Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (HBOMax, 2025)

While this had been on my radar as going to be released at the end of 2025, the tragic event of the murders of Rob and Michele Reiner made me watch this “mockumentary” followup in a very different light.

While I am a fan of the original movie, I do not know all of the songs and the key lines by heart.  The setup of the sequel is that the band needs to reunite for one more show.  Rob Reiner “Marty” is back as the director/interviewer.

Sadly, I think the movie suffers from having to follow in its own footsteps.  There are some good bits with some “special guests” and the best thing is that there is a definite story arc in the 90 minutes.

In hindsight, it was bittersweet to see Rob Reiner do a bit of slapstick.

I have to shout out the newcomer Valerie Franco as Tap’s latest drummer. This seems particularly relevant now that Rush has tapped a new drummer; I think once again Spinal Tap was ahead of the curve!

This movie won’t resonate like the first one did, but it is going to serve as the standing stone of Rob Reiner’s last film, and it does that honorably, and with some honest laughs along the way.

Wake Up Dead Man (Netflix, 2025)

We got to this one fairly quickly as we’ve enjoyed the two previous “Knives Out” stories.  As usual this one’s got a great cast (I didn’t even recognize Thomas Haden Church).

This one carves up a twisty plot as the others did.  Strange to see Mila Kunis in the main position of authority but I liked her performance.   Daniel Craig’s accent doesn’t seem over-the-top this time around.

It’s a bit long.  It doesn’t exactly -plod- but it does take its time.  My wife says she had most of it figured out, but I had only figured out a couple of points before the reveal.  She gave it bonus points for some Netflix meta-referencing, too.

Still, it was a good watch and use of our Netflix money this month.

Too Like The Lightning by Ada Palmer (2016)

OK, this one has been a long time coming.  It was one of the first ebooks I collected, just sitting there in my queue.  I have friends who speak very highly of Dr. Palmer’s work.  Heck, I’ve met and spoken with her several times and found her to be nice.  I’ve even met her parents! (Lovely people.)

Lightning is NOT an easy book to read.  I emailed my friend after I was done and said that I felt too stupid to read it.  It was obviously a labor of love for Palmer to put so much of what she cared about within history and thought and extrapolate that into the future.

There are some authors that I like, but I tend to gloss over some of their details.  David Weber and the majority of his space battle descriptions come to mind, but ignoring that the math and strategy of velocity and breaking speed at the right time is a lot like what I did for descriptions of philosophy in this book.  The great thing is that Palmer’s in on it! Some of her internal dialogue is with the reader and she comes out at some points and says–it’s OK to skip this!

With that reservation in mind, she’s built an interesting future and I am curious about how it will come together.  I’ve got the next book on order so we’ll take it one volume at a time.