What Have You Watched Recently?

[DShomshak]

NOVA reran the episode, "Ancient Builders of the Amazon." Highly recommended. Not just one lost culture -- archeologists are finding traces of several. Large areas of the "primeval jungle" were apparently cultivated until 500 years ago. The societies they supported did not resemble the Old World paradigms set by Egypt and Mesopotamia, because the initial conditions were wo different, but the evidence suggests they were rational and effective for the environment. (And a damn sight more rational and effective than cutting down the jungle for cattle ranches.) A great deal of what we thought we knew about the history of the New World and its Indigenous inhabitants will need to be rewritten.

 

Lots of inspiration for worldbuilding; mostly for Fantasy, likely, but possibly for SF settings as well.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

There's no underestimating the power of the jungle to shroud the works of man. It's happened in so many places around the world. And Amazonia has unrivaled jungle.

[death tribble]

So we are are again, grab a drink and here we go

 

Maigret

Maigret and the Ladies Companion. A woman comes to Maigret claiming her mistress was murdered. She was away while her mistress was with her son when she died. The judge orders Maigret to dismiss the allegations and soft shoe the investigation as the accused have a position in society. Maigret investigates anyway and finds discrepancies despite the obstacles that the judge and the son put in his way.

Seven White Crosses. A serial killer is targeting women in Paris. A string of call boxes alert the police that someone is crossing the city but avoiding police stations. The trail starts close to a new murder victim and Maigret and his team try to find the killer and the person hitting the call boxes who turns out to be a young boy.

Maigret and the North Hotel. The detective is supposed to be leaving for the holidays to be with his wife when a killing occurs at the hotel du Nord with is close to the Gare du Nord railway station. The man who has been killed caused the death of a young woman and that is why he was killed. People who knew the girl are in the hotel and they are the ones who stopped him. This is the last of the Maigret stories that Bruno Cremer did and he had throat cancer which meant that this episode was dubbed.

 

Desert Sands

This is a film about the Foreign Legion with the Arabs rising up to attack a Legion fort and kill the replacement Legionnaires. It is actually set in the 1950s as they use radio and a helicopter

 

Death Rides a Horse

This is a spaghetti Western starring Lee Van Cleef and John Philip Law. As a child Law's character saw his father killed and his mother and sister raped and murdered by a gang. He recalls certain details like a card tattoo on one man, a scar on another, an earring on a third, the face of a fourth and the one who saves him from the burning building had a skull necklace. As an adult he sets out to find and kill them. Van Cleef has a score to settle with the gang who saw to it that he was imprisoned.

 

Kid Blue

This western has Dennis Hopper as a train robber who is not very good at his job so he tries to go straight. He ends up working menial jobs in a Texas town before reverting to type and trying to steal money from the safe of a local factory.

 

Invaders from Mars

This is the original 1950s film with a spaceship landing outside a town and then causing various people to be taken over. The film is simple but it works very well.

 

Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster

This is a documentary about the actor that covers his entire life before he became Frankenstein's Monster and what came after. If you have an interest in Karloff, this is well worth hunting out.

 

The Cat From Outer Space

A spaceship manned by a cat has to land on Earth and get repairs before it links up with its mothership. The army want to identify the spaceship, while the cat wants scientific help to get his ship working. There is also an industrial spy working on the premises. This is a Disney film. It also has the oddity of having McLean Stevenson who played Colonel Blake in M*A*S*H* up against Harry Morgan who played his successor Colonel Potter.

 

A Prayer For the Dying

An IRA man wants to flee the country after a planned attack kills schoolgirls instead. His colleagues want him to come back to Ireland but a mobster in London wants him to kill a rival for which he will get a clean passport and transport abroad. The IRA man kills the rival but is seen by a priest who he silences through the confession. But the mobster wants the priest dead.

 

The French Dispatch

This is a Wes Anderson film set in France about a magazine and its closing issue following the death of its editor. There is an all star ensemble cast with Tilda Swinton as one contributor, Frances McDormand as another, Owen Wilson as a third, Jeffrey Wright as a fourth, Benico del Toro as an artist and the subject of Swinton's article, Bill Murray as the editor amongst others. It is whimsical. I liked it but then I liked other films he has done.

Edited July 13 by death tribble

[Old Man]

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).  Alec Guinness, William Holden, Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Hawkins.  Consistently billed as one of the best films of all time, and it did not disappoint.  The interpersonal dynamics and moral differences as portrayed by the leads were engrossing and greatly transcend the themes of a typical war movie.  The film is long, and sometimes takes its time, but never feels slow.  Especially impressive is the production--shooting this kind of movie in the Burmese jungle must have been next to impossible with 1950s technology.  No post-credit scenes.

