What Have You Watched Recently?

[Ternaugh]

And now I have Lee Majors' version of the theme song stuck in my head.

[slikmar]

It's there in the credits when they show the real stuntmen who did the stunts in the movie. Also, Lee Majors and Heather Thomas make a cameo at end.

Edited May 9 by slikmar

[death tribble]

Wait, what ?

 

You want a special ?

 

Well how about a Dr Who special from Classic Dr Who featuring at least one serial from six different doctors.

 

The Wheel in Space

 

This is the first story of Dr Who that I started binging as most of the surviving stories and recreated ones have been put online in the BBC's website and can be viewed using the BBC player. I can now see stories I have never seen before and this is particularly true of the Hartnell and Troughton eras.

This is the last story of season 5 which is Troughton era and follows on from Fury From the Deep where Victoria has chosen to stay in 1968. Jamie and the Doctor land on a spaceship which seems to have been abandoned. They can't get onto the bridge and so look elsewhere. A robot seals the engine room where the TARDIS landed, having come from the bridge. Jamie and the Doctor disable it when they eventually encounter it but the Doctor is injured in the struggle. The Wheel is a space station and it is coming under attack from meteorites which they are deflecting with a large laser. They are going to destroy the ship to prevent collision but find Jamie signalling to them. They get him and the Doctor to the station but the station encounters problems as something from the ship lands on the Wheel and seems to become absorbed. Something on the ship seems to have launched these mini spheres at the station. Jamie disables the laser to stop the TARDIS from being destroyed and this lands him in trouble with the station crew. The spheres have become cybermats who begin to eat an ore on the station that is needed to power the space laser. The crew on the Wheel send two of their number to the ship and they are overpowered and brought under cyber control by Cybermen who were hiding on the ship and are responsible for moving away from its original destination. There is an ore on the spaceship that can power the laser and the Cybermen use this to have themselves brought over to the Wheel. Jamie and the Doctor meet Zoe who is a human computer and they also find a cybermat which was covered in plastic by a crewman before they killed him. They try to alert the crew to the danger but the controller has lost it. The Cybermen try to poison the air supply but are thwarted and then the Doctor manages to kill one when they catch him on his own. He then helps the crew get rid of the other Cyberman on the station and destroy the Cyber spaceship which needs the Wheel to guide smaller cyberships to land on Earth. Zoe tries to stow away on the TARDIS forcing the doctor to show her the dangers she could be facing.

 

The Creature from the Pit 

 

On to Tom Baker Dr Who number 4 who has the most stories and episodes of any Doctor. This is a story that I don't recall only bits and pieces. It is season 17 and Lalla Ward took over from Mary Tamm as Romana. The TARDIS lands on a planet where people seem obsessed with metal and the person in charge Lady Adrasta sacrifices those who oppose her to the Creature in the pit. After she captures the Doctor and Romana in the forbidden area, the Doctor escapes down the pit. K9 is disabled by the wolf weeds which are intelligent plant life controlled with a whip. The Doctor meets an astrologer who managed to evade the creature while Romana and k9 are held by Adrasta who wants Romana to help her maintain the monopoly on metals. Bandits try and capture them but Romana outsmarts them. The Doctor meets the Creature and it shows him something which is held by Lady Adrasta. While Adrasta and her guards travel underground to the pit, bandits raid her home and are compelled to pick up the device and relay it into the tunnels. The Doctor manages to communicate with the Creature before the bandits appear and the creature uses people to talk to everyone using the device. It was an ambassador from a race that needs chlorophyll which the planet has plenty of and they would give metal in return. To maintain her monopoly Adrasta imprisoned it. She is then killed partly by the wolf weeds and then by the creature eating them. However the creature's people are sending a neutron star to destroy the planet in retaliation for what was done to its ambassador so the Doctor and Romana and the ambassador manage to divert it and allow peace to make things better for the two peoples. The woman who played Adrasta was not known to me but made a good scheming villain. It was an ok story.

 

The Ambassadors of Death

 

Back to season 7 and Jon Pertwee's first year as the Doctor. This was the one story I knew very little of and the only one except the Silurians from this year that I had not seen.

