What Have You Watched Recently?

[mattingly]

I finally saw Welcome to Marwen, a true story of dolls fighting a war. Great film. Very moving.

 

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

1 hour ago, mattingly said:

I finally saw Welcome to Marwen, a true story of dolls fighting a war. Great film. Very moving.

 

 

I wonder if the way the film was mis-marketed as a comedy was a form of deliberate sabotage.

[death tribble]

National Theatre Live: All About Eve This was screened in cinemas from the London stage. It is the theatrical adaptation of the film and the original tale The Wisdom of Eve by Mary Orr. This was far more expensive than say going to see Avengers Endgame or Captain Marvel (£15.49 compared to £4.99) but was worth it. You get a really good view of the actors and their nuances. Yes Gillian Anderson is in it which is why I went. And playing her age. Margo Channing (Bette Davis in the film) is 50 and so is Gillian. Lily James plays Eve. Wonderful.

[Ternaugh]

Airport: A bomb goes off in the bathroom of a 707, and the flight crew needs to land the plane in a snowstorm. Other sub-plots include marriages breaking up, a stuck plane blocking the runway, and a frequent stowaway. (DVD)

 

Airport 1975: A small plane collides with a 747, cockpit, killing or incapacitating the pilots, and the lead flight attendant (Karen Black) has to try to fly the plane. "With an all-star cast!". Features Helen Reddy as a nun singing to Linda Blair. (DVD)

 

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight: Animated Batman tale set in the Victorian era, and involving Jack the Ripper. A decent watch. (DVD)

 

Captain Marvel: Origin story for the character in the MCU. Fun to see the 90s references, but the story is a bit weak. (Movie theater)

 

Avengers: Endgame: Just see it. It's great. Bring tissues. (Movie theater)

[Pattern Ghost]

Avengers: End Game: Was going to Red Box this one, but decided to take a chance on it. It was OK, if you like that sort of thing.

 

Cobra Kai Season 2: Not quite the nostalgia fest of Season 1, but still great, solid world building and plot and character development. Even without the nostalgia factor, well worth watching. William Zabka  continues to turn in one awesome performance after another.

[Pattern Ghost]

I think I forgot The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, second part. Back half of the season turned the dial up to 11. Love this show. Not sure how they're going to follow up in Season 2, but will be there.

[L. Marcus]

Annihilation, on bluray. Natalie Portman and Tuva Novotny and Oscar Isaac. Kind of an adaptation of Lovecraft's The Colour Out Of Space. Pretty disturbing and very good, even if I felt it tried a bit too hard to disturb, at least in the beginning. Four outta five Ls.

[csyphrett]

1 hour ago, L. Marcus said:

Annihilation, on bluray. Natalie Portman and Tuva Novotny and Oscar Isaac. Kind of an adaptation of Lovecraft's The Colour Out Of Space. Pretty disturbing and very good, even if I felt it tried a bit too hard to disturb, at least in the beginning. Four outta five Ls.

Did the movie do well enough to adapt Van der Meer's other two books?

CES 

[L. Marcus]

No, I doubt it -- it appears to have been screwed over by the studio. It was deemed "too intellectual". It just cost about $50M to make, but it had a very limited US release, and Netflix was handed the international side. A shame, really.

[Ternaugh]

Harper Valley P.T.A.: A comedy based upon the song, starring Barbara Eden. I remember seeing this one when it came out in 1978 with my parents, and it generally holds up now. (DVD)

 

Airport '77: An art heist goes wrong, and the 747 ends up lost in the Bermuda Triangle 200 miles away from its last position under 200 feet of water. Includes a song by Tom Sullivan, who mercifully gets crushed by his own piano as the plane crashes. Will they get rescued before their air runs out? (DVD)

[Ternaugh]

The Concorde...Airport '79: It turns out that airline mechanic Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) is now a pilot with 30 years of flight experience (who knew?) and is fully rated on the new Concorde that his airline just bought. Good thing, too, because of a subplot involving a reporter and the head of a weapons company that was selling weapons to enemy powers (and documenting it, as you would). Watch the Concorde do barrel rolls to avoid an "off-course" interceptor missile and later power off all of its engines to avoid the attacks of an anonymous fighter jet's heat-seeking missiles. And that's just the first leg of the trip. This is another one I remember seeing in the theaters when it came out. I'd like to say that it's "so bad, it's good", but that's unfortunately not the case. (DVD)

 

Airplane! After watching the Airport movies, it's easy to see where many of the jokes originated. Still enjoyable after all these years. (DVD)

[Duke Bushido]

It might surprise you to learn that the jokes didn't come just from the airplane "disaster" movies, but that Airplane was nearly a line-for-line remake of a much older movie (who's name escapes me)-- a reasonably good movie, actually-- with some jokes and skewed presentation to totally change the entire feel.

 

There was  a lot more work that went into Airplane than most folks ever realized.

 

[Ternaugh]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

It might surprise you to learn that the jokes didn't come just from the airplane "disaster" movies, but that Airplane was nearly a line-for-line remake of a much older movie (who's name escapes me)-- a reasonably good movie, actually-- with some jokes and skewed presentation to totally change the entire feel.

 

There was  a lot more work that went into Airplane than most folks ever realized.

