Welcome to Issue #009 of THREE NEW THINGS - the mixed bag edition! Most weeks I cover movies and streaming shows, music, and video games that I like. For Thanksgiving I went the other way and did a “turkeys” edition. This week it is a bit of both - some things that I liked and some things that I very much did not like. We’ll kick things off with the steaming pile - or should I say STREAMING pile? - that is the movie F1.

I had high hopes for F1. Sure, it looked like Top Gun: Maverick on wheels, but I enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick quite a bit. Sure, it was basically Star Wars (fighters, trench run, small target, etc.) but it was so well executed that it was like going on a two-hour amusement park ride.

I’ll start with what F1 gets right, because it’s only one thing - the racing footage. Unlike the Fast & Furious movies, the cars never felt like they were CGI. I assume (I’ve not looked it up) that’s because they shot ACTUAL F1 cars. If you’re going to watch this movie, despise my “thumbs down,” watch it on the biggest TV you can with the best sound system. Because F1 really does put you right on the track. The races are really well shot. It’s the rest of the movie that’s the problem.

The lead character played by Brad Pitt is every reckless rebel who does things his own way no matter how much damage he causes that you’ve seen in dozens of movies. He basically plays a trope, not a person. The dialogue is clichéd (I’ve lost track of the number of movies and TV shows where I’ve heard that, “Slow is steady, steady is fast.”). The pacing and beats are familiar to the point of being tired. F1 even does the cheesy laugh at the end before cutting to the closing credits.

By far, the worst part of the movie are the race announcers, who are saddled with exposition-heavy dialogue that overexplains everything that’s going on. No actual announcers would ever speak that way and it jarred me out of the movie every time. You can just feel the movie executive in post saying, “The audience isn’t going to understand what’s going on, we need to explain it more.” No, you really don’t. Trust your audience to keep up, don’t spoon-feed them like children.

If you already subscribe to Apple+ and you have a large screen and Dolby Atmos sound system, sure, fire it up and enjoy the racing scenes. But if you don’t already subscribe to Apple+, F1 is NOT the reason to.

Typically, in THREE NEW THINGS, I feature new songs that align with my personal tastes— alt rock, alt pop, and indie music. This week, I thought I’d take a look at the No. 1 songs in the U.S. and the world and see what I think about them. As I write this, I don’t even know what they are, but let’s find out.

As it turns out, this is something of an odd week to look at the Spotify Top 50 because it’s mostly populated with Christmas songs. So this week’s most popular NON-Christmas song is Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia,” coming in at No. 14.

FFirst impressions? It’s alright. Mid-tempo, minor key, a couple of interesting chord progressions. Certainly not the worst song I’ve ever heard. I don’t know that I’d add it to my “Best of 2025” playlist, but I don’t hate it. Swift has a very large, young, female fanbase, so bonus points for exposing them to Hamlet and the concept of sensitive people being destroyed by brutal systems. The character of Ophelia isn’t “fragile”; she’s just crushed by forces she never had any power over— patriarchy, politics, and male violence. Heady stuff for a pop song.

Globally, the No. 1 song is “The Man I Need” by Olivia Dean.

My issue with this song is something production and YouTube personality, Rick Beato, often complains about with modern music - it doesn’t go anywhere interesting. Great songs build to something. There’s tension and resolution. That’s what gives a pop song a satisfying hook. “The Man I Need” just kind of waddles along without a whole lot of difference between the verses and the chorus. It’s all the same and it’s all fairly bland. But it’s also the No. 1 song in the world, which says something about style over musical substance on a global scale.

But hey, that’s just my opinion. If you want to hear my idea of good music, click on the “3” in the graphic below to hear my favorite song of 2025.

If you’ve been reading THREE NEW THINGS, then you know my favorite game of ALL TIME is Baldur’s Gate 3 by Larien. But before Larien made the game that won ALL the game awards in 2023, they made the Divinity Games.

Last week, at the 2025 Game Awards, Larien announced its follow-up to Baldur’s Gate 3 - Divinity. So, their follow-up is circling back to the games that built their company. What’s exciting about Divinity, which won’t be released for several years, is that Larien is building an entirely new gaming and rules system made specifically for video games. The company has made no secret of the fact that, as great as Baldur’s Gate 3 was, they felt limited by the D&D 5e rules system. That makes sense, since those rules were made for a tabletop gaming experience. Freed from that, Larien can build out a system that’s crafted specifically for a digital experience. And they’re promising an unprecedented level of freedom and choice, with those choices literally changing the world around you. Sounds like a lot of fun!

But you don’t have to wait several years for a modern-day Divinity experience as Larien introduced enhanced editions of Divinity Original Sin and Original Sin 2 for modern-day consoles. In typical Larien fashion (because they treat their customers right), if you already own Original Sin or Original Sin 2, the enhanced editions are FREE.

From my own personal experience, I can tell you that the difficulty level with Divinity Original Sin 2 is a bit higher than it was in Baldur’s Gate 3. So if BG3 wasn’t challenging enough for you, you’re in luck. In all candor, I never made it all the way through Original Sin 2, but I’m looking forward to diving back into the new Enhanced/Definitive Edition and taking another crack at it.

This week’s bonus thing is Rise of Skywalker, aka the movie that brought down the entire Star Wars sequel trilogy.

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the release of The Force Awakens. While not a perfect film, it holds up better than you remember. The humor is on point (“That’s not how The Force works!”), the action sufficiently actiony, and the bad guy (Kylo Ren) actually has quite a bit of depth and nuance to him, versus simply being one-note evil. The Starkiller Base, which is essentially the Death Star on steroids, is a weak point, but all in all it’s a fun film and a satisfying return to the Star Wars universe.

Opinions vary on The Last Jedi, but it is personally my favorite piece of new Star Wars content not named Andor. Rian Johnson took some risks and gave us a new version of Star Wars with more emotional depth and sophisticated storytelling. There are legitimate quibbles over how Luke was handled, but given the history of the Jedi and their propensity to make things worse, not better, it makes sense. And I LOVED the theme of the film - that ANYONE can channel The Force and it’s not necessarily the province of certain lineages. (You don’t HAVE to be a Skywalker.)

However, because The Last Jedi was slightly controversial, Disney lost faith in the direction of the franchise and brought J.J. Abrams back in to “fix” things. Instead, he dropped the ball in spectacular fashion. “Somehow, Palpatine returned.” is such a clumsy bit of storytelling that it’s now a meme. The Last Jedi built on what The Force Awakens established and, even more crucially, took Star Wars in a new direction. Rise of Skywalker backtracks on everything that made The Last Jedi great, tainting the entire trilogy with a terrible ending. If you don’t stick the landing, it impacts everything that came before, and the sequel franchise is now looked at as a complete failure when the reality is that it’s only 1/3 a failure.

The Last Jedi, and Andor, show what Star Wars CAN be when put in the hands of gifted filmmakers with something to say. Rise of Skywalker shows what Star Wars SHOULDN’T be - a pointless cash grab that didn’t age well. If only the movie were as good as the trailer.

Thanks for reading Issue #009! We’re nearly up to double digits! I’ll be taking next week off for Christmas, but THREE NEW THINGS will return with a brand-new issue on January 1 to kick off 2026! Enjoy the holidays, and I’ll see you in the new year!