What Have You Watched Recently?

[death tribble]

On 11/21/2023 at 12:34 AM, Dr. MID-Nite said:

This is a remake of It Conquered the World. Incredibly, it's a worse movie than the original.

This I can easily believe.

 

Alright this will be another long on so grab yourself a beverage and the sit back and read.

 

Crown Court

Case 24 asks whether two brothers were involved in the shooting of their next door neighbour. There was bad blood between them and the man who was shot had been running a book on the side. The victim could not testify but his lodger could as could a female friend of both. No weapon had been found and the brothers alleged the lodger accidentally shot the neighbour. The woman said that the brothers hid the gun in their mother's room. The brothers said that they had sold the gun. But not the cleaning materials which the prosecution made much of. The judge allowed the jury to find both or one guilty. And they found both guilty.

Case 25 involved whether a magician's assistant had killed him. He would be shot as part of an illusion and survive. Said assistant was his wife. On the night he died, his assistant loaded one of the guns and he was shot and killed. Two members of the audience were supposed to load and fire the guns. Much was made of their antagonistic marriage and the magician's womanising. The prosecution tried to maintain that the assistant must have known how the trick worked despite their adamant denials. The defence brings in a firearm expert and shows how the trick worked and that a fault with the guns was responsible for the trick ending with the magician's death. It revealed how the trick worked and this was quite neat. The jury bought it and the assistant was acquitted.

 

Maigret

Maigret in Finland sees the inspector travel back to Scandinavia to work with the inspector he worked with before when a French citizen is accused of shooting dead a fellow professor. The dead man was supposed to run off with a young woman the next day. So did his wife, her sister or the young woman's step-father kill him ? Or was it a smuggler who the professor helped with his knowledge of the local island's channels ? The French professor does not endear himself as he is lecturing about criminology. Patiently Maigret shows how it was done and who done it.

Maigret sets a Trap. This is the one story that most people who have come across the name of Maigret will know. Women have been murdered but not sexually assaulted. So Maigret makes the press think that they have brought someone in and then puts disguised police women into the district that the women have been attacked. Said officers have all got judo training. One is thus attacked but manages to snare a button from the suit the man wore. This leads to a suspect who has a domineering wife and an adoring mother protecting him.

 

The Innocent

A British engineer is tasked with helping the Americans implement Operation Gold which is listening to Russian telephone traffic in 1950s Berlin. Anthony Hopkins plays an American in charge of security for the project. The engineer falls in love with a German woman played by Isabella Rossellini. And her personal life is what complicates matters. Her husband won't divorce her and wants to know what the engineer is doing. They kill him and cut him up and the engineer leaves his body in suitcases in the tunnel into the Russian sector. On the very day that the Russians breach the tunnel. It does not explain that a traitor gave the game away to the Russians. The engineer is allowed to leave Germany but Rossellini remains with Hopkins. The two are reunited when the wall is coming down. The film just does not grip that well.

 

Genghis Khan

Omar Sharif plays the Khan who sees his own father (played by Sharif) killed by villainous Stephen Boyd as another Mongol. Enslaved he tricks Boyd into taking the chains off and then he makes his escape. He meets a woman and starts building a tribe before hiding in China before leaving to take on the Mongols and the Persians. It is perhaps guilty of trying to pack too much into its running time. Telly Savalas is one of his subjects.

 

And now the first of two George Peppard films

Race for the Yankee Zephyr

Ken Wahl and Donald Pleasence have a helicopter and try to catch deer with nets in New Zealand. After Ken has to try and get the copter repaired he has to leave Donald behind. Donald stumbles on a wrecked DC3. He finds whiskey and medals which he tries to pawn when he is next in town. The plane is also carrying gold and this brings out Peppard and his friends who want the plane and don't care how they get it. The film is a tad tame despite the cast which also includes Lesley Warren.