A space probe coming back from Mars has not responded to communications so a rescue astronaut is sent up to it. And then they lose contact with it. This is where the Doctor and UNIT come in. And then things get complicated as a scientist tries to stop the Doctor and Liz Shaw from communicating with the spaceship. The ship manages to disengage and come down but then the capsule is found to be empty. The crew have been spirited away. The head of space security General Carrington and the minister are deliberately trying to stop things going ahead and criminals also get involved hijacking the astronauts and holding them elsewhere. They also kidnap Liz Shaw. The astronauts are radioactive and need to be kept that way. She escapes only to be captured by the scientist who is betrayed by his employer and killed by a bomb meant for him and the Doctor. The Doctor goes into space to find the real astronauts who he has insisted are still in orbit. An attempt to kill him by sabotaging the fuel needed to send him to the spaceship is foiled. He is captured by an alien spaceship and finds out that the astronauts are alive but kept while the aliens want to know what has happened to their Ambassadors who are on Earth. He returns with the alien's ultimatum but is captured by the criminals. His boss General Carrington wanted him to kill the Doctor. Meantime the criminals have used one of the aliens to kill the minister and to raid a laboratory to steal radioactive isotopes to keep the aliens alive. Carrington disarms UNIT but the Brigadier escapes and he gathers UNIT soldiers outside of the space centre to rescue the Doctor and Liz Shaw and then back to the space centre to free the alien that Carrington is going to expose to the world. He is suffering from PTSD. He was on the previous Mars probe and the aliens accidentally killed the astronaut with him so now he wants to show that THEY are the Enemy and destroy them. He is stopped just in time and the aliens are to be returned to their people. This had a lot of action, shoot outs and running up and down a refinery or chemical plant. It looked fun. Ronald Allen who I knew as a soap actor wa the space controller and John Abineri was Carrington. He appeared in several Who stories including Fury from the Deep which I had recently watched. But there is the joy of seeing Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier sparring wth Jon Pertwee's Doctor. An added bonus was in the cliffhanger in on episode Liz Shaw is being chased by a stuntman who went on to have an acting career later due to injury. He had no lines but hung off a weir. This is the only story of the ones I am mentioning that is really good. That and Wheel are the only ones I would watch again.

 

Frontios

 

Season 21 and Peter Davidson is the Doctor with Tegan and Turlough as his companions. The TARDIS is seemingly destroyed after the TARDIS lands on the planet of Frontios. The Doctor is trying to help the people of a crashed spaceship who are regressing with the loss of key personnel but the new leader of the colony suspects the Doctor of being the cause of the colony's troubles. The seeming destruction of the TARDIS strands the Doctor and friends who find out there is something below the ground. A race of insects are intent on trying to seize control of the planet and pilot it across the universe pillaging other planets. Turlough who came from an alien planet remembers the aliens and is paralysed with shock at first when he comes across them. They also find the TARDIS in bits and the leader of the aliens wants to use the TARDIS to travel and pillage at will. This leads to his downfall and capture. With him out of the way the other aliens are harmless. After the leader of the aliens is stranded on another planet the Doctor is able to leave Frontios. I recall one excerpt from this series with someone being pulled underground with aliens. Two of the cast I knew Peter Gilmore was in a lot of things The Onedin Line particularly and Jeff Rawle as the new leader. But there was another familiar face in the cast who was usually a gangland heavy.

 

Timelash

 

Season 23 now and Colin Baker is the Doctor with Nicola Bryant as Peri. Something called the Borad is in secret control of a colony and ether kills any who oppose it by aging them or ha them thrown into the Timelash which strands them in Earth's past. A revolt among the councillors leads to a sycophant made new head of the council but the daughter of the previous head of the council prevents the Timelash being used and is thrown into the past. She appears to the Doctor and Peri before they land. The Doctor is coerced into travelling in time to fetch the woman as she has an amulet that the Borad needs. Peri is held hostage but is recued by rebels who see a burning android in the attempt. The Doctor encounters a chap called Herbert who is looking after the woman and he manages to travel back with him to the colony. The Borad is trying to mutate Peri so he can mate with her as he intends to destroy all life in the colony and repopulate it in his own image. The Doctor uses the Timelash to steal crystals so he can aid the rebels. The new head of the council rebels against the Borad when he realises what the Borad is trying to do and is killed. The Doctor avoids being aged by using the crystals from the Timelash and stops the Borad while Herbert rescues Peri. Peri is then captured by the Borad who had a clone but is finally beaten by a mirror which he cannot bear as he is part man and part beast. He ends up in the Timelash and is sent to the vicinity of Inverness in Scotland. The Doctor goes into space to stop a missile from destroying the planet. Herbert wants to stay with the colony but the Doctor knows he will come back with them as he is Herbert George Wells and will put it in books. Paul Darrow plays the sycophant leader of the council still channelling Avon from Blake's Seven.

