Media diet for February 2026

Posted on 15 mins read View source

I watched 14h 46m of movies and 27h 16m of TV shows, a total of 42h 2m:

🎬 Movies

  • The Untouchables (1987) – ⭐️ 5/10
    • Quite disappointing given that cast and crew. Must have been a rough year if this got Connery an Oscar. I’ve always been a big fan of prohibition, so in theory I might even be amendable to some decent fiction around the topic – but the historical accuracy of this film alone is enough that I’d never enjoy it. As always: Make a documentary, or make up an original story. It was interesting how notable De Palma’s style is, and seeing De Niro’s Capone made me wonder if Colin Farrell was channeling him for his Penguin. But beyond that: The movie didn’t age nearly as well as other things from that time – the campiness didn’t feel intentional, and it doesn’t lend itself well to being taken seriously.
  • The Guilty (2021) – ⭐️ 6/10
    • I liked this more than I expected, but it was just okay. I wasn’t aware that it was a US remake before watching, and after reading up on it a bit I wish they hadn’t dumbed down the surrounding story. Why even add the wildfire context? You’re telling me that the LAPD emergency call center is not exciting and busy enough on any regular day? Come on. Gyllenhaal was good as usual but forced to overact a little, mostly for the extended surrounding story.
  • The French Connection (1971) – ⭐️ 6/10
    • I had already “rewatched” (I am certain I saw it at some point as a kid/teen, but had no real recollection of it) this movie not that long ago, back in 2018. I remember being a bit confused by its masterpiece status then, and I still am. This time around I rewatched it because at work there was a discussion about the sequel, and I didn’t want to watch that without refreshing my memory first. Having revisited it now, I’m not surprised that I didn’t retain much – it’s fairly confusing and atypical. While Hackman was good, I think the overall pacing would have been better if they had skipped the first half hour or so, and started straight with them learning about the upcoming shipment. The infamous (and somewhat illegal?) car chase was good; two years ago I replayed GTA IV, so this time around I was able to make the connection between the movie and this aptly named mission. The fake blood looked like thick red paint, a bit funny on a big modern 4K TV. Ultimately I think I get the ending and what they were going for with this film, but I’m not quite sure I really like it. But it is hard to properly judge this 55(!) years later, when almost everything revolutionary about it has since become tired trope and rediscovered trend twice over.
  • French Connection II (1975) – ⭐️ 6/10
    • The sequel is similarly weird and unusual, but not in the same way. As such, the (different) director succeeded in his goal to not just redo the original movie. I think Hackman was even better here, but just because his individual performance stood out more it did not necessarily make for a better film. At the same time, I apparently missed out on half the dialogue, because I’m just now learning that all the French parts were supposed to be subtitled? I did attempt enabling subtitles, but all I got was ones for the English-speaking parts – so I assumed that was just artistic choice and rolled with it. And I’m actually fairly certain that this didn’t make the experience any worse, you can tell so much from how things are said. What I can’t tell, though: Why the hell does part two not have “The” in the title?!
  • Marathon Man (1976) – ⭐️ 6/10
    • Looks like I decided to make February into “overrated 70s classics” month. I definitely saw this movie before, as a much too young kid. I’ve always remembered the torture scene. Even rewatching it as an adult now, it might still be the worst I have ever seen. Something about dental abuse just hits differently – and it might hit me worse now, having had two root canals myself. Fascinating that the original cut apparently was significantly more violent. I think the extensive reworking mentioned in that link explains why the movie is a little incoherent at times. It’s still entertaining enough, though, and the ending in particular (starting with the Diamond District sequence) was pretty well done.
  • Romancing the Stone (1984) – ⭐️ 5/10
    • I forgot why/how this made it onto my watchlist, but I think it was some kind of “hidden gem” recommendation. But it’s certainly not a gem in my book – I’d say this is no longer a popular or well-known movie simply because it isn’t all that good. Not terrible either, just very average. I never enjoyed Michael Douglas in movies much, so at least for me he felt miscast here. I saw comparisons to Indiana Jones, but I don’t think that’s what this film wanted to be, and I’m not judging it against that standard.
      Reading up on its history was more entertaining than the movie itself: “It turned out he saved losing his hand because the alligator bit down on his watch. We went back to the location, dove in the water and we found this Rolex watch.” from this look back from 2019 is quite the quote. Not to mention the fact that the screenwriter died in a crash with the car that Douglas bought her: “The last time I saw Diane,” Douglas said, “was when I took her out to the parking lot to show her the Porsche.”
  • The Jewel of the Nile (1985) – ⭐️ 4/10
    • Due to the aforementioned car crash, this sequel was not written by the same screenwriter and is expectedly worse (I’d say this was barely a 4, while the former was almost a 6). I think the only thing really worth mentioning about this movie is the absolutely astounding marketing music video – you won’t see anything more 80s than this all month (skip to ca. 1:10 for the money shots).

