What Have You Watched Recently?

[Old Man]

Contagion, 2011 movie with an ensemble cast including Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, and Jude Law.  Incredibly this film got almost everything right about the pandemic including the supply chain issues, lockdowns, and conspiracy theories.  Obviously intended as a sort of warning when it was filmed, now it's just a tragedy in that that warning was entirely unheeded if not deliberately ignored.

[death tribble]

Out of the Dark

Women who work at a phone sex company are murdered by a guy who dresses up as a clown. They are killed in different ways and at different times so pinpointing the killer is difficult. The end twist which also explains the killer is good. It was Divine's last film and he was just a cameo and not in drag. Tracey Walter plays the cop on the psycho's trail. Wasn't bad.

 

Happy Birthday to Me

Members of the Top 10 at a prep school are stalked and killed. But who is doing it and why ? Once you know the who and why it makes sense but you don't get it until the end. Worth a watch.

 

House of  The Gorgon

This is a Hammer homage film made on the cheap which if you see it you'll understand. However the cast has a few well known Hammer actors, Caroline Munro, Martine Bestwick, Veronica Carlson and Christopher Neame. Munro also appears with her real life daughter. I found this fun but the production quality may make some people dismiss it.

 

Vengeance Valley

The son of a rancher and his adopted brother clash after the ormer gets a girl pregnant even though he has a wife. The girl's brother want revenge and think the adopted brother is the one to blame. This is a Burt Lancaster film where he plays the adopted brother. Pretty good.

 

Nightwing

An Indian witch calls down the end of the world in the form of vampire bats. A politician and a local oil businessman try to keep a lid on things whilst the deputy sheriff investigates the deaths and an English scientist on the trail of the bats try to stop the killings before they get out of hand. Not bad.

 

Funeral of the Queen

This had a lot of pageantry and brought out the best in the military. It was also very well organised with thankfully no slip ups and the weather held. It also allowed the public to say goodbye.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

9 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I watched Trilogy of Terror on MeTV and and though camp/horror host Svengoolie called it a classic, I thought it hadn't aged well since its 1975 TV movie release. Or just plain not that good. The third segment, best known as a pre-Chucky use of the "Killer Doll" trope, had my sister and me asking annoying nerdish questions such as, "Why was a Zuni warrior's spirit trapped in the doll in the first place?

 

I only caught the last half hour due to a scheduling glitch. Funny you mention Chucky. One of the YouTube channels I watch is called 'The Kill Count' and they just wrapped up a look back at the Chucky movies. I feel like I've seen them though I haven't actually. Willing to give them a try now, though. The Zuni doll made me think of that, too. 

[Ternaugh]

The Fifth Element: Re-watch of a favorite movie. I've had the 4K disc for a while now, and it's probably one of the better transfers to the UHD format. The bright colors of the original film pop beautifully in HDR color, and the Dolby Atmos score is amazingly mixed. (UHD Blu-ray)

 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director's Edition): This is a third version of the film, and it's probably the best of the lot. The original Theatrical Release was faulted for glacially slow pacing and a muddled storyline, and this version corrects most of that with a judicious editing of certain scenes, and the addition of a few others to flesh out storylines. There's a bit of CGI added in places, but the result is tasteful, and generally blends in with the existing special effects. This is a 4K release*, and it makes great use of the format. Visuals are improved with the HDR color grading, where the blacks of space contrast nicely with the other visuals onscreen. Where this disc shines, however, is in the Dolby Atmos mix. Effects are beautifully mixed, dialogue is crisp and immersive, LFE effects are impressive, and the Jerry Goldsmith score is glorious in both clarity and in the positional audio mix. Highly recommended for Star Trek fans, if you have the equipment to play it. (UHD Blu-Ray)

 

 

*The Blu-ray disc in the packaging does not hold a copy of the movie, only bonus features.

