What Have You Watched Recently?

[Pariah]

Because my daughter kept pulling up songs on her Kindle, we decided to watch Tangled this afternoon. Fun show. Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi were fantastic voicing the leads, and Donna Murphy played one of the most wicked Disney villains of all—Mother Gothel is terrifying not because she has awesome, dark magic, but because she's so much like so many people in power in the real world today.

[Lord Liaden]

On 4/29/2023 at 4:41 AM, Clonus said:

The single biggest problem with Voyager was the 70 year time table for them to get back.  If it had been a 7 year time table, then progress would have been meaningful.  

 

It was only 70 years under Voyager's own power with the warp drive they started with. Much of the show dealt with trying to find ways to speed up the ship or shorten the distance they had to travel.

[Ternaugh]

The Maltese Falcon: The Friends of Mr. Cairo go on search for the black bird in this classic. It's been recently released on 4K home video, and looks and sounds excellent. (4K UHD Blu-Ray).

[Pariah]

5 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

The Maltese Falcon: The Friends of Mr. Cairo go on search for the black bird in this classic. It's been recently released on 4K home video, and looks and sounds excellent. (4K UHD Blu-Ray).

 

You mean...?

 

 

[Pariah]

With the impromptu emergency room trip last night, we got to watch a couple of movies that were playing on our hospital room's TV screen.

 

First, there was Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. This was, frankly, the worst movie I can remember seeing in a long time. It was cheesy, it was simplistic, and it was campy. All of that was fully expected. But the part that made it truly awful was the CGI. The animation looked like something out of a 90s video game. I wasn't watching the movie actively,  but every time I turned my head in that direction I found the animation distracting. Yes, I realize it was made almost 20 years ago, but still, it was awful. There's no reason for a 21st-century movie to have CGI that bad.

Rating: ½ of a Scooby Snack out of 5

 

Then we watched something much more recent, DC League of Super-Pets. I wasn't paying close attention when the movie started, but when I did I couldn't help but ask myself, "Wait, why does Superman's dog sound like Maui?" (One funny bit: Krypto rescued an animal from a lab or something and told him, "This is your new home. You're welcome!") The animation was a lot cleaner, and the voice cast was pretty good. My one small gripe was that they movie had a cameo from Batman, and they had Keanu Reeves voicing him instead of Kevin Conroy. (In fairness, Conroy may not have been working at that time due to illness.) The plot, what I caught of it, was interesting. I'd like to see the film again under less difficult circumstances.

Rating: 3½ pieces of orange Kryptonite out of 5

Edited May 1, 2023 by Pariah

[Clonus]

10 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

It was only 70 years under Voyager's own power with the warp drive they started with. Much of the show dealt with trying to find ways to speed up the ship or shorten the distance they had to travel.

 

That was the problem.  It turned the series premise from an epic journey past many obstacles to reach their home into Gilligan's Island in space.  The distance and direction of their movement didn't matter because the shortcut that would take them home could be anywhere in any direction.   By the start of the final episode they were still nowhere near their destination and just waiting for that deus ex machina to pop up and announce the series was over.   

[Old Man]

Seven Kings Must Die, on Netflix.  A two hour movie conclusion to the five season run of The Last Kingdom, based on the Saxon Stories historical novels by Bernard Cornwell.  Like the TV series, this film had a bad case of highlight-reel-of-the-books, but it was still a well-made and satisfying conclusion to Uhtred's story arc.  I got into this series at first because I'll watch anything with a swordfight in it, but I stayed for the themes of identity, family, and religion.  Worth watching if you don't have time to read all 13 novels.

[wcw43921]

10 hours ago, Pariah said:

Then we watched something much more recent, DC League of Super-Pets. I wasn't paying close attention when the movie started, but when I did I couldn't help but ask myself, "Wait, why does Superman's dog sound like Maui?" (One funny bit: Krypto rescued an animal from a lab or something and told him, "This is your new home. You're welcome!") The animation was a lot cleaner, and the voice cast was pretty good. My one small gripe was that they movie had a cameo from Batman, and they had Keanu Reeves voicing him instead of Kevin Conroy. (In fairness, Conroy may not have been working at that time due to illness.) The plot, what I caught of it, was interesting. I'd like to see the film again under less difficult circumstances.