[Ternaugh]

UHF: A dreamer is put in charge of a small TV station, and is surprised when it actually starts to perform well with a mix of strange programs. I originally saw this one in the theater back in 1989, and all four of us in the audience had a great time. This is a recent 4K release from Shout Factory!, and the picture and sound are both very good. Recommended for "Weird" Al fans. (4K UHD Blu-ray)

[fdw3773]

In movie theaters, Despicable Me 4, which I found more enjoyable than the third one. The villain cameos at the end of film that connected all of the previous Despicable Me and Minions films together was a nice touch.

 

Vikings: Valhalla. I watched History Channel's Vikings since the beginning and the follow-on series featured on Netflix. Netflix announced that this is its final season and it definitely has the feel of closing out the life-paths/story lines of the major characters.

 

Blood of Zeus. I watched seasons one and two and love the storytelling with the mythology I read about since I was a kid. The different interpretations of the various characters that followed, combined with its beautiful animation style and story development are amazing.

 

My Lady Jane. This is a campy, tongue-in-check reinterpretation of history following the death of King Henry VIII with some magical elements involved featured on Amazon Prime.

Edited July 14 by fdw3773

[csyphrett]

Watched John Wick 4 again and picked out details that I missed when we saw it in the theater.

CES

[Ternaugh]

Watched Despicable Me 4 yesterday in the theater, and it was a lot of fun.

[mattingly]

Popeye, in honor of Shelley Duvall.

I noticed something I had never caught before.

The boxing arena is called Max & Sons Square Gardens.  

[Pariah]

I just finished watching the third (and best) season of Star Trek Enterprise. Overall. The series is better than I remembered. The first two seasons were fine, if unremarkable much of the time. The third season, involving the Xindi War, was much better.

 

Although the series was hit or miss in many ways, there is one exceptional thing about it: Captain Archer's frenemy Commander Shran.

[Lord Liaden]

Personally I preferred Season Four, exploring the foundation of the United Federation of Planets. A direction the series should have taken sooner IMO.

 

BTW before the cancellation of the series was announced, the producers planned for Shran to join the crew of the Enterprise. I would watch almost anything featuring Jeffrey Combs.

[Starlord]

We need a poll - was he better as Commander Shran or as 8 (I believe) different Weyouns?

 

I give the edge to Weyoun - he played that slimy Vorta SO well.

Edited July 16 by Starlord

[Lord Liaden]

Surely you don't want to leave out Liquidator Brunt, FCA (Ferengi Commerce Authority).

 

Of Combs' Star Trek recurring roles, I favor Weyoun myself. He was a more complex character than Shran.

 

But I'm also fond of his animation voice work, particularly as the Question on Justice League Unlimited.

[mattingly]

[fdw3773]

I've been painting various miniatures lately in my spare time, so I've been watching a b-movie festival while I paint, although it could be considered a cinematic poop-fest of sorts. These were films that required a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief to watch:

 

Wild Wild West (1999) - I briefly caught a glimpse of it while waiting in an airport years ago while I was deployed overseas around 2008-2009, and finally saw the whole thing. Yes, it was as awful as my friends described. It's hard to believe that actor Will Smith declined to star in The Matrix in favor of this film. He later disclosed that it was among the worst decisions he made as an actor.

 

Scorpion King 2, 3, 4, and Book of Shadows - I caught a few minutes here and few minutes there while overseas in 2012 for a couple of these films, and finally sat down and watched them while painting figures. It was b-movie/SyFy channel stuff at its purest, campiest form, and reminded me of the campier Xena: The Warrior Princess episodes at times. It was kind of nice to see UFC/WWE stars get their shot at acting, though (Randy Couture, Kimbo Slice, Dave Bautista). Of note was Bautista, who during an interview mentioned that one of the directors gave him some negative feedback on his acting ability at the time. Bautista took that feedback to heart and enrolled in professional acting lessons afterwards, which really improved his craft and enabled him to excel as a film actor (e.g. Guardians of the Galaxy, My Spy, Dune: Part Two, Glass Onion, etc.)

[Hermit]

On 7/15/2024 at 9:52 PM, Lord Liaden said:

Personally I preferred Season Four, exploring the foundation of the United Federation of Planets. A direction the series should have taken sooner IMO.

