Media diet for April 2026

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I watched 6h 45m of movies and 63h 24m of TV shows, a total of 70h 9m:

🎬 Movies

  • Leaving Las Vegas (1995) – ⭐️ 5/10
    • One of the more popular movies I never watched until now. Overall I found it fairly disappointing given the acclaim it has. I was confused that this is what Cage got an Oscar for. Not a bad performance but not groundbreaking either, and very much the usual “Cage being Cage”. It seems to have been a pretty lame year in that category, so maybe it was the right choice. I felt that Elisabeth Shue’s performance was much more impactful, and I’d even say this is ultimately a movie about her character’s journey with Cage more side than main character. What surprised me maybe the most is how blatantly this story (from a suicidal alcoholic) is a bizarre male fantasy – troubled super-model-looking hooker finds abusive drunk, falls madly in love, and finds sense in life trying to rescue him – while he continues to be abusive. Gimme a break.
  • The Bad Guys: Little Lies and Alibis (2025) – ⭐️ 6/10
    • I considered rewatching the first Bad Guys movie before the sequel, but ultimately decided not wanting to invest that much time in what I recalled to be an only okay film. This short film was entertaining and served as a useful summary to get me prepared for the sequel.
  • The Bad Guys 2 (2025) – ⭐️ 7/10
    • Good fun! Not life-changing, but among the better things I watched this year. Doesn’t take itself very seriously – the plot is literally centered around MacGuffinite – but still has characters with personality and heart that you can care about. It was good enough that I was quite surprised I rated the first one “only” at 5/10. Now I’m actually considering to rewatch it just to see if I might have had a bad day when I watched that it – most people seemed to have liked the first one even better than the sequel.
  • Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) – ⭐️ 7/10
    • I’ve had this on my list for a very long time – long enough that I completely forgot the reason I wanted to watch this. Over the Easter holidays I was recovering from surgery and finally in the right mood for a 3h+ experience like that. It was quite interesting from a number of perspectives. Young Brando is fascinating to watch, especially with the production troubles attributed to him in mind. MGM going for all these epic productions in that era is an interesting background as well. This was most expensive film to ever be made at its time – but a box-office flop. Only six years older than 2001 (a movie where I will never understand how it is possible for it to still look so fantastically timeless today) it certainly shows its age. But also its ambition, with so much action shot on location and a total runtime of 185 minutes. Not even 20 seconds are left once the end title comes up – there’s no half hour of credits and production company logo clips at the end. On the other hand it has both an intermission and, even more bizarrely from today’s perspective, the first five minutes are just a black screen with the opening theme – then the opening credits appear and after almost seven minutes the movie actually begins.
      All that meta drivel aside, I found the movie genuinely engaging and enjoyable to watch – not perfect by any means, but a surprisingly good result given how it came to be. Now I’m curious to also watch the 1935 version with Clark Gable, and to rewatch the Hopkins/Gibson one from 1984 – I watched it in 2018 and rated it a mere 5/10, but don’t remember anything of it.

📺 TV Shows

  • The Boys – S01 to S04, S05 up to S05E05 (37 episodes with 39h 3m)

    • With the series conclusion scheduled for May 20th, it was finally time for me to catch up with what felt like the most hyped show in the last decade to me – that impression might be based on my bubbles, but besides maybe Stranger Things I didn’t see as much praise for any of the other potential heavy-weights, like e.g. HOTD or TROP. Luckily I managed to not get spoiled – I only got a vague idea that it was Watchmen-esque in deconstructing the super-hero genre. It does start off with a very strong pilot, no wonder this took off. I was surprised to see Dan Trachtenberg – of Portal: No Escape fame – credited as director, but it seems his involvement was limited to just the first episode.

      Overall the first season was really solid, though the gore got a bit repetitive for me then already. S02 felt like a pretty sharp drop in quality to me, I was not a fan of where they took the story. Too often it seemed “unrealistic” (in-universe) with many contrived moments where the only reason that things didn’t come to a conclusion already was that the show wasn’t meant to end yet. Despite that, it still had strong moments and biting satire that made it enjoyable. Importantly, it ended on a strong note – with a finale that featured the most satisfying scene to ever be scored with Boys Wanna Be Her.1

      The third season was the opposite: Stronger story throughout, but a worse finale that mostly erased the progression so far. The show made it clear that it was stuck in place, no longer willing to actually have meaningful stakes. It still upped (or at least attempted to, repetition dulls any blade) the gore factor and over-the-top-ness – on that note, eating live squid deserves the death penalty – but that isn’t enough to make things feel like they matter. Season three still not moving the core plot forward in a meaningful way feels like the beginning of Amazon milking (ha!) their one big hit to death – especially considering the first spin-off (see below) was announced around the same time as well. I didn’t dig into the production history too deeply, but as far as I know the writer’s strike only delayed the fourth season, so the third one being this way seems entirely by choice. It’s hard not to view that at least partially as a “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” situation.

