Media diet for May 2025

Posted on 13 mins read View source

I watched 22h 10m of movies and 102h 44m of TV shows, a total of 124h 54m:

🎬 Movies

  • Captain America: Brave New World (2025) – ⭐️ 3/10
    • The usual Marvel dreck that they’re pumping out these days, sigh.
  • Mickey 17 (2025) – ⭐️ 5/10
    • Very interesting concept and great acting, but ultimately flawed execution.
  • Sorcerer (1977) – ⭐️ 4/10
    • Not sure what people see in this. I often do enjoy older films, so after reading enough “This hidden gem was just overshadowed by Star Wars releasing the same year” comments I gave it a try. Well, of course Star Wars overshadowed this – because it actually is a good movie.
  • Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025) – ⭐️ 5/10
    • Meh. Not outright bad, but… unnecessary?
  • Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018) – ⭐️ 4/10
    • Ironically I didn’t watch this due to the news that Netflix was – of course! – ending support for their interactive media, but simply because I was about to go for the latest season of Black Mirror and wanted to catch up as I hadn’t bothered seeing Bandersnatch on release. Luckily preservationist efforts made it reasonably easy to still consume it today. Unluckily I didn’t like it very much – too meta, too self-referential, too quickly dated because of it.
  • The Order (2024) – ⭐️ 6/10
    • Decent enough movie, but I appreciated it more as a pointer towards an interesting aspect of American history society. As usual, I got more out of the time spent on Wikipedia afterwards than out of the film itself.
  • The Abyss (1989) – ⭐️ 7/10
    • It must have been 25+ years since I’ve originally seen this movie – I didn’t remember much beyond “Watery with some supernatural stuff” and enjoying it. I actually might watch it again soon – I went with the theatrical cut this time and liked it well enough, but apparently the Special Edition is the one to see.
  • A Minecraft Movie (2025) – ⭐️ 1/10
    • Offensively bad, and it hurts me to say that as a fan of Jack Black Tenacious D. It’s an utter turd of a movie, a disgrace to the game, and anyone rewarding this kind of collective delusion with money is a reason why this planet deserves to be rid of humanity sooner rather than later.
  • Phenomenon (1996) – ⭐️ 5/10
    • After The Abyss I figured I’d rewatch some other films I had fond memories of. Unfortunately this one didn’t hold up as well, for me at least. I have a bit of a soft spot for John Travolta, but now I’m not so sure whether I should test my luck with other old favorites like Face/Off or Broken Arrow anytime soon.
  • Philadelphia (1993) – ⭐️ 8/10
    • Next on my “Let’s revisit some movies I remember from my childhood” list. I did see this once after it came out, most likely a year or two after release on a crisp VHS tape rented from the local video store. I was probably not even 12 years old, so it has been a while. Blessed with the innocent ignorance of a child I certainly couldn’t grasp the significance of it back then.
      I almost started crying right when the movie started – some songs that have that effect on me, and apparently the titular Springsteen track is one of them. Combined with the opening scenes depicting inequality and class struggle through a fairly mundane look at daily life in an early 90s Philadelphia it makes for an impactful start, conveying so much more than what the script suggests. The rest of the movie lives up to that start, with Hanks and Washington both nailing it – it was great seeing them so (comparatively) young again. I also had no idea that Antonio Banderas played Hanks’ partner.
  • Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) – ⭐️ 7/10
    • Couldn’t resist the urge to rewatch right after Andor, and the additional depth to his character does elevate the film a fair bit. I updated my rating from 6 to a 7, and almost considered an 8/10. It’s still not without its flaws, but combined with the show I’d say it’s the best stuff since the OT. Should I ever rewatch show and movie again, maybe I’ll give a fan edit a try.

