What Have You Watched Recently?

[Matt the Bruins]

As a fan of Lovecraft I feel it would be hypocritical of me to criticize him on that point.

 

Last night I watched the sort-of new horror movie The Empty Man. I thought it was quite good, mainly on the back of James Badge Dale's performance and some very expert cinematography. If you've avoided it because the advertising made it look like another derivative supernatural slasher flick, maybe give it a second look.

[Pariah]

With no disrespect to either Colm Meaney or the late Rene Auberjonois, O'Brien and Odo were horrible Klingons.

 

(From the first episode of season 5 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

[archer]

Really enjoying the new Leverage: Redemption series.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

In my game master conspiracy brain I can see them planning to try and make the show without licensing the actual book, so they changed as much as they could to be able to claim it was a original work with no ties to the Dresden Files at all.  And then they were surprised when they got it.  But by that time they had already invested too much time and effort to double back.  And shazam!! another Follywood failure

 

I think that's exactly what happened

[mattingly]

9 hours ago, Pariah said:

With no disrespect to either Colm Meaney or the late Rene Auberjonois, O'Brien and Odo were horrible Klingons.

 

Wouldn't that mean they were good Klingons?

 

[Tjack]

9 hours ago, Pariah said:

With no disrespect to either Colm Meaney or the late Rene Auberjonois, O'Brien and Odo were horrible Klingons.

 

(From the first episode of season 5 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

 

17 minutes ago, mattingly said:

 

Wouldn't that mean they were good Klingons?

 

      No, O’Brian and Odo in the plot were supposed to be bad at portraying Klingons.  Since one of the hardest things for a good actor to play is a bad actor this proves that Mr.’s Meaney and Auberjonois are actually fine actors.

 

     Thinking in reverse like this makes my head hurt.  I’m going to go lay down now.   😜

[mattingly]

Oh, I know!

Just joking that Klingons aren't agreeable.

DS9 is my favorite.

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

There was some really good acting on early DS9, form Odo looking out into space asking "Home. Where is it?" to Kira questioning a Cardassiab prisoner who was accused of war crimes. Good stuff all around.

[Pariah]

I recently watched the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", part of which involves the fact that Kirk-era Klingons don't look like Picard / Sisko / Janeway-era Klingons. Worf ultimately hangs a lantern on the whole thing by saying, "We do not discuss it with outsiders!"

 

Meanwhile, the main thought that keeps coming to my mind is, "They still look better than the Klingons on Discovery."

[Lord Liaden]

We got an official explanation for that disparity in appearance during the series, Enterprise.

Spoiler

Klingons were attempting to use Human genetic research that created augmented supermen like Khan Singh, to engineer a virus that would augment themselves. The virus got out of control.

 

 

[Spence]

12 hours ago, Pariah said:

Meanwhile, the main thought that keeps coming to my mind is, "They still look better than the Klingons on Discovery."

 

You mean the Space Orcs, right?

[csyphrett]

Went to see Black Widow with the boy. He said the Red Guardian should get his own movie.  I could have done without the ham, but I sat down and thought about it. This guy is in jail thirty years, is basically out of shape, as soon as the widows call him, basically just goes "I'm out." and breaks out of the cell block. Nobody seemed to be able to take on the Taskmaster, but RG was like I can do this all day, and actually did some minor damage

CES

 

   

[mattingly]

2 hours ago, csyphrett said:

"I can do this all day..."

 

So does that mean he's Russia's ass?

 

[Pariah]

6 hours ago, mattingly said:

So does that mean he's Russia's ass?

 

I thought that was Vladimir Putin. He certainly acts like an ... you know what? Never mind.

[csyphrett]

9 hours ago, mattingly said:

 

So does that mean he's Russia's ass?

 

He's something

CES

[Spence]

Watched Gunpowder Milkshake on Netflix. 

Definitely not realistic or conventional, but a really fun movie.  

Drops right onto my off beat classics shelf with Big Trouble in Little China and Into the Badlands.

