What Have You Watched Recently?

[Bazza]

If it was in the comics, it would have been written that way. 

[Lord Liaden]

36 minutes ago, Starlord said:

 

He should've said, "Thanos, we would have words with thee."

 

Would have been pointless. Thanos wasn't there.

 

Besides, this line conveys Thor's rage and hatred more effectively. He really wants to kill Thanos.

Edited January 26 by Lord Liaden

[Ternaugh]

Air Force One: After a state visit to Moscow, Air Force One is hijacked and it's up to the President (Harrison Ford) to take back the plane. The movie's a decent watch, but some of the CGI effects didn't age particularly well. (Bravia CORE*)

 

Echo: A five-part series that explores the character introduced in Hawkeye, I really enjoyed this series. (Disney+)

 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Eight episodes in season one, and it captures the tone of the book much better than the movie adaptation some years ago. It's a good watch. (Disney+)

 

 

 

*Included with the purchase of a Bravia XR TV, Bravia CORE is a movie service that focuses mainly on Sony releases. My TV came with 2 years of the service, and 10 movie credits to purchase from a different list of movies. Picture quality is generally on par with 4K UHD discs, and many of the movies are presented in an IMAX format.

[DShomshak]

Star Trek: Lower Decks, Season Two. Still funny, still managing more story and character in 22 minutes than most ST series manage in 45, Still remembering bits from TOS, TNG and other series that were well worth seeing again, and still poking fun at Star Trek tropes that were done just a few times too often.

 

Also, this show managed to tell more about Billips' home planet in one episode than TNG told about Betazed in seven seasons. That's writing. And I really, really want to see more of that planet and the skills Billips has because of that past.

 

Best scene, IMO, was Boimler and Rutherford defeating the Ferengi poachers through... the Power of Math! Boimler pwning the megalomaniac computer came a close second, though. He may be naive and inexperienced in some ways, but behind the humor he's growing into a pretty darn good officer. In fact, all the recurring characters are people I would like and respect IRL, which is quite an achievement for any show.

 

Dean Shomshak

[death tribble]

On 1/26/2024 at 12:02 AM, Lord Liaden said:

No, this is the greatest move of all time in any movie.

 

 

If he'd done it twice in a row I might concede the point but as not Godzilla still holds the crown.

I grant you you that is the best entrance.

 

 Maigret

Maigret sees Double. A seemingly boring accountant is killed but Maigret finds out he was living a double life. He seemed to care nothing for his wife and family. And then Maigret discovers he was out of work so where did the money come from ? Who killed him and why ? Maigret brings in his nephew who was also in the Death in First Class story.

Maigret and the Rich. Maigret is told to drop everything as a threatening letter has been received at the household of a prominent lawyer. There is no crime yet there is the threat of one. Maigret interviews the lawyer, his two working colleagues who work in the same building, his secretary, the staff, his children and eventually the man's wife. Then Maigret receives letters threatening the same and saying that they may be provoked into action earlier. Again Maigret brings in his nephew. So when the death does occur, who did it and why ? It was a surprise the victim and the culprit.

 

Bandido

Robert Mitchum goes South of the border to help Mexican rebels by hijacking an arms shipment. This brings him between the arms supplier and the man's wife. As usual the government troops are seen as the bad guys. It is not bad. Artillery, machine guns and grenades are all put to use.

 

The Queen and her Ceremonial Horses

Made in 1984 this documentary looks at the horses used by the Royal household and what they are used for. It also looks at the people who look after the horses. Fascinating snap shot.

 

Parkinson

This was an episode from 2002 with Paul O'Grady, Paul Whitehouse and Gillian Anderson. O'Grady was recovering from a heart attack and Anderson had just finished the X-Files and was going into a play in the West End. Parkinson was always one of the best interviewers on TV. Closest I have seen was Dick Cavett.

 

Playthroughs

Watched down several board game playthroughs. Two came from Before You Play and were Viscounts of the West Kingdom and Paladins of the West Kingdom. Nice to see how the game works before you spend money on getting it.

Also Wingspan playthrough using the European birds expansion.

 

The Dice Tower's Top 100 Games of all Time 2024 edition.

