Consortium of Seven: Year 4

        This past Friday Amazon Prime launched a new, British, science fiction drama series about a world whose power structure is suddenly and dramatically changed. A sudden development in teenage girls around the globe, that soon spreads to most older women.  What happens when men, for the first time, have to come to grips with women holding the quiet threat of violent menace in the world, having to be wary that they don't offend or upset a random woman for fear that she might take offense and lash out.       It's The Power       Good cast - including multiple actors likely to pop - and an engaging premise.        Based on Naomi Alderman's 2016 novel of the same name, it will run nine episodes. The first three landed last week - and I would advise watching those three more or less as a unit, as it introduces characters around the globe and gathers the story pitch. It starts, brie...

      We've officially wandered into spring since last time, though how much the experience outside your window matches that is likely to vary widely.       This past weekend - another of those thanks to a friend situations - I got to see Cocaine Bear (2023 R 1h 35m). A bloody action comedy, only remotely based on actual events. It's not even so much a case of "print the legend" as write the screenplay based on what a few, likely drunk writers imagined might happen if an air-drop of cocaine went awry, a bear found it, and decided she definitely wanted the rest of it.        A period piece, it's set in the mid-'80s, so no cell phones, and the War On Drugs was making life worse for pretty much everyone. An entertaining cast and over-the-top violence by men, women, and bear, along with players on each side of the drug war, make for a brisk, often funny (providing the violence and blood doesn't muffle that for you) li...