📺 TV Shows

  • 1923 – Both seasons (15 episodes with 15h 18m)
    • As cursed upon myself mentioned in January, now that this second Yellowstone prequel series has concluded I made myself endure it. At this point I have some sick kind of fascination with seeing what the writer of Sicario has succumbed to. I think the most positive thing I can say about 1923 is that Harrison Ford was more fun to watch here than in the new Captain America movie.
  • The Residence – Miniseries (8 episodes with 7h 44m)
    • Miles better than I had expected based on promo material. I also wasn’t sure if I would even be able to enjoy anything set in the White House very much these days. But this turned out to be one of the best things I’ve watched this year so far – an excellent cast in a creatively produced whodunit, that is my jam! It doesn’t stick the landing quite as well as the excellent first half suggests, but still definitely a recommendation.
  • The Americas – Miniseries (10 episodes with 7h 8m)
    • I didn’t enjoy this much, but that’s partly on me: What I was in the mood for was a closer look at different states or regions of the US, not the Americas. My girlfriend is American, so we have lots of interesting discussions about topics like the absolute insanity of the term “The Midwest”1 and other cultural and socioeconomic stuff. That kinda thing, even if the main focus would have been geographic aspects, would have been perfect. But of course “The Americas” refers to something entirely different – and while some of the shots from Mexico, the Andes, the Caribbean and other places were pretty nice, I wasn’t really into it. It’s not just me, though: The show also simply doesn’t come close to the BBC productions it is trying to imitate. (Fun fact: It took me four episodes before I realized that the narrator was Tom Hanks.)
  • Black Mirror – S04E01, S07 (7 episodes with 7h 30m)
    • Decided to rewatch the original USS Callister episode from season four, and enjoyed it and the sequel quite a bit. I had already praised Cristin Milioti back in December after watching The Penguin, and she was great here as well. The season overall was fine – I didn’t care much for the episode that got the most hype: Of course Paul Giamatti was great, but that style of episode isn’t really what I want from this show. To me, the first two episodes were by far the strongest – with three and four also exploring some interesting ideas.
  • The Resort – Miniseries (8 episodes with 4h 49m)
    • Decided to check out some more things that Cristin Milioti did, and this absurd and somewhat supernatural journey into a complicated marriage (to Chidi from The Good Place no less!) was surprisingly sweet.
  • Made For Love – Both seasons (16 episodes with 7h 50m)
    • One more result from my Cristin Milioti filmography dive. Not as enjoyable as The Resort, but interesting to see simply for how dated this (partial) critique of the broligarchy from 2021 already feels today. It’s too silly for its own good – but if you ever wanted to see Ray Romano have a relationship with a plastic sex doll, this is you chance.
  • Star Wars: Andor – Both seasons (24 episodes with 20h 12m)
    • Decided to rewatch the first season to make sure I get the full experience. I thought it was pretty good when I watched it initially, but also annoyingly over-hyped by people who made it half their personality to shit on everything related to the sequel trilogy. It was sometimes challenging to even see Andor given how far my eyes rolled back into my head when people were unable to express their enjoyment without going as far as to slander the original trilogy in comparison. These things are different and it’s fine to enjoy either more than the other. But you can’t just ignore that they were made almost 50 years apart. Gritty origin stories are all the rage today, but just because Andor picks up on what is currently en vogue it isn’t automatically or objectively better than one of the most iconic space fairy tales ever told.
      General ranting aside, the second season was even better than the first one. How seamlessly Tony Gilroy and team made the show work together with Rogue One is really impressive. I was also glad the show didn’t shy away from being very clear on evilness. Over the last 10+ years it was rather depressing to see the “Empire did nothing wrong” mindset being co-opted into the alt-right pipeline, and gritty origin stories to me always carry an inherent risk of missing the mark: While it is absolutely worthwhile to explore the circumstances that create evil, it’s easy to instead normalize or exculpate it. Andor does not fall into that trap. I believe Gilroy when he says it wasn’t intended to be a statement about the current state of affairs, but it unfortantely works as one very well.
  • The Good Place – All 4 seasons (50 episodes with 19h 29m)
    • Still one of the best shows in the last ten years, I pick up new details on every rewatch. The rare combination of excellent comedy and heartfelt, positive message never fails to leave in a better mood than before.
  • The Handmaid’s Tale – S06 (10 episodes with 7h 59m)
    • Good grief, I almost considered doing a full rewatch before this final season. Not even ten minutes into S06E01 and I remembered just how inconceivably ridiculous this show has become. Ever since the second season, the show had begun to fill way too much time with what I can only describe as torture porn.2 Which is a damn shame, because it could hardly be a more important tale to tell. I just really don’t think that constantly showing gratuitous violence against women in the most fancy and stylish HD slow-mo shots possible without any character development or story progression is the way to do it. Making it all feel even more badass by blasting sexy songs alongside it doesn’t help, and when a central theme of your story is totalitarianism I can’t help but find it incredibly tone-deaf to prominently feature music from literally the world’s richest female musician on the planet.3 I guess the demise of this show can at least serve as an interesting example of art clashing with capitalism – because even after being milked it for twice as many seasons as it should ever have received, the show still didn’t receive any kind of meaningful conclusion. No, you’ll have to keep dishing out the subscription money and watch the sequel. Of course!