 

Cannon for Cordoba

This is the second Peppard film and is much better. A renegade Mexican colonel attacks an American army train and steals artillery from General Pershing. Yeah, THAT Pershing. He sends Peppard and t wo of his men to find the guns. They are joined by two others who were imprisoned as one is an explosives expert. Raf Vallone is the villainous Cordoba, Pete Duel is one of the soldiers and Don Gordon is Peppard's reliable lieutenant. This is well worth a look.

 

Malice

Have not seen this since I saw it at the cinema. Bill Pullman and Nicole Kidman are a happily married couple trying for children in a town plagued by attacks on women. They invite hotshot doctor Alec Baldwin to stay in their house despite Kidman's reservations. She is also suffering from abdomen pains and is rushed to a hospital where Baldwin operates on her and removes both her ovaries. Only one of these was still viable. So there is a lawsuit. Kidman leaves Pullman as he allowed the operation to go ahead. Pullman finds one of his students dead and is called in for questioning by the police. He also runs into the the attacker. I won't say more as it all pulls together. It is a good twisty film.

 

Hannibal Brooks

Oliver Reed is Brooks who is captured during WWII and sent to a POW camp. He volunteers to work outside the camp and helps in a zoo where he looks after an elephant. After the zoo is bomber, the zoo director decides to send the elephant to safety in Austria. Kicked off the train they plan to use by an SS officer, they start walking south but after one of the guards is killed they decide to make for Switzerland. So how do you hide an elephant as you flee ? Michael Pollard is an American POW who escapes and teams up with the resistance in this Michael Winner film. Reed is the best thing about the film.

[L. Marcus]

I just got home from seeing The Boy And The Heron, Hayao Miyazaki's and Studio Ghibli's latest. I suspect this really will be Miyazaki's last, and what a way to bow out! It had an even deeper fairy tale feeling than Spirited Away, and it was even more beautiful than Howl's Moving Castle. Expect a bit of a mind screw. Aaaalmost five out of five marching parakeets.

[Michael Hopcroft]

14 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Saw it this afternoon as well. Spectacular film. IT really captured the sorry shape Japan was in right after the war, and the tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union were in. Also this movie did more with a microscopic budget, than DIsney has been able to do all year with 300Million dollar budgets per film.  But this film shows the importance of compelling characters, and a good script. The VFX were top notch. Godzilla was a scary creature, made worse by the Bikini Atoll tests.

I would be very disappointed if Godzilla Minus One doesn't win the Hugo for "Best Dramatic Presentation -- Long Form". (I should note that the martial arts drama Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was awarded a Hugo, presumably due to its fantasy elements in addition to being an extremely good film). Shin Godzilla wasn't even nominated, though, so I'm not getting my hopes up here.

[Michael Hopcroft]

19 minutes ago, L. Marcus said:

I just got home from seeing The Boy And The Heron, Hayao Miyazaki's and Studio Ghibli's latest. I suspect this really will be Miyazaki's last, and what a way to bow out! It had an even deeper fairy tale feeling than Spirited Away, and it was even more beautiful than Howl's Moving Castle. Expect a bit of a mind screw. Aaaalmost five out of five marching parakeets.

Howl's Moving Castle was beautifully realized, but it was also a much darker film than many give Miyazaki credit for. The air raid scene in the middle of the film was especially well-crafted and terrifying, representing a horror that Japan has experienced and from which the United States has so far been spared.

 

I'm seeing The Boy and the Heron with my mother next week. Miyazaki has told the press that he finally decided he's given up on retirement and will keep on making movies for the rest of his life. Miyazaki is 82 but seems to be healthy.

[csyphrett]

The boy and I watched the first three episodes of Breaking Bad. There were some things I cringed at, but you can clearly see Walt slowly sliding down the slippery slope when he has to deal with Jesse's partners.

 

CES    

[Pariah]

Watched Fantasia 2000 with LGP last night. This image from the Noah's Ark segment:

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Let's see, with the wife, I've been watching The Gilmore Girls. Just started season 7. We watched it for about four seasons when it was originally on, but work schedules and life made us lose track. Wouldn't make it past the PC police today, and the characters are so flawed as to be downright unlikable at times (but rounded humans, who also have their good sides). It's one of those love it or hate it shows. 

