What Have You Watched Recently?

[Starlord]

The new Batman movie is...freaking....brilliant.  A LOT to unpack, maybe later.

[csyphrett]

It's a Columbo night and our peerless detective matches wits with Johnny Cash dropping his wife into the ground on a plane, and Richard Kiley as a deputy commissioner using his neighbor to set up an alibi so he can get away with drowning his wife.

CES

[Joe Walsh]

We watched the first two episodes of three series (Deadwood, Station Eleven, and The Righteous Gemstones) and while the first two series are mostly OK-ish dramas, the third seems to be a Coen Brothers movie told in 1/2-hour increments (other than the pilot episode, which was an hour long). So far, I'd give them a C, a C-, and a B, respectively.

 

[Matt the Bruins]

I rented Ghostbusters: Afterlife last night and quite enjoyed watching. Jason Reitman's care in respecting his father's masterpiece was apparent and I found Phoebe's story compelling. There were maybe a few too many scenes that were clearly product placement or marketing for toy merchandise, but I can forgive that.

[Ternaugh]

Blazing Saddles: A favorite to re-watch. (HBOmax)

 

Making Fun: A former toy designer and his maker buddies build wild stuff that kids suggest. It's lots of fun, and my only disappointment is that I ran out of episodes to watch. (Netflix)

[mattingly]

Haven't heard about Making Fun yet. Thanks!

[Joe Walsh]

We finished S2 of Pennyworth (excellent!), so it's time to look for new series to watch:

 

Euphoria (HBO Max): Seems to be highly rated everywhere, but it's a series about high school kids that is rated for adults only. We tried the first half hour of the first episode, and it does seem to be well done, but it's not the type of thing we're interested in at this point. Probably appeals more to twentysomethings?

 

How To with John Wilson (HBO Max): This is an odd one. A guy walks around New York, taking videos of goings-on that he finds interesting, sometimes having conversations with people. That sounds lame, but it's terribly awkward in a funny way. Seems worth at least one more episode.

 

Frayed (HBO Max): Set in the late 1980s, the widow of wealthy English husband learns he died while...well...doing a lot of embarrassing things at once. Finds out she's penniless. Decides to head back home to mum....in Australia, because she's actually from there and just pretending to be English. And she's actually not from a wealthy background. Both of which come as a shock to her two teenage children. The pilot gave us enough laughs to see what happens next.

 

[Ternaugh]

Turning Red: A coming of age story from Pixar, with lots of humor and heart. It's excellent. (Disney+)

[Bazza]

Are you sure it isn’t panda-ring? 

[BNakagawa]

BATTLEBOTS (Discovery) has completed its 'regular season' or qualifying rounds and begins its championship tournament next episode. This is the 6th season since the reboot and the new crop of bots is more deadly than ever. The field of 32 is mostly set with two play in matches to determine the 31st and 32nd seeds. Two rookie bots have run the table and made the tournament, one a true rookie crew from Berkeley feature a stealth fighter looking design with omni wheels and an egg beater style spinning weapon. The other is a veteran builder with a completely new weapon concept: a flywheel based flipping mechanism. Hopefully next year will be less affected by Covid so more of the international teams can join.

[Bazza]

The Adam Project & Turning Red. Enjoyed the first one more than the second. 

[Starlord]

Season 5 of the greatest show on television, The Last Kingdom, is out.  Watched through Ep5 so far - excellent as always.

[BoloOfEarth]

12 hours ago, Bazza said:

The Adam Project & Turning Red. Enjoyed the first one more than the second. 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed The Adam Project.  Haven't seen Turning Red yet.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I am having a friend over to see Turning Red later this week.  It sounds like the sort of movie I would love.

 

\I just hope the Pixar brand's exile of Disney+ does not end up being permanent. It sounds almost like an insult to the studio that changed animated movies forever.

[Joe Walsh]

Turning Red (Disney+): Very, very well done coming-of-age story. Highly recommended.

 

Free Guy (Disney+): Ace programmers develop an amazing game, then an unethical colleague steals it from them and turns it into something else, riding the success all the way to the top. The only way to prove what happened is to go within the game world and find that original code. Sounds a lot like one of my favorite movies: Tron. This time around it's mostly told from the perspective of the in-game character the title is named after rather than the programmer's perspective as with Tron. Free Guy is a very entertaining movie with lots of laugh-out-loud moments.

 

We also continued with Deadwood, Station Eleven, and The Righteous Gemstones. Deadwood is getting a little better, Station Eleven continues to be a mixed bag, and Righteous Gemstones continues to be the most entertaining of the bunch.

 

 

[mattingly]

On 2/14/2022 at 5:28 AM, Old Man said:

Jessica Jones Season 1 Episode 1: Netflix is deleting its Marvel shows at the end of the month so I figured I'd see what this show was all about.  That was a mistake because episode 1 was amazing and there is no way I can finish three seasons in two weeks.