 

Yes, yes....I know.  It is not as good as Big Trouble in Little China.  But it is still very good in a quirky way.

[Matt the Bruins]

Ooooo, I didn't realize that had been released. I know what my plans for this evening are now!

[death tribble]

Prick Up Your Ears

The life and death of Joe Orton, a playwright from Britain killed by his lover Kenneth Halliwell. Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina play the two respectively. It is alright but you have to be interested in Orton or the 60s.

 

Harry Brown

Michael Caine turns estate vigilante after his friend is killed. He is an ex-marine and the police can't help. It is pretty good.

 

Armchair Thriller: The Chelsea Murders

After people making a film discover a body in the Thames the police link the death to two other homicides. A junior detective comes up with a theory that the victims are all linked by their initials to famous Chelsea residents. And then more homicides occur. A journalist who knows the film makers tries to race the police to finding the killer while the killer sends cryptic notes to them. It's not bad.

 

John Wick 3: Parabellum 

It's Keanu Reeves playing John Wick again. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Loved it. Mark Dacascos plays one of the assassins after John. But their is sterling support from Ian McShane, Angelica Houston, Halle Berry, Lance Reddick and Laurence Fishbourne

 

Tour de France 2021

My yearly binge of chateau watch and watching the best of the three cycling tours. The GC race became irrelevant early due to Pogacar taking a big lead in the mountains but what others could achieve and Mark Cavendish returning to the race kept things enthralling. Mathieu Van Der Poel made a rod for his own back by stating that he wanted to win the Yellow Jersey that eluded his grandfather Raymond Poulidor who never won one. The latter came second three times and third five times. Mathieu did it on the second day and managed to hang on to it.

Geraint Thomas and Primoz Roglic who could have challenged for the race both crashed and were effectively sidelined. Roglic's team lost several members including him during the race but Wout van Aert won three of the stages as did the team's climber Sepp Kuss. I had seen Kuss win a stage of the Vuelta so was pleased he also won here. Peter Sagan seemed out of sorts but had won the Sprinters Jersey in the Giro D'Italia. He was also taken down when Caleb Ewan crashed. The latter was one of a number of people who did not finish. It was the largest number of people who abandoned, were injured, were outside the time limit  or left to go to the Olympics since 2012.

Ineos did not win any stages but Richard Carapaz came third overall. And Jonas Vingegaard came second. He is a team mate of Kuss and Van Aert. If Roglic had not been injured maybe the result would have been closer. Julian Alaphilippe won the first stage and helped Cavendish equal Eddy Merckx's record.

The Mountains competition was exciting until we got to the Pyrenees and double points counted on two mountains on the last two stages.

 

Fargo Season 4

This is another one of the prequel Fargo seasons and we go back to 1950 and Kansas City, Missouri. Racism plays a big story telling point as both African Americans and Italian Americans are treated badly by the white establishment. The Italian American and African American crime families swap sons as part of a treaty pact. Soon after the Italian American head is wounded and needs to be taken to a hospital but is denied entrance to a prestigious hospital. He is treated elsewhere and is murdered by a nurse who is a serial killer. Add in two escaped women prisoners and a Mormon marshall who is hunting them, a funeral home and a cop with various tics and you have typical Coen brothers fare.

I am not a fan of Chris Rock but he turns in a stellar performance as the head of the African American crime family and the African American criminals are played intelligently.

I can't fault anyone's acting. If you liked other Fargo seasons you should like this.

The link is that Chris Rock's son who is swapped grows up to become Mike Milligan in season 2. 

[Spence]

Watched the new Jason Statham actioner Wrath of Man.  Standard "Crooks kill mans son during heist. Man finds crooks and has revenge" movie.  Nothing especially new or groundbreaking, but fun and entertaining.

 

The I re-watched 3000 Miles to Graceland.   Another guilty pleasure with Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Bokeem Woodbine, Christian Slater, Kevin Pollak and Ice-T in the cast you can't go wrong. 