Rating: 3½ pieces of orange Kryptonite out of 5

 

Stick around for the post-credits scene.  It's golden on more than one level.

[mattingly]

14 hours ago, Pariah said:

First, there was Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

 

Written by James Gunn! 

[Cancer]

11 hours ago, mattingly said:

 

Written by James Gunn! 

 

Which one?  Cancer asked despairingly.

[mattingly]

12 hours ago, Cancer said:

Which one?  Cancer asked despairingly.

 

Mr. "Guardians of the Galaxy" and now-in-charge-of-the-DCU himself. 

[BoloOfEarth]

Just watched a god-awful movie called Cosmic Sin.  Sci-fi movie starring Bruce Willis.  Really wish I could get those two hours back.  Probably should have stopped watching earlier, but it was like watching an airliner crashing into a train wreck as it jumped the tracks to smash into a retirement village.  

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Cunk on Earth, Netflix. A mockumentary about the history of our time on the planet, hosted by the hilariously clueless Philomena Cunk. Highly recommended. 

[Cancer]

17 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

..., but it was like watching an airliner crashing into a train wreck as it jumped the tracks to smash into a retirement village.  

 

See, that would be fun to watch.   Though make it plow through a natural gas pipeline too, and have the big fuel oil truck there filling up the village's winter heating fuel for the season.  Probably could use some radioactive waste and a shipment of biohazard Ebola-Marburg culture media en route to controlled incineration also, but you can't have everything.

 

[Starlord]

1 hour ago, Cancer said:

 

See, that would be fun to watch.   Though make it plow through a natural gas pipeline too, and have the big fuel oil truck there filling up the village's winter heating fuel for the season.  Probably could use some radioactive waste and a shipment of biohazard Ebola-Marburg culture media en route to controlled incineration also, but you can't have everything.

 

 

Maybe throw in an asteroid strike for good measure?

[death tribble]

Crown Court

Case 16 involves a libel action where a retired British major is suing a man who wrote a book about Britain's involvement in the Korean War. It basically accused him of being a coward and evidence also comes up that may mean he was suffering from PTSD. He was the lone survivor of a last stand. Until another soldier thought dead appears. The verdict might have gone the other way some years later.

Case 17 involves whether two brothers head a protection racket and may have had their enforcer whose use of GBH was par for the course buried in the motorway. You kind of felt this was going one way and it did despite the defence trying to say the police evidence was spite and from a discredited officer.

 

Maigret

Maigret and the Man on the Bench has the detective looking at the murder of a man whose employment ended a few years ago but he had not told his wife so what was he doing ? This and the next mystery are both ones I know from the Rupert Davies Maigret as well.

Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses. A new magistrate is a bit on the zealous side as Maigret tries to work out who killed the head of a biscuit firm and why no-one in the house heard or saw anything. This differs from the Rupert Davies version in that the missing sister's story is expanded on and helps provide the key to the mystery.

 

Vampira

David Niven plays Dracula trying to restore his beloved but she gets some blood from a non Caucasian and turns a lovely shade of brown. This also has some blackface in it so that might not get made today and might put off potential viewers even though this is a comedy.

 

Swinging UK

A short film with various pop acts of the 60s doing their tracks. Mostly forgotten acts today like Brian Poole and the Tremeloes and Millie.

 

The American Friend

Dennis Hopper plays Tom Ripley in Wim Wenders film of Patricia Highsmith's book. Ripley is pulling an art swindle selling work from an artist who is supposed to be dead but is very much alive. He meets a picture framer who is suffering from a blood disease and receives a snub from him. In retaliation he makes the man believe that his condition is worse than it is and gets a colleague to play upon his insecurities by getting him to commit a murder. Bruno Ganz who went on to play Hitler in the film Downfall is the picture restorer. Well worth seeing

 

Le Mans 66 aka Ford vs Ferrari

The story of how Ford went to Le Mans in 1966 and had a 1-2-3 cross the line of their cars after they managed to take Ferrari out. Ford wanted to win after Ferrari played the company. Matt Damon plays the first American to have won at Le Mans and who had to retire from racing on health ground while Christian Bale is a racing driver from Britain who is trying to live and work in the USA. Again this is well worth a watch and one of the Ford execs needed to be punched ASAP.

