Review of “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen”: Either “Knives Out” or “Get Out” 

Posted on April 6, 2026 by williamjcobb

So the latest Netflix miniseries to try to scare us all is Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, which should be required viewing for all young couples contemplating marriage—maybe the way that Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace should be required reading for all wannabe dictators eager to stumble into an unwinnable war. 

The plot, as it were, is a bit clunky: Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco) are a cutesy couple about to get married, an opposites-attract kind of story, from a socioeconomic angle: Nicky is a rich kid with a mysterious family and Rachel is a survivor of sorts from an unstable family, a touchy gal (think psychic powers, maybe) whose mother died in childbirth, seemingly from a supernatural incident. (Or it could be bad custard.) There’s a pockmarked-face old guy who asks Rachel, “Are you sure he’s the one?”—referring to Nicky, her groom-to-be—who seems straight out of David Lynch’s quirky, surreal 1990s series Twin Peaks. (He also stabs her in the leg with a fork.) The Richie-Riches are eager to get the wedding planned and pulled off, in a few days time. Viewers will no doubt get some Get Out (2017) vibes. The family seems to have a fate in mind for Rachel, which will be “very bad.” 

My favorite character is Portia (played by Gus Birney), Nicky’s pampered sister who seems to drink an inordinate amount of coffee. She rushes around planning the wedding, being mean and catty as if that’s her natural state of being. At times the series feels like a stretched-out version of Knives Out (2019) or Ready or Not (2019): Young woman gets bad vibes as she’s about to marry into a family of rich weirdoes, who may or may not be planning to sacrifice her at some altar of devil’s cult or perhaps for a kind of DIY immortality. Plus Camila Morrone once dated Leo DiCaprio, just sayin’.

There’s much spookiness: One of the rich brothers has a childhood memory scar from a boogeyman called The Sorry Man, which I can’t help but think would be said by a remorseful Dude from The Big Lebowski, who would plead, “I’m sorry, man,” after dropping a lit roach into your seat cushions and leaving a burn hole. But I’m a sucker for mildly entertaining Netflix mumbo-jumbo. Plus it stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as a spooky dying mother. She looks like a zombie and acts like one too. Which is a waste of talent, as Jennifer Jason Leigh is a force of nature. If you want to see her in a really wild role check out Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015), where she plays dynamic gang-leader Daisy Domergue.

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Review of “Your Friends and Neighbors”: Season 2 Begins With a Bad Back and a Huge Splash

Posted on April 4, 2026 by williamjcobb

So Season One of Your Friends and Neighbors was quite a debut, with Jon Hamm starring as a Wall Street bigwig who gets fired right after getting a divorce, so naturally he decides to become a “cat burglar,” sneaking into his rich-bastard neighbors’ houses to steal high-end watches and other easily fencible items. The inimitable writer John Cheever explored this fantasy plot back in the 1950s with his short story “The Housebreaker of Shady Hill,” but Your Friends and Neighbors is definitely a worthy reboot of sorts.

Season One began with the iconic scene of Jon Hamm (as Andrew Cooper or “Coop”) waking up in a pool of someone else’s blood, on the floor of a mansion, as the mystery to be solved. Coop was charged with murder and at one point seemed headed for a conviction, before some very unlikely evidence was discovered and Olivia Munn (as the sexy widow Samantha Levitt, or “Sam”) confessed to a screwball plot to frame him for murder after her husband’s suicide, all to get $20 million in life insurance money. If that quick-fix of a plot device wasn’t enough, when Coop gets miraculously off the hook for Sam’s ex-husband’s death/murder, an even more unlikely plot twist followed: Coop is amazingly offered his old job back, with a big bonus and perks, only to turn it down in favor of . . . more cat burgling?  