[BoloOfEarth]

On 9/30/2022 at 7:35 PM, death tribble said:

Night of the Living Dead

The classic George Romero when the dead are suddenly returning to life and killing the living. Creepy as all in. The dead are referred to (correctly) as ghouls several times. Worth seeing but genuinely scary and disturbing. The film will stay with you.

 

Heh.  When I was a kid, our mom made us watch this movie, mainly because it had been filmed at (IIRC) her uncle's house, and he had a cameo as one of the sheriff's deputies at the end.  It was actually a bit surreal watching it with her, mainly because she would inject nonsequitors into the movie.  (Please forgive any mis-remembrances about the movie - it's been over 40 years since I saw it.)  For instance, as a woman is trying to escape from the zombies at the graveyard and (IIRC) was driving over a small bridge, mom started commenting how her and her siblings would play on that bridge, tossing stones into the stream, etc.  At another point, someone is looking at a mirror, and you *know* a zombie is going to pop up behind her, and mom starts talking about how she loved that mirror, it was in the entry hall, blah blah blah.  Kinda takes all the suspense out of the movie, y'know?

[DShomshak]

 

 

I've never seen Night of the Living Dead, but a local college's theater students put on -- I use the term deliberately -- Night of the Living Dead: The Musical. A tiny theater, well, a room with folding chairs. I have seldom laughed so hard.

 

Dean Shomshak

[L. Marcus]

A friend of mine wanted to stage Alien: The Musical. Our favorite part was his idea for the insemination of Kane -- after the facehugger attaches itself, Kane would stagger dramatically around for a while, singing an aria with the libretto entirely consisting of "Mmff mmff mmff!"

[mattingly]

18 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I've never seen Night of the Living Dead, but a local college's theater students put on -- I use the term deliberately -- Night of the Living Dead: The Musical. A tiny theater, well, a room with folding chairs. I have seldom laughed so hard.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

I highly recommend Evil Dead: The Musical if you ever get the chance to see it on stage.

 

 

[Tech]

Watched "Tangled" and "The Swan Princess"

[csyphrett]

Columbo night brings us the first of the movies where Columbo matches wits with a crime show host who killed his attempted blackmailer with cigarettes. The disc pixilized at the end where Columbo brought in his dog witness to force  a confession

CES 

[csyphrett]

Columbo night again as our peerless detective matches wits with a lawyer who never lost a murder defense case.

CES  

[Ternaugh]

The Sound of 007: Documentary that discusses the music of the James Bond films, with interviews and archival footage. Interesting for fans of the Bond soundtracks, but it does have major spoilers for No Time to Die, so watch that first if you don't want major scenes to be revealed. (Amazon Prime)

 

Moonfall: The latest Roland Emmerich disaster-porn film. A mysterious alien force disrupts a space shuttle mission in 2011, an astronaut is lost, and the pilot who landed the shuttle without power is discredited and fired from NASA when he won't go along with a cover-up. 10 years later, the alien force causes the moon to spiral into the earth, and it's up to the discredited astronaut and a conspiracy theory nut to convince his old astronaut partner at NASA to fly a mission to the moon to fix things. The movie's scenes are all very familiar, and look like they were cribbed from other (often better) movies. (HBOmax)

[Joe Walsh]

She-Hulk: The S1 finale was just wonderful, at least from the perspective of this John Byrne era She-Hulk fan. I loved it and I hope there's a second season someday.

[Starlord]

Ditto, I thought the She-Hulk finale was really fun, particularly the parts that involved Marvel poking fun at itself and Jen poking fun at trolls and toxic fandom.

[FireTiger]

On 9/30/2022 at 7:35 PM, death tribble said:

The Saint

 To be honest Roger Moore is better in this than he is in the James Bond a decade later.

 

Moore can be heard as a radio announcer in the 1997 film version of The Saint.  