 

The Arc

 

And finally we finish with season 3 of Dr Who so William Hartnell as the Doctor with Steven and Dodo as his companions. Steven was played by Peter Purvis who went on to present Blue Peter for a good few years. The TARDIS lands on a spaceship which has left Earth as the Sun will shortly destroy the planet. They are travelling to the distant planet of Refusis but won't arrive for about 700 years. Sadly the TARDIS crew reintroduce the common cold which has a fatal effect on the humans and the alien Monoids. The crew tries to prosecute the TARDIs crew until Steven falls ill and the Doctor manages to cure him and everyone else. The crew leave but end up arriving back on the ship which now has the Monoids in control and they can now speak. The common cold mutated and attacked the humans again letting the Monoids take over. The Monoids intend to take over Refusis and blow up the spaceship when they leave. But the planet is populated by invisible aliens who want peaceful coexistence so they help stop the Monoids. A civil war also breaks out among the Monoids as some are not convinced that their leader is acting in their best interest. The Refussians help the humans on the ship find and dispose of the bomb before they come down to the planet and make peace with the surviving Monoids. This four part story is split into two, two part stories. The second episode has Michael Sheard who went on to play Admiral Ozzel.

[Ternaugh]

Airport: A disaster movie involving an airplane that is being threatened by a passenger with a bomb, while the only airport where they can land is dealing with a heavy snowstorm and another plane blocking the main runway. There's a fair bit of humor in Airport, as well as a bunch of soap-opera style interpersonal plots amongst the major stars. It's a bit dated in places, but overall, it's a good, nostalgic watch. (Netflix)

 

The first two episodes of The Saint starring Roger Moore, very enjoyable. Included with Prime Video.

 

The second episode of the new Dr Who (the first episode was actually a reshowing of the 4th special). The new Doctor and companion are generally fun, and it's easy to see where the additional budget was spent, but the story wasn't the strongest. I'll be watching the next few episodes to see if it improves. (Disney+)

 

 

 

 

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

And I did manage to actually see SPYXFAMILY a week after Dune. Anime films usually have far shorter runs (a week at the most, unless they're from a studio like Ghibli), but this one actually got attention despite it being a pseudo-family-friendly adventure/comedy romp.

 

By now I think most of us are familiar with Loid Forger (master spy), his ersatz wife Yor (ruthless professional assassin), and his four-year-old "daughter" Anya (who does not let on that she can read minds). Assembled for a mission to infiltrate an exclusive school so Loid can gain access to a politician who may be working for the enemy, this family finds themselves going on a weekend trip to the far north to learn how to make a particular exotic dessert for Anya's school. Unbeknown to everyone including herself, Anya had swallowed a dangerous microfilm (remember microfilms and how much of a role they played in '60s spy thrillers?) and now a ruthless general wants to get it out of her so he can start that world's equivalent of World War III. Since Loid and Yor do not know each other's secrets, that Anya can read minds, or that their Great Pyrenees dog Bond can see into the future, it takes them a while to figure out why Anya is in so much trouble, as they go out looking for ingredients for the dessert so Anya can impress her arrogant teacher, turning what starts out as a fun family vacation into a fight to save the world and protect Anya from vivisection.

 

Probability? Who cares? This movie is pure, unadulterated fun.

[L. Marcus]

Borf.

[Old Man]

Run Lola Run, aka Lola Rennt (1998).  I had no idea this film was in German, but that explains why I missed its theatrical release.  What a brilliant little film.  I say 'little' because it's 80 minutes long, but it has enough depth and complexity that it feels like the full two hours.  An excellent choice for students of philosophy as well as anyone who'd like to see an engaging thriller.

[csyphrett]

The second disc for Superman the animated series which intros Mala and Jax-ur, the Flash and his rogue the Weather Wizard, Livewire who liked Harley Quin jumped to the comic books, and some filler stories with giant monsters, and the Parasite.

CES   

[mattingly]

18 hours ago, Old Man said:

Run Lola Run, aka Lola Rennt (1998).  I had no idea this film was in German, but that explains why I missed its theatrical release.  What a brilliant little film.  I say 'little' because it's 80 minutes long, but it has enough depth and complexity that it feels like the full two hours.  An excellent choice for students of philosophy as well as anyone who'd like to see an engaging thriller.

 

Supposedly the inspiration for Alias. My first exposure to Franka Potente, before she became Jason Bourne's accomplice/girlfriend. 

 

 

[Bazza]

Barbie. #conflicted 

[Michael Hopcroft]

1 hour ago, Bazza said:

Barbie. #conflicted 

I want to ask "How so?", but I just remembered that any answer would be major spoilers for a movie I still haven't seen yet.