 

Been watching some K-dramas and Anime also.

 

Uncanny Counter: Recently finished Season 3, which may be the final one. The show chronicles the adventures of a team of humans, empowered by higher powers to hunt down evil souls escaped from the underworld. These souls possess and empower their human hosts. The method of exorcism involves beating the possessed human to a pulp, then extracting the possessing spirit. Mostly lighthearted adventure that doesn't veer as much into darker subplots as a lot of Korean shows, though it has its moments. (Thinking of all the cute K-drama romcoms with scary a** serial killer subplots.)

 

Sweet Home: An apocalypse where people are suddenly monsterizing. Just finished Season 2, which was much different from Season 1. Season 1 was OK, but took a hit from its brevity, as it mostly ignored the psychological angle of the monsterizations. Season 2 was a confusing mess, adding a ton of new characters without much time put into giving them any distinctiveness, odd time jumps, a lot of lack of spotty plotting. Season 3 is coming, and Season 2 did end up with a reasonable launch point for it after much zig-zagging. Hopefully, Season 3 will return to the somewhat serviceable storytelling of Season 1. Overall, thin fare. 

 

Alchemy of Souls: Brings over the actor from Uncanny Counter who played the gruff but lovable middle aged guy, reprising  his stock character. (I can't recall the name, but I like the actor. Must watch with subtitles, b/c the American dub actor does not at all capture his vibe.) It's a world of kung-fu wizards, turned upside down by the forbidden sorcery of the Alchemy of Souls (body snatching by soul swapping, and other dastardly soul manipulations). Season one was decent, with a great female lead and great supporting cast. Season 2 diverges quite a bit from Season 1, and is pretty lacking in internal consistency, but was serviceable. It's a romance with some decent humor and some fairly dark subplots. (Still not as dark as those serial killers in the Park Bo Young romcoms -- and I recommend anything with her in it, though the quality varies a little. She's great as a romcom lead.)

 

Good Night World: Anime based on a manga that was apparently much better executed. Virtual reality game shenanigans, with plot points that are all over the place and zero internal consistency and poorly realized tech elements. (As in, the writers no bupkiss about tech and online gaming.) The worst thing about it is that it was short. It tried to cram 52 issues of a manga into 12 episodes of anime. The best thing about it is that it was short, so your suffering will also be short if you watch it.

 

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Just started watching this classic, which I haven't seen before. I'm about 8 episodes in and liking it. Watching the dub, because the dialog flows better than the subtitles. Voice acting quality seems good. Netflix has re-voiced this edition, apparently.

 

Barbie: We laughed all the way through this one. Another win for Margot Robbie's production company, IMO. You'll probably like it if you're not a member of

 

 

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Finished Neon Genesis Evangelion. Apparently all I have to do to get the whole story is watch another movie and maybe play a video game and read a manga. After further research, it seems the studio ran into budgeting problems, so the project suffered from that. Essentially, there's a pretty interesting bit of world building done here, but not quite enough of it made it to the screen in the original series, leaving anyone interested in the events of the plot hanging at the end. The story was very much driven by the psychological journey of the main character, so with the lack of funding, the focus seems to have been shifted to focus there, leaving many questions unanswered. I guess I'll watch The End of Evangelion, which is purported to offer a better realized ending, and see if it offers any satisfaction. 

[Old Man]

Definitely watch End of Evangelion for closure.  It does get a little disturbing and weird though.

[Grailknight]

Watch the four Rebuild movies on Amazon to get the complete experience. The creator went back into depression over the course of the first three and recovered during the planning and making of the fourth. The animation is spectacular, and it actually tells you what the plan was at the end while giving closure to the characters.

[Ternaugh]

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: This one's a lot of fun. I particularly enjoy the comic book callouts and footnotes. Looking forward to the next installment. (4K UHD)

 

I'm a few episodes into the current seasons of For All Mankind (Apple TV+) and Julia (Max), and enjoying both. For All Mankind is exploring the colonization of Mars in an alternate timeline where the Soviets were the ones to first set foot on the moon. Julia is a somewhat-fictionalized account of the events surrounding Julia Child's first television show.

