with a score by Lorne frickin' Balfe. What a time to be alive.

Your Friday is better with a new Darren Mooney column to read.