[slikmar]

3 hours ago, Spence said:

The I re-watched 3000 Miles to Graceland.   Another guilty pleasure with Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Bokeem Woodbine, Christian Slater, Kevin Pollak and Ice-T in the cast you can't go wrong.

My mom, who was a ridiculous Elvis fan, has always said that Kurt Russell has played the best Elvis of anyone cast in the part.

 

Saw Space Jam 2, Lebron and the actors were good, but to me, they didnt have a lot to work with plot or dialog wise. Also, and realize I am saying this about a movie with looney toons in it, but the suspense of belief about the villain was really to far for me to go. It is Tron like I realize, but still, a little to much for me.

[Ninja-Bear]

I’m rewatching Babylon 5, Batman: TAS and Hercules: The incredible Journey.

[Spence]

20 hours ago, slikmar said:

My mom, who was a ridiculous Elvis fan, has always said that Kurt Russell has played the best Elvis of anyone cast in the part.

 

I have always liked Kurt Russell in any part he has played.  No matter what the role he always seemed to be really enjoy playing the part.   So many actors these days seem to be just calling it in. 

Russell always seems to be pushing the make his character the best one in the show.  I loved his part in Big Trouble, he is obviously the sidekick that thinks he is the lead. 

[Pariah]

I just watched the first episode of season 6 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "A Time to Stand". After all these years, I finally got the joke.

 

Spoiler

The episode takes place primarily aboard a captured Jem'Hadar ship. The ships are designed without any kind of creature comforts, including chairs.

 

[mattingly]

15 hours ago, Pariah said:

I just watched the first episode of season 6 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "A Time to Stand". After all these years, I finally got the joke.

 

I recommend the podcast The 7th Rule. It stars Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko) and used to include Aaron Eisenberg (Nog) before his death. Cirroc hadn't watched any of the episodes since he was in them, and he and Ryan T Husk review one episode a week. They're in the middle of season 5 now.

 

[zslane]

Been watching Mandalorian season 2. Episode 7 was the "Mando and Mayfield Show", and it was full of contrivances and plot holes big enough to drive a sandcrawler through.

 

Spoiler

• A newly appointed marshal of a backwater planet would not have the authority to release a prisoner like Mayfield to her custody for completely unspecified and undocumented purposes.
• Those TIE fighters could have, should have, and would have been deployed as escorts for every single delivery run of rhydonium. Not a single juggernaut hauler should have been lost to local "pirates".
• What is the point of having a facial scanner on an Imperial terminal if not to serve as biometric security against unauthorized access? The moment it scanned Mando's face it should have denied access immediately. In fact, the whole business about Mayfield not wanting to be recognized by a former superior officer was just a lame plot contrivance to force Mando to access the terminal instead. But, of course, we know the real reason for this: to appease Pedro Pascal and to mitigate his displeasure at never being allowed to show his face on the show.
• Since when did Imperial officers speak with a southern accent? They are all supposed to have British accents. Someone done messed up, y'all.
• Apparently Boba Fett has neutral, or maybe even sympathetic feelings towards the old Empire. Upon retrieving Mando and Mayfield he could have dropped a mining charge on the facility and blown it to pieces, but he didn't.
• When Mando and Cara were deciding what to do with Mayfield at the end, it sounded like they were going to kill him and were constructing their story for when Cara was inevitably questioned about why she never returned with her prisoner. Given his instinctive distrust of others, Mayfield would most certainly have interpreted their conversation that way, but instead the writers had him immediately understand that they intended to just let him go.
• Moff Gideon has had enough time to drain Grogu dry and dump the body in hyperspace. The only reason he hasn't is to give Mando, his newly acquired Scoobie Gang, and Luke Skywalker a chance to come to the rescue. I eagerly await the lame explanation they give in episode 8 as to why this is not the case.

 

And how did Fett's armor get so clean and freshly painted? Are we to believe he kept a supply of dark green and red paint on Slave-1 all these years just for that purpose? Also, his armor doesn't look like Beskar because it doesn't look like raw metal. But I don't know much about Beskar and if it can be--or typically is--painted.