Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

It wasn't long ago that I refreshed on the whole series, and - as it's increasingly foreshadowed as it's gone on - that's just as well because this 'final' instalment goes heavy on trying to tie together everything that's gone before. And you know, it's basically good entertainment even though it does feel weighed down both by the cumulative amount of story that it's trying to smooth out in some kind of thematically and narratively satisfying way, and by a prevailing air of thudding seriousness. The action's tense - both the fights and the big set pieces - and the characters (major and minor) pretty much all have some level of charisma and likeability. So.

Megan Moroney - Am I Okay?

The title song's a killer, first up on the album, fizzily euphoric with just an undercurrent of melancholy. There are some other good moments here too, and if the glossy country-ish sound isn't that distinctive, well there's a reason why I like it so much.

Ellen van Neerven - Personal Score

Personal Score feels all of a piece, unified by the way van Neerven writes the connections between Country, their own story and the other through-lines of sport (football ie soccer), identity, culture and colonisation. They're a wonderful writer, in this form as in their short fiction and poetry, which has struck me whenever I encountered it - and memorable in person also. It's an illuminating and engaging book, filled with ideas, passages and connections that I want to retain.

The Old Guard 2

The first one was good, this one isn't. Leans too much on the first and its desire to set up for a third. I like how strongly it centres female characters though.