What Have You Watched Recently?

[mattingly]

They Live, back in the theaters for its 35th anniversary.

 

Also playing this Thursday.

https://www.fathomevents.com/events/They-Live-35th-Anniversary

 

 

[death tribble]

Rosemary's Baby

This is renowned as a horror film and I have missed opportunities to see it. Finally I did. A woman moves into a new building with her husband. She has an odd nightmare wherein she has sex with some odd beast faced individual while her neighbours stand around chanting. Her husband admits it was him and he feels terrible about it as she was unconscious. However a friend of hers is suspicious and almost has proof but dies suddenly. The over-friendly neighbours recommend a doctor as the wife finds out she is pregnant. The woman feels more and more terror before the truth is revealed, she is pregnant with the child of the devil. It i9s a bit of a long film but the terror builds. So worth a rewatch.

 

World Championship Men's Road Race

This was interrupted by a protest so there was quite a delay. But it ended in a circuit race around Glasgow. Mathieu Van Der Poel won with Wout Van Aert second and Tadej Pogacar third.

 

The Long Weekend

This is an Australian horror film where nature turns on humans. A couple whose marriage is in trouble go to the coast but find nature turns against them and it eventually leads to both their death. There is not a lot of gore and no really deadly animals like crocodiles or sharks but it is still effective.

 

The Other Guys

Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are detectives who are desk bound because one is an forensic accountant and the other accidentally shot a famous baseball player. Following the deaths of star detectives played by Samul L Jackson and The Rock the two investigate a hedge fund manager played by Steve Coogan. Their captain might be in on it as he is played by Michael Keaton. It is not bad.

 

Talking Pictures with Derren Nesbitt

Talking Pictures is a channel over here and it shows old films It thus does some interviews with older actors like Derren Nesbitt. He is recognisable as the Gestapo Officer in Where Eagles Dare. He did a nice talk and mentioned his work with Frank Sinatra on The Naked Runner. Derren was offered money to ghost a story for the papers about working with Sinatra but refused point blank. Sinatra funded a holiday for him abroad at his expense (with Nesbitt's wife) which was greatly appreciated.

 

Fantastic Voyage

Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence are shrunk down and injected into a scientist in order to remove a blood clot. They are in a submarine. The submarine must navigate the body in order to reach the brain where the blood clot is. But there may a saboteur involved. Well worth a look.

[death tribble]

At War With The Army

This is one of the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis films. There are a few songs in this. They did better than this. Dean is a sergeant who wants to see action and Jerry his buddy is a wash out.

 

The Saint season 3

Roger Moore continues world wide adventures. Some are pedestrian but some are quite good. Well worth a look at the non-colour episodes.

 

Town on Trial

This is a police investigation into a woman who has been murdered who was popular. Too popular. The outside investigation by John Mills police detective upsets the town people who try to make a complaint but secrets are uncovered. And another woman is murdered before the killer is unmasked and apprehended on a church steeple. Worth a look for the dated attitudes on show.

 

The Stranger Left No Card

I first saw this in its remake in Tales of the Unexpected. This is the original where Alan Badel comes to town as a flamboyantly dressed magician. His eccentric behaviour however is to disguise what he is really after. He sees a business man and shows him tricks before removing the disguise. The business man framed him for a crime and the stranger spent 15 years in prison. He stabs him in the heart and leaves unnoticed but there is a trial of his dust which kids notice as an ordinary man boards the train to leave town.

 

Jour de Fete

This is a French film with Jacques Tati as a inept village postman. It shows the day that a fair comes to a village and the various people there and it was made after the war (1947). It is charming  as it does not just depend on Tati and his antics especially after seeing a film of what the US postal service can do. Well worth repeated viewing.

 

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday

This is another Jacques Tati film. Here he is a man taking the mandatory August holiday in a small coastal resort. While M. Hulot has all sort of accidents there are all sorts on incidental details that concern the other characters. The staff in the hotel have a squeaky door into the restaurant which alerts them if one of their colleagues comes in especially the manager. There is chaos getting the train and coach (orn bus) to the hotel. The film also mocks the social and political classes of France of the period (early 1950s). The film is charming and well worth repeated viewing. I am only sorry it took me this long to see it.

[death tribble]

Grab a drink and sit yourself down as I have another list to get through and it will take a while.