      I was quite curious going into S04, because I remembered seeing some of the drama when it aired in 2024. Now that I had seen the first three seasons myself, I could not imagine in what way this season could possibly have changed to trigger this response. The show could hardly have been any less subtle in its disdain for conservative and fascist idiocy so far. And sure enough, the fourth season is indeed not meaningfully different in that regard – though it does finally change things up a bit and increase the heat. Because reality is catching up with the show’s insanity faster than they’re able to write increasingly ridiculous premises, it also became a bit harder to watch. At the same time, I found it quite refreshing how unapologetically blunt the series is when referencing current events or otherwise holding up a mirror to the mad house we’re now all living in. Unfortunately I found the penultimate season finale a bit disappointing again. Some uncharacteristically stupid choices seemed to happen just to set certain chess pieces in motion for the final season, rather than feeling earned and like a logical conclusion to well thought-out arcs.

      As I’m typing this, five of the eight episodes in the last season have aired. So far they haven’t proven worth the flaws of the prior season. It’s still plagued by what I first complained about in the season three finale. Occasional great moments and some of the most painful-because-its-true satire are still in there as well, but for the most part it feels like on auto-pilot into permanent parking so that the next spin-off (multiple more are confirmed now!) can take over. That’s not what a final season should be. Despite all that, I’m excited to see how I’ll feel about it next month when it will be over.

  • Gen V – Both seasons (16 episodes with 12h 41m)
    • After catching up with the main show, I decided to check out this spin-off as well. The first season wasn’t as bad as I expected, but making a franchise out of The Boys does seem rather counter to its core message and that is hard to get over. The second season was significantly worse, with absolutely idiotic writing and plot-lines. Generally, Gen V is a bit like the Star Wars prequels: Answering questions that nobody asked, destroying the magic by explaining it with Midichlorians – but still having some pretty dope moments. With a more grrl power vibe than the original, it had some great soundtrack choices. Both shows shaped a lot of my music listening this month.
  • Dublin Murders – Miniseries (8 episodes with 8h 0m)
    • A “crime show” in the sense that it’s a crime to butcher these amazing books so brutally. After spending more than the entire first quarter this year reading through the series, I was excited to also check out the show based on the first two novels. Of course I didn’t think this could be nearly as good as the books, but also I didn’t expect it could suck this much. Every character except Cassie felt comically miscast, and the idea to adapt two character studies as complex as these into a single eight-episode season was offensively stupid.

💬 Late Night & Talk Shows

🎧 Music

I scrobbled 658 tracks on 28 days in April 2026:

🎶 Top 10 Tracks

  1. Olivia Rodrigo – brutal (58 plays)
  2. Hole – Celebrity Skin (8 plays)
  3. Les Terribles – La Nuit Le Jour (5 plays)
  4. Hard-Fi – Living for the Weekend (4 plays)
  5. Foo Fighters – La Dee Da (4 plays)
  6. Queens of the Stone Age – Head Like a Haunted House (4 plays)
  7. Weezer – The British Are Coming (4 plays)
  8. The Smith Street Band – Everyone Is Lying To You For Money (4 plays)
  9. DJs From Mars – Love The Way You Lie in Paradise City (Eminem ft. Rihanna vs. Guns N’ Roses) (3 plays)
  10. The Champs feat. Nana M. & PM Dawn – Tequila Sunrise [Mash Mike] (3 plays)

Maybe the best part of The Boys and Gen V are their soundtracks. I (re-)discovered some good and/or interesting music through the main show – for example this French version of All Day and All of the Night, or a Russian nu-metal track.

By far the most amazing discovery came through Gen V, though: brutal was released almost five years ago, but as I’m not quite the target demographic for Olivia Rodrigo I hadn’t heard it before. I’ve been rather obsessed with the track ever since it was featured in the end credits for S02E03.

Immediately after hearing the first few beats I felt two things: 1) that seems familiar, and 2) damn that is kinda sick. I couldn’t quite put where the familiar vibe came from, and as the song progressed it felt less familiar but even more amazing, so I just lost that train of thought in my sheer glee of enjoying a new ear-worm. A week or two later I finally understood why it seemed familiar when I first heard it, and that unlocked a journey through my own musical history that has given me great pleasure. While looking for more good live versions of the song (the best one is from the GUTS World Tour video, a performance to die for – not linking anything because the only upload on YT is out of sync to avoid copyright issues), a comment mentioned Pump It Up by Elvis Costello. A true mindblown.gif moment, I instantly realized this was it.