 

I'm two episodes in to the first season of Babylon 5, from the Blu-ray release this week. The transfer is very good, and I believe that the source was from the recent HD version on streaming. Unlike my original DVD sets, this hasn't been formatted in widescreen, which keeps the image quality fairly good on any CGI/composited shots. 

 

I bought myself a bit of a birthday present a few days ago, and upgraded my Samsung 4K to a Sony Bravia XR OLED. The picture quality is excellent, and it works well with both games and the videos/movies that I've played so far. The sound also seems better, which is odd, as I'm using a separate surround receiver for output. I'm planning on rewatching a bunch of my favorite movies again, to see how they look.

[Ternaugh]

Dredd: Karl Urban as Judge Dredd. It's a violent movie that is much truer to the source material than the Sylvester Stallone version. It's just a shame that it didn't get a sequel. (4K UHD)

 

The Dark Knight: Second movie in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, and one of the best. (4K UHD)

 

Escape from New York: Air Force One is hijacked and crashes on the island of Manhattan, which is now a federal prison. Snake Plissken is tasked with finding the President, and returning him and a tape before time runs out. This one's released by Shout! Factory, and includes a very clean transfer of the movie to 4K, as well as an Atmos soundtrack. There's also a Blu-ray of extra features included. (4K UHD)

 

I've also watched the Dr Who Special 1: The Star Beast, which reunites the David Tennant Doctor with Donna. I liked it, and will be watching Specials 2 and 3 very soon. (Disney+)

 

 

[slikmar]

15 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

Dredd: Karl Urban as Judge Dredd. It's a violent movie that is much truer to the source material than the Sylvester Stallone version. It's just a shame that it didn't get a sequel. (4K UHD)

 

The Dark Knight: Second movie in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, and one of the best. (4K UHD)

 

Escape from New York: Air Force One is hijacked and crashes on the island of Manhattan, which is now a federal prison. Snake Plissken is tasked with finding the President, and returning him and a tape before time runs out. This one's released by Shout! Factory, and includes a very clean transfer of the movie to 4K, as well as an Atmos soundtrack. There's also a Blu-ray of extra features included. (4K UHD)

 

I've also watched the Dr Who Special 1: The Star Beast, which reunites the David Tennant Doctor with Donna. I liked it, and will be watching Specials 2 and 3 very soon. (Disney+)

 

 

Totally agree with all takes, especially the Dredd one. 

Didn't realize they were only doing the Doctor Who on Disney +, was just looking last night for them. Dammit. Cant really stream.

[csyphrett]

Watched the next disc for breaking bad as Walt continues down his slippery slope and starts his cancer treatment. It's becoming obvious that Walt has some anger issues. He destroys this guy's car with a squeegee, and Tuco's headquarters with explosive meth.

 

Found episodes for Noragami on Youtube where the nameless god Yato is tricked into battling Bishomon the war god, and follows an old weapon into the underworld to try to save Ebisu. At the end, he finally does what he should have done and releases the weapon so that she can never be used against him again.

CES  

[death tribble]

Go get a drink and relax as I go through a lot of stuff.

 

Crown Court

Case 26. A man comes to Britain claiming to be the son of a recently deceased millionaire who left his money to his wife and legitimate offspring. The claim is that his documents are false. The millionaire married and divorced an African woman and the documents may therefore by dodgy as there was tribal trouble and various offices etc were destroyed there. The defendant was played by Derek Griffiths who I knew from the kids TV show Play School as I was growing up. Nigel Havers played his possible brother. There was the suggestion that the reason for claiming the documents were false was racial.

 

Maigret

Maigret and the Elusive Witness. A schoolboy on his way to church stumbles upon a dead body. Or does he ? Is he instead doing it for attention ? Because there is no body now. Maigret goes around questioning some of the locals and finds he likes the boy and his mother. A guest in this episode is the guy who plays the judge in Spiral. Nice to see him younger. There are lots of local rivalry like a retired judge and the local antique dealer, the business man and his unfaithful wife and the two sisters who are partly deaf and simple in one case and whose eyesight is failing in the other.