10 videos covering 100 games from each of three reviewers and also 100 selected by the audience. There were a few crossovers between the three and also the people showing the breadth of taste people have and also what is obtainable either through Kickstarter or the shops. Ark Nova topped the people's choice closely followed by Wingspan. But Lost Ruins of Arnak and other games in my own collection turned up which gratified me.

 

The 39 Steps

This was the 1970s version with Robert Powell playing Hanney. It has the ending with Hanney perched on the minute hand of Big Ben in order to stop the bomb going off. Worth a look.

 

Batman (1966)

The film that was made to help sell the series to foreign markets  it has Lee Meriwether's only appearance as Catwoman  But it has Cesar Romero as the Joker, Frank Gorshin as the Riddler and Burgess Meredith as the Penguin. Only Romero as the Joker does not have a lot to do but the others get chances to really shine. There is so much fun in this even after repeated watches it can still be enjoyed even when you know the jokes. And it just goes to show that sometimes you just can't get rid of a bomb.

[mattingly]

I still totally love Batman (1966).

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

For the first time in decades, I got to see the classic Outer Limits episode "Demon with a Glass Hand", in which a man from the future must find a way to stop enemies of the Human species from traveling in time back to the 20th century, guided by the computer that has been grafted to him in place of one of his hands. It was not as good as I remembered it -- it was better.

 

People forget that before he became a legendary curmudgeon, Harlan Ellison was a great television writer, both in science fiction and in other forms. He wrote several episodes of the badly-dated detective series Burke's Law, whose premise of a police detective who also happened to be a multi-millionaire is ludicrous now.  He did contribute some well-designed murder puzzles to that series, and at the time producers seemed to enjoy working with him. He only stopped writing TV episodes when he clashed with the producers of Star Trek over his script for "City on the Edge of Forever" -- the changes to the script turned out to be superior to what he had originally written, but you never, ever tried to tell Harlan Ellison he was wrong.

 

Back to the episode, which combines a sense of claustrophobia (it is almost entirely set in a dilapidated office building surrounded by a field that prevents escape) with a cracking adventure. The protagonist constantly tries to ask the hand why he was sent back, where the object of his quest is located, and most importantly who and what he is. Robert Culp, who would go on to fame in series like I Spy and The Greatest American Hero, gives a splendid performance especially since he probably only had about a week to prepare for it.

On 2/2/2024 at 4:15 AM, mattingly said:

I still totally love Batman (1966).

 

The TV series featured some surprisingly well-written episodes even when the cliffhanger endings don't really fit the "guest villain" in question. Yes, the premise and episodes are full of jokes even at Batman's expense, but Adam West clearly rolled with it -- showing an uncanny ability to keep a straight face in even the most absurd of circumstances.

Edited February 3 by Michael Hopcroft

[Ternaugh]

I'm rewatching Batman: The Animated Series on Max. The order of episodes is different than on the DVD/Blu-Ray releases (which I also own), and are closer to the original airdates. It's an extremely good watch.

 

 

 

 

[Old Man]

Thunderball (1965).  I can see why this film did well when it came out, and I can see why the director would have wanted to put all that underwater footage on screen.  I also have to respect the fact that they had to build all that gear--especially the subs and the separating hydrofoil Disco Volante.  In the end, though, the film has not aged all that well.  It's too long, too slow, and Bond is too SA-ey.  It was okay, though I nodded off once or twice.

 

Skipped YOL2x and DAF because Prime implemented ads.

 

Live and Let Die (1973).  The first Roger Moore film.  Moore is a pretty good Bond.  Paul McCartney makes a really good Bond theme.  Jane Seymour is an outstanding Bond girl.  We can see the silliness and comic-book physics start to creep into the franchise in this one, though Bond himself mostly avoids the comic relief.  It doesn't help that I watched this Caribbean-set film right after the Caribbean-set Thunderball, but it was definitely better than Thunderball.

 

Probably skipping TMWTGG because it's not free, plus I think I've seen it, so next up is TSWLM on Max.  I'm struggling with whether I should go back and pay Apple for YOL2x and DAF.  At least they're not Amazon.

 

 

Masters of the Air (2024).  This Apple TV+ original is the U.S. Army Air Corps counterpart to Band of Brothers and The Pacific.  Growing up in an Air Force household I'm pretty familiar with the exploits of the Bloody 100th in WWII.  Three episodes in I'm pretty happy with the accuracy of the story and portrayal, although I feel they're sanitizing the violence a little bit.  We don't see too much of what happens in the many, many, many B-17s that get shot up and shot down.  Any given bomber crewman in the 100th had a 25% chance of surviving their tour in 1943.  But we're only three episodes in and there are some more horrific missions coming up, so maybe I've spoken too soon.