 

You went and got me in the mood for some more.

I'm almost done rewatching season 1.

 

[mattingly]

On 2/22/2022 at 3:44 AM, Old Man said:

Jessica Jones Season 1 Episode 10: I keep forgetting this show is rated R and the next thing I know there's so much blood.

 

Did you finish Season 1, BTW?

[Pariah]

The kids and I watched The Jungle Book the other night. (The original animated one, not the remake.) Louis Prima as King Louie makes the whole movie worth the price of admission.  

[death tribble]

The Honey Pot

Aging actor Rex Harrison hires struggling actor Cliff Robertson to act as his secretary as he wishes to play a joke on three of his ex-loves. This is in the style of the play Volpone. They are all told that he is dying and will leave them his estate. All three arrive at his palazzo in Venice bearing clocks as gifts. One is a penniless aristocrat, another is a film star and the third is a rich heiress who is travelling with her nurse. The latter insists that the other two can go home as she was the common law wife and therefore will get the estate. The nurse and secretary are out to dinner when the heiress dies. So who killed her and why ?

 

House of Bamboo

A train robbery in post war Japan results in the death of a US serviceman. The robbers are then infiltrated by the US army as they try to find out who killed their man. Tis s a Sam Fuller film with Cameron Mitchell, Robert Ryan and DeForrest Kelly as the robbers and Robert Stack as the undercover guy. A fascinating look as Japan tries to cope with the new changing the old.

 

The Offence

British police are trying to find a sex attacker. When a suspect is brought in after another attack a detective assaults him. He is then investigated as to what lead up to the attack. This clearly shows why there should be filming and taping of interviews and not leaving someone on their own. Sean Connery is the cop. Ian Bannen is the suspect. It is let ambiguous as to whether the suspect was the one wanted. The film is from 1973 so some things are dated.

 

Count Yorga, Vampire

A modern day vampire film with the titular vampire introduced as the medium for a seance. Some of the acting is a bit naff but it works as a horror and Robert Quarry is excellent as the vampire.

 

Tales of Terror

Vincent Price appears in three tales adapted from Edgar Allen Poe. An estranged daughter comes back to see her father and finds that her mother's corpse is lying on her bed, the mother's spirit blames the child for her untimely death and wants to enact revenge on both husband and child; the town drunk get into a wine tasting and challenges the expert to a contest. The expert becomes friendly with the man's wife leading to the drunk killing them both and hiding them behind a wall but there uis a sting in the tale; and lastly a man on the brink of death is hypnotised so that he is between both worlds. However when the hypnotist threaten the wife, the man breaks the trance and kills him. Support in the latter two tales comes from Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone. Another Corman film showing if you have the talent, it does not matter how cheap the film is.

 

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

It is 1969 and an aging actor and his stunt double are trying to live life but the actor thinks his time is up. His next door neighbours are Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. The actor tries to get his double a job on the latest job he has but faces problems as the stuntman is thought to have murdered his wife some years before. After a bit of a breakdown the actor delivers a tour de force on set and is set up for a job in Italy by an agent. The stuntman picks up a girl hippy and takes her back to the ranch where she is staying with other hippies but their leader is not present, one Charles Manson. He is suspicious of them and speaks to the ranch owner before leaving. You see Tate out and about watching herself in The Wrecking Crew and noting the audience reaction to her. The story jumps six months to the actor returning from Italy with a new wife and deciding that he and his double will part ways as the money will run out. Manson's followers show up planning on mayhem but switch targets to the actor's house rather than where Tate is living as the actor's starring show had him killing people all the time. He taught them murder now they are going to return the favour. One chickens out and drives off. The other three break in and are confronted by the stunt double and his dog, a pit bull. They kill two of them before the third gets outside and is killed by the actor using a flamethrower. The double is taken to hospital as he is wounded as Tate's guests ask the actor what happened and invite him over. This is Tarentino rewriting history with Tate surviving the massacre and the Manson family getting killed instead. There are bit parts for Michael Madison, Kurt Russell and Zoe Bell. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt play actor and stunt man with Margot Robbie playing Sharon Tate. There are bit parts for others with Damian Lewis playing Steve McQueen for example.

I like Tarentino's work and this is another masterpiece here showing what could have happened instead of what did.