Season Two does not begin with Coop in a puddle of blood, and by the end of Ep 1, does not have a convenient murder mystery to turn it into a Whodunit. But I sense something is looming on the horizon. A new character is introduced: James Marsden plays Owen Ashe, a mysterious “billionaire,” who seems rather chipper, eager, slippery, and suspicious. He and Coop hit it off quickly. By the episode’s end, there’s a party at Ashe’s unlikely Tudor mega-mansion, in which all the party-goers end up jumping into the swimming pool, just for the fun of it, a la the gymnasium-floor scene in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. I’d put money on some major mystery being revealed in Episode 2. Ep 1 seemed like a warmup for trouble ahead. All the main characters have returned, including Coop’s son and daughter and ex-wife, Mel, played by Amanda Peet. The actor Hoon Lee plays Barney Choi and I sense he’ll be even more important that in Season One. For one thing, he finds out about Coop’s cat-burgling and “wants in.” It’s all a bit far-fetched but much fun, a satire on the lives of the rich but not necessarily famous.

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“DTF St. Louis” Episode 5: David Harbour Deserves an Emmy

Posted on April 1, 2026 by williamjcobb

So I’ve made no bones about my enthusiasm for the new HBO show DTF St. Louis, starring Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Linda Cardellini. It’s my favorite series right now and ranks up there with some of the best, including the incomparable Better Call Saul. At about halfway through the season the plot is cooking. Ostensibly the engine powering the plot is the murder mystery: Who killed Floyd Smernitch? And it’s certainly a good mystery: I won’t give away anything but there’s an obvious culprit . . . who is too obvious. I have my theories: Clark Forrest’s wife, Eimy Forrest (played by Wynn Everett) is suspiciously absent from any discussion in this whodunit. She could be a sneaky suspect. But why I say “ostensibly”: The real charm of the series is the writing/acting. Bateman and Harbour get the most airtime of each episode, and both are doing a knockout job. Bateman plays against type, ditching his comic good-guy persona for something more tortured and nebbishy—a local TV weatherman with a penchant for kinky sex. Harbour, on the other hand, is the center of DTF’s universe, the planet around which all the other moon-characters orbit. He’s oddly likable, sloppy, charming, overweight, funny, bumbling, and dynamic. His status as an American Sign Language expert gives him a spritz of quirkiness and compassion. He’s a hero who feels strongly—you could argue too strongly—for others. He’s the most likable character, and from early on in Episode 1 he’s dead. In Episode 5 (there are many flashbacks) he confides in Clark an anecdote to explain how he got a “crooked dick.” It’s laugh-out-loud funny, and mysterious, too. Watch it.

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The Year Without a Winter Over, Wildfire Season Begins

Posted on March 29, 2026 by williamjcobb

So it’s hard to convey or describe just how oddly warm this winter has been in the Southwest. It’s as if the cold air that usually lingers through April has drifted away somewhere. At our mountain home in Custer County, Colorado we usually have snow on the ground from Thanksgiving until Easter, which is often much later in April than it is this year. Usually at our home (about 9,000 feet in elevation) snow lingers until the end of April, first of May. This year we have been essentially snow-free for several weeks. Our creek is in the process of drying up, although there’s still hope the highest peaks may get some much needed snowfall through the end of April. Last weekend I drove to Santa Fe, taking the backroads of New Mexico, passing through Taos. There was a wildfire burning just south of Colorado Springs when we left (and still burning when we returned), and near the border of New Mexico, we passed this fire on a lonesome backroad.

Posted in Climate Change, Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, Santa Fe, The West, Weird Weather, Wildfire Season 2026, Year Without a Winter | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

On Pekka Hamalainen’s “Indigenous Continent”: Finnish Historian’s View of Native American History

Posted on March 27, 2026 by williamjcobb

So I’ve just returned from a week in Santa Fe and a quick side trip to Palo Duro Canyon in north Texas, site of the infamous Battle of Palo Duro Canyon in September 1874. I grew up in the Hill Country of Central Texas, which was Comanche territory until the collapse of Comanche hegemony over the Texas plains that resulted from this battle. Hamalainen’s Indigenous Continent (2023) is an impressive book, long and detailed. 