🎸 Concerts

  • Michael Jackson: Live at Wembley July 16, 1988 (2012)
    • Huh, this was pretty Bad, no pun intended. Not the video quality (though that also was rough – the entire show is on YT, see for yourself), but… I really didn’t enjoy the performance much. Which took me by surprise, because I still am a big fan of his music in general. While his energy on stage was impressive, the songs all seemed a bit off? As if they were performing the non-radio versions of them, like you’d find as B-side tracks on a single. Not quite as dramatic, an example: Wanna Be Startin Somethin is an absolute banger to start the show, but here it sounds like it is at 120% tempo. Did not like, and many songs had some aspect like that. I don’t always mind live music sound different, but for this kind of hyper-produced pop music I do kinda want the exact sound that my brain has been attuned to via infinite repeat on the radio. There’s also a 15 minute long break in the middle where he just fucks off and everyone has to suffer through terrible solos from the band. I’m sorry, but who cares about the band at a Michael Jackson show? That was really baffling – as was his admiration for the “Prince of Wales”.

📺 TV Shows

  • The Night Manager – Both seasons (12 episodes with 11h 42m)
    • Excellent! I rewatched the first season because it has (literally!) been a decade since it aired. I never expected this to get a continuation, and when I first heard that it would I was rather doubtful. But I’m happy to say that it worked pretty well for me. I don’t think I’d put the second season quite on the same level as the first, but I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. While I did remember the first one as a standout, I was still a bit surprised to rediscover just how good it is – it’s rare for a show to get better with every episode. Easily Hiddleston’s best work. Might need to add some Le Carré books to add to my library.
  • The Essex Serpent – Miniseries (6 episodes with 5h 8m)
    • Went looking for some more Hiddleston and was delighted to find this collaboration with Claire Danes from a few years back. And on AppleTV+ too, so naturally my expectations were sky-high.1 From that perspective this was quite disappointing. A bit too weird, a bit too artsy, and apparently also a bit too different from the source material – though the latter is just what I’ve read in a bunch of reviews after I finished the show. Not the worst way to spend an afternoon, but I ended up thinking that I’d rather have started rewatching Homeland instead for some quality Claire Danes.
  • Beacon 23 – S01, S02E01 (9 episodes with 6h 53m)
    • What an utter piece of shit, I was shocked by how awful this was. I quite enjoyed the collection of short stories this is “based on” when I read them in early 2020 – so when I recently learned that there’s a TV show I got excited. Unfortunately this has absolutely nothing to do with those short stories – genuinely no idea why the two things even share a name. I almost never abandon a show or movie because a) I feel it’s unfair to judge something without knowing it entirely, and b) I am mildly obsessive about it. S01 was “just” disappointingly bad, but during S02E02 I simply turned it off mid-episode and went cleaning the kitchen instead. I always try keeping an open mind about things, but this is deep in the “it’s offensive that it even exists” category.

💬 Late Night & Talk Shows

🎧 Music

I scrobbled 1340 tracks on 26 days in February 2026:

🎶 Top 10 Tracks

  1. Queens of the Stone Age – Little Sister (25 plays)
  2. Mandy, Indiana – Pinking Shears (17 plays)
  3. Drapht – Insomnia (14 plays)
  4. Queens of the Stone Age – Feel Good Hit of the Summer (12 plays)
  5. Queens of the Stone Age – A Song for the Dead (11 plays)
  6. Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows (10 plays)
  7. Queens of the Stone Age – Regular John (9 plays)
  8. Queens of the Stone Age – Do It Again (8 plays)
  9. Queens of the Stone Age – The Way You Used to Do (8 plays)
  10. Queens of the Stone Age – Monsters in the Parasol (7 plays)

🤘 HELLO AND WELCOME TO QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE MONTH! 🤘
Just as in January, my listening habits this month were mainly driven by stumbling onto great live shows. The QOTSA Archive has an incredible wealth of QotSA concerts, and I watched at least a dozen of them in the last two weeks alone. I’ve always enjoyed this band to a certain degree, but through these live performances I connected with their music on a new level. This is something that happens to me from time to time, and it is always a wonderful and thrilling experience – not the same as discovering a completely new artist, but very similar.
Take a look at my Little Sister scrobble distribution: I’ve had this track in my music library since at least 2011, but must have usually skipped if it came up on shuffle – just a handful scrobbles in the last 15 years. This month I became a little obsessed2 with it, and with other tracks from their discography that hadn’t clicked for me before.