[slikmar]

4 hours ago, mattingly said:

 

Supposedly the inspiration for Alias. My first exposure to Franka Potente, before she became Jason Bourne's accomplice/girlfriend. 

 

 

I thought LaFemme Nikita was the inspiration. Maybe I am wrong.

[Old Man]

Por que no los dos?

[Ternaugh]

Airport 1975: A small plane clips the cockpit of a 747, resulting in the pilots being incapacitated. Many of the subplots on this one ended up being spoofed in Airplane!  It's a nostalgic watch. (Netflix)

 

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: This one's a favorite, and a great watch. Excellent in 4K/Dolby Vision. (4K UHD Blu-ray)

 

Vertigo: Classic Hitchcock thriller about a detective with a fear of heights that's asked by an old friend to trail the friend's wife. It's a great watch. (Amazon Prime Video)

 

[Pariah]

[death tribble]

If I am posting it must be another large one, right ?

 

The Parson and the Outlaw

This film starts with the central conceit that Pat Garrett does not kill Billy the Kid but helps him hide his identity by making it look like he killed him. Billy gives up his guns and goes to live far away in an old property of Garrett's. He saves the life of a gunslinger who always wanted to pit his life against Billy. They come to a town where the guy who runs it is trying to stop a vote by the citizens to incorporate it into the State. The parson comes to the town and recognises Billy and tries to get him to help but it is only after the parson is killed by the man who runs the town that Billy straps on his guns and fights again. It is an ok Western.

 

Red King, White Knight

Tom Skerritt is an ex-agent reactivated due to his debts to check out information about a potential assassination attempt on Russia's head of state, Gorbachev. The attempt is being organised by Russian hardliners who are trying to knock off anyone who might know about it starting with the security people who accompanied the coup's head to meet the assassin. The film follows Skerritt as he tries to confirm what is happening, the Russian security people removing obstacles and then trying to find the American agent and the CIA keeping an eye on things. Dated but not bad.

 

Maigret

Little Pigs Without a Tail. A man goes missing and his wife contacts Maigret asking for help. This is away from his usual stomping ground of Paris so he has to tread carefully with local law. The case is around art and a fence who like art. He is the one who gives out little pigs without a tail as messages. This has the usual slow burn with the detective looking at various leads and speaking to the man's wife and the fence who is her father. Turns out the father tried to get his son in law to steal a painting from local bookmakers. But the fence has previous with them as he caused the death of one of three brothers by trying to get him to steal artwork from someone a few years prior.

Maigret and the Tramp. When a tramp is dragged from the Seine, Maigret tries to work out why anyone would want to kill him. Barge owners who rescued him and the man's family come under the scope of the investigation but it turns on the previous owner of one of the barges who drowned two years previously. And the tramp was a potential witness at that event.

 

The Fifth Floor

A woman is put into psychiatric observation after it is thought she tried to commit suicide despite her repeated denials. She tries to escape but is also at the mercy of a lecherous orderly. Fairly disquieting as how do you prove that you are not mad when the experts think you are ? Early role for Robert Englund.

 

City of Bad Men

This Western is set around the attempted robbery of the gate of a boxing match which is an unusual premise. Several groups of bad men turn up in the city to watch the match and the sheriff attempts to deputise the leaders in order to stop trouble. Dale Robertson is one such and he has history in the town, his ex-girlfriend lives there and her brother went with him fighting in Mexico but does not return alive. There are two other leaders and they fall in with Robertson's brother played by Lloyd Bridges when Dale backs out of the robbery and they want to do it and get Robertson as well. Well worth a look.

 

Treasure of the Golden Condor

Cornel Wilde goes fortune hunting in Guatemala after escaping bondage with his uncle who took over the father's estate, there being no evidence that the father ever married. The tale switches between Central America and France pre Revolution. It is not bad and George Macready makes a lovely contemptible villain.

 

Times Square

Two young women become friends after they are both incarcerated for their own good to check their mental conditions. After one is released, she helps the other to escape and they work around Times Square. The father of one is trying to clean Times Square up (this is set in 1980) and presents a clean cut image. The soundtrack is really good and you have Tim Curry as the local DJ. It is now a period piece.

 

Wyoming Renegades

Butch Cassidy and Sundance in the 1950s so not really well known. Cassidy wants to rob the town bank where an ex-member of the gang works despite what the townsfolk think. The ex-member is aided by a Pinkerton detective who is after Butch. The ending is rather unique in that while a posse is out after Butch and the gang, the women of the town are lying in ambush for the gang and cut them down when they turn up to steal the money.