 

He also played Bond in a television comedy sketch:

 

What I watched most recently:  "Family Guy Episode IV Blue Harvest"

[Ternaugh]

She-Hulk (Season 1): Ally McBeal with superpowers and toxic fandom. I enjoyed it. (Disney+)

 

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Season 1): The season starts off slow, and then hits speed with multiple storylines that may or may not have a basis in Tolkien's writings. The result is enjoyable and interesting enough that I am looking forward to Season 2. (Amazon Prime)

 

I've been watching old episodes of Murder, She Wrote on Peacock, and it's been nostalgic. I've seen a critic's article recently panning the show for not being as complicated as current mystery shows, but I'm good with it. One of the creators, William Link, was also involved with creating Columbo, which is another series that's just plain fun to watch.

 

I watched the first episode of the new Quantum Leap, but haven't yet gone back for another episode. It splits its time between the leap and activity at the lab, and I'm not sure that it plays as well as the original, which is also available on Peacock.

 

I'm six episodes in to Andor, and I'm enjoying it immensely. Six more episodes to go in Season 1, with it already greenlit for a second (and final) season. (Disney+)

[Pariah]

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law doesn't just break the fourth wall. It smashes it, pulverizes it, decimates it, and leaves the audience questioning whether it ever really existed in the first place.

 

Can't wait for season two.

[Old Man]

Blonde, the fictionalized Marilyn Monroe biopic on Netflix.  It's worth seeing just for de Armas' portrayal; her Cuban accent leaks through here and there but otherwise she nailed the mannerisms and the emotional range required.  It's shot in a very art-house way, lots of black-and-white and judicious use of effects, that really emphasizes the story.  My biggest problems with it are, one, it's only tenuously related to reality, and two, it focuses so much on the tragedies in Monroe's life (of which there were many) that you're left feeling guilty watching this girl suffer for your entertainment.  But then again, maybe that's the point.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Watched Black Adam, pretty fun, not the best movie, but entertaining.

[csyphrett]

It's Columbo night as our detective matches wits with Rip Torn and Jamie Rose over a dead nephew's winnings.

CES 

[Old Man]

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Netflix.  Easily one of the better cyberpunk-genre animes I've ever seen (and I've seen many--Bubblegum Crisis, Appleseed, and various Ghost in the Shells at least.  Oh, and Altered Carbon Resleeved.).  Strangely vibrant-colored for such a noir setting, though it does nail the dystopian aspects of Night City.  I only played Cyberpunk:2020 a couple of times so I can't speak to whether the game system mattered as much as the background setting, but I strongly suspect it would be easier to stat out the characters and events in Hero than it would be to use C:2020.  Especially given the power level that some of the characters achieve.

 

Anyway, if you like anime and/or cyberpunk sf and can handle subtitles (i.e., you are literate), check it out.  Note that the show is pretty violent, but I've seen worse in anime and Tarantino films.

[Ternaugh]

Last Action Hero: A kid gets a golden ticket, and the movies really come to life for him. (Netflix)

 

Samaritan: An inner-city kid suspects that an elderly neighbor (played by Sylvester Stallone) is a superhero missing for the last 25 years.  I enjoyed it, but my bar was set fairly low. (Prime Video)

 

Land of the Lost: Very loose movie adaptation of the two Saturday-morning series. If I had watched it before, I had forgotten. I don't need to watch it again. (Netflix)

 

Megamind: What happens when a supervillain defeats his superhero counterpart? Worth a re-watch. (Netflix)

 

 

[Ternaugh]

Beauty and the Beast: 1991 Disney animated version, looks great in 4K. (UHD Blu-ray)

 

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story: At last, the true* story of the meteoric rise and tragic fall of a music legend. Worth a watch for fans, but have your remote handy to mute the VERY LOUD commercials** (Roku Channel)

 

 

*Well, not really. 

 

**It didn't help that most of them were political ads. 

[csyphrett]

Columbo night brings us Greg Evigan and Tyne Daly vying for who can kill Steve Forrest.

CES

[Cancer]

Clearing out some junk from the basement exposed a box of VHS tapes, mostly kids' stuff from the terminal 1990s.  If we still have something capable of playing them, I may actually watch a couple.