[Starlord]

19 minutes ago, death tribble said:

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

It is 1969 and an aging actor and his stunt double are trying to live life but the actor thinks his time is up. His next door neighbours are Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. The actor tries to get his double a job on the latest job he has but faces problems as the stuntman is thought to have murdered his wife some years before. After a bit of a breakdown the actor delivers a tour de force on set and is set up for a job in Italy by an agent. The stuntman picks up a girl hippy and takes her back to the ranch where she is staying with other hippies but their leader is not present, one Charles Manson. He is suspicious of them and speaks to the ranch owner before leaving. You see Tate out and about watching herself in The Wrecking Crew and noting the audience reaction to her. The story jumps six months to the actor returning from Italy with a new wife and deciding that he and his double will part ways as the money will run out. Manson's followers show up planning on mayhem but switch targets to the actor's house rather than where Tate is living as the actor's starring show had him killing people all the time. He taught them murder now they are going to return the favour. One chickens out and drives off. The other three break in and are confronted by the stunt double and his dog, a pit bull. They kill two of them before the third gets outside and is killed by the actor using a flamethrower. The double is taken to hospital as he is wounded as Tate's guests ask the actor what happened and invite him over. This is Tarentino rewriting history with Tate surviving the massacre and the Manson family getting killed instead. There are bit parts for Michael Madison, Kurt Russell and Zoe Bell. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt play actor and stunt man with Margot Robbie playing Sharon Tate. There are bit parts for others with Damian Lewis playing Steve McQueen for example.

I like Tarentino's work and this is another masterpiece here showing what could have happened instead of what did.

 

This movie crapped on Bruce Lee...it sucked...and Tarantino crapped on Lee further in interviews after the movie came out.   I put it at the bottom of Tarantino's work.

[slikmar]

1 hour ago, Starlord said:

 

This movie crapped on Bruce Lee...it sucked...and Tarantino crapped on Lee further in interviews after the movie came out.   I put it at the bottom of Tarantino's work.

I never heard about the after interviews. Sorry to hear it as I would have thought Tarantino to be a fan of Bruce. That does put a downer on the movie.

[Spence]

Watched The Burning Sea, a Norwegian disaster movie. 

It was pretty good, though its pacing seemed off and the feel of the plot had a odd nuance.  Kind of like K-Dramas felt to me when I first starting watching.  It will take a few movies to be able to sense the way they tell a story.

But one thing I LOVED about it was the absence of the over used beaten to paste dead horse we just can't not use in a movie out of Hollywood or Canada.  No heavy two by four to the forehead "Dat EVIL corporation!!!" being Screamed at you every 30 seconds. 

I won't spoil anything, but good movie. 

 

I just got a copy of the new Spiderman movie so my weekend plans are made.

[Scott Ruggels]

Supercrooks on Netflix. Another of the Millarworld properties (Jupiter's Legacy), this one was animated in Japan by a top crew, and shows it. A story of Johnny Bolt, and Electrical based Supervillain, just out of the Supermax Prison, and his adventures once he is out.  It would make an interesting "inverted" Champions game from the Villain's point of View.

 

The Way of the House Husband on Netflix.  Based on a Manga of the same name. A former Yakuza marries a hottie, business woman named Miku, and stays home to take care of their apartment. No kids yet, but he puts his incredible determination and extremely high presence to work, making a home for the both of them, and their cat. His former reputation as "The Immortal Dragon" causes some social problems around the neighborhood.

 

The Batman. A flawed, but ultimately good film about The World's Greatest Detective, actually being a detective for a change. It's a little long, and the over the top ending was a bit much consider4ing the rest of the film that came before it, but Pattenson was a good actor, in a film full of good performances, but it's very very dim and cloudy visually, but the few action sequences really stand out. Has a very cool, if low tech Batmobile.

 

Dog  Channing Tatum plays a Former U.S. Army Ranger, trying to get a job doing Diplomatic Security, but needs a recommendation from his former commander. The Former commander needs a favor. Take a former military Dog to the funeral of its former handler 1500 miles away, oh, and he has to drive, because the dog can't fly.  It's a very fractious Dog. Hijinks ensue.  A decent film, but not ad good as The Batman.

[Ternaugh]

The Adam Project: Time travel yarn with Ryan Reynolds, worth watching. (Netflix)

 

X-Men: First Class: Set in the 60s, this one's about gathering a group of mutants to stop another who is trying to trigger World War III. One of the better X-Men movies. (UHD Blu-ray)

[Michael Hopcroft]

Just saw Turning Red with a couple from church (at my place, with a pizza that surprisingly wasn't touch much). Stylistically, it mixed standard Pixar with anime and CalArts styling. But the story it tells is about daughters and mothers and how often parents don't remember just what sort of teenagers they were. I was reminded of Brave, because while the setting and emphasis were different, it too was a story of the relationship and misunderstandings between mothers and daughters and the difficulties involved with them.

 

Mom commented after she saw Turning Red (a few days before I did) that so few coming-of-sage stories are about young women, compared to young men, that a film that examines the issues of girls growing up the way it did was refreshing, if not necessary. If my mother and I had seen this in a theater, we would probably have had some interesting discussions afterward.