[Pariah]

I watched a couple episodes of the classic Star Trek series last night:

 

The Apple: An away team investigating some unusual readings discovers a society of red-skinned humanoids who are both incredibly physically attractive and completely non-sexual. Two Redshirts die pretty quickly, one from a poisonous plant and one from stepping on explosive rocks. Meanwhile, the Enterprise caught in some kind of tractor beam and can't get out. Kirk & company quickly discover the whole place is run by an AI named Vaal. A couple of the villagers catch Chekov making out with a beautiful blonde yeoman and decide to imitate them. Vaal takes offense and orders the villagers to murder a third Redshirt. Kirk has had enough and orders Scotty to open fire on the Vaal idol, eventually destroying it. The villagers discover physical love and freedom of choice, and the away team (including Spock, who survives numerous events that would have killed a human crewman) return to the ship.

 

The Doomsday Machine: After exploring two different star systems where there aren't any planets anymore, the Enterprise comes across the wreckage of the USS Constellation, commanded by Commodore Matt Decker. Decker is a broken man, having lost his entire crew to a huge planet-killing machine that looks like a demented ice cream cone. While Decker and Scotty try to repair the constellation, Decker takes command of the Enterprise and tries to get her crew killed fighting the machine as well. Spock relieves him of command, so Decker steals a shuttle and flies it into the maw of the planet killer, dying in a completely pointless explosion. Kirk, initially in morning for the death of his friend, decides the Decker had the right idea but not on a large enough scale. He rigs the Constellation's impulse drive to explode and flies it into the machine, where it explodes and destroys the thing once and for all. Kirk is rescued just in the nick of time, and is left to ponder everything that had happened. The episode is an interesting examination of PTSD, and a thinly veiled metaphor for nuclear war.

[Starlord]

2 great episodes, Doomsday Machine is probably in my top 5 original ST

[Lord Liaden]

William Windom's performance as Decker was stellar. As I understand it, he and William Shatner spent a fair amount of time improvising the first scene they meet during rehearsal, much of which made it into the final filming. I also love Kirk's reaction when Decker completely breaks down, at first reaching for him to try to comfort him, then pulling back as he realizes there's absolutely nothing he can do to make this better.

 

Windom was often praised for this episode by Star Trek fans when they met him, which he reportedly found flattering but bemusing. For him this had just been one of the many television guest roles he played in his career, another day at the office.

 

 

[BoloOfEarth]

Just re-watched (for like the thousandth time) the first Back to the Future movie.  While watching the credits, I saw "DeLorean Time Travel Consultant" (Ron Cobb).

 

I wonder what would happen if you put a flux capacitor and an oscillation overthruster in the same vehicle.  Like, maybe a TARDIS. 

 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Fished both semi-final rounds for Eurovision. I hate to say it, but there's not a lot to like this year. Most is just bland more than anything else. Traditional highlight countries really let me down this year, like Denmark and Iceland. 

 

But the worst part of the show was the technical production. (There were several songs that I swear their mics were turned off. I need to look up some of the videos just so I can hear what the songs are supposed to sound like.) The less said about the supremely distracting video wall the better. 

[Pariah]

I've often said that Star Trek: Voyager was much like the little girl with the curl in the nursery rhyme: When they're good,  they're very, very good, but when they're bad, they're horrid.

 

The episode "Living Witness" was, in my humble opinion, very, very good. 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Eurovision 2023 is over! 

 

The winner was one of my picks, so I'm pretty happy with the results. Other results were... baffling. As always, Eurovision thinking remains a mystery to me. 

[Bazza]

1 hour ago, Pariah said:

I've often said that Star Trek: Voyager was much like the little girl with the curl in the nursery rhyme: When they're good,  they're very, very good, but when they're bad, they're horrid.

 

The episode "Living Witness" was, in my humble opinion, very, very good. 

Schrödinger’s Voyager? You don’t know unless you “open” the episode, ie watch it. 

[BoloOfEarth]

Watched the pilot episode of My Secret Identity yesterday.  Starred Jerry O'Connell and Derek McGrath, with the young Andrew Clements (O'Connell) getting superpowers from a "photon beam" in his neighbor Dr. Jeffcoate's (McGrath) in-home lab.  Super speed, invulnerability, and the ability to float (not really fly - he used aerosol spray cans to allow him to move).  Admittedly a bit cheesy, but I enjoyed it.