[Michael Hopcroft]

My opinion of LALD would not be suitable for this forum. On the other hand, I love Golden Gun -- as a comedy as opposed to the action/adventure film they wanted their audience to think that was what they were getting. I especially like Bernard Lee's slow-burn take on M in the middle of all this insanity.

 

The first Bond movie I saw on its first run was The Spy Who Loved Me. The last was Casino Royale.

[Scott Ruggels]

Watched "The UnderDoggs with Snoop Dogg and a buch of kids.  The most foul mouthed "Bad News Bears" movie ever, but this time featuring Peewee Football, rather than Baseball. Snoop Dogg is not the finest actor, and the writing was "abrupt".  Not recommended.

[death tribble]

Eyes down look in and here we go !

 

Maigret

The Crime at Lock 14. I can easily recall this episode and the one that follows in the BBC series with Rupert Davies as Maigret. An attractive woman is found in a stable by a lock. Maigret is called in with his nephew to investigate. Barges are being held up while the crime is investigated. Michael Lonsdale make a repeat appearance in the show and this time he is playing an English major. The woman was the recent wife of the major. So Maigret has to interrogate him again. Lonsdale switches between French and English as a proper Brit would. The solution is the same as in the BBC show and the original book.

My friend Maigret. An old criminal is killed and Maigret and nephew are called in to investigate. The man had a letter on him from Maigret and he bragged about how he was an old friend of the inspector. A Scotland Yard inspector accompanies him to observe his methods. The suspects are a gigolo and the woman he looks after, an artist and his model, the old criminal's mistress, the owner of hotel where the police are staying, a dentist and a crook. Maigret finds out that a fraud was committed and that is why the old criminal was killed. There are differences to the book but the TV series is true to it.

 

Tales from the Crypt

This is a portmanteau film made up of five stories. Several people are separated from a group investigating catacombs and are invited by a monk like figure to explain what they would do next. All of them suffer horrible fates after doing wrong and they are then put into the pit. It is an all star cast from the early 70s with Joan Collins, Ian Hendry, Peter Cushing and Ralph Richardson amongst the cast. A couple of the stories are not that scary to be honest.

 

Vault of Horror

This is another portmanteau and is better than Tales of the Crypt above. Five men enter a lift and find themselves stranded in a basement room. They then recount their nightmares. Terry Thomas is a retired business man whose treatment of his trophy wife due his obsessive neatness rebounds on him; Daniel Massey is looking for his sister as they have inherited money but no-one goes out after dark in the town she is staying in as bad things happen. Daniel's real life sister Anna; Curd Jurgens is a magician looking for a new trick in India and he exposes a local magician as a fraud and this rebounds on him when he sees a rope trick he cannot explain; Michael Craig is a business man faking his own death to collect on the insurance and he gets buried alive. Two trainee doctors get him dug up so they can study the corpse. Said doctors are played by actors in the popular Doctor In.. TV series; Tom Baker is an impoverished painter who finds out that two dealers and a critic are making money at his expense so he turns to voodoo to exact revenge. But he has painted a self portrait which is a mistake that will come back to bit him.

 

Night Ferry

This is a Children's film foundation film. Bernard Cribbins is a criminal mastermind who oversees the theft of a mummy from a security van. A boy witnesses it and tries to get others to help him thwart the robbers. He cannot go to the police as he caused an accident which led to a rail worker suffering a broken leg. The kids trail the villains as they try to transport the mummy and its case on the night ferry to France.

 

Out of Bounds

A kid goes to stay with his brother in Los Angeles but accidentally picks up the wrong bag at the airport which contains drugs. The drug dealer goes after his stuff and kills the brother and brother's wife but fails to find the kid and his stuff. The kid ends up being chased by the police who think he killed his brother and the dealer. But two DEA agents are also tailing the dealer. Has an appearance by Siouxsie and the Banshees singing Cities in Dust which delighted me greatly.

 

The Dark

Something is going around killing people and taking their heads off. They are inhumanly strong. But are they an alien ? William Devane and Richard Jaeckel star as the father of one of the victims and the cop hunting the killer. See once.