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At times it suffers from its rhetoric that Native Americans were resourceful and intelligent traders and warriors. I of course don’t argue with that idea, but his insistence seems rather dated, as if he’s arguing against someone claiming Native Americans were simply “savages.” That viewpoint is a bit too old-fashioned to counter, so it seems he harps on it more than necessary. I was also skeptical of a Finnish historian’s take on North American history, and, for the most part, came away convinced. At times he seems a bit fuzzy about North American geography, but that’s understandable. The best aspect of the book is its comprehensive Native-American angle, showing how the many and various tribes interacted with each other and thrived in pre-Columbian North America, until they didn’t. Disease brought to the Americas by Europeans was the greatest cause of population depletion that set the stage for conquest. I’ve read several Comanche histories, including S.C. Gwynne’s best-selling Empire of the Summer Moon (2016).

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He argues that one of the fundamental problems of Comanche history was their warrior culture, which relied on raiding both white settler and Mexican farming communities in northern Mexico, which doomed them to forever conflict with the encroaching Texans during the period of expansion in the 1830s-1880s. Hamalainan tends to rationalize the terror and depredations of the Comanche raids in Texas and Mexico as part of an “economic policy”—a policy based on murder, rape, and kidnapping. That Europeans from 1492 on committed similar atrocities is undeniable. It was a bloody period of history. Both sides were killers, at times, such as depicted in Cormac McCarthy’s epic Western Blood Meridian (1985). We camped a couple nights at Palo Duro Canyon and can see why it was so iconic to the Native tribes: On the flat plains of the Texas Panhandle it’s an oasis of sorts, with dramatic cliffs, creeks and rivers, woods and canyons that allowed Native peoples to thrive in a harsh landscape. 

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The Year Without a Winter Ends: It’s Spring!

Posted on March 22, 2026 by williamjcobb

So it’s Spring in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Cottonwoods and Cherry trees are blooming. And Venus is bright in a dusky sky.

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“War Machine”: Glimpse Our Future Wars Against Invading Robots

Posted on March 20, 2026 by williamjcobb

So it was with some amusement that I read the No. 1 movie on Netflix last week was War Machine, which I watched like all those other viewers. When it ended my wife said, “I can’t believe I watched that whole thing.”

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Although it’s filled with military jingoism and very, very improbable circumstances I have to tip my hat: It’s certainly a riveting flick. Alan Ritchson plays an Army vet, designated as “81,” who wants to go through Army Ranger school due to an unfortunate back-story involving his brother and some explosions. Against all odds he makes it to the final “training” mission in the Colorado Rockies. Meanwhile a series of meteors crashes to the earth and guess what? They aren’t meteors. Soon the alien robot war machine is blasting all the recruits to smithereens. With the foolish and overhyped War on Iran going on it’s easy to root for these guys and indulge in mindless violence, directed only against alien robots. It reminded me a bit of another, better movie: Battle Los Angeles (2011), starring Aaron Eckhart—which had actual aliens invading L.A. and wreaking havoc.

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HBO’s “DTF St. Louis” Marches Toward Quirky Sex Fun and Murder

Posted on March 17, 2026 by williamjcobb

So I’m up to episode three in the new HBO series DTF St. Louis and digging it. My favorite show right now. Jason Bateman is playing against type: Usually he’s the good-hearted family guy with terrific comic timing, often playing the “straight man” character—the sane one around whom the wackos orbit. In this series, playing Clark Forrest, he’s a disturbed TV weather guy with kinky sexual fetishes that cloud his thinking. When he describes his sexual . . . proclivities . . . he’s hesitant, nebbishy, and captivating. But David Harbour, lately of Stranger Things fame (and infamy, kind of), plays the murder victim, Floyd, and does a great job. He’s a portly Sign Language expert with money problems, a wife whose side gig as a Little League umpire turns him off, and a stepson who (at first) hates him. Oddly enough he’s charming and funny and likable. Bateman has the tougher role as the more-successful friend who leads Floyd astray, sex-wise. Linda Cardellini plays Carol, Floyd’s wife, who is an obvious Suspect No. 1. But I don’t buy it. That would be too simplistic. My theory: Clark’s wife (Wynn Everett as Eimy Forrest) has been suspiciously absent so far. She’s not a suspect but we know nothing about her. Hmmm.