 

Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires

This was a co-production between Hammer and Shaw studios. Dracula goes East and Van Helsing follows. Peter Cushing is in this but this does not have Christopher Lee as Dracula and it is the only Hammer film that does. It has Kung Fu sequences and Van Helsing is ably assisted by a family of fighters to take on six golden vampires as a seventh was killed by a member of their family earlier. I liked it even though it is not up to the high standard of other Hammer films  It has Peter Cushing, what more do I need to say ?

 

Candyman 2: Farewell ton the Flesh

The Candyman is back and is killing people again if they say his name. The hook is that a family whose father was killed are connected to the mythical killer as he is an ancestor of theirs although they pass as Caucasian, The film goes into the origin and death of Candyman. Veronica Cartwright plays the heroine's mother, a teacher who decides to face down the Candyman after ill advisedly saying his name and causing the death of her husband. It is not too bad but the original film is better and flows better.

 

Dr Phibes Rises Again

Vincent Price is back as the Phibes trying to resurrect his wife and restore himself. Ably assisted again by Vulnavia (played by a different actress), Phibes travels to Egypt to find a secret river, the river of life. Robert Quarry is also after the river in an attempt to prolong his own life and that of his lover. There are some ingenious deaths as in the previous film with Price again not speaking except via recordings. If you liked the previous film, you will like this and Quarry is better in this than he is in the Count Yorga films. Terry Thomas is a travel agent in this film who booked Phibes passage (despite the fact he played a doctor killed by Phibes in the previous film), and Peter Cushing as a cameo as the captain of the ship that Quarry and Price travel on to reach Egypt. See the Abominable Dr Phibes first and then this.

 

Food of the Gods

Giant chickens, giant maggots, giant wasps and giant wasps menace people on a remote island after something comes bubbling out of the ground that makes animals grow larger. Some of the cast are recognisable as they did other work that was more memorable like Jon Cypher (chief of Police in Hill Street Blues) and Ralph Meeker (who played Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly). The cast are mainly menaced by giant rats and this is where the film is let down because this looks bad. As in Night of the Lepus bad. But the cast play it straight. Marjoe Gortner plays the hero and does a good job.

 

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy

The actor travels around Italy sampling the cuisine. This has six episodes in season 1 and is enjoyable. Tucci is Italian on both sides of his family so can speak the language and he has a nice time. This is pleasant.

 

John Carter's Vampires

This is one of the films I saw at the cinema and watch again. One it is a John Carpenter film, two it has James Woods and three it has Sheryl Lee (forever embedded in the public consciousness as Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks). After taking out a vampire nest, but not finding the master vampire, a team of hunters is attacked by the master who slaughters them and seems to know the name of Woods character. The only survivors are Woods and his friend and fellow hunter Daniel Baldwin. Also a prostitute who the master vampire bit. This gives her a psychic connection to the vampire which the hunters hope to exploit in order to kill it. Reporting back to their Vatican source, Woods finds out that the vampire they are searching for is the origin. It is trying t find a relic to recreate an excommunication ceremony which it hopes will allow it to exist in daylight. I liked the book a bit better than the film but it has Woods who is always very watchable and it has Sheryl Lee who I have a crush on.

 

Vuelta a Espana 2023

The last of the three Grand Tours of the year and Jumbo Visma are trying for something unprecedented, winning all three Grand Tours in the same year. Consequently they brought the Giro d'Italia winner Primoz Roglic and Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard to the race. Remco Evenepoel the defending champion was back and looking to repeat. Geraint Thomas of Ineos was also present having come second to Roglic in the Giro.

The racing started with a team time trial around Barcelona as the day was turning into night. So the weather kicked in raining like anything so this made the going bad, something which Evenepoel was quite vocal about. Evenepoel struck on the third stage to win it in the mountains around Andorra. This meant he took the overall lead. The next two stages were hilly but were taken by a sprinter, Kaden Groves who was after the sprinters jersey.

It was the next stage that Evenepoel may have made a misjudgement. He and his team allowed a break to get away that finished the stage and pushed him down to ninth place. He finished close behind favourites Roglic and Vingegaard. He also lost the young riders jersey to Lenny Martinez who was the new race leader. Super domestique Sepp Kuss of Jumbo Visma won the stage.

