TV Review: Spider-Noir (2026)

Spider-Noir (2026) created for television by Oren Uziel based on the Marvel Comics character

Ben Reilly (Nicholas Cage) is a private detective in 1930s New York City. He used to be The Spider, a super-hero who fought crime (organized and otherwise). That ended five years earlier when his wife died. Since then, crime is on the rise, especially due to the influence of Silverback (Brendan Gleeson), a crime boss who is on the lookout for new opportunities. One opportunity is the emergence of other superpowered people. Through subordinates, he hires Reilly to tail a guy who can cause fires (like the Fantastic Four's Human Torch). The guy sets fire to Siverback's mansion, so finding the flame guy is more important than ever. Reilly discovers another PI on the case, who winds up getting killed when the situation gets more complicated. Reilly is able to talk his way out of the situation, though he winds up being hired by lounge singer Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li), who is more or less owned by Silverback, to find her missing bodyguard who is also developing superpowers. As the situation gets harder and more complicated, will Reilly resume his alter-ego he had hoped to leave behind?

Obviously the answer is yes, though he goes through a lot of angst along the way. Reilly's motto is "With no power comes no responsibility," which he knows deep down is the wrong way to go about things but he's also so burned out and unhappy. Cage gives a good performance, with some of the over-the-top ticks and physicality that he is known for. The PI part of his character lets him bluff his way into and out of situations; the Spider part lets him physically imitate a spider or other insect. 

The show leans into the noir with the down and out detective going up against organized crime, which includes corrupt cops and politicians. The villains are scarred war vets (like Reilly) who have trouble fitting into society, only partly because of their new powers. Plenty of whiskey is drunk and plenty of cigarettes are smoked. The show is available in black and white or color. I watched the first episode in black and white then immediately afterward in color. I didn't think the color added much to the storytelling so I kept with the black and white. The show has dutch-angled shots almost all the time, another trademark of noir films though maybe not as much as here. I found the style enjoyable if occasionally over the top.

Marvel has generally been successful in doing the superheroes-in-a-given-genre treatment (Ant-man as a heist film, Captain America: Winter Soldier as 1970s paranoid political thriller. etc.). This is another example which I enjoyed.

Recommended.

As I publish this (June 2026), the show is only available streaming from Amazon Prime.

Book Reviews: Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign Vols. 3 & 4

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign Volume 3 story by Takaya Kagami and art by Yamato Yamamoto

Having acquired Cursed Gear (the sort of weapon a human needs in order to kill a vampire in this mythology), Yuichiro is excited to leave school behind and start killing vampires. He's less excited about working in a squad, thinking he is better as a loner. The squad is even less appealing because his school rival, Kimizuki, is also a member. And he's not the leader of the squad, that's a more experience member of the Imperial Demon Army named Mitsuba. The squad travels to Shinjuku to investigate vampire activity. Little do they know that the rumors about an attack are true and they will get more action than they anticipated, even on the way.

I have mixed feelings about this volume. On the one hand, they moved away from the school drama that is prevalent in lots of other manga, so I was happy about that. But then they had an extended shower scene where Mitsuba (who is female) is thinking out loud about the situation. I've never run across more gratuitous fan service before. A combination of steam, body positioning, and dialogue bubbles keep her from being completely revealed. It was annoying and distasteful to me. She could have just as easily been enjoying a cup of tea or brushing her hair or walking out in nature. It's a short scene but it sticks out. The rest of the story is enjoyable, promising more proper drama and action.

Mildly recommended.

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign Volume 4 story by Takaya Kagami and art by Yamato Yamamoto

The big battle plays out in Shinjuku as Yuichiro's team faces down a lot of vampires, including high-ranking Bathory and, most significantly, Yu's childhood best friend (and now vampire) Mika. The reunion is awkward and more than a little fraught with peril as the two former friends are forced to choose between each other and the factions to which they belong. Both Yu and Mika think the other group is evil and manipulative, so no easy answer is found yet.

The drama is handled really well. Some world-building works its way into the story, giving a bit of the larger context of what happened and how the humans are able to have a chance against the vampires. I enjoyed this volume and will keep going.

Recommended.

Movie Review: Them! (1954)

Them! (1954) directed by Gordon Douglas

This classic 1950s sci-fi film introduced the sub-genre of giant bugs, usually made big by atomic radiation. In this story, a child is found wandering in the desert of New Mexico. She's shellshocked and won't talk to Sergeant Ben Peterson (James Whitmore), who leads the investigation. He and his partner find the RV camper where her parents were, but it's been ripped open from the outside. No valuables have been taken. Making the crime more intriguing, an odd footprint is discovered in the sand. Local forensics cannot identify it, so the cast is sent to Washington, D.C., for analysis. Cue the entry of Doctor Harold Medford (Edmund Gwynn) and his daughter Doctor Patricia Medford (Joan Weldon), both myrmecologists from the Department of Agriculture. They are experts who study ants. Sure enough, they discover an ant colony in the desert. The ants are huge, eight feet long at a minimum. The heroes gas the colony, go in and discover that two queen ants have already left, presumably making more colonies elsewhere. If they aren't found and stopped, it could mean the end of civilization. Well, at least human civilization.