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The Year Without a Winter continues

Posted on March 15, 2026 by williamjcobb

So I’m well aware there’s been plenty of extreme winter weather in the eastern half of the U.S., but where I live, in the Southwest, it’s been a seriously weird weather stretch worthy of the phrase The Year Without a Winter. I’ve lived in Colorado off and on since 2002, which was a terrible drought year for the southern half of the state. Living in that drought year was good training: It made me aware of how dry it could be, but also how quickly the weather can change and the natural world can bounce back. Usually the El Nino/La Nina variations play a role in our drought, as it did this year: We’ve had La Nina conditions all winter, which tends to push the jet stream farther to the north, resulting in less moisture and cold in the Southwest, more snow in the Northwest. But this one has been a doozy. There’s a “heat dome” over the Southwest right now, breaking many record highs. Of course during this dry spell we’re also dealing with an idiot POTUS who is doing his best to kill renewable energy systems throughout the country and lavishing his praise on Big Oil. It’s embarrassing, so wrong-headed it makes no sense whatsoever. Now the War on Iran has driven oil prices up and Trump says that’s good because the U.S. is a great oil producer. That’s nice for the oil lobby but a money drain for the rest of us. All the other nations who have embraced renewable energy can withstand the price shocks better than we can. Below is a photo of my home in the Sangre de Cristo mountains west of Pueblo, Colorado. In a wet year we can have as much as 12 feet of snow or more. This year we’ve had maybe two feet total. This photo was taken recently, after a couple inches of snow.

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“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” Review: Our A.I. Future Will Be a Gilded Cage, Maybe

Posted on March 13, 2026 by williamjcobb

So Hollywood is rightfully worried about how A.I. fakes, perhaps in the (near) future, could disrupt its movie-making biz: In the meantime, A.I. is all over the big screen: Gore Verbinski’s new movie Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is right up that digital alley. 

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It’s actually pretty good, wacky and frenetic, with an A.I. takeover/apocalypse of sorts at its heart. (Not one to miss a trend, last weekend SNL had a funny commercial about an A.I. product called “Otezla” that was clever.) Sam Rockwell, who had a scene-stealing performance in Season 3 of White Lotus, plays The Man from the Future, both to comic and dramatic effect. The plot is zany, hurried, and at first thoroughly confusing: Rockwell shows up at Norm’s diner in L.A., dressed in rags and plastic like a homeless man, and announces to all patrons that he needs volunteers to help him accomplish a mission for which he was sent to present day from some time in a murky, dystopian future in which humans are ruled by A.I. At first you wonder why the other customers put up with his harangue, but he does have a bomb strapped to his chest (or it looks like one). That’s the splashy/hyper beginning to the action and perhaps the zenith of its confusion.

Once that hostage-situation-of-sorts gets established the movies settles down and the fun starts. A handful of peripheral characters are introduced, who all have some reason to believe Rockwell. When the police come Rockwell and his “volunteers” set off on their Quest: To save the world by installing some A.I. coding safeguards that will prevent it from dominating humankind. The last third or quarter of the movie is the best: It’s at times funny, whimsical, and action-packed. Juno Temple plays a crucial role as a mother with a video-game-obsessed teenager and Haley Lu Richardson (who also starred in Season 2 of White Lotus) as a gal allergic to computers and wifi. The director, Gore Verbinski, is known for a string of big hits, including the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and The Ring (2002), and as crazy as the action gets, everything makes sense by the end.

Posted in A.I., A.I. Apocalypse, A.S.I. (Artificial Super Intelligence), Comic Movies, Gore Verbinski movies | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment