Water Cooler Talk

Here's a 28mm-scale water cooler, perfect for your 28mm-scale office chats about last night's episode of The Office. 

Never the Same Show Twice

I've been rewatching The Office on Netflix for the past few weeks, and even though I've experienced this phenomenon before, I'm startled by how much binge watching changes the experience. Story arcs that took years to evolve as the series originally aired are now over in what feels like, comparatively, the wink of an eye. Jim and Pam's relationship is essentially set by the beginning of season four, and yet there are still several seasons yet to play out. I had once thought the original will-they-or-won't-they narrative extended much later into the show's run, but no. It only felt that way because we had to wait literal years for those events to occur.

This isn't a good or bad thing; I just find it interesting.

Escape Plan: Better Late Than Never

Like any guy who grew up on a steady diet of cheesy 80s action films, I've long regretted that Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger never teamed up for one big testosterone-fuelled epic of mayhem and machismo. (The disappointing The Expendables doesn't count.) Escape Plan might be good or it might be terrible, but at the very least this new trailer sets up a workmanlike, efficient premise that puts Arnie and Sly together as allies at last. Their combined charisma will be worth watching even if the rest of the movie is dreck - but as a bonus, the movie features some of my favourite character actors from The Wire, The Office, Person of Interest and other television shows.

Plus the line "You hit like a vegetarian" is exactly the sort of cheesy dialogue I so adored back in the 80s. That alone will get me to the theatre when this is released.