The movie has a lot going for it. The pacing is very good, slowly revealing what's going on (though a glance at the poster gives away the main secret). The actors are all very good in their roles, taking it seriously and not providing any camp. There's a hint of romantic interest from Peterson for the younger Doctor Medford, but she is almost all business. She has some moments to scream, but those are hardly "damsel in distress" moment--any man, woman, or child would scream in the same circumstances. She insists on going into the nest to investigate the queen situation (her dad is too old to do it and the cops don't know what to look for), exhibiting the sort of courage not usually granted to female leads in these films. The creature effects are very good. They are certainly man-made but have plenty of detail and are photographed to give them maximum believability. The ending is another classic bit of 1950s paranoia about what we have wrought with the coming of the nuclear age.

Recommended, highly for sci-fi fans. 

TV Review: The Burroughs (2026)

The Buroughs (2026) created for television by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, executive produced by the Duffer Brothers

Recently widowed Sam (Alfred Molina) moves into The Buroughs, a retirement community chosen by his wife for their twilight years. All their money is sunk into it, so he can't refuse to stay though he is very unhappy there. He initially rebuffs his neighbors but is convinced to try being friendly rather than lonely. His cul-de-sac has a bunch of eccentrics that he meets at a barbecue hosted by his neighbor Jack (Bill Pullman). Sam starts to blend in but the situation gets worse when he goes to Jack's house one night and discovers a monster feeding on Jack. Sam manages to chase the monster away but Jack dies from the injury. Sam's first reaction is doubt, especially since he keeps having visions and nightmares of his deceased wife. Is he mentally unwell or are monsters really creeping around all over the place?

The show follows a familiar story arc for Sam as he tries to sort things out, both with the threat and with his new friends and with his supportive daughter Clair (Jena Malone). The stellar cast includes Alfre Woodard and Geena Davis as neighbors. They all do a great job. The creepy town has all the amenities you'd expect (like the Mexican restaurant, pickleball, and fancy golf carts to get around) and has that menacingly far-too-innocent vibe about it. Not much of it feels original but the blend is nice and Sam is a very sympathetic character played masterfully by Molina.

Mildly recommended--I enjoyed watching this but probably won't watch it again unless some friends or family want to watch it together.

Book Review: Philosophical Essays by G. W. Leibniz

Philosophical Essays by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber

Leibniz was part of the philosophical tradition struggling under the impact of Descartes. Descartes intended to restart philosophical thinking by reevaulating the starting point. He used his methodical doubt to strip away any uncertain or unclearly grounded knowledge and worked his way back up to the existence of the world and of God. Along the way, he posited a distinction between the material and the spiritual with an attempt to reunite the two principles that most agree was not successful. Subsequent philosophers tried to sort out the problem of what's really real--the material or the spiritual, or some way to combine both. Leibniz's solution was monads.

For Leibniz, reality is made up of simple substances and compound substances. Each compound substance is an aggregate of simple substances. The simple substances (monads) are indivisible parts of reality that are therefore unchangeable (they have no parts to move around or rearrange) and eternal (they cannot be destroyed). They are not just particles of matter, they have a force or power in them. They can be the forms or souls in things, the principle that makes the compounds what they are (so they are like Aristotle's forms). They also contain the potential for everything, since the whole history of the monad and what it will be a part of is already in it. In modern parlance, the macrocosm is contained in the microcosm. Leibniz works out a lot of consequences from this system about the nature of the world and of God.

While he crafts an interesting philosophical system, it's hard to see that it represents reality accurately. The monads are simple and indivisible but they are distinct from each other and also have at least the potential of being any other thing. Nothing every really dies, the monad that was the soul of the person or animal continues on and may re-aggregate again. God exists outside this system but He created it and sustains it in existence. Since God is good and intelligent, the world is the best one possible and is coherent and comprehensible. The idea does not present the real world as most people know it. I found his system interesting but ultimately unhelpful.

Mildly recommended--this is more for people interested in the history of philosophy.

Fort Frederick, Maryland

Built in 1756, Fort Frederick is one of the oldest stone forts in the continental United States. It was constructed while Maryland was still a colony and served to protect settlers on what was then the frontier of the British settlements. The fort was named after Frederick Calvert, Sixth Baron Baltimore, who never set foot on American soil. Ruling through appointed governors, Calvert's only interest was the income the colony provided. Governor Horatio Sharpe had the fort built. Most forts at the time were built of wood. As a result, they were easily burned to the ground by hostiles (in the 1750s, that meant the French and/or the Indians). A stone fort was much more expensive but it was definitely worth the investment. The fort was designed to safeguard local colonists during military raids, with plenty of room inside. Two barracks were built to house soldiers, another as the Governor's House (though no governor stayed there). It was more likely the officers' quarters.