However, I’m pretty sure that I had never before in my life heard that song. It’s a total banger in its own right, but this fantastic live performance is almost a decade older than I am myself. How can it be the reason for brutal sounding so familiar?

The first thing I then remembered was Voodoo Child by Rogue Traders – a track I discovered a few years ago, when I let the almighty random shuffle algorithm on YT Music suggest new tunes. I came back to it often enough that I ended up adding it to my actual offline library. But that’s still not the final stop!

After thinking about it some more, I recalled a mashup that features the original Elvis Costello sound: Here’s The Thing from the 2008 Girl Talk album Feed The Animals. Back in 2010, Girl Talk released All Day – one of the greatest mashup albums of all time. It was so good that after a few months I got all their other albums as well – and thanks to diligent scrobbling I can pinpoint it exactly: The first time I had heard Costello’s iconic riff was in August 2011. 🎵

Another fun (though less addictive) discovery from Gen V was Hole’s Celebrity Skin. I heard that song before, but wasn’t aware of Hole. A band founded/lead by none other than Courtney Love, with Melissa Auf der Maur – who’s two solo albums I’ve long been in love with – on bass for some time. Musical connections everywhere!

🧑‍🎤 Top 10 Artists

  1. Queens of the Stone Age (95 plays)
  2. Foo Fighters (60 plays)
  3. Olivia Rodrigo (58 plays)
  4. Wolfmother (38 plays)
  5. Weezer (27 plays)
  6. Melissa Auf der Maur (24 plays)
  7. Arctic Monkeys (23 plays)
  8. Sportfreunde Stiller (21 plays)
  9. Muse (17 plays)
  10. Len (14 plays)

Besides the above discovery, April also brought the release of Your Favorite Toy – the 12th(!) studio album by the Foo Fighters. They remain one of my favorite bands, but I’ve only listened to the new record twice so far. The first round left me fairly unimpressed – no track on it that I immediately wanted to hear again. It wasn’t bad, I think I just wasn’t in a very Foo-y mood. The second time around I enjoyed it much better already, having moved on a little bit more from the TV show induced obsessions. I still wouldn’t say any of the tracks connected in a way older albums did, but I now think it will grow on me at the right time.

Fittingly, QOTSA still comes in on top overall. That is mostly from the beginning of the month, the last hurrah of the phase where so many of their songs suddenly grew on me at the right time. It’s been a wonderful year for my enjoyment of music so far. 🤘

📚 Books

  • 📘 The Trespasser [Dublin Murder Squad #6] – ⭐️ 4/5
    • Despite not having liked the split POV in the previous book too much, I was quite happy to stay with those two characters for the final entry in the series. The only thing better would have been returning to Rob and/or Cassie. And as I hoped for, the series did go out with a bang(er). There was one particular aspect I didn’t like very much2, but overall this was enthralling and almost back to the level of the very beginning of the series.
  • 📘 The Regicide Report [Laundry Files #14] – ⭐️ 3/5
    • The final entry in the Laundry Files, published back in late January. The first nine books (and a couple of extra novellas) kept me busy for half of last year and usually rated between 3 and 4 out of 5. Concluding a series that started 25 years ago and was never intended to become a series is a daunting task, and I think Charles Stross did an admirable job. This last book is not my favorite in the series – but it was nice to get one last tango with the two main characters, and incorporating the Queen/crown as a plot element was a fun choice.

🎙️ Podcasts

I listened to 18 episodes across 5 podcasts in April 2026:

🎮 Games

I played 4 different games for a total of 49.2 hours in April 2026.

  • Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
    • Played for 26.6 hours across 7 days. Unlocked 40 new achievements this month, now at 40/78 total.
      • 🇩🇪 I already reviewed this here on the blog after I had first played through it on the PS4. Still quite enjoying it on the PC now as well!
  • Zuma’s Revenge
    • 🏆 Began and finished the entire game this month, unlocking all 14 achievements in 19.1 hours across 7 days. Wrote a 👎 review (294 words) on 2026-04-19.
  • Rocket League
    • Played 3.0 more hours across 2 days, already unlocked all 88 achievements in the past. I had already written my 👍 review (21 words) back on 2022-09-03.
  • Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
    • Played for 0.5 hours. Unlocked no new achievements, still at 6/10 total. Haven’t written a review yet.

  1. I’ve been enjoying that song since all the way back in 2009: It was on the soundtrack to the excellent Whip It – long before Samantha Bee used it as the theme song for Full Frontal, the best of all the former-correspondent-hosted shows that popped up after Jon Stewart abandoned us. ↩︎

  2. Spoiler: Antoinette’s own parental struggles tying into the psychological complexity of it all would have been fine, but the physical manifestation (as the titular trespasser, I suppose?) of that was way too convenient for my taste. Some random stalker could have provided similar additional mystery and – at least to me – would have felt less forced. ↩︎