The next stage was for the sprinters and was won by one of the domestiques Geoffrey Soupe. This was followed by a mountain stage with the favourites battling it out with Roglic winning ahead of Evenepoel but with Vingeaard and Kuss close behind. Martinez was dropped and Kuss became the new overall leader.

Weather conditions affected the next stage with mud being an issue that made the organisers alert the racers to potential difficulties/dangers. Lennard Kanma won the stage and completed the set of having won a stage at all three Grand Tours. And thus we came to the first rest day.

The second block of racing kicked off with an individual time trial won by Filippo Ganna who specialises in these. Evenepoel and Roglic also did well which cut down Kuss's lead but he did well enough to hang onto the lead. This was followed by a hilly stage that saw Spain finally get a winner from the home country. Ineos tried to set it up for Geraint Thomas but he was almost out by the end. A flat stage was next which let the General Classification contenders take the day off. This led on to stage 13 which went into France and the Col du Tourmalet and Jumbo Visma took the three top positions for the day with Vinegaard winning the stage and in the General Classification they has the top three spots. It also ended Evenepoel's challenge as he had a bad day and dropped out of contention losing over twenty minutes. 

He bounced back the next day winning the stage which was also a mountain stage. The last stage before the second rest day was hilly and was won by Rui Costa who has a reputation for not doing work in the breakaways in order to allow him to sprint at the end to win.

The next stage was a hilly stage and was won by Vingegaard who dedicated it to one of their colleagues who was injured in a car accident that day. Roglic won the next stage in the mountains and this is when both Vingegaard and Roglic got a lot of criticism. Their team mate was in the lead and they were likely to usurp him which seemed out of order to many on social media and also the media.

Evenepoel switched to attacking for the mountains jersey and took the stage. This was followed by a sprint stage won by Alberto Dainese. The 20th stage was a long hard hilly stage won by Wout Poels just ahead of Evenepoel but Kuss, Roglic and Vingegaard crossed the line together having ensured they were 1-2-3 or the race and having made history as they won all three Grand Tours in the same year.

The same team has held all three Grand Tours over a year but not in the same year notably Eddy Merckx and Chris Froome

Kaden Groves won the last stage around Madrid ensuring he won the Sprint Jersey with Evenepoel winning the Mountains. Jumbo Visma had all three places on the podium for General Classification with Kuss the faithful super domestique for Vingegaard and Roglic taking the overall win. He had been with Roglic during the latter's wins at the Vuelta, the win at the Giro and the two tilts at the Tour de France in 20202 and 2021 but he also served Vingegaard in 2022 and 2023. He competed in all three Grand Tours in 2023, the first time he had done so. He earned the win, the first American to win a Grand Tour since Chris Horner at the Vuelta in 2013.

[Old Man]

Avatar The Way of Water: I had low expectations for this going in but it was a pleasant surprise.  Instead of a Dances With Wolves clone it was a well executed family-moves-to-a-new town clone, with the attendant eye candy and explosions.  There's quite a bit of internal conflict among the characters and that does a good job of carrying the film, so it's not just eye candy and explosions.  Sort of wish I'd caught this in the theater, but it's three hours long so maybe not.

[mattingly]

Watching Ahsoka got me in the mood for evil David Tennant, so I've been watching Jessica Jones.

[Starlord]

53 minutes ago, mattingly said:

Watching Ahsoka got me in the mood for evil David Tennant, so I've been watching Jessica Jones.

 

Best MCU villain - hands down.

 

Ahsoka is better than expected.

[Pariah]

I'm currently watching the Sunday Funday broadcast of the Jaguars-Falcons game from Andy's Room. Silly, but fun.

[Ternaugh]

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: This was recently released on 4K Blu-ray, and the results are gorgeous. This is a movie that greatly benefits from HDR color, with certain elements bright and sharp, and the contrasting darkness and shadows look wonderful, without some of the artifacting on earlier releases. It also has an excellent sound mix, which is in DTS Master Audio 7.1. It's presented in its correct aspect ratio of 1.66:1, so the image is the closest to what I saw in the theater almost 30 years ago. It's well worth the upgrade. (4K UHD Blu-ray)

[Starlord]

I was not a fan

[slikmar]

Saw latest Expendables. If enjoyed the others - which I did - will enjoy this one. They tried 2 twists, though I pretty much guessed both immediately.

