sc
Scott avatar
ttwillsey

Reviews

Reviews of things I've watched, read, or played. Thanks to Quick Reviews by Matt Birchler! Eventually I'll break these categories out into their own pages because this will become unweildy quickly.

Books

Dark Wire • Joseph Cox • Joseph Cox is a great security beat journalist, and this story is wild enough already. Sometimes I think the FBI just does stuff because they can and can secretly have fun doing it. • Loved It! The Ministry for the Future • Kim Stanley Robinson • I enjoyed this book when I read it, because they captured the climate change disaster headed our way. What they didn't foresee, however, is just how insane governments all over the world would go before we even get that far. Not dystopian enough after all. • Liked It REAMDE • Neal Stephenson • Probably not regarded as a Stephenson classic, but honestly I think it's one of his better stories. Fewer sidetracks, more approachable. • Loved It! The Silo Series Collection • One of the best dystopian series ever written. Kind of hard to read in early 2025 though. • Loved It! Snow Crash • Neal Stephenson • 1992 • This has to be one of the classic cyberpunk novels. It's dumb AND cool, silly AND serious. It's also a fascinating look at how language controls thought and vice-versa. • Loved It! Tracers in the Dark • Andy Greenberg • Truly anonymous finance is the wet dream of the libertarian crypto bros, but it's a lie. Turns out logging everything is actually just like logging everything. Tons of wild and wacky fun. • Loved It!

Movies

Blade Runner 2049 • 2017 • Denis Villeneuve • One of my favorite movies ever. Ryan Gosling is perfect emotionally as a replicant who wants to be human, and is more human than most of the humans around him. • Loved It! Bullet Train • 2022 • David Leitch The couple beers I drank may have helped, but I found this hilarious and fun. • Loved It! Cold Blood • Jean Reno is always interesting, and Sarah Lind did a good job, but the plot was weird and the ending unsatisfying. • Decent The Fall Guy • 2024 • Yeah, I guess it's kind of dumb, but I really enjoyed it. Ryan Gosling is always good as a guy who has terrible things to do and he just gets on and does what has to be done. And Emily Blunt is always completely her character. Great actors, both. • Loved It! Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief • 2015 • Alex Gibney Scientology is weird. Ron Hubbard was weird and evil. David Miscavige is just plain evil. An interesting documentary about a rotten church. • Liked It Monkey Man • 2024 • Dev Patel • I don't know if I really should have enjoyed it so much, but I was in the mood for it and Dev Patel is a very compelling actor. • Loved It! The Princess Bride 1987 • Rob Reiner • A multiple rewatch, of course, but one of the greatest movies ever. So many classic lines and characters. • Loved It! Small Things Like these • The ending left me with MANY questions, but what an excellent and haunting movie. Cillian Murphy is amazing here and Emily Watson embodies the compassionless preacher of compassion like no other. • Loved It! To Live and Die in L.A. 1985 • William Friedkin • Not as good as I remembered. Everyone in this is evil, or an idiot. I didn't buy the transformation of John Vukovich. He didn't earn it. Dafoe is stellar, of course. • Decent Woman of the Hour • 2024 • I don't think I'd recommend it, but Anna Kendrick definitely does her part to make it worthwhile. No one ever believes a woman reporting a crime is the reality. • Liked It

TV Shows

American Murder: Gabby Petito • 2025 • A very well done documentary on an age old problem. Depressing but also uplifting at times. Don't watch if you're not in a good place. • Liked It Black Doves • 2024 • This kind of tv is right up my alley. Spies, intrigue, excellently written and acted characters... it's the perfect, fun escape. • Loved It! Formula 1: Drive to Survive • 2019 • Season 7 of Drive to Survive is certainly the only season I'd rate this highly. FINALLY they quit manufacturing stories that barely existed and largely abandoned the constant chronological jumps. • Loved It! Missing You • 2025 • Again, my pet peeve is - starts off brilliantly and then gets dumb, implausible, and hand-wavy. WHY CAN'T tv writers stop getting lazy halfway through shows? Rosalind Eleazar is always good though. • Didn't Like It Mr Inbetween • 2018 • Finished all 3 seasons, and apparently | HAD watched the whole thing. But it's good enough to watch again. And probably again. Great show! • Loved It! Prime Target • 2025 • S1 review: Started off pretty good, then devolved into complete implausible nonsense. Very disappointing. • Didn't Like It Senna • 2024 • Senna's story is compelling but this series failed to capture Fl racing in a realistic way. Don't recommend for anyone who actually knows Fl or the Senna story already. • Didn't Like It Surviving Black Hawk Down • Everyone knows the Black Hawk Down story - here are some people who were there. A good documentary, with views from all sides. It was two terrible days that never should have happened. • Loved It! Vietnam: The War That Changed America • 2025 • Overall, very well done - depressing, uplifting, maddening, inspiring, and insightful either way. I think some of the things chosen to focus on were a bit off, but mostly they nailed it. • Liked It

/now /reviews /uses /links
Built with Astro
© 2025 Scott Willsey