Alan & Jono's Watching/Reading List: May 2025

Alan:

Hello Heroes!

May-cember is upon us! Hide the women and children! Save yourselves! There is no pity in May-cember, only suffering! (People with kids get it) Didn’t have a lot of time for myself this month. But I did get some stuff in!

What I’m reading!

• MORE Before and Afters Magazine (Various Issues) - by Ian Failes. This is a spiritual successor to Cinefex magazine, and is a great resource for VFX professionals, but also just for people who are interested in the filmmaking process. Ian does in-depth reporting, either on a film, or on a VFX topic across multiple films. He also hosts a couple podcasts, and just seems like a lovely guy.

• LightBringer - by Pierce Brown. Another in the Red Rising series. This felt like a return to form for Pierce Brown, after several books of increasingly-dark-but-also-all-our-heroes-are-losing torture. I mean, I get it: Hurt your heroes. Makes the story more compelling. But at a certain point, it just got kinda too much. This wasn’t lighter, necessarily, but at least it felt like we were progressing towards some kind of endgame, instead of just piling up atrocities. What I mean to say is: I like all these books. I love some of them. This one was quite good!

What I’m watching!

• Andor S2 (Disney+). I’m only halfway through, so no spoilers. This is just as gripping as the first (spectacular) season, though (again, halfway through) it seems like it’s not making as much progress? I’m still absolutely enthralled by it. Not happy about watching it as a playbook for how to undermine a fascist dictatorship, which seems increasingly relevant where I live…

• The Studio (Apple TV+). Like I said, haven’t had much time. I’m still working on it. Really happy the show got a second season, I’m loving this one. It’s still incredibly crass and a bit mean, and it fills a whole I didn’t realize I’ve been missing since VEEP. Angry, venal, stupid people trying to lead large teams and do intelligent things? I’ll watch that all day. As long as the insults are creative. And they ARE!

• Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning. I’ve loved this series since I saw the first one at 15 years old. It’s wild to think I’ve had an entire adulthood since then, and Tom is still doing all his own stunts. Anyway, it was… fine. Too bloated, and tried too hard to tie everything together from all the other films. Didn’t need that, would have worked better without it. Ethan Hunt doesn’t need everything to be related. He can just save the world one last time, then disappear into a crowd.

What I’m playing!

• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. I finally beat it! 80-ish hours. Didn’t 100%, but I had a lot of fun! I’m gonna play Indiana Jones, then jump back in for the DLC. I liked this a lot! Mainly, I just liked playing video games again. It’s been way too long.

Watch Movies! (And television, and read books, and play video games)

Jono:

Hi everyone! Wow, this month has absolutely flown by! REALLY enjoyed catching Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning with a bunch of you in Emeryville, California when we were there to film at Pixar. I love the stunts and the story really grabbed me, even at three hours long!

I also finally saw A Minecraft Movie which... is definitely among the films that have ever been made. Honestly, it had some laughs, but it was also painful for me to sit through. Does that mean I'm just too old?

I really enjoyed catching up on The Last of Us for our channel. Poignant, shocking, profound, and disturbing. Some good episodes coming out from that!

As for books, I'm reading Schindler's List right now, the book which inspired the film. What heartbreaking and inspiring history, with real lessons for today.

At Alan's insistence I finally watched Waterworld (1995), and folks, it was a delight. When it's good it's very good, but even more importantly, when it's bad it's still good!

Also, Thunderbolts*! That movie fits our channel like a glove. Episode coming soon(ish).

What about y'all? What are you all watching this month?