[Old Man]

The Batman (2022). A solid entry, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s closer to the Batman I was craving—more detective and less Iron Man, though it was still decidedly more Dark Champions and not heroic level. They leaned hard into the psychological thriller aspect, and for once we didn’t have to lead off with an origin story. Bruce Wayne was less playboy and more reclusive loner in this one, which is too bad since I think Pattinson could have pulled off the former. Recommended. 

[Old Man]

The Flash (2023).  That's right, I watched it so you don't have to!  And you know, it was almost good.  The underlying story featured more internal conflict than just about any other recent DC film, and Ezra Miller acts his ass off.  But the first hour involves Ezra Miller playing a whiny frat boy version of Ezra Miller and that's... a lot.  I spent much of the movie wondering if Grant Gustin wouldn't have been a better choice as the smart but underappreciated JL member.  It wasn't predictable, the action sequences were well directed, and there weren't any glaring plot holes (for a film that involves both time travel and multiverses).  I even liked Zod in this one.  There was color!  The effects were off the charts; every penny of the effects budget wound up on the screen, and legions of CGI animators must have been sacrificed in the making of the movie.  And of course there were all the multiverse versions of various JL members to check the fanservice box.

 

Best of all I get HBO Max (just "Max" now in a stupendously boneheaded branding move) for $1/month through my cell provider, so Zaslav didn't make a penny off of me.  Movie is three hours long but you could probably skip from where Barry meets Barry up until they meet Bruce Wayne, and it would save you maybe 45 minutes.  One meaningless very-end-of-credits scene.

[slikmar]

Totally agree with Old Man's review of the movie. Whiny Barry is about as annoying as idiot frat boy Thor, for different reasons.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I finally, thirty years after its release, saw The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I saw it the right way -- in an actual theatre with fifty other people on a large, clear screen with a fantastic sound system. Which is the best way to see a film for the first time if you can be lucky enough to pull it off. And  when the lights went up and it was time to head out into the night, one word and only one immediately came to mind.

 

Masterpiece.

 

The absolutely unique use of stop-motion with doses of CGI of a quality that matches more advanced modern technology, the exquisite craftsmanship, some of the best VA performances I've ever heard (the combined forces of Chris Sarandon and Danny Elfman bring the anti-hero Jack to life with style, grace, and even a bit of gravitas. Elfman's score is genius, from the various Jack soliloquies to the Fleischeresque Oogie Boogie (and the magnificent voice performance and singing by Ken Page). The film was a wild fantasy, whose completely bonkers premise because surprisingly reasonable. I can't think of anything Burton and Sellick got wrong.

 

And I saw it for the first time in that manner in which it could be most appreciated. Heavens, I needed this.

 

[Pariah]

What with my COVID-enforced isolation, I was finally able to catch up on some of the MCU Phase 4 (or is it 5?) that I had hitherto missed.

 

The Eternals: It was better than I'd anticipated, based on what I'd read from others who'd seen it. Yes, it was really long. I didn't mind. There was a big story to tell, and there was a lot of backstory and explanatory material that had to be dealt with to do that. I thought the pace was steady, if a little slow at times. I thought the characters were interesting. (In fairness, I never really followed the group in the comics, so I didn't have much to compare these to.) I had read of Icarus' face-heel turn, but was still saddened when it happened. Icarus seems to me a little like Inspector Javert, too dedicated to duty to see the humanity behind it. I liked Gilgamesh; his relationship with the broken Thena was nicely done. It'll be interesting to see how the remaining Eternals integrate with the larger Marvel Multiverse. And the credits scene with Dane Whitman and the Ebony Blade was sufficiently intriguing.

 

Shang-Shi: Legend of the Ten Rings: This one was a lot of fun. I thought there was a good mix of superheroic kung fu, Oriental dark magic, and sympathetic characters. And of course Michelle Yeoh is a treasure in anything she's in. I found the exit screen interesting: "The Ten Rings Will Return". Wait, what?

 

Thor: Love and Thunder: I would like to have liked this one better. I really would. But I just couldn't take it seriously. After the amazing first film (directed by Branagh), Thor has become the weakest link in the MCU chain. But the end credits scene with Idris Elba and Natalie Portman was a very nice touch.