 

Don't Look in the Basement

A nurse goes to work at a psychiatric hospital just after a doctor and nurse there are killed. She has to cope with the odd atmosphere there and the patients. But one of the patients is the killer.....

 

They Live

Have not seen this in a while. Aliens using subliminal messaging to control the populace. But they have not reckoned with Rowdy Roddy Piper. It still holds up. Still worth seeing.

 

Mannaja

This is a spaghetti Western where a Bounty Hunter is after the owner of a silver mine but finds out that the man's deputy is worse. The Bounty Hunter is also good at throwing axes. Worth a look if you like the genre.

 

The Secret of Seagull Island

A woman tries to find out what happened to her blind sister after she goes missing in Rome. She may have gone to the mysterious Seagull Island owned by a rich Brit played by Jeremy Brett. But death haunts the area as the Brit's young wife and son from first marriage died nearby as have several blind women.

 

The Hunt

Rich liberals hunt right wing deplorables for fun. Except one decides to fight back. Plenty here to annoy both political wings but a pretty neat film although expanding the people who are being targeted for death would have helped.

 

Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves

Got this on DVD over Christmas and have now seen it. As someone who grew up with the game this was something I was dreading after the first attempt some years back and that awful cartoon. But this was so good. Whoever did the script paid attention to what the game could do and what players got up to. And didn't Hugh Grant have fun ?

No Purple Worms and no Ropers and no Shambling Mounds. But we did get an Owlbear, Displacer Beasts, a Mimic, Gelatinous Cube and a fat Red Dragon. It was delightful.

 

Scream (2022)

The original cast survivors and a new batch of teens try to survive Ghostface. This was good. It was left to the new cast to carry the film while the originals contributed. Well worth a look if you have seen the original films.

 

Midsommar

A woman whose sister just died in a murder suicide incident with her parents goes to Sweden with her boyfriend who was about to break up with her. A Swede they have met invited them to a celebration that his home village is holding. Two other friends go with them.

This film may tax your patience but it is remarkable and is reminiscent of the original Wicker Man. It is worth seeing but will not be for everyone.

 

Super Bowl 2024

Just when you thought the Super Bowl could not get any better, oh boy did this deliver. I did not see the build up as I was watching a film on another channel but I saw the whole game. No score in the first quarter which was unusual. And then we have turnovers, a field goal and touchdown to leave the 49ers 10-0 up. And then Kansas claw two file goals back. The defensive side of both teams were playing on all cylinders. The half time show was nothing much to me as Usher just does not appeal to me. And then the second half and we go to overtime where each side must have a possession unless the defence scores. And we get a score with seconds left. This was not for the faint of heart. Congrats to the Chiefs.

[slikmar]

2 hours ago, death tribble said:

Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves

Got this on DVD over Christmas and have now seen it. As someone who grew up with the game this was something I was dreading after the first attempt some years back and that awful cartoon. But this was so good. Whoever did the script paid attention to what the game could do and what players got up to. And didn't Hugh Grant have fun ?

No Purple Worms and no Ropers and no Shambling Mounds. But we did get an Owlbear, Displacer Beasts, a Mimic, Gelatinous Cube and a fat Red Dragon. It was delightful.

I so hope the same people come back and do more of these. And the fat Dragon was hilarious, far more then I thought would be. "What does a Bard do?", how many times in a game did we ask that.

[Lord Liaden]

I've been told Themberchaud the fat dragon is an actual official NPC in the Forgotten Realms setting, and quite popular with fans of D&D.

 

I don't think Edgin is a bard in the sense of the D&D character class, though. He never casts any spells. He's more of a rogue who sings and plays the lute pretty well. But he swings a lute even better.

 

The film wouldn't work without a credible primary villain, and I give props to Daisy Head as the Red Wizard Sofina. She was appropriately menacing and especially creepy, and while a few of her interactions with other, more normal characters provoked a laugh, she herself was never other than deadly serious.

[wcw43921]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I don't think Edgin is a bard in the sense of the D&D character class, though. He never casts any spells. He's more of a rogue who sings and plays the lute pretty well. But he swings a lute even better.

 

KA-BONNNGGG!!!