💬 Late Night

  • Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
    • May 4, 2025: Deportations
    • May 11, 2025: Alliance Defending Freedom
    • May 18, 2025: Trump in the Press
  • The Daily Show
    • April 28, 2025 - Chris Hughes
    • May 5, 2025 - Rutger Bregman
    • May 12, 2025 - Gen. Stanley McChrystal
    • May 19, 2025 - Patrick McGee

🎧 Music

I scrobbled 947 tracks on 27 days in May 2025:

🎶 Top 10 Tracks

  1. Hilltop Hoods – Don’t Happy, Be Worry (29 plays)
    • Woah, somehow I had missed their new single for an entire month! It was released mid-April already. An absolute banger, but even more importantly HTH have also announced a new album for August just a couple of days ago – what a teaser, hype levels through the roof! I could not be more excited! 🚀
  2. Seeed – Music Monks (5 plays)
  3. Fettes Brot – Jein (4 plays)
  4. Fettes Brot – Da Draussen (3 plays)
  5. Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Murder on the Dancefloor (3 plays)
  6. Donna Lewis – I Love You Always Forever (Radio Edit) (3 plays)
  7. Fettes Brot – Nordisch By Nature (3 plays)
  8. Antilopen Gang – Pizza (3 plays)
  9. Samy Deluxe – Intro (3 plays)
  10. Sportfreunde Stiller – Ein kleiner Schritt (3 plays)

🧑‍🎤 Top 10 Artists

  1. Hilltop Hoods (102 plays)
  2. Fettes Brot (40 plays)
  3. Die Ärzte (37 plays)
  4. Blumentopf (21 plays)
  5. Beatsteaks (19 plays)
  6. Sportfreunde Stiller (15 plays)
  7. Samy Deluxe (14 plays)
  8. Die Toten Hosen (14 plays)
  9. Seeed (12 plays)
  10. Ferris MC (12 plays)

📚 Books

While the story and action in the fifth book was some of the most enjoyable in the series so far, the book overall was really dragged down a bit for me due to the constant repetition and reminders of previous events and world-building details. The author himself describes it as “a new series starting point if you want to bypass the early novels”, so that makes sense… but as someone who didn’t bypass the early novels this was really freaking annoying.

🎙️ Podcasts

I listened to 12 episodes across 5 podcasts in May 2025:

🎮 Games

I played 4 different games for a total of 5.1 hours in May 2025:

Not a lot of gaming time lately – a fair bit of my spare time was still spent on the tooling for, and then of course also actually writing, these posts. The gaming section in the post is new this month, but I’m not 100% happy with the output yet.
The names are linked either to my review if one exists, or to the store page otherwise. I’d like that to be more distinctly visualized somehow, so I’ll keep working on that some more. What’s great about the sources of this blog being in git is that it’s pretty easy to update any already written media diet posts with pure formatting/tooling improvements without losing the manually added thoughts.

  1. That region is in the eastern half of the country, it’s madness! (I know, the term comes from a time before the entire continent was plundered, don’t @ me.) ↩︎

  2. 🇩🇪 I had already said as much when addressing the show in my review of the (much better) book and its sequel during my German blogging phase. ↩︎

  3. Sorry swifties! I really like this mashup, though. ↩︎