 

A Ghost Story for Christmas Ghost

M. R. James the Stalls of Barchester. A scholar is cataloguing the library of Barchester when he and the librarian come across a chest which belonged to a previous archdeacon. It was willed to the library by his sister after his death. The scholar and librarian come across evidence that the archdeacon may have caused the death of his predecessor. As a result he invoked a curse from carvings in the  cathedral made by a sculptor who was said to have been gifted with second sight. Robert Hardy plays the archdeacon in flash back whilst Clive Swift was the scholar. This is at a time when there is no electricity just candles so it is really spooky.

 

Village of the Giants

A group of teens eats some goo and become giants. They then threaten the local town. Beau Bridges plays the leader of the teens. A young Ron Howard plays Genius who invents the goo in the first place and finds a way to stop the giant teens. It is not bad. But fun seeing Ron Howard as a kid.

 

Beachhead

This is an early Tony Curtis film. Four marines are assigned as a reconnaissance platoon to find a French planter who sent a radio message about where the Japanese have their minefields. You can see why this film is rarely shown. The marines do not overly trust their NCO after their previous actions at Guadalcanal. It is small in scale and worth one look.

 

Treasure Island

This is the version with Orson Welles as Long John Silver. Watchable as you already know the story.

 

The File on the Golden Goose

Yul Brynner and Edward Woodward play agents trying to infiltrate a counterfeiting operation. Brynner is a US agent whose girlfriend has just been murdered as he was looking into the group and he was breaking up with her as he wanted to protect her from his life, The two men pretend to be part of a gang who were wiped out on a raid so that nobody knows who they were. They get into the gang in Liverpool although Yul has to kill one of them in a rooftop fight and has a girl who knew one of the dead gang held quietly by the police. The film is rather cheap but Brynner and Woodward are watchable as is Charles Gray who is a member of the gang they are after.

[death tribble]

And there is more

 

Homicidal

This is a William Castle gimmick movie. If you could not bear to face the end of the film you could leave and go into a cowards corner. A young woman asks a local bellhop to marry her at a local Justice of the Peace. She ends up killing said JP and then fleeing. The woman is looking after a nurse who is now an invalid. This is at the behest of a young man who will inherit a fortune in a couple of days time. His sister will not inherit a penny. But the homicidal young woman used the sister's name to get married. It is not a bad film.

 

Fear No More

A young woman is travelling to do an errand for her employer when she stumbles across a dead body on a train and the killer robs her of an envelope. The police think she is the killer and try to arrest her but she escapes. She runs into a man on the road who tries to help her but is she telling the truth ? As she was in an insane asylum, maybe she is not. It makes sense when you  find out what is going on.

 

Bulldog Drummond's Peril

John Howard plays the retired Captain Drummond who is due to marry his fiance when one of their presents a synthetic diamond is stolen. But the Swiss policeman guarding their presents has been murdered so Bulldog sets off in pursuit. A diamond dealer and his associate are the culprits and they get another inventor to help them while Drummond knocks heads with John Barrymore's Colonel Nielson. This was Barrymore's final time playing the Colonel and he upstages everyone else effortlessly.

 

Bulldog Drummond in Africa

John Howard again plays Drummond and his plans to marry are again thwarted as Colonel Neilson is kidnapped and taken to Africa. The Captain and fiance plus sidekick and butler give chase as the fiance witnessed the kidnap. The chief goon to the bad guy is played by Anthony Quinn in one of his early roles.

 

The Saint season 4

This is the last of the black and white episodes and is the shortest of the four early seasons being only 9 episodes long. All sorts of different stories with Roger Moore going all over the world. And still having to contend with inspector Teale. Some of this is warm and familiar. But I have now seen them all.

 

Evil Brain from Outer Space

The Emerald Planet sends a champion to Earth to thwart the machinations of the evil brain of a being who was assassinated. He tries all sorts of things but Starman who is made of Steel and can thus bounce bullets is there to stop him. He fights mutants and the brain's minions. It is cheap but has a pulpy feel. Made originally in Japan and then formatted for the American market. It has a real charm.

