Jumanji is one of my all-time favorite movies from childhood, and the actual board game will look absolutely perfect in my LEGO collection.

• Obsession: I really loved this movie. It isn’t as scary as some people online said it would be, but it’s definitely very creepy.
• Disclosure Day: Not Steven Spielberg’s finest movie, but still an interesting watch nonetheless.
• The Rip: Now this is a movie that’s right up my alley. A great cast, a simple but entertaining plot, and plenty of suspense throughout. Loved it!
• Warmachine: If you love this genre, you’re going to love this movie. If you don’t, you’re probably going to think it’s the worst movie of the year.
• Hokum: Another genuinely creepy movie with some excellent jump scares.
• Project Hail Mary: I finished the book and went straight to the cinema to watch the movie. The verdict: great book, good movie.
• The Bluff: There aren’t enough pirate movies, and this is a great one.
• Primate: This was the perfect Friday evening movie. Nothing more, nothing less.
• Apex – Kaw!

I wasn’t that impressed with Michael, The Housemaid, Send Help and Thrash. 

I’m sorry, but this blog is starting with a big fat lie. The first console we owned in our house was a Nintendo Entertainment System. My brother and I played games like Super Mario Bros. 2 and Duck Hunt endlessly. But, since we were brothers, we also fought like brothers and when my mum had enough of all that fighting and bickering, she sold that console. So, technically the NES was our first console, but last night I felt nostalgic towards MY first console: the original PlayStation.

It was the early 2000s and my mum bought it for my 12th birthday. By that time the PlayStation had already been out for years, but I couldn’t care less. I finally had my own gaming console that I didn’t have to share with anyone. I could play for hours and hours, without being pushed away. But it turned out that the best way to enjoy that console was with friends and family.

See, back then the only way to do multiplayer was couch co-op. You and your friends had to be physically present to enjoy the games together. And boy, did we do that.

My favorite games were Grand Theft Auto 2, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 and Spider-Man. GTA 2 and Spider-Man we played taking turns, but THPS2 was a real joy to play together. Playing tag and trying to beat each other’s high score is now a core memory from my childhood.

Online multiplayer changed everything. Now I can play with anyone, anywhere in the world. But sometimes I miss the simplicity of just handing someone a second controller and saying: “your turn.”

I still think about those afternoons sometimes. No WiFi, no online lobbies, no matchmaking. Just a TV, two controllers and a bunch of kids trying to outscore each other in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.

Those where the days!

I probably change websites more often than I change underwear (which is, of course, weekly. Don’t worry!), and it’s that time again.

This is all because I hyperfixate on a new hobby, and it snowballs into… whatever this is.

Let me tell you how that usually goes inside my head…

A few weeks ago, I finally decided to start building my own iOS apps (more on that in a few weeks), after having that goal collecting dust on my bucket list for years.

I wanted to reach more people than I could in Dutch, so I decided to start posting in English on my Threads account. That actually seemed to work, because the responses I got were overwhelming.

That made me think I should probably start blogging in English as well, because surely my opinions deserve an international audience, right?!

But if I was going to blog in English, I might as well give my blog a fresh new design. Oh wait… I have a Dutch domain name, so that had to go too.

So I bought a new domain and set up shop on pika.page, which is great if you just want to blog. But then I thought to myself: nah, let’s design the whole thing myself since I’m basically a proper developer now!

So here we are today: my custom-made, non-CMS blog. Back at Pika. A new new Jekyll blog.

Thank you very much, ADHD!

I’ve just started the game, but so far it feels like a very fun action/adventure game. And you get to play as James Bond! How cool is that?

Everytime I want to restart my blog, I’m filled with all these great ideas for stroies that I want to share. My takes on the latest movies, all the TV shows that keeping filling up my watchlist and all the games that I suck at.

So I keep on tinkering with my blog setup; dabbling in HTML and CSS untill my dopamine stock is depleted and I’m left with a great blog without any new content for months.

But we keep on trying, so here we are. The 19th season of my blog.

Here’s the catch

It’s in very flawed English this time.

My girlfriend often says I enjoy tinkering with my site more than I actually enjoy having a blog and writing a lot on it.

I recognise that. Over the past few years I have redesigned my site so many times. And now, once again...

Previously On Alxndrr.nl

The last time I wrote about this, I proudly said this had become the coolest website I had ever had. Last year I used vibe coding to adjust everything exactly the way I wanted. I could publish reviews with their own unique design, and I could post short bits of text without immediately turning them into a full blog post.

But my site was running on Ghost. And while Ghost is a nice platform if you just want to blog and send newsletters, that is kind of where the possibilities end. The things I built with AI were a bit held together with tape and hope. They worked, but not exactly gracefully.

The site also was not particularly fast, and after a while it suddenly stopped working out of nowhere. So I removed everything again and went back to a simple design.

But it kept itching.

Because I want a website that is shaped around what I actually want to post: sometimes a long blog like this one, but probably more often a short post where I share something small. And of course my TV Top 100 needs a proper place on the site too.

So I decided to get back to work with AI, Cursor and a few weeks of proper vibe coding. Back to good old WordPress, and with the help of AI and Cursor, I built a site that works the way I want it to. Complete with a nice mobile-first design and my own custom plugins to show my content as well as possible.

Happy With The Result

I took my time, and I am really happy with how it turned out.

Once again, I can say this is the coolest website I have ever had. The TV Top 100 has a great new design, and thanks to a custom plugin I can add new shows and information to the list much more easily. I can also make other lists myself, like a list of my favourite films, shows and games.

When I watch a film, I can easily share my Letterboxd review here. That looks pretty great too. But if I wrote a blog about that film myself, the site simply opens that instead of sending you to Letterboxd.

Now I Just Need To Blog

My girlfriend is right, of course: I really enjoy tinkering with a website. But once it finally works the way I want, the dopamine fades a little.

I have been blogging for years, but never consistently. That is something I hope to change with this site. Not always long pieces of text, but more frequent updates: a micropost like on Threads, a review, or just a longer blog whenever that is needed.

New Year's Eve has been and gone, so happy new year everyone!

The coming year will undoubtedly be lovely, but let us look back at all the good stuff 2025 brought us. This is the best I watched, read and played in 2025.

Oh, and good to know: these things were not necessarily released in 2025. They are simply things I experienced for the first time last year.

2025 Stats

Films watched: 81

Shows watched: 40

Books read: 10

Games played: 8

TV

• The Pitt is the very best show I watched this year. A mix between 24 and ER, but executed brilliantly. Every episode had me on the edge of my seat. 5 stars.
• After more than seven years, Cobra Kai, one of my favourite shows, came to an end this year. A worthy ending to a fantastic series. 4.5 stars.
• A big TV surprise for me was Paradise, a show that had me glued to the screen every episode. 4 stars.
• One of the most impressive shows of the year is undoubtedly Adolescence: a series everyone should watch. Honestly, it should be mandatory viewing in every secondary school. 4 stars.
• First books, then a series of Scandinavian films, and now a British remake: Department Q is a really cool show. 4 stars.
• Even though the finale came out on January 1, 2026, I watched most of the final season of Stranger Things in 2025, so it belongs on this list. Look, it was not the best season, but I thought it was a worthy ending to a great show. 3.5 stars.

Also good:

• Hostage - 3.5 stars
• Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man - 4 stars
• The Madness - 3.5 stars
• Ransom Canyon - 3.5 stars
• Wednesday season 2 - 3.5 stars
• Monster: The Ed Gein Story - 3.5 stars

Films

The trend of watching less continued for me with films too. I only watched 81 films this year, which is pretty low for me. Still, there were a few gems I can recommend to everyone:

• The Lost Bus - 4.5 stars
• The Fantastic Four - 4 stars
• Sinners - 4 stars
• Mufasa: The Lion King - 4 stars
• Thunderbolts* - 3.5 stars
• Fountain of Youth - 3.5 stars
• F1: The Movie - 3.5 stars
• The Long Walk - 3.5 stars

Books

A few years ago I rediscovered my oldest hobby, and now I read every day again. This year I read ten books, and the most beautiful one was Films Die Nergens Draaien. It is a children's book about grief, accepting yourself and making memories.