 

BTW before the cancellation of the series was announced, the producers planned for Shran to join the crew of the Enterprise. I would watch almost anything featuring Jeffrey Combs.

 

I'm with you on that one. When they started bringing the Andorians and Tellerates along side the Vulcans more and more, I was like 'now we're cooking' . For founding members of the Federation, both the Tellarites and the Andorians felt woefully under represented for a time so it was nice to see them fleshed out more and more. And the theme of 'getting the band together' appealed to me greatly

[csyphrett]

Watched the first disc for Justice League as the League takes on a threat from Mars, lets Aquaman cut off his own hand, battles the Manhunters over John Stewart's destroying a planet (I think the original was about Hal Jordan, but it has been a while), and tries to stop Lex Luthor's Injustice Gang.

CES 

[slikmar]

3 hours ago, fdw3773 said:

Wild Wild West (1999) - I briefly caught a glimpse of it while waiting in an airport years ago while I was deployed overseas around 2008-2009, and finally saw the whole thing. Yes, it was as awful as my friends described. It's hard to believe that actor Will Smith declined to star in The Matrix in favor of this film. He later disclosed that it was among the worst decisions he made as an actor.

This movie saddens me so much as it had amazing people (Smith, Kline, Branagh and Hayek leading the way) in it and yet paid almost NO REGARD to the original material. Some of my list of peeves:

Branagh's portrayal of Loveless - I felt, surprised given the actor, that this was a slap in the face to Michael Dunn, who earned a great deal of respect on and off set.

The open conflict between James and Artemis - something that was NEVER in the original series. These 2 liked and respected each other from episode 1

The completely disgusting portrayal of General McGRath - unnecessary to me.

I actually don't hate the giant spider, only because I could have seen Loveless coming up with something like that, though not as subtle as most his plots.

 

[DentArthurDent]

Watched “Fly Me to the Moon” today. It was .. delightful. 

Pretty good story. Great acting. Incredibly subtle SFX - several of the places in the background do not exist anymore, but appear suitably grand and austere.

[Lord Liaden]

On 7/18/2024 at 9:39 PM, slikmar said:

Branagh's portrayal of Loveless - I felt, surprised given the actor, that this was a slap in the face to Michael Dunn, who earned a great deal of respect on and off set.

 

 

Of all the "little person" actors I've seen over the years, Michael Dunn was by far the most talented. He was Oscar-nominated for his supporting role in Ship of Fools, and Tony-nominated for The Ballad of the Sad Café. And he had a beautiful singing voice -- he performed a musical stage show with his long-time friend Phoebe Dorin. He was known as a fascinating raconteur, and a tireless charity worker for children with dwarfism.

 

Died much too young, but with his lifelong health problems that was probably inevitable.

[Ternaugh]

I should break out my DVDs of the original series, and watch them again. There's a bit of a backlog, though, from my (mostly) Prime Day haul:

Steelbook editions of Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Star Trek: The Original Series.

The old TV show, Soap, The Complete Series on DVD.

Boxed set of the 4K editions of the 8 Harry Potter movies.

[DShomshak]

Today I introduced my sister to Studio Ghibli with Spirited Away. She liked it quite a lot.

 

At some point I may need to watch those last two seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise. I too thought the Andorians and Tellarites were disgracefully ignored for too long. OK, so the prosthetics work would have been fairly time-consuming, but probably no more so than post-TNG Klingons. And I liked Hemer, the Andorian engineer, in Strange New Worlds.

 

Dean Shomshak

[csyphrett]

All the ghibli movies are good even if Howl is fairly loosely adapted.

CES 

[Ternaugh]

I've watched first three episodes of Soap, which is as funny and quirky as I remember. (DVD)

 

As a side note, the Panasonic UB820 Blu-ray player does a fantastic job of upscaling DVD to display on a 4K TV. 

[slikmar]

11 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Of all the "little person" actors I've seen over the years, Michael Dunn was by far the most talented. He was Oscar-nominated for his supporting role in Ship of Fools, and Tony-nominated for The Ballad of the Sad Café. And he had a beautiful singing voice -- he performed a musical stage show with his long-time friend Phoebe Dorin. He was known as a fascinating raconteur, and a tireless charity worker for children with dwarfism.

 

Died much too young, but with his lifelong health problems that was probably inevitable.

Robert Conrad said he was the toughest person he knew. Which is why I emphasized it was Branagh who portrayed this as Kenneth always seemed to come across fairly classy.