 

The Atomic Rulers

Starman again here trying to stop nuclear war on earth as it will spread to the stars and poison other planets and life. Starman has to persuade children that he is a good guy and save one of their number when he is abducted. He also has to track down a nuclear device.. Again this has a real charm.

 

Battle Taxi

This is about a hotshot jet pilot who has been reassigned to helicopter air sea rescue duty in the Korean War. He pushes the envelope and thus his CO until his wounding in a pick up changes matters. Sterling Hayden plays the CO and Marshall Thompson is the pilot's co-pilot. It is not bad.

 

The Big Boodle

This is one of Errol Flynn's last films and is also a last glimpse of Cuba before the revolution succeeded. Flynn is a casino dealer who gets caught up in a counterfeiting plot. With both the police and the counterfeiters after him what can he do ? This was interesting as it showed a sanitised Cuba and worth a look.

 

Experiment in Terror

A woman bank teller is menaced and told to steal $100,000 from the bank where she works or she and her sister will suffer. She contacts the FBI and is attacked by the man but she continues to work with the FBI. Set in San Francisco this has Lee Remick as the teller, Stefanie Powers as the sister, Glenn Ford as the chief FBI agent and Ross Martin as the robber. The climax in a baseball ground is pretty good.

 

The Day the Earth Caught Fire

When America and Russia both explode nuclear bombs near the poles at exactly the same time bad things happen. Like climate change. The earth is set off its axis and could be heading towards the sun. The film follows the journalists as they uncover what is happening and then what ca  be done about it. The film ends with the paper printing two alternate headlines one showing success and one failure. Edward Judd played the journalist at the centre of the story and Michael Caine has an uncredited role as a police officer. It is well worth seeing.

[Old Man]

Blue Beetle.  Nothing like a nine hour plane trip to catch up on movies.  This was one of the better DC entries--it started off a little slow, if only because it's yet another origin story, but it quickly got moving and was at least a little unpredictable.  As with Ms. Marvel, the lead's family interactions are what put this film over the top--especially Nana.  The writing, while not incredibly original, rarely seemed contrived, and Susan Sarandon is pretty believable as a villain.

 

I'd rank this film as just under WW1 and just over Aquaman 1 on the DCEU spectrum.  Worth seeing in the theater although it isn't there anymore.  It looks like James Gunn is keeping Xolo for the DCEU reboot Beetle, which is a good choice.

[Pariah]

Last night we managed to pry LBP away from his computer long enough to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. His teacher and his favorite aunt are both big Harry Potter fans, so he wanted to see it.

 

It was a little traumatic for him. His best friend's mom (who was Lady P's best friend) died a couple of years ago, so losing parents is a big trigger for him. But overall he really enjoyed it and was positively entranced for a good chunk of the movie.

[csyphrett]

watched the last episode of season one of breaking bad. It's still a little cringy in part but some of it is funny enough, and Tuco lends it some seriousness. The last scene is Tuco beating his henchman down for saying the wrong thing while Walt and Jesse look on flabbergasted.

CES  

[slikmar]

Saw Wonka today.

 

I enjoyed it. Was the Gene Wilder Wonka, younger, meets Annie and was fun and whimsical in front of a Londonish type of town. For those who liked Wilder's version, it is recommended, if you preferred Depp's, probably not for you.

[death tribble]

Grab a drink because here we go again.

 

Crown Court

Case 27 involves whether a private security firm used their truncheons as offensive weapons against two young people and whether a dog was set upon them illegally. The two young people had gone to the site to make out and seemed unaware that the new firm had guard dogs although signs were posted. The attack was at night. The two were involved in protests about what was going to be done at the site and had previously pranked the night watchman. The woman was savaged by the guard dog while the man was hit from behind on the head with truncheon causing a fractured skull. The retiring chief constable had referred the case to the authorities as he thought the company had overstepped the mark and it would be a test case. The defence made a point of this. The judge directed that the company director be absolved but that a verdict could be brought against the guards.

Cas 28 involved whether a company was liable for an accident that caused a worker to fall while working on a bridge. Did the company lie ? Did the wife of the worker have an affair with her husband's best friend ? Did the company lock up safety belts ? People had to change testimony in court which did not sit well with the judge.

 

Maigret

Maigret and the Liberty Bar. Maigret is sent to the Cote D'Azur to look into the death of an Australian who was a member of the Resistance during the war. Two women he was living with fled the home he had with them before coming a cropper in a traffic accident. They buried him on the property before leaving. Maigret's enquiries lead him to a bar frequented by the man. He has also been told 'Do not make waves'. The man's son also turns up and Maigret has to work out how he is involved. In the end no-one is arrested although Maigret solves the crime.

Maigret and the Vanishing Mr Owen. Maigret is staying at a hotel owned by an old acquaintance when a man is discovered dead in the bath of another guest. The husband of a starlet and the man both vanish. Maigret assists peripherally to the official investigation and works out that an art fraud was in progress and that Mr Owen's nurse dresses down during the day before dolling up to be with someone else. A blind masseur is very helpful to him in this regard.

 

A Ghost Story for Christmas

'A Warning for the Curious' An antiquarian searches for one of three Saxon crowns supposed to protect the Norfolk coast from invaders. But in finding it a ghost pursues him to his end. Clive Swift who was in the previous story also appears in this story.

'Lost Hearts'. A boy goes to stay with an elderly relative who is toying with alchemy and seems to have murdered two children aged 12 in order to gain immortality. He plans to murder his young relative but the ghosts want revenge for what was done to them.

'The Ash Tree'. A new squire takes up residence on an estate after his uncle dies childless. Said relative inherited because his uncle died childless. The new squire is the spit of the original squire who had a woman executed for witchcraft. The new squire begins having waking dreams about the witch who cursed his ancestor. In making way for the church to have a new pew the witch's grave is opened and she is not in it. She is beneath the ash tree and sends spiders up to kill the squire. After the tree is burned down her corpse is discovered.

'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas'. A priest is interested in the legend of one of his predecessors who was into alchemy and was supposedly carried off by the Devil leaving a guardian to protect his treasure. The priest, a rational man, is assisted by a pupil of his after he uncovers fake mediums preying on the pupil's mother. However in deciphering the clues the priest runs up against the guardian which is a thing of slime. He begs the pupil to restore the treasure.

 

Cellar Dweller

This is a horror film from the 80s. A cartoonist brings a creature to life and in attempting to destroy it dies in a fire. 30 years later an aspiring artist goes to the colony that the cartoonist lived in and brings the beast back to life. Short horror film that also has Yvonne de Carlo in the cast,

 

The Wimbledon Poisoner

This was originally in two parts but is now screened as one complete film. A solicitor dreams of killing his wife as she has contracted feminism. Forging a prescription for Thalium he accidentally poisons one of his neighbours and then several of other neighbours at the wake for the first victim. A police inspector who is a friend of his wife seems to hint that he knows more about what is going on. This is actually a comedy and is not bad.

 

Lifetime Ago with the Baim Collection: Girls ! Girls ! Girls !

 This is a short directed by Michal Winner about three women sharing a flat in London. It looks at them and their boyfriends and is narrated rather than acted. Dated. Very dated.

[Ternaugh]

Barbie: A fantasy movie about the doll having an existential crisis, and the aftermath. It's a good watch. (Max)

 

Blue Beetle: Better than I thought it would be, but it still feels like they were cribbing notes from the Iron Man series of movies. (Max)

 

Die Hard: Because it's not Christmas until you see Hans Gruber fall. It's a good watch. (Digital copy on Vudu, because I'm too lazy to look for the disc in my collection) 

[DShomshak]

I recently saw Season 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. (Came in at the library. Season 2 is on order but already has so many holds I probably can't see it for another year.) A "prequel" to TOS, following the adventures of Captain Christopher Pike and his crew. Decent Trek, nothing too bad, with some nice development of some characters before their appearance in TOS.  The Gorn are a significant menace, which sort of retcons their appearance in TOS episode "Arena," in which nobody seems to have heard of them, but not to such an extent that I can't justify. My chief criticism would be that the acting seems a bit low-key compared to the animation all the TOS actors brought to their roles.