[mattingly]

11 hours ago, death tribble said:

They Live

Have not seen this in a while. Aliens using subliminal messaging to control the populace. But they have not reckoned with Rowdy Roddy Piper. It still holds up. Still worth seeing.

 

My favorite John Carpenter film. 

 

 

 

[Dr. MID-Nite]

On 2/15/2024 at 7:20 PM, death tribble said:

The Dark

Something is going around killing people and taking their heads off. They are inhumanly strong. But are they an alien ? William Devane and Richard Jaeckel star as the father of one of the victims and the cop hunting the killer. See once.

 

This movie feels like the original script was going for something supernatural (the creature looks like a zombie), but decided to throw in the alien angle to cash in on the outer space hype of the time. The movie is pretty dull until the climax and the "eye laser" FX don't really blend in well with the rest of the film.

[Old Man]

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).  One of the better ones so far, with very little goofiness and probably the best direction yet.  It's a bit uneven--a somewhat noir spy thriller featuring two competing spies who are involuntarily attracted to each other, giving way to a kind of ridiculous war movie towards the end.  I definitely preferred the first part and I actually wish the film had leaned into the relationship more.  Still, it's probably the second best of the pre-1980s Bond films I've seen so far, after FRWL.

[DShomshak]

Season 3 of Star Trek: Lower Decks came in at the library. I've only just started watching (not a binger, me) but I'll note the first episode snarkily inverted one of the overused tropes of, well, many dramas with young protagonists: The People in Charge Are Idiots, So The Kids Must Save The Day. Mariner believes this, all the more because everyone tells her to "trust the system." And for once, she's wrong. Whaddaya know, the people running Starfleet turn out *not* to be idiots, they see as clearly as she does that her mother is being framed, and how (the Original Series episode "Courtmartial" had this), and deal with it competently. As they were supposed to.

 

Wow. Now that's satire.

 

Dean Shomshak

[slikmar]

On 2/18/2024 at 11:40 AM, Old Man said:

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).  One of the better ones so far, with very little goofiness and probably the best direction yet.  It's a bit uneven--a somewhat noir spy thriller featuring two competing spies who are involuntarily attracted to each other, giving way to a kind of ridiculous war movie towards the end.  I definitely preferred the first part and I actually wish the film had leaned into the relationship more.  Still, it's probably the second best of the pre-1980s Bond films I've seen so far, after FRWL.

This movie, especially the ending, always felt like a remake of Thunderball(?)

[mattingly]

Whereas Never Say Never literally was a remake of Thunderball.

[Old Man]

3 hours ago, slikmar said:

This movie, especially the ending, always felt like a remake of Thunderball(?)

 

No, I don't think there was any SA in TSWLM at all.

 

I'll tell you what, though, the constant callbacks to prior Bond films make it really hard to keep them straight in your head.  Seems like every single one of these films has a train, a boat, a tropical resort full of scantily clad women, an underwater sequence, a shark, and a helicopter chase.

Edited February 20 by Old Man

[slikmar]

 

3 hours ago, mattingly said:

Whereas Never Say Never literally was a remake of Thunderball.

your right, wasn't thunderball. Felt like You Only Live Twice, only Submarines instead of Spaceships. not exact, but felt very similar.

[Ternaugh]

Conan the Barbarian: Arnold Schwarzenegger's first major action role, my memories of this were mainly of watching it on old VHS tapes, and washed-out TV broadcasts. This time, it's remastered on 4K Blu-ray by Arrow Video, with Dolby Atmos sound (a DTS-HD mono track is also available for purists). Looks and sounds great, and the HDR color grading is done well. It's part of a limited edition Conan Chronicles set that also includes Conan the Destroyer, reproductions of the movie posters, a bunch of postcard pictures, a thick illustrated book, and a Blu-ray of special features. (4K UHD Blu-ray)

 

John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum: Third movie in the series, John is on the run for the events in the second movie. It's a good watch. (Netflix)

 

Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes and Huntsmen Part Two: A crossover between the two properties, wrapping up the loose ends from part one. I enjoyed it. (Max)

 

Blazing Saddles: A favorite of mine. A very good watch. (Max)

 

 

[mattingly]

6 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum: Third movie in the series, John is on the run for the events in the second movie. It's a good watch. (Netflix)

 

This one has my favorite fight -- the axe throwing in the weapons museum.