Fort Frederick

Not far from the fort is a visitor center which explains the three hundred year history of the fort. Originally built during the French and Indian War period, it served during the American War for Independence as a prisoner-of-war camp for British soldiers. A lot of artifacts have been found and are on display, along with recreations of some of the residents.

Making peace with the locals

Typical staff at the fort

Crockery, buckles, buttons, etc.

A typical soldier's kit

Metal artifacts found at the fort

The design follows the star fort style popular at the time. The corners of the fort have protruding bastions on which soldiers and guns could be stationed. The design let them shoot at any opponents that got close to the walls and enabled crossfire. The only gate is in the middle of the south wall.

The design of the fort

Walking up to the gate

The only way in

We visited over Memorial Day weekend, so docents were dressed up in their 18th century finest and told us a lot about the fort. One anecdote was about the families who took shelter in the fort. They would put small holes in the wall to have a rod sticking out over which a tent tarp could be laid or a pot could be hung over a fire. One section of the wall had a hole smashed out for cannon to shoot through. Those were subsequently repaired.

The black outline shows were a large hole was put in the wall

Each of the curtain walls are about 180 feet long and 18 feet high. They were not designed to withstand cannonfire because they assumed the French could not bring large artillery pieces to the area (which was a correct assumption). They were not designed for soldiers to walk along, so dirt was used to build up a walkway along the edge. That's all gone now, though a staircase shows another way to get to the top of the walls and look out.

Closed!

The bastions had dirt ramps on the sides to get up to the top. One bastion was full of dirt, with a hollowed-out storage compartment to protect ordinance from any over-the-wall incendiaries. They are all cleaned out now.

The bastion today

Bastion with a flag and two docents

The barracks were designed to house around two hundred soldiers each, with some women as laundresses. Keeping your clothes clean was very important back then, with disease and insects spreading quickly if unchecked. The women also cooked and did other duties as assigned.

Recreated barracks

The other recreated barracks

Inside one of the buildings, we chatted with re-eanctors who talked about the lives of the soldiers in the 1700s. 

A day in the life, long ago

Two to a bunk was the rule

Recreated uniforms

Re-enactors' outfits

View to the other barracks from upstairs

The governor's house has not been rebuilt yet but the foundation is laid out in stone. The fort was sold at auction by the fledgling United States in 1791. The grounds were eventually bought by a former slave and used as farmland before the American Civil War. During that war, the fort was re-occupied to defend the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the railroad that ran alongside the canal (both of which came after the fort was sold). The land was returned to its owner and the fort went into decline.

In the 1920s, the state government bought the land to make a state park. The walls had crumbled or were "harvested" for other local building projects. During Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps came and restored the walls and cleaned up the area. One of the CCC building is still there and serves as a small museum.

CCC building

A 1930s-style desk

Typical dining in the CCC days

Entertainment and snacks available for the workers

The CCC snack bar pointed us back to Captain Wort's Sutler Shop, the place serving snacks and brik-a-brac to visitors today. We took the kids over for a treat.

Other support buildings

Kids on the porch enjoying a snack

The grounds extend to the canal and the Potomac River. We didn't go down there. My wife remembered camping with our daughter and her American Heritage Girls troop a long time ago down by the river. It's a beautiful area and well worth visiting.

Book Review: Daredevil: Yellow by J. Loeb and T. Sale

Daredevil: Yellow storytelling by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

After Karen Page's death, Matt Murdock decides (on Foggy Nelson's advice) to write her a letter explaining how he feels about the situation. The writing is a way to deal with his love of her and his guilt over her death. He goes back to the beginning, which means starting with the death of his own father while Matt was in law school. Jack Murdock was a boxer whose career had a sudden revival with a string of knockouts. Jack's new manager is nicknamed "The Fixer," which turns out to be exactly what it implies. When they get to the fight where Jack is supposed to take a dive instead of his opponent, Jack refuses. The Fixer is upset because Jack wasn't following orders and his wider crime-world connections are unhappy too. Matt, while working hard at his Columbia Law School studies, has also been working hard on his fighting skills. When his dad is killed and the justice system lets the killers go free, Matt goes to his dad's trunk, going through his fighting gear (which includes a yellow robe), and makes his first Daredevil suit out of it. Then he goes to avenge his dad. Meanwhile, he and Foggy have finished law school and open their own practice, hiring Karen Page, who becomes a catalyst for romantic drama between the two lawyers.

Loeb and Sale are a great team, crafting masterpieces like Batman: The Long Halloween. They make a great origin story for Daredevil, incorporating all the classic bits while giving the story more depth and emotion. They have the law firm though courtroom scenes are kept to a minimum. Daredevil has some awkward integration with other Manhattan superheroes and villains. When the Fantastic Four show up at the law firm, have they figured out Matt's secret identity or do they really just need legal help with Reed's patents? The fight scenes are not the main focus but are interesting and do connect to larger themes and narratives. As Matt reminiscences, the seemingly scattershot details fit together as a whole, providing more insight into his personality. 

Recommended, highly for Daredevil fans.