 

Best episode IMO was the wackiest, in which Doctor Mbenge finds himself caught in a version of a children's fantasy story, with Enterprise crew drafted into the other roles. Anson Mount does a delightful turn as the treacherous poltroon Chamberlain, in marked contraswt to his rather subdued Captain Pike. But everyone does pretty well: mmm, delicious scenery!

 

Dean Shomshak

[Rich McGee]

On 12/12/2023 at 2:12 PM, death tribble said:

Village of the Giants

A group of teens eats some goo and become giants. They then threaten the local town. Beau Bridges plays the leader of the teens. A young Ron Howard plays Genius who invents the goo in the first place and finds a way to stop the giant teens. It is not bad. But fun seeing Ron Howard as a kid.

I re-watched the MST3K episode that riffed this one recently, and think I still prefer it to the straight version.  Not a terrible film, but it overstays its welcome for me when it it isn't edited and being relentlessly mocked.  As you said, young Mister Howard is a real selling point in either format.

 

On a related note, last night I spent 20 minutes watching part of an old episode of the Andy Griffith Show while I waited for a food delivery.  This was the episode where Andy casually releases of a prisoner so he can get his crops in and then return to finish his sentence, only to take heat from the new mayor for being too trusting.  When the guy doesn't show up on time Andy, Barney and the mayor go out to see what happened, eventually finding the AWOL prisoner sitting up in a tree and saying he won't come down and they'd better stay away.  The mayor insists on going after him after Andy correctly refuses to do so and gets comedically mauled and treed by a bear that then proceeds to move into the back seat of the patrol car they all came in, with Mayberry's finest huddling on top of the cab for safety.  As is almost always the case Andy proves to be in the right.  The main exception I can recall to that formula being "Mr. McBeevee" where he reluctantly decides Opie is a liar because his description of an electrical lineman he randomly met seems impossible, averting an unjust spanking only through a last-minute encounter with the guy himself.  "You walk in the trees!  You jingle when you walk!  You have a shiny silver hat!  Thanks goodness, I don't have to go beat my kid!"

 

In the 20 minutes I was waiting for my chicken sorrento (very tasty, I might add) there were three commercial breaks, and I was reminded of why I watch cable TV as little as possible.  Had my quota for the year, next time I bring a book while I'm waiting and not on youtube. 

 

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

I spent the half hour after seeing The Boy and the Heron trying (unsuccessfully) to explain it to my mother.  The fact that I was in open-mouthed awe throughout and was completely enraptured with the movie did not make sense to Mom, who couldn't understand it. It was the same condition I was in when we saw The Green Knight.

 

To my mind, the complexity of the ideas and emotions Miyazaki was exploring through the actions of his protagonist is a large part of the appeal. There is a great deal of religion and philosophy involved in what is basically the story of a deeply traumatized youth in 1944 Tokyo, who hears his dead mother might actually be alive and unwisely goes into a crumbling tower to find her, reluctantly aided by a nature spirit in the form of a heron.  The young hero's trauma is realistic, vivid, and even includes a dramatic incident of self-harm, which earned my immediate sympathy. Once in the tower he finds it leading to a strange fantasy world, filled with marvels and terrors, in which he is forced to confront his trauma, his true nature, and the cycles of his life that he must struggle to escape (a very Buddhist idea, as the central idea of Buddhism is about finding a way to escape the endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth).

 

My mother will not want to see it again, I fear, but I do. I feel there is a great deal more to this film than even I was able to grasp on first viewing.

 

(As a side note, my attempt to explain the appeal of Godzilla Minus One was equally unsuccessful. Her thought that Japan needed to "get over" the war struck me as both odd and unrealistic, because as we are seeing now some pretty terrible cycles repeat if the cost of following them is forgotten).

Edited December 24, 2023 by Michael Hopcroft