🧑‍🎤 Top 10 Artists

  1. Queens of the Stone Age (380 plays)
  2. Foo Fighters (96 plays)
  3. Eminem (65 plays)
  4. Fettes Brot (59 plays)
  5. Blumentopf (57 plays)
  6. Antilopen Gang (54 plays)
  7. Drapht (40 plays)
  8. Mandy, Indiana (36 plays)
  9. Hilltop Hoods (35 plays)
  10. Weezer (31 plays)

📚 Books

  • 📘 Faithful Place [Dublin Murder Squad #3] – ⭐️ 4/5
    • After the second entry I was a bit worried that I the third book in the series would be another tiny step down for me. And initially I really wasn’t a fan of the POV choice – but it quickly won me over. It does follow in the footsteps of both prior books in the sense that literally every character in this universe seems to have an especially complex and deeply troubled past/life (not quite the Dysfunction Junction trope, but close). That part is relatively easy to suspend disbelief for, though. And within this broader framing, nobody did anything that felt internally inconsistent or illogical – which is what I struggled with most in book two. Not as great as the first installment, but Tana French really does excel at delivering gut-punches that make me yearn for more.
  • 📘 Broken Harbor [Dublin Murder Squad #4] – ⭐️ 4/5

    • I wonder if there’s a specific term for the particular phenomenon of “sequel picks the side-character to focus on next that I am least interested in, but does it so well that I quickly change my mind”. Another really solid entry, with the crime in focus being particularly horrible and cruel. The new main character’s struggles with his own broken family were painfully relatable (metaphorically, not literally) as well. This quote stuck with me:

      I said, “You can’t think that way. Whether it’s true or not. You have to believe that somewhere along the way, somehow, most people get what they deserve.” “Or . . . ?” “Or how do you get up in the morning? Believing in cause and effect isn’t a luxury. It’s an essential, like calcium, or iron: you can go without it for a while, but in the end you’ll start eating yourself up from inside.

      I don’t think I’m able to believe this (“most people get what they deserve”) anymore, and it is indeed eating me up from the inside. I still manage to get up in the morning, but I don’t remember anymore how it felt when it was easy.

🎙️ Podcasts

I listened to 15 episodes across 6 podcasts in February 2026:

🎮 Games

I played 3 different games for a total of 20.2 hours in February 2026.

  • Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris
    • 🏆 Began and finished the entire game this month, unlocking all 40 achievements in 14.1 hours across 8 days. Wrote a 👍 review (355 words) on 2026-03-01.
  • Her Story
    • 🏆 Began and finished the entire game this month, unlocking all 13 achievements in 3.9 hours. Wrote a 👍 review (363 words) on 2026-03-01.
    • In addition to being motivated to finally play this via the new Panic Podcast episode, it was also a fun coincidence that this game is about a crime that happened (presumably) in Scotland – while I’m currently busy binging on the Dublin Murder Squad novels.
  • Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
    • Played for 2.2 hours across 3 days. Unlocked no new achievements, still at 4/10 total. Haven’t written a review yet.
    • I freaking hate the morse code module so much. Other than that, slowly continuing to make progress in this through the increasingly harder bombs with my girlfriend still is always a blast (ha!) – but it really makes you work for those achivements. Next month we should unlock one more. 🤞

  1. People keep lying to me about how all their shows are supposedly the second coming of Christ and curing cancer. Apparently the lack of a solid catalog is “focussing on quality”. I’m still waiting for their heavy-hitters (Severance, For All Mankind, Silo, …) to conclude, but the stuff I have watched so far has been incredibly average. Not bad, but not even in the same universe as peak HBO. ↩︎

  2. You could say “I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!” considering how prominently that instrument features in the song – and Will Ferrel actually performed it with them on SNL for that reason. I couldn’t find that performance on any official sources online, so I had to dig pretty deep and find old SNL recordings in order to watch that – as I said, I got a bit obsessed. ↩︎

  3. On that note, this is probably my favorite long post on the topic. ↩︎