 

 

Zero Hour! from 1957. The team borrowed so much from the movie, that they bought the rights to it so that they wouldn't be sued--before finding out that Paramount owned it all along, and that they could use it legally. One of the more subtle nods to the older movie is that even though the events take place on what looks like a 707 jet, the engine sounds are very obviously from a prop plane.

 

 

[tkdguy]

The final two episodes of Weissensee. Awesome series. I'm sad to see it end.

[csyphrett]

Watched some mysteries on Youtube like Redcap, Rebus, and McCallum

'CES

[mattingly]

Rewatched all of the Question episodes of Justice League Unlimited.

 

[death tribble]

Ambush in Leopard Street A group of criminals plan a jewel heist as the gems are in transit using one of the gang to spy on the shop by dating the woman on the staff. Serviceable. Features Barbara from William Hartnell's Dr Who.

 

I'll Get You For This An American gambler is framed for the murder of a US Treasury Agent in an Italian resort. Bad luck on the bad guys as George Raft plays the gambler and he goes after those responsible He discovers a counterfeiting ring.

 

Above Us the Waves World War 2 film based on two attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz by human torpedo and midget submarine. John Mills stars. Advice came from one of the officers who took part.

 

Conspiracy of Hearts Nuns in Italy routinely smuggle children out of a concentration camp and send them on to new homes. The children are all Jews and the rest of their families have been killed. Germans take over the camp and try to crack down on the escapes. Well worth a look.

 

Since You Went Away A family copes with the father going off to war by taking in a lodger. A teenage Shirley Temple is one of two daughters with Claudette Colbert. Mainly an American propaganda piece for the home front.

 

A Touch of the Sun A porter inherits a large amount of money and gets himself fired so that he can enjoy his new found wealth. When he tires of it, he returns to buy the old hotel and has to convince new investors to bankroll the place. Stars Frankie Howard. 

[death tribble]

The Chairman Gregory Peck is a scientist who feigns defecting to China in order to get his hands on a new enzyme and bring it back to the West.

 

The International Clive Owen is an Interpol investigator pursuing leads against a bank that may be engaged in unlawful activities. It is not bad.

 

The Sandwich Man Michael Bentine (of the Goons) is a man who earns his living advertising products on what is called a sandwich board. He is awaiting the return of one of his pigeons which is involved in a race. He wanders across London getting involved in minutiae. The film would not be made today because of questionable ethnic portrayals.

 

Spice World Don't judge me. Fun. Lots of celebrity cameos make this fun. Richard E Grant and Roger Moore are the ones having the most fun.

 

Through the Never This is the Metallica concert film. Difficult to describe but great if you like Metallica.

 

Byzantium A more modern take on vampires with a mother an daughter taking refuge in an old hotel while being pursued by those keeping the secret of Vampirism.

[Cygnia]

Beginning to binge "Forensic Files" on Hulu.

[Ternaugh]

ffolkes: This is the American title for North Sea Hijack. Roger Moore's ffolkes leads a team of divers, who attempt to foil a ransom plot involving oil rigs. Anthony Perkins plays the leader of the hijackers. As an aside, there seem to be a few inside jokes that touch on James Bond. In one scene, we find ffolkes surrounded by his cats, which could be a veiled reference to one of the characters from Goldfinger, and in another, he complains about the orange wetsuit that he's given, which looks very much like the one used by Bond in Thunderball. (DVD)

 

Real Steel: This is basically Rock'em Sock'em Robots with a father/son subplot. Come in expecting this, and you won't be disappointed. (Blu-Ray via Netflix)

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Cygnia said:

Beginning to binge "Forensic Files" on Hulu.

 

My wife uses that show to help with bouts of insomnia.  Something about the absolute lack of life in the narrator's voice.  Ten, fifteen minutes of him droning on, and she's out like a light. 

[slikmar]

2 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

ffolkes: This is the American title for North Sea Hijack. Roger Moore's ffolkes leads a team of divers, who attempt to foil a ransom plot involving oil rigs. Anthony Perkins plays the leader of the hijackers. As an aside, there seem to be a few inside jokes that touch on James Bond. In one scene, we find ffolkes surrounded by his cats, which could be a veiled reference to one of the characters from Goldfinger, and in another, he complains about the orange wetsuit that he's given, which looks very much like the one used by Bond in Thunderball. (DVD)

 

Real Steel: This is basically Rock'em Sock'em Robots with a father/son subplot. Come in expecting this, and you won't be disappointed. (Blu-Ray via Netflix)

I always got more of a Rocky feel from Real Steel, but still a very fun movie and the robot fights were great.

[Armory]

21 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

My wife uses that show to help with bouts of insomnia.  Something about the absolute lack of life in the narrator's voice.  Ten, fifteen minutes of him droning on, and she's out like a light. 

 

Interesting; my wife does the same thing.

 

I just finished all six seasons of Letterkenny, and I'm a better person for it.

[Cygnia]

21 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

My wife uses that show to help with bouts of insomnia.  Something about the absolute lack of life in the narrator's voice.  Ten, fifteen minutes of him droning on, and she's out like a light. 

Sadly, Mr. Thomas passed away in 2016.  He had a heckuva life though...

[tkdguy]

On 5/8/2019 at 2:08 PM, Duke Bushido said:

 

My wife uses that show to help with bouts of insomnia.  Something about the absolute lack of life in the narrator's voice.  Ten, fifteen minutes of him droning on, and she's out like a light. 

 

I need to try that when I have insomnia.