What makes the book so good is its layering. It is also an incredibly beautiful book for adults. I read every chapter with a lump in my throat, and during the final chapters I could not hold back my tears anymore. Highly recommended.

I also read a lot of thrillers. The books by Sam Holland were literal nightmare material. Start with De Echoman and then read De Twintig. You will not regret it.

Finally, I can recommend James by Percival Everett, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but through Jim's eyes. A beautiful adventure novel. Read it in English, because the old English spoken in the book is translated very strangely into Dutch.

Games

I still do not really call myself a gamer, but over the past three years I have been in a flow where I start up a game several times a week. Maybe I am a gamer after all.

These are the games I enjoyed the most.

• God of War - brutal action game and one of the best ever. I enjoyed it intensely, and the sequel is very good too. 4 stars.
• Arc Raiders - I only played this for about a week, because after that I rediscovered an old addiction. But Arc Raiders is a very fun looter shooter. People online are friendly, which is a first ever? 4 stars.
• EAFC 26 - Ah yes, my old addiction. Back in the day I played nothing but FIFA, but that was about ten years ago. Until I went away for a weekend with a friend at the beginning of December and we started playing again. Since then I have done little else but get frustrated every time I lose. 5 stars.
• Cyberpunk 2077 - I played this for the first time in 2024, but I wanted to do a new playthrough and play the DLC. It was a joy all over again. This is genuinely one of my favourite games of all time. 4.5 stars.
• Idle Slayer - The only phone game here, and one that has had me in its grip for months now. I cannot really explain it, but in principle you do not have to do anything. It is an idle game for a reason. 4 stars.
• Assassin's Creed Shadows - For the first time in years I played an AC game again. The last time was somewhere around 2010? Anyway, in this one you get to play ninja, and the combat is lovely. 3.5 stars.

I have been building websites for a very long time, and by now I have gone through quite a few of them. Some of them had fun and pretty designs. But this, the thing you are looking at now, is the coolest website I have ever had.

And all thanks to AI.

Vibe Coding Is Definitely A Thing

Well, a lot thanks to AI. I still had to do plenty myself to get everything right. But vibe coding - building websites with AI - is becoming a real thing, and for good reason.

I made this design and all its functionality in Cursor, an app that lets AI do the heavy coding work. And it is surprisingly easy. All week I have been sitting behind my MacBook in amazement, sometimes cheering, while Cursor flawlessly turned my ideas and wishes into code.

A special design based on the category? Easy.

Pull existing text and styling from another page and use it on the homepage? Done in no time.

Vibe coding is seriously cool.

But I Almost Threw My MacBook At The Wall

Of course, not everything is sunshine and roses. Cursor can be pretty dumb at times. It wrote code based on functionality that does not exist at all in Ghost, the CMS I used for this site. And when something did not work and the proposed fix did not help either, I had to make sure Cursor actually tried a different solution. Otherwise it would just keep alternating between two broken options.

I also had to steer it quite firmly toward possible causes of problems.

The worst moment came when Cursor suddenly decided to delete all my code, start over and immediately overwrite the old files. When I asked it three hundred times to restore everything, the app crashed and I lost it all.

Two days of work gone.

At that point, throwing my MacBook at the wall felt very tempting.

But Everything Is Good Now

Of course it all worked out. The next day I simply started again, armed with the lessons I had learned. And the result is pretty great.

My blog has never been this cool. I am genuinely very happy with it. Or well, blog... I now see it more as a kind of stream of things I like, thanks to everything I added.

Besides regular blog posts, I can now write smaller bits of text. Basically short status updates like on Threads or Bluesky. When I have watched a film or show, I can show it nicely in my stream or on the reviews page. That means I can share my recommendations even better.

And everything sits together in one nice timeline.

The biggest work is done, but my friend Cursor and I still have some fun ideas to try.

Stay tuned!

It all started so promisingly. When Netflix launched in the Netherlands in 2013, you suddenly had access to loads of films and TV shows for EUR7.99 a month. A bargain!

A few years later, Netflix had become huge and streaming services started popping up everywhere. The Netherlands was the first test country for Disney+, and for EUR6.99 you could browse through that wonderful Disney catalogue. For TV lovers, the streaming age felt like paradise: for just a few euros you could watch an enormous amount of films, shows and documentaries within seconds.

No waiting for downloads. No messing around with torrents or sketchy websites. Just pick something and press play.

But in 2025, that promised land mostly feels like endlessly jumping between streaming services, ever-rising subscription costs and choice overload.

Prices Are Getting Ridiculous

In the Netherlands we now have a lot of streaming services. Every big media company seems to have its own app. Here, the big ones are Netflix, Disney+, Videoland, Apple TV+, SkyShowtime and HBO Max. Between them you can watch things like The Last of Us, Ted Lasso, MobLand, The Mandalorian and Stranger Things. Something for everyone.

But if you subscribe to all of them, preferably with the best plan because obviously you want 4K, you are now paying EUR99.94 a month. That is roughly EUR1,200 a year. You can go on a pretty decent holiday for that.

It has become absurd, and you know it will not stop here.

Prices have been rising for years. Last week, Disney+ and HBO raised their prices again. The usual explanation is that producing films and shows keeps getting more expensive. Sure. Everything is getting more expensive. Groceries, energy, breathing. At this point you can sell a kidney for just about anything.

But when prices rise by an average of 33%, we are not talking about inflation anymore. That is just squeezing your customers because you know they need your service to watch their favourite show.

The Power Of Originals

Back in the day, you just watched whatever was on TV. Or you went to the video store and picked a few films. These days, the choice is endless. Not everything is on one service anymore. Content is scattered across all these different platforms.

Streaming services make deals with distributors to offer certain films and shows, but those deals expire all the time. One day you are happily watching Parks and Recreation on Prime Video, the next day you are cursing Jeff Bezos because it vanished before you could finish it.

And that is not even the biggest problem. The real problem is originals.

Of course it is great that so many good shows are being made. But originals give streaming services even more power. If you want to watch the final season of Stranger Things, you are simply going to pay that EUR18.99 to Netflix. Or more, once they raise it again.

And they can do that, because everyone and their mother wants to finally see how that story ends.

Just Call Me Jack Sparrow

I am done. I am not doing it anymore. I am not paying that much money every month for all those services.

So we cancelled everything except Netflix and Videoland. Netflix still has the biggest library, and Videoland has all the reality TV chaos I do not want to miss. Everything else? Well, just call me Jack Sparrow from now on.

Streaming used to be the promised land. It offered convenience. You could watch a film or a show without much fuss. It made piracy almost unnecessary, because streaming was easier and the library was big.

But apparently convenience has a price.

So I guess we will just have to put in a little more effort again.

Ideally, I would stay at home all day. But sometimes I do have to leave the house.

And when I go somewhere, I like to be prepared. That is why I almost always carry the Orbitkey 2-in-1 tech pouch with me. It is basically a pencil case for all your everyday stuff, especially little tech things.

I throw it into my work bag, sports bag or regular backpack, and I always have everything I need within reach.

A Colourful Collection

The most important things inside are two power banks. For my iPhone Air I mainly use Apple's MagSafe battery. Click it onto the back and off you go.

If I need to charge other things, like my iPad, AirPods or Switch, I also have an Anker power bank. I almost always carry a USB-C cable, a Lightning cable and a regular USB-C adapter too.

I never leave the house without my AirPods 4. Those things are an absolute gift from heaven. But my tech pouch also has AirPods 3 and a pair of old-fashioned wired EarPods. The AirPods 3 are backup for my AirPods 4, and the EarPods are for video meetings at work.

My MagSafe wallet comes with me too, although that worn-out thing is usually stuck to the back of my iPhone. Debit cards and public transport card.

If I have time to kill, I can play games on my Nintendo Switch Lite. Or I can read a book on my Kobo e-reader.

A little box with allergy medication and ibuprofen is essential too. Same goes for Smints, deodorant and a small fragrance from Parfumado.

The Full List

• Anker power bank
• MagSafe battery
• AirPods 4 with ANC
• AirPods 3
• Apple EarPods
• Apple USB-C cable
• MagSafe wallet
• Kobo Clara 2E
• Nintendo Switch Lite
• Box of ibuprofen
• Box of Smints
• Deodorant
• Fragrance

After years of small updates, Apple has finally released a genuinely new iPhone again. A piece of art in tech form: the thinnest iPhone ever. And as soon as I saw it, I knew this was the phone I would be using for the coming year.

I cannot remember the last time I used a case on my phone full-time. Of course a case protects it, but it also feels like such a shame. Most iPhones look genuinely beautiful, and then you throw an ugly case around them. It takes away from the experience.

The iPhone experience is not just the software. It is also how your phone feels when you take it out of your pocket.

The Most Beautiful iPhone In Years

That is why the iPhone Air fits me perfectly.

Because this is the most beautiful iPhone in years. It really lives up to its name, because the thinnest iPhone ever does not just look fantastic, it also feels amazing in the hand. Words and photos do not do justice to what it feels like to hold such a thin device.

I am still angry at Apple for killing the iPhone Mini. But even though the Air is slightly larger than the non-Max iPhones, it gives me the same feeling I had with the Mini: like you do not actually need to use your gym membership just to lift the thing.

Big enough to do everything you want, but still so light you can use it for hours.

There Is Always Criticism

Such a beautiful and thin design does come with a few caveats. So what do you give up? Let us go through the critical points:

• The battery was a question mark beforehand, but honestly: it is totally fine. At the end of the day I still have about 10 to 20 percent left.
• The camera is great. I came from the iPhone 15 Pro and the photos look better than on that model. I only miss the zoom lens occasionally. Sometimes. So, not really a problem.
• But does it bend in your pocket? This thing is unbelievably strong. That is not just Apple's claim; you can feel it too. Also check this video by JerryRigEverything, where he really attacks the Air. His conclusion? Strong little thing, this Air.
• The Air does not have stereo speakers, and that is a thing. If you are scrolling through TikTok, it is not too bad. But as soon as you start watching Netflix, you immediately notice how poor a mono speaker sounds. Long live AirPods.

Without a case on my phone, I live life on the edge.

But the way this phone feels makes that more than worth it. The iPhone Air is for people who use their phone without a case.

And who have good insurance.

For years people have said Apple does not do enough with the iPad. That changes today.

iPadOS 26 - yes, they skipped a few versions - is out today, and it is the biggest iPad update in years.

Lots Of Glass On Your Screen

First of all, your iPad looks different thanks to a new design. Apple's new design for iPadOS and iOS is called "Liquid Glass." That is because many elements are transparent and bend with the light, making it look as if there is liquid glass on your screen.

Get it?

It is not always great for readability, but I do think it looks modern and beautiful. Some animations look fantastic when they flow across the screen. Try slowly pulling down your notification centre, for example.

The Biggest Update In Years

And then there is the really big feature.

You can now actually multitask properly on your iPad. You can open multiple apps at the same time. You can resize them, move them around and place them exactly where you want.

Sound familiar?

Yep, your iPad now basically works almost like a MacBook. Add a little keyboard and you could almost replace one with the other. I have an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard, and it works beautifully.

Apps now also have a menu bar at the top of the screen. Again, just like on a MacBook. That makes using big iPad apps easier too.

Others Can Explain This Much Better

There are people on the internet who can explain all of this much better than I can. Watch YouTuber Chris Lawley's video, for example, or read Federico Viticci's review on MacStories.

iOS and iPadOS 26: The MacStories Review

iPadOS and iOS 26 are available to download now.

There was another Nintendo Direct this week, and some cool things were announced, like the new Super Mario film. Galaxy this time!

But for me, the best news was the announcement of Pokemon Pokopia, the very first life simulator starring Pokemon.

A cosy Pokemon game!? How cool is that!

Pokemon x Minecraft x Animal Crossing?

The trailer has a bit of a Smile vibe, because Ditto turns into a creepy human, and with the help of other Pokemon you then start shaping your island. You can use Bulbasaur to grow plants, for example, and then give them enough water with Squirtle.

Oh, and you also have to collect resources.

Does that sound a little familiar?

A life sim like this on Switch obviously immediately makes you think of Animal Crossing, a game I absolutely destroyed during the COVID pandemic. I really love those cosy games. There is a reason Stardew Valley is one of my favourite games of all time.

Coincidentally, Pokemon is also one of my favourite things, so this is basically a golden combination, right?

This Is Why I Want A Switch 2

Yes, and now the less fun news: Pokemon Pokopia is only coming to Switch 2.

No problem. Then we will just get one, right?

I just stole a Switch Lite, but I always knew a Switch 2 would come eventually. The console looks really cool to me, but until now there simply were not any titles I really needed one for.

The new Mario Kart will undoubtedly be a party, but it is not really my game. Donkey Kong: Bananza looks very fun, but it is not a must-play for me. And then, well, that is kind of it.

Until now.

Even though we have to wait until somewhere in 2026, Pokemon Pokopia is the title that will make me buy a Switch 2.

I cannot wait.

Yesss, it is in!

I just preordered the iPhone Air. I was no longer the guy who needed the newest iPhone every year. Last year I simply got an iPhone 15 Pro, because I did not think the 16 was particularly special.

But this year?

This year I was seduced by the dark side again.

The very thin dark side, to be precise: I had to have the iPhone Air.

An Open Secret

Last Tuesday, the new iPhones were announced during the annual keynote. I watch that every year. And those shows used to be exciting. Sure, you read rumours everywhere, but you still had to wait and see whether they were actually true.

These days, everything is out in the open months in advance.

So it was an open secret that, alongside the regular iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro, there would be a mega-thin iPhone this year: the iPhone Air.

And man, I was enjoying myself when I saw the first real images of that little phone.

The thinnest iPhone ever, according to Apple's superlatives. And only one camera. Or well, two cameras in one. But I actually like that. Phone designs are incredibly ugly these days because everything needs a thousand cameras.

Not the iPhone Air.

No, my darling looks fantastic.

Forever Team Mini

I am forever team iPhone Mini - rest in peace, little friend - and I prefer my phone to be as small as possible.

But ever since I got the 2024 iPad Pro, I have also fallen for thin, man. And when Apple showed the Air, I knew she had to come home. Right into my little hand, into my little pocket. That is where she belongs.

That thin body. That clean design.

Lovely, man. What a phone.

Waiting Takes Forever

I had been able to renew my subscription for a while, so today at 14:00 I was ready to grab that preorder.

And it worked!

I went for the iPhone Air in Space Black. Because black is extra slimming.

Now I have a long week of waiting ahead of me, but I am sure it will be worth it. I have not been this hyped about a new iPhone in years.

Well, not literally stolen, obviously. But it kind of feels that way.

I managed to buy a second-hand Nintendo Switch Lite for a ridiculously good price. Seriously, the price was lower than whatever number just popped into your head.

What Are You Even Doing With A Switch Lite In 2025?

The Nintendo Switch 2 has been out for a few months, so why would I buy an older model now?

The price is a big part of it, of course, but it is not the only reason. The Lite is the smaller sibling of the original Switch, and its whole thing is being easy to hold. It is smaller and much lighter than the regular Switch, which makes it perfect for gaming on the couch while Maaike is binging the newest season of Married at First Sight.

The Lite may be the smaller one, but it still plays thousands of Switch games without any trouble. The smaller screen makes it a little less ideal for games like Breath of the Wild, at least for me, but most Pokemon games are perfect on it.

But the real reason I bought it?

Hollow Knight!

Late To The Party

I am basically always late to the party when it comes to playing the latest games. Last year, for example, I finally finished Red Dead Redemption 2 for the first time, six years after it came out.

And now, while the whole world and its mother is playing Hollow Knight: Silksong, I am taking my first steps into the original.

I had seen the title come up many times, of course. For a lot of people, Hollow Knight belongs on the list of the best games ever made. But for some reason, nothing ever really made me want to try it.

Until now.

I have no idea why I am only picking up Hollow Knight now, but I just spent my first minutes in its world and, honestly, I should have done this sooner. Visually it looks fantastic, and the gameplay feels smooth and fun.

So yes, maybe I stole a Switch.

But they will never find me, because I am already elbow-deep in the world of Hollow Knight.

I miss the video store.

Looking forward to a movie night used to be so much more fun.

You went to the video store to see what was available. You checked which new films had come out. You walked past all those shelves and mostly let yourself be guided by whatever was on the front of the VHS box.

Then you quickly read the plot. If it sounded even vaguely fun, you rented it without hesitation and that was the film you were watching that night.

Even if the film turned out to be terrible, you had paid 7.50 guilders for it, so you finished it.

Watching a film may be easier now, but I am not sure it is more fun.

Because of the huge number of streaming services, there is now an absolute flood of options. You no longer choose a film just because the story sounds fun.

An actor you do not really like? Hmm, maybe not.

No decent IMDb score? No thanks. Next!

And once you finally pick something, it has to be perfect. Because if it annoys you even slightly, there are 34,000 other options that might be better.

It used to be more fun to watch a film.

Sometimes it is just fun to rewatch an old, obscure film. Tremors is one of those films. I loved this 1990 cult classic when I was younger, and I recently watched it again. A few things stood out.

First of all, the story. It is wonderfully simple. A bunch of giant earthworms suddenly appear in a small town in the Nevada desert, people are killed and buildings get swallowed. A group of people tries to survive.

That is it.

There is no deep investigation into the worms, where they came from or why they do what they do. No, they are just there and they need to die.

They do not make films like this anymore. These days everything has to be explained in great depth. Shame.

Then there is Kevin Bacon.

Tremors shows that he has not always been a good actor. Or maybe nobody in this film was acting particularly well. That is possible too. But even that fits this film perfectly.

Everything just works.

Was it as good as it was in my head? No.

But if you take a film like Tremors for what it is, it still gives you an excellent movie night.

Original ideas have been missing in Hollywood for years, but television is increasingly trying to score easy points too.

Because now there is some kind of spin-off of The Office (US), also known as the best comedy series ever. I am curious, but watching the trailer also makes me sceptical.

The Paper is about the newsroom of an American newspaper that is struggling badly. The documentary crew from The Office will be documenting these events this time.

When I watch The Office, I burst out laughing multiple times. Again and again, even though I have seen the entire series several times. But when I watch the trailer for The Paper, I can barely manage a smile.

Everyone who has seen The Office knows the strength of that show lies in its recognisable characters. Everyone works with someone who resembles one of them.

Of course it is too early to say, but I do not see that happening quickly with The Paper, at least not without it becoming too much of a watered-down version of the original.

And no, Oscar does not count.

Still, I am curious. It will be available on Peacock from September, which usually means SkyShowtime here in the Netherlands.

The Karate Kid films are classics to me, and Cobra Kai is a great follow-up. I found the fourth film from 1994 and the 2010 remake with Jackie Chan entertaining, but not exactly special.

But before the final season of Cobra Kai had even aired, a new film was announced. This time with both Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio.

I was still in the middle of Cobra Kai, and that show already feels like one big fan-service feast, so personally I was not exactly waiting for a new Karate Kid film. Still, I put on Karate Kid: Legends last night...

If you watch the trailer for the sixth Karate Kid film, it looks like the big Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio show. But that is not really the case.

For most of its runtime, Legends is a standalone story with new locations and new characters. And that is when the film is at its strongest. The characters are pretty decent. The bad guy is played by Aramis Knight, and he has one of those faces that instantly makes you dislike him. He does that well.

Of course the "legends" are eventually brought in, but I miss a bit of emotional involvement there. Why are they in this film? What are they doing there?

It is obviously a nod to the original films, and without Ralph Macchio it would not really be a Karate Kid film. But it all feels a little unnecessary. Especially when you see how beautifully and satisfyingly Cobra Kai wraps everything up.

The story is extremely standard. Someone faces setbacks, trains very hard to overcome them and beat the bad guy. Nothing new there, but still entertaining enough for an evening on the couch.

Because let us be honest: films like this are always kind of fun, right?

3 stars.

I do not find films with serial killers scary at all. You know, slasher films like Scream. I love that stuff. Sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn while blood splashes across the screen.

But as soon as ghosts and that kind of thing get involved, you can scrape me off the floor.

Then I replace that bowl of popcorn with a pillow I can hold in front of my face. And that is because of my very carefully considered, absolutely bulletproof real-life theory...

Look, if some lunatic with a knife breaks into your house, you still have a chance of surviving. Not a very big chance, probably, but still a chance.

But when an ancient demon has set its sights on your human body, you might as well give up. Hands in the air, accept that it is over and let it happen. You are simply not making it out.

That is why films like The Conjuring are genuinely terrifying to me. I seek them out, I like watching them, but man... so scary!

A new one is coming out, and the trailer has just been released.

I have not watched the trailer, because I am home alone and, as I said: that stuff is terrifying.

But I am sure it will be spooky again.

I am already grabbing my little pillow...

It has been a fantastic movie summer so far, and I have been spending plenty of time at the cinema with nachos and other snacks. Last night was date night, so my girlfriend and I went to see Superman. What an amazing girlfriend I have, right?

And of course I had thoughts.

First of all, I am not the biggest fan of DC comics. They have a few too many obscure heroes for my taste. But I did grow up in the nineties with Batman cartoons, and Lois & Clark was often on TV at our house.

In short: Batman and Superman are cool, so I was definitely curious about the reboot of the DC Universe.

Everything DC has released in recent years has been almost as bad as the Madame Web film, so my expectations were low going in. That always helps. But James Gunn is one of my favourite directors, and with him at the wheel it could hardly go wrong.

And it did not.

Superman is definitely not a bad film. The story is okay, not special, but perfectly watchable. Cinematographically, the film looks incredibly strong. The colours and beautiful shots burst off the screen, and in a cinema that is often half the battle.

But this Superman is kind of a loser.

The title role is played by David Corenswet, and he does not do a bad job. But he is also no Henry Cavill, whom I really liked as Superman. This new Superman has been weakened quite a bit too. He is constantly lying on the ground, battered, taking serious hits, and his whole vibe gave me strong Shazam! energy.

This is something James Gunn consciously chose.

Gunn chooses character development over raw strength. He also wants other heroes and characters in the DCU to have a more meaningful role, and I understand that to some extent. What are characters like Green Lantern worth if Superman is completely invulnerable and does not need any help?

But that is exactly why I want to watch a Superman film.

I want the brutal action. That feeling of power and grandeur. I want to see that guy fly through walls, people and planets like it is nothing. That is what makes Superman iconic to me, and that is what I really missed in this film.

No, this Superman is not really super.

Once something is on the internet, it is basically there forever.

That is not always a positive thing, but sometimes it can turn out to be fun. Today I found my very first blogs through the Wayback Machine, and it was quite the trip down memory lane.

Somewhere in 2009 I started a blog, back then still called Alxndr.nl, and it was a very different time. It was the era of Hyves, text messages and, for me personally, a period in which I enjoyed life a lot.

I was about twenty years old and had given myself the image of a talented writer with a love for music, drinks and women. And you can definitely read that in the texts I wrote back then.

I read one blog in which I wrote about people who get up early to go walking in nature. I thought that was bizarre and ridiculous.

And now?

My alarm goes off at 06:30 by default, and I absolutely see the benefits and joy of walking.

I have changed quite a bit over the years, become a little wiser - I hope - and adjusted many opinions. Fortunately, I also found plenty of blogs filled with lovely memories. Those are the texts I have now placed back on my current blog.

Back then I wrote about the time I stood on stage with Green Day, had an opinion about punk rock, and scribbled about the many other concerts I still went to at the time.

As you can tell, it was mostly about music.

I do not need it, but I want it anyway.

That is the problem in a nutshell. Ever since Apple announced the new version of iPadOS, I had been playing with the idea of getting an iPad again. When we booked our holiday shortly afterwards, the decision was made: I simply want an iPad on the plane to kill travel time. So we were in the market for an iPad.

Pretty quickly, the process began of deciding which iPad it would be. But that was easier than expected, because somewhere in the back of my mind I already knew exactly which iPad I was going to buy.

Even if I did not know it myself yet.

Long story short: I chose the newest iPad Pro released at the end of 2024. The one with that fantastic screen and that sexy, thin design.

And it is total overkill for what I am going to use an iPad for.

I will mostly use it to watch shows and films on the couch, in bed, on a plane, on the floor, wherever. And you can do that perfectly well with the entry-level iPad. Or even an iPad mini or Air. You absolutely do not need the Pro for that.

But that screen.

Bloody hell, that screen is unbelievably beautiful. So sharp and so bright. 1600 nits peak brightness! That probably means nothing to you, but trust me, you want all the nits.

If I am going to stare at a screen a lot to watch films and shows, it should simply be a great screen. Those films deserve it, those shows deserve it, and above all, I deserve it too.

So yes, I spent too much money on a glorified Netflix & chill machine, and I am very happy with that choice.

Oh right, you came here for my iPad Pro review:

FAN-TAS-TIC! Buy it immediately. Amazing! Best ever! And above all: worth every cent!

I do not actually need more LEGO, because the unbuilt sets are literally piling up.

But every few weeks a new set appears that I simply MUST have. And today, here we go again...

A New Category Of LEGO Sets

LEGO has been releasing sets for years in different lines I really love. Especially the Harry Potter and other pop culture sets are must-haves for me.

But since this year, they have also started releasing book nooks. Basically something you place between a row of books. They started with one based on Sherlock Holmes, and that one was pretty decent. But not "I MUST HAVE THIS!!" decent.

But from today you can preorder a Lord of the Rings book nook, featuring the famous scene of Gandalf versus the Balrog.

And yes, sorry, but that one simply has to come home.

Take My Money!

You can preorder it now for EUR119.99, which is on the pricey side. The set has 1,201 pieces.

I hope LEGO releases more of these sets soon, because the money is already burning a hole in my pocket again.

Everyone and their mother is hyped for GTA VI, even though we still have to wait another year. Yesterday a second trailer was released, and it looks really good again. This will undoubtedly be a huge gaming moment with major cultural impact.

But if I am honest... can GTA V even be matched, let alone surpassed?

The Hype For GTA VI Is Huge

This is really going to be a thing, and when I watch the new trailer, that is with good reason. The graphics, the sort-of Bonnie and Clyde story, the huge open world. GTA VI is going to be the game of the next ten years.

And I am ridiculously excited for it. So excited that I have already requested two weeks off around that period, and I am seriously considering buying a PlayStation 5 Pro specifically for GTA VI.

But still, watching the trailer did not give me the feeling I get every time I play GTA V again.

GTA V Had The Most Iconic Characters Ever

Making a game with one good main character can already be difficult, but GTA V delivered three. Michael, Trevor and Franklin: the best trio since Frodo, Sam and Gollum.

These men are legendary.

Michael, cynical and neurotic. Trevor, everyone's favourite redneck. Franklin, the street kid from South Los Santos. Three sides of the same coin: three visions of the American Dream and three styles full of chaos and action.

They are all so different, but also so very much the same. You could switch perfectly between the characters during missions and immediately see their different approaches. I thought that was incredibly cool.

It Works Because It Does Not Work

What I love so much about that trio is the chemistry.

Not that they are always friends. Far from it. But it clicks precisely because it clashes. Their dialogue crackles, the arguments feel real, and even if you do not play for months, you still remember exactly how Trevor loses his mind or how Michael sighs and walks away from his family again.

They were not written to please you. They are awkward, stubborn, human. And therefore believable.

Maybe that is exactly why GTA VI is going to have such a hard time. The new trailer looks amazing, it really does. Lucia and that guy - what is his name again? - have potential.

But Michael, Franklin and Trevor were not just playable characters. They were people you felt something for. People who stayed with you. People who were sometimes frustrating, but never flat.

And that... that is not easy to recreate.

The app has been around for a little while now, but since the 1.1 update, Tapestry has become one of my favourite apps.

It is one of those timeline apps you see more often lately: one app for all your feeds, but chronological and without an algorithm. Think news from your favourite websites, the latest videos from YouTube channels you follow, or posts from people on Bluesky and Mastodon.

You could already build your own timeline from your favourite sources, but since update 1.1 you can pin those timelines to the menu at the bottom of the screen.

And that is worth its weight in gold.

That one feature has almost single-handedly made me doomscroll less on my phone. I have a pretty cursed relationship with my smartphone, and sometimes my screen time is genuinely ridiculous. I hopped from app to app, dopamine hit to dopamine hit.

Not anymore.

Now I just open Tapestry in the morning and scroll through my own timeline to catch up. Lovely.

I created four different timelines and pinned them to the bottom menu:

• News: everything I actually want to read. Film and TV news, game reviews, and the occasional terrible take about Ajax.
• Socials: a handful of people on Bluesky and Mastodon whose posts I do not want to miss. Not Threads ragebait, just posts from journalists and people with good taste.
• YouTube: the YouTube app is rubbish, right? In this timeline I follow my favourite channels and only watch what I actually want, without disappearing into the depths of YouTube for hours.
• Updates: posts from favourite app developers, updates from makers of gadgets I like, and news from the football club I play for.

Your Zelf Bepils

Because I decide what I read in Tapestry, it gives me a lot of peace. I do not have to get angry at some stupid take because an algorithm decided I might enjoy being annoyed.

Your zelf bepils, you know?

But it goes further than that. One of Tapestry's strongest features is the ability to mute certain words or topics.

On Threads I already mute everyone and their mother, so naturally I love this kind of feature. Tapestry handles it nicely too. I block pretty much everything related to politics, for example.

Muting is also a gift from the heavens. There are some topics I do want to read about, just not right now. Last week half the internet was crying about the death of someone in a certain show, and of course that meant spoilers were suddenly everywhere. Solution: mute that stuff.

It still appears in the timeline, but the post is collapsed. That way I can decide later whether I want to read it or not.

Muting certain topics is really nice.

That is why a timeline app like this has so many advantages. It has become a real alternative to social media apps for me. You decide what you read. Not a hundred billion posts. Just a handful of sources.

That means more calm, less anger, less frustration.

And that is better for everyone, right?

Oh, and it is only for iPhone, iPad and Mac users. Android weirdos will have to find their own way to stay calm.

I do not know exactly why, but sometimes I am just in the mood for a hospital show. A bit of drama, nasty injuries and strange operations. That urge came back, so this week we started watching The Pitt.

And man, what a show.

Every now and then a series comes along that grabs you immediately and refuses to let go. The Pitt is one of those shows. I will say it straight away: this might be the best series I have seen in the past few years.

The Pitt follows a team of doctors and nurses during their shift in a trauma hospital. The series has fifteen episodes, and every episode is exactly one hour of their shift. So you follow the doctors in real time.

Kind of ER meets 24, and it works beautifully.

Because the show takes place in real time, you really feel the pressure of the job. It feels intense and heavy. You see the doctors under pressure. Combine that with topics like post-COVID, ethical dilemmas and difficult personal issues, and you get an incredibly intense, raw series.

So much happens from minute one that it tickles every part of your senses. What is also great: no pretty background music or soundtrack pushing you toward a particular emotion. No, the show uses realistic sounds like beeps, swinging doors and the murmur of colleagues.

The series also does not shy away from showing all kinds of wounds and injuries in full view. That makes it realistic, but sometimes I really had to look away. Episode 12 might be the best contraception ever. I mean... you literally see everything...

From the moment we started watching it at home, The Pitt has not let me go. During the day I already found myself looking forward to the evening, when I could collapse onto the couch and watch new episodes of this fantastic show.

I have not had that in a long time.

Go watch this!

Five stars.

I do not know how you plan your weekend, but every Saturday morning I take a little moment for myself to watch cartoons.

I am probably going to sound like a boomer now, but Saturdays in the nineties were fantastic. In an era before we had internet at home, and before I walked around with my iPhone constantly in my claws, Saturday morning had a fixed ritual: watching cartoons on TV.

That feeling is coming back completely.

A Fixed Ritual

The arrival of streaming services has changed TV a lot. Now you watch what you want, when you want, and you also have a hundred million options. We did not have that back then.

You had to set your alarm and make sure you were in front of the TV by half past seven, otherwise you simply missed your favourite cartoon. It was an era ruled by cliffhangers, so you were guaranteed to be there again the next weekend.

It was also something you watched "together." At school you talked about episodes of Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z and Digimon. And there was always someone talking about rumours they had heard from a cousin. Nobody knew whether they were true, but in your head you hoped they were.

Pure Nostalgia

These are good times for adults who want to reach back to better days. Recent cartoons like X-Men '97 and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man give you great animated entertainment again. There are also shows like Invincible, My Adventures with Superman and of course Rick and Morty.

And have you seen Batman: Caped Crusader?!

So many good cartoons that give you that nineties feeling again.

Watching shows like this feels like pure nostalgia, and I am very into that. Nostalgia gives you dopamine, the substance in your brain that gives you a feeling of happiness and reward.

Watching cartoons is comfort food for your brain.

So every Saturday morning, I turn on the TV again to watch cartoons.

Lovely, man.

And talking about these shows together? We just do that on Threads and Bluesky.

A nice dramatic title for this blog about James Bond, because I am not happy.

Amazon Studios acquired MGM in 2022, the studio that makes all the James Bond films, and now Amazon Studios also gets creative control over the franchise.

The James Bond franchise is one that sits close to my heart. My father died when I was still young, but one of the most beautiful memories I have of him is that we always watched James Bond together.

And if the film was on TV too late and I had to go to bed as a little boy, he recorded it for me and I would often watch it later.

I was obsessed with the British spy. I wanted to be HIM. So I wore a jacket that was far too big to school and put on a tie. Because, well, James Bond wears one too.

So I have a lot of beautiful and loving memories connected to James Bond, and I am afraid Amazon is going to wreck the franchise.

We live in an era where everything in Hollywood gets milked dry, and a film series apparently cannot be successful without immediately having a whole universe attached to it.

After the Amazon takeover, it already came out that Amazon is very interested in expanding the James Bond world with all kinds of spin-offs.

In short: this is very much about money again.

And that while James Bond became great because of the creative vision of the people making it.

Such a deep, deep shame.

After more than seven years, Cobra Kai, one of the most fun shows I have ever watched, has come to an end. And without giving too much away: it has one of the best endings of any long-running series ever.

There, those are quite some statements from me. But I stand by them.

Cobra Kai is incredibly fun. Maybe not the very best show ever made, but if you were making a list of entertaining shows, it should definitely be in the top ten.

Cobra Kai

For those who do not know: Cobra Kai is a sequel series to the legendary eighties film The Karate Kid. And I absolutely loved that film, so of course I had to watch this.

The series follows the bad guy from the first film: Johnny Lawrence, who, 34 years later, has fallen pretty far. To turn things around, he takes a boy under his wing and reopens Cobra Kai, the Karate Kid dojo of his former sensei Kreese.

A Feast Of Recognition

Johnny is not the only one in Cobra Kai. Over the course of six seasons, many old characters return. Including Daniel LaRusso, of course. They already had a pretty fierce rivalry in the film, and you see that again in Cobra Kai.

Cobra Kai is a real feast of recognition. Not just because of the characters, but also because of the faded eighties vibe that keeps returning throughout the seasons.

Cobra Kai does what the original Karate Kid films did so well: it makes you genuinely cheer for the characters and really care about them.

Every episode had me watching with a big smile, eagerly waiting for the next episodes and seasons.

And for me, that is the most important thing a great show can do.

In the nineties, many things were better, and that decade gave us a lot. One of the most beautiful things from the nineties is Jurassic Park, one of my favourite films.

Since then, five sequels have been released, but honestly, most of them were not very good. Okay, Chris Pratt was fun in Jurassic World from 2015, and that gave me hope for the sequels.

But no, the rest was bad.

Still, they are going to try again, and this year the sixth film will be released: Jurassic World: Rebirth.

And honestly?

The trailer gives me hope again. It feels much more like an adventure film than before.

So bring it on.

In cinemas on July 3, 2025.

In the nineties, a number of very good disaster films were released, and one of them is the classic Twister, about storm chasers. Now, almost thirty years later, a sequel has arrived, and I saw it in the cinema this weekend.

If you have never seen the 1996 original, I recommend fixing that. The film still holds up surprisingly well in 2024, and I was hyped that a sequel would be released this year. A disaster film like Twisters is the ideal cinema film. Lots of action and spectacle on a big screen with the best sound. That is how I like to experience cinema.

With the sequel, you also get a healthy dose of romance.

That was present in the first film too, but in Twisters it is a little more obvious. Twisters is basically Twister meets The Longest Ride. It makes the film lighter - hehe - but once the tornadoes start spinning, you get exactly what you came for: tension, sensation, action and an excellent cinema experience.

If you see one film in the cinema this summer, let it be Twisters.

Four stars.

Back in the deep nineties, my big brother and I always played cowboys and Indians. At Blokker, our mother let us pick out one of those iconic cap guns or a plastic bow and arrow. It is one of my favourite childhood memories, and because of it, I secretly always wanted to be a cowboy.

I finally got to experience that feeling thanks to a game from 2018.

Red Dead Redemption 2 came out in 2018, but only six years later did I dive back into the world of cowboys, gunslingers and outlaws. And I am living my best life in that game.

For anyone unfamiliar with Red Dead Redemption: it is a huge open-world game in which you play as outlaw Arthur Morgan. The story takes place in 1899, and Morgan notices that the age of cowboys and outlaws in the Wild West is coming to an end.

What you get is a massive open world with an enormous amount to do, and that is what attracts me most to RDR2.

Rockstar's games are full of violence and action, and that is the main reason I have always loved games like Red Dead and GTA. And even now, I hugely enjoy an exciting shootout where I land as many headshots as possible.

But I enjoy the quiet the game gives you just as much.

The open world is bizarrely beautiful. Even for a game from 2018, it still looks graphically excellent. You gallop your horse through a vast world with a beautiful mix of high mountains and endless prairies. Or you crawl through wooded areas while hunting for that one deer whose hide you want to skin.

Successfully robbed a train? Time to celebrate with a bottle of whisky in the saloon, before losing all your money at the poker table.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, you are truly pulled into the Wild West. And that world is filled with incredible attention to detail. Standing still for a moment to enjoy the view? Perfect moment for your horse to take a massive dump. Spent a few days in the wilderness hunting? Time to shave, because Arthur now has a serious beard.

Of course Red Dead Redemption is also packed with action, and chances are you will lose your hat.

Literally.

All of that makes it an unprecedented experience in a world I always wanted to live in as a little boy. Add the story, the many characters with a surprising amount of depth, the side missions and all the extra things you can do, and you really feel like you are part of the Wild West.

It was one of my first big cinema experiences, watching the epic film Gladiator on the big screen in 2000. It was fantastic: the spectacle of the battles, a brilliant Russell Crowe and the imposing Colosseum.

For a film-loving history nerd with an interest in ancient Rome, it was everything I could have wished for. There is a reason Gladiator is one of my favourite films of all time.

The film was, of course, a huge success, and for years people speculated about a possible sequel. Now, 24 years after Gladiator was released, a sequel is finally coming.

You would think I would be jumping for joy, but nothing could be further from the truth. Gladiator II might be the best film I actually do not want to see.

Surely This Can Only Disappoint?

Why does the original need a sequel? The ending was good and complete. A sequel feels forced somehow, especially in an era where Hollywood is not exactly overflowing with original ideas.

Besides, sequels are rarely as good as their predecessors. Add a whole load of CGI, less legendary characters than Maximus and a weaker story, and you are basically done.

Surely this can only disappoint?

It Does Look Fantastic, Though

The first trailer for Gladiator II was released this week, and honestly, it does look fantastic again. This could very well become a massive hit. It seems to have everything the original had, but with all the modern filmmaking techniques.

But that can also work against it.

Maybe I should just stop being so sour. I will probably be in the cinema on day one with a huge bucket of popcorn, enjoying a fantastic film.

I was born in the late eighties, which means I spent an important part of my childhood in the nineties. I really do see myself as a nineties kid, and I often think back to that time with a lot of nostalgia.

Everything felt better then. The music, the games and, of course, the films.

Over the past few weeks we have regularly rewatched older films at home, and suddenly I realised just how many great blockbuster films were released in the nineties. Films that, sometimes more than 25 years later, still hold up incredibly well.

And secretly, I think many of them are better than what has been released in recent years.

Pace And Runtime

Since the rise and huge success of franchise films in the 2000s, film runtimes have also increased a lot. These days you can barely find a film that is not at least two hours long, but in the nineties you could simply sit back for an hour and a half and be entertained by a massive action film.

The pace of those films was therefore much higher too. There was not much room for all kinds of weird subplots. The film started and BAM, immediate action.

Lovely.

The Nineties Had Great Films

This week we watched Twister, Dante's Peak and Armageddon, among others. All great blockbuster films that you can still watch perfectly well today.

But what about Independence Day with Will Smith?! That film was and still is amazing. I am a fan of spectacular action films anyway, but this remains a highlight of the genre.

Then think of Jurassic Park from 1993, The Shawshank Redemption from 1994 and Saving Private Ryan from 1998. And of course films like Titanic from 1997, Terminator 2 from 1991 and The Matrix from 1999.

All fantastic films that made the nineties an unprecedented high point for cinema.

Throw in all the brilliant action films like Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon, and for me it is very clear:

The nineties were peak cinema.

It is maybe a little morbid, but I find serial killers extremely interesting. So when Apple TV+ released a miniseries about a serial killer a few years ago, it was no surprise that I watched it immediately.

And I was not disappointed: Black Bird is one of the best and most gripping series I have seen in recent years.

Apple TV+ has been doing very strong work lately anyway. It is kind of taking HBO's place. Instead of quantity, it focuses heavily on quality, and you can see that in the shows the streaming service releases.

Black Bird follows Jimmy Keene, a once-promising football talent who chooses a life of crime. After he is arrested, he is given a choice: spend ten years in prison, or try to befriend convicted serial killer Larry Hall and find out where Hall buried his victims.

What follows is a psychological cat-and-mouse game with an interesting look inside the mind of a seemingly simple man who has done terrible things.

The story is tense and based on true events, which is good to know because some events in the series are truly bizarre. With Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser and Ray Liotta, the show has a top cast, and it shows.

Black Bird has six episodes and starts a little slowly. But once the cast gets going, it is almost impossible to turn off.

The series I want to highlight this week was released back in 2022, but it received far too little love. Under the Banner of Heaven is a hidden gem on Disney+ and deserves more viewers.

Under the Banner of Heaven is a true story about a double murder in a Mormon community. A woman and her fifteen-month-old daughter are brutally killed. The lead role is played by the always wonderful Andrew Garfield, who plays a deeply religious detective trying to solve the murders.

He is confronted with horrifying details that make his faith begin to waver.

I will get straight to the point: Under the Banner of Heaven is one of the best shows I have seen in recent years. The story, the actors, the bizarre world of the Mormon faith and the gruesome details of the murders make the series grab you by the throat and refuse to let go for seven episodes.

On one hand, this is a whodunit. At the same time, it is also a history lesson and a look inside a strict religious community.

For me, that is every ingredient for a successful evening of TV.

For fans of: Crime shows Comparable to: True Detective, Mare of Easttown and Sharp Objects Length: 1 season, 7 episodes Watch on: Disney+

This week, Netflix released the long-awaited live-action series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and in the days before release, reviews from various critics started to trickle in. Not all of them were positive. The visual effects were supposedly not good enough, the story had supposedly lost much of its magic, and the writing was criticised.

The series is based on the popular Nickelodeon animated series, which can be considered one of the best animated shows ever made. The original series was a fantastic experience for both children and adults. That is why the story was already adapted into a film in 2010, but that became a massive flop.

That film really was bad and not worthy of the Avatar name. Everyone and their mother therefore hoped the Netflix adaptation would be much better.

But the criticism was harsh, and on one hand that is understandable. You take something that captured the hearts of many people and put it in a new coat. It makes sense that people compare the new version with the old one and have a preference for one or the other.

It is also the job of critics to look at new series with a critical eye. But often they go too far.

Not everything has to be perfect to make it a good series. Not every criticism outweighs the positive sides. I would rather focus on the things I do like and enjoy than on the points that would ruin my experience.

Of course Avatar is not a perfect series, and here and there different choices could have been made. But Avatar is simply a fantastically fun series to watch. Especially for new viewers, but also if you have seen the original.

Shows and films are meant to entertain, and ultimately that is what matters: "Am I having a good time watching this?"

And you absolutely do with Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Now on Netflix.

During the first episodes of Bodies, you get the idea that this is another standard but good thriller in which detectives have to solve a murder. That is absolutely true, but Bodies does it with a twist so good that it not only keeps you on the edge of your seat, but leaves you with more questions after every episode.

Four different detectives discover the same body in an alley in London, but decades apart. It starts in 2023, but soon you discover that in 1941, 1890 and 2053, exactly the same body was found in exactly the same place.

Because each timeline takes place in a different period, the show also looks different each time. It is especially cool to see London in 1941 and 1890, with everything that comes with those eras. Bodies is sometimes a costume drama during the 1890 scenes, a war drama in 1941, and the story set in 2053 can easily compete with a recent science-fiction film.

Every episode is about puzzling, crossing things out and starting again. The visuals, the twist in the story, the many question marks and the excellent actors make Bodies one of the most intriguing series of recent times.

Genre: Thriller, crime Length: 1 season, 8 episodes Watch on: Netflix

A curse, family secrets, Guyanese crime and a failed kidnapping. Mix those ingredients with a setting like New York City and you get Full Circle, a tense miniseries available on HBO Max.

In Full Circle, the grandson of a famous chef is kidnapped, but it does not exactly go smoothly. What I especially liked is that while the plot unfolds, you are not busy asking "who did it?", but mostly wondering why on earth all of this is happening.

It also helps a lot that Full Circle has a huge star cast. You can enjoy Dennis Quaid, Timothy Olyphant and the always irritating Claire Danes, among others.

Even though the story is genuinely tense and keeps leaving you with more questions, the pace of the series is sometimes a little slow. It takes a while before all the threads in the first episode become clear, and for me the series only really started at the end of that first episode.

The following episodes more than make up for that.

Full Circle is a lovely thriller, and with six episodes it is perfect entertainment for a few evenings on the couch.

Genre: Crime Length: 1 season, 6 episodes Watch on: HBO Max

Everyone agrees that the Harry Potter books are fantastic, right? If you think otherwise, we cannot be friends, sorry.

Some people also say the films are very good. Okay, the books are much better, but I do understand why people love the films. The wizarding world is brought to life beautifully in the eight films released between 2001 and 2011.

Original ideas have been running out in Hollywood for years, so Warner Bros. is adapting the books again, this time as a television series. In my opinion, the films are not old enough yet, but I do understand the choice to turn the books into a TV series. You can put far more detail into a series than into a two-and-a-half-hour film.

But the Harry Potter franchise is hugely popular, so it would be foolish not to do more with it. That is why Warner Bros. is considering several spin-off series based on stories from the Wizarding World.

Besides the well-known story from the books, there is so much more to tell from the beautiful world created by J.K. Rowling. These are some stories I would like to see as series.

The First Wizarding War

The books mainly show Harry's fight against Voldemort, but they also often refer to the first war with the dark wizard and his followers.

During that war, the Order of the Phoenix was founded for the first time, and as described in the books, it was a difficult and uncertain period. Perfect for a few seasons of television, I would say.

The Marauders At Hogwarts

In the books, Harry meets many of his father's old friends: Sirius, Remus and Peter. Together with James, they were known as the Marauders. A group of friends known for breaking rules and causing mischief.

This seems like an ideal story for a miniseries.

A Voldemort Origin Story

In book six, we learn a lot about the life of the darkest wizard ever. About his parents, why he became the way he was and what his ambitions were.

Still, we do not know everything about Voldemort. We could explore that nicely in a prequel or origin story.

Harry Potter And The Cursed Child

In 2016, a new Harry Potter book finally came out. Or well... a script for a stage play. This story takes place 19 years after the final book and focuses on Harry's children.

The play has been running for years in places like London, but maybe it is time to adapt this story for the screen too. I read the book at the time and did not think it was amazing.

But hey, I am always happy with more Harry Potter in my life.

A Mad-Eye Moody Series

I think Mad-Eye Moody is one of the most interesting characters in the Harry Potter universe, and I would love to see a series about the adventures of the greatest Auror ever.

There is so much to tell about the Wizarding World. You could make content for another hundred years.

What would you like to see?

One of the shows I have enjoyed watching lately is The Rookie, a police series available on Netflix. The Rookie is about John Nolan, a man who decides later in life to become a police officer, making him the oldest rookie in the department.

The tone of The Rookie is a lot lighter than many other police shows, but the series can still hit you because it is not only action. It also portrays the human side of being a police officer in Los Angeles well.

It is a procedural, which means every episode has a separate story. That is sometimes a shame, because I do like it when a series has a running thread through all the episodes to bind everything together. But it does make The Rookie an ideal show to watch a few episodes of now and then, and then ignore for a week.

Genre: Police, crime, drama Length: 4 seasons Watch on: Netflix For fans of: Police shows

This week we watched Griselda at home, which had been recommended beforehand as the new Narcos. That promise is only partly fulfilled, but I liked the series enough to share it with you.

Griselda tells the story of Griselda Blanco, a Colombian woman who built a drug empire in Miami in the seventies and eighties. The title role is played by none other than Sofia Vergara, and she does it excellently.

At first I could only hear Gloria from Modern Family, but soon Vergara convinced me as a drug boss.

Even though the drug world is mainly dominated by men, Griselda goes full Al Pacino and manages to climb to the top of that world in a smart and brutal way. Some crimes are shown in a gruesome way, and the show gives a good picture of the raw drug life of Miami in the seventies and eighties.

The whole vibe of that era is visible in the series too. I really enjoyed the clothing and locations. The comparison with shows like Narcos and films like Scarface is quickly made.

Griselda is easy to watch, offers enough tension and, with six episodes, is a perfect show to watch this weekend.

Genre: Crime Length: 1 season, 6 episodes Watch on: Netflix For fans of: Narcos, Scarface

The series I want to recommend this week is Hijack. We finished this one at home in two evenings, because it is incredibly tense from the very first episode.

The title gives it away, but Hijack is about the hijacking of a plane. A number of terrorists manage to take control of the aircraft, and from that moment the tension is razor sharp.

Fortunately, Sam is one of the passengers. He is played by none other than Idris Elba and, conveniently, he happens to be a master negotiator. He uses his skills to make sure everyone gets home safely. But meanwhile, plenty is happening on the ground too.

Trust me, this show is not easy to turn off.

Every episode makes you feel as if you yourself are under enormous pressure, sometimes with sweaty hands as a result. The fact that every episode ends with a massive cliffhanger definitely helps with the tension.

Give it a chance and I promise you will not be disappointed.

Genre: Action, thriller Length: 1 season, 7 episodes Watch on: Apple TV+ For fans of: Die Hard, 24

I try to write a weekly newsletter about TV shows and films under the name Seriekoning. Last week I wrote about the ten best shows everyone should have seen.

"This show would absolutely be in my top ten best shows ever!" I blurted out while trying to convince my girlfriend to finally watch Band of Brothers with me.

"Oh yeah? And what else is in that list?" she replied.

And tada! Another fun idea for the newsletter.

I closed that newsletter with ten shows I think everyone should have seen. I call it my top ten, but they are in random order because I find it impossible to say which one is truly the best.

You simply have to watch them all.

• **Band of Brothers** - This Second World War series is unbelievably good and hits me every time I rewatch it. On HBO Max, and recently also on Disney+.
• **Breaking Bad** - What would you do if you found out you were terminally ill and wanted to earn some money? This question is answered perfectly in this series. On Netflix.
• **Game of Thrones** - The show that kept the world busy and whose ending caused plenty of debate. Even if you do not care about fantasy, this series has enough to be considered mandatory viewing.
• **Friends** - The most perfect comedy series ever. I do not need to say anything else.
• **The Shield** - A very raw series about corrupt cops in L.A. From the creators of Sons of Anarchy, but three times better.
• **Prison Break** - This is where my TV addiction started. The first two seasons are incredibly tense.
• **One Tree Hill** - Combine sports, music and drama, and you have won me over.
• **The Office (US)** - I put this show off for a long time, but now I rewatch it every year. Almost as good as Friends.
• **House** - A hospital series about a brilliant but incredibly blunt doctor. I love characters like that.
• **Orange is the New Black** - One of the first popular Netflix Originals ever. About a women's prison and everything that comes with it. Must see.

Which shows would you add to this list, and which would you remove?

Let me know!

This week we rewatched the Planet of the Apes films. Not the old versions from the sixties and seventies, or the actually decent remake from 2001, but the most recent series.

The first part of that series, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, came out in 2011 and is an incredibly good film.

In the first film, you basically see how the planet became the planet of the apes. This film has everything: a beautiful story about family and friendship, it is partly a film about the end of the world, and secretly there is a bit of Prison Break in there too.

If I had to make a list of my favourite films ever, this would definitely be in the top five.

The other parts of the trilogy are also very strong and absolutely worth watching. You can watch all of these films on Disney+, and a new part will be released next year.

After an almost endless stream of rumours, the iPad 2 was finally presented to the public last night. One of those rumours was that the iPad 2 would merely be an in-between model. Unfortunately, that rumour turned out to be true.

With a design upgrade, a faster processor and two cameras, the iPad 2 is basically nothing more than the iPad 1.5.

What is the added value?

The iPad 2 is thinner and lighter, so easier to carry. As if your old iPad was so difficult to lift. You can now FaceTime with friends and family, but who around you actually uses FaceTime? And in the months I have had the iPad 1, I have never experienced it being slow.

While we are still waiting for the white iPhone 4, the iPad 2 will be available in white right from launch. Is that what you are doing it for? Personally, I think the white iPad looks like something you could buy at the local toy shop.

The new iPad does not offer me a new experience, so at first I do not need it. And that is the annoying thing about Apple. No matter how much you think it sucks, you still want that stuff. Everyone wants it.

The prices of the iPad 2 remain the same as the prices the iPad 1 had at launch. But now that the original iPad has become a lot cheaper - EUR379 for 16GB Wi-Fi - is it really worth buying a more expensive iPad for the features above?