 

Dr. Strange In the Multiverse of Madness: This one kind of blew me away. I really wanted Wanda to be okay after the events of WandaVision, but clearly she's not. Benedict Cumberbatch almost seemed like the co-star of his own movie behind Wanda and Wong. The plot was as out there as the title suggested, and seeing how far Strange was willing to go after his variant in What If...? was a little disconcerting. A satisfying conclusion, though, and America Chavez will be an interesting character to watch in the future. As will Clea.

 

I didn't quite get to Quantumania. Maybe later.

[slikmar]

2 hours ago, Pariah said:

Strange was willing to go

I interpreted this much like Downey's Stark. He never feels there is something his intelligence can't overcome, so warnings are for lesser men and women.

[Starlord]

The only good thing about Love and Thunder were the end credit scenes - Valhalla and Hercules

[Bazza]

@Pariah save Quantumania for next Covid home iso. 

:D 

[Pariah]

17 hours ago, Starlord said:

The only good thing about Love and Thunder were the end credit scenes - Valhalla and Hercules

 

I thought Zeus came off as a little bit petty and spiteful. But then I remembered ... it's Zeus.

[Starlord]

31 minutes ago, Pariah said:

 

I thought Zeus came off as a little bit petty and spiteful. But then I remembered ... it's Zeus.

 

I hear he gets cranky if he goes a few days without tricking a mortal into having sex with him.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Starlord

[Bazza]

10 hours ago, Pariah said:

 

I thought Zeus came off as a little bit petty and spiteful. But then I remembered ... it's Zeus.

…and a bit too Kiwi. 

[death tribble]

And we're back for more !

 

Christine

The film based on Stephen King's book about the boy who buys a car that is evil and how two others try to stop it before it is too late. The book is better but the film ain't too bad.

 

Pin

Is a a medical mannequin coming to life and causing death ? I liked it. There is anyone in the film that is well known

 

Aliens Dark Descent

This is a playthrough of the game by the Mighty Jingles who does regular World of Tanks and World of Warship replays with commentary. From the initial infection until the final confrontation with the last of the Aliens before the planet is scoured with a nuclear bombardment. The commentary show where he believes he went wrong and things to watch or when selecting your initial marines before they become total bad ass by game end.

 

Jacksonville vs Buffalo Bills in London

The only game of the London series that I got to see and it was a corker. It went smoothly so you did not get the felling that it was three hours, It was close.

 

Night of the Creeps

Zombies caused by alien experiment slugs. This is an 1986 film that is a B movie homage. It works very well.

 

Firewalker

This has Chuck Norris and Louis Gosset Jnr as treasure hunters helping Melody Anderson find a treasure that an Aztec fled with. The baddy is Sonny Landham. The reviews said it was bad but I enjoyed it. Chuck not taking himself too seriously (unlike Seagal) and Louis playing off him. I would watch it again. I believe it qualifies as Guilty Pleasure

 

Maigret

After a long hiatus while the previous twenty odd shows were repeated new ones are being screened and both see Maigret away from Paris.

Maigret and the Candle Auction sees the detective struck down by flu in a small hotel while questioning the owner about his links with Polish gangsters. A murder is committed and Maigret aids the local police in working out who done it. The man who was killed was likly to be the victor in a candle auction of a vacant house rumoured to contain treasure.. Slowly but surely Maigret pieces together what happened and who who did it.

No Vacation for Maigret. Staying with his wife's siste in Belgiumr, the wife is hospitalised with appendicitis. But a woman in the same ward is suffering before dying. Nuns are the nurses and one slips him a note saying there was something wrong with the circumstance of the woman's death. Maigret aids the local police as a murder is then committed. Again this has a slow build as the detective assembles the evidence before coming to the comclusion.

[Pattern Ghost]

We've been watching Gilmore Girls. We stopped watching it on broadcast sometime in Season 4, but can't remember why. The poor subtitlers can't keep up with the sheer wordage that the titular characters spew, which is hilarious. I can only imagine deaf people thinking the show is extremely dry and boring.

[Lord Liaden]

On 10/25/2023 at 12:50 PM, Pariah said:

 

I thought Zeus came off as a little bit petty and spiteful. But then I remembered ... it's Zeus.

 

There are a couple of deleted scenes from T:LaT which painted a more interesting and nuanced interpretation of Zeus. I really wish the movie had gone in this direction.