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Hey @ Toadmaster Toadmaster I hate "me too!" posts but feel compelled to chime in and say that Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is a damn good book and you should at least check it out.

Bone Tomahawk
Kurt Russell? I'm in. Odd I never heard of this flick but I'll watch it just because he is in it. I even liked Soldier and that bombed hard.
 
Kurt Russell? I'm in. Odd I never heard of this flick but I'll watch it just because he is in it.

It completely passed under my radar, possibly as it was released the same year as Hateful Eight.
 
At work I occasionally encounter towns with classy French names that the locals pronounce like, well, hillbillies the disenfranchised white proletariat. Minot they call My-not. Versailles they call Ver-sally. Drives me nuts.

Where I grew up, Versailles was pronounced Ver-sales. I now live in a region where a village named Mantua is pronounced Man-o-way. Oddly, it's named for Napoleon's victory at the battle of Mantua, not the Italian city itself.

The Valley of Gwangi which is sort of a toss up between horror and lost world adventure (cowboys vs dinosaurs). Few have anything good to say about any of them.

I have fondish memories of The Valley of Gwangi from my teen years, in the 'so bad it's good' category.
 
I have a sneaking liking for Soldier, especially the director's idea that it is a 'sidequel' to Blade Runner.
I don't know if you ever played the old PC point and click game, it occurs during the Blade Runner film as well.
 
It completely passed under my radar, possibly as it was released the same year as Hateful Eight.

Bone Tomahawk is excellent, Zahler's follow-ups Brawl in Cellblock 99 and Dragged Across Concrete are also good but don't quite reach the same heights as his debut imo.
 
Bone Tomahawk is excellent, Zahler's follow-ups Brawl in Cellblock 99 and Dragged Across Concrete are also good but don't quite reach the same heights as his debut imo.

Yeah, I looked at both of those, but neither premise appealed to me. I'm not much of an "action movie" fan at all, without a historical, science fiction, horror, or fantasy element to capture my imagination.
 
Yeah, I looked at both of those, but neither premise appealed to me. I'm not much of an "action movie" fan at all, without a historical, science fiction, horror, or fantasy element to capture my imagination.

I think action movies suffer badly from Sturgeon's law and coming out of a B-movie heritage, aimed at a low-brow audience. There are a few good ones, but as a genere there's a lot of dross.

I think the Dirty Harry films are a good example of this - if you look at the earlier ones, particularly, there are a lot of B-movie actors and stock B-movie tropes. Even though the franchise was iconically successful (pop quiz: i. Do you feel _______?, II. Go ahead, make __________) and contributed significantly to Clint Eastwood's career, one could have easily seen Dirty Harry sink back into obscurity.

Even at it the genre's peak in the 1980s, good action films weren't really thick on the ground, even though they got A-list budgets. I can't think of anything done by Sly that I really liked, and the second-tier ones like Steven Segal or Charles Bronson were all pretty crap. Arnie worked better than most by not taking himself seriously - I still have a soft spot for Commando due to its over-the-top silliness - but Die Hard-level highlights were actually pretty thin on the ground.

If you trim the sci-fi and other ones from that genre, I think you could fit the list of really good ones onto the fingers of one hand. Of the modern ones such as the Bourne films, I can't think of a single one that's even memorable.
 
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The Bourne films I liked a lot, but I kinda put spy thriller into it's own category - Bourne I associate with Patriot Games, The Conversation, and the Ipkress File.

So I guess there's subgenres of action I don't mind? I dunno.

I do know that car chases bore me to tears.
 
Are you in Ohio by chance?

Indeed I am.

More on the topic of the thread, I watched a new (to me, anyway) episode of "Father Brown" last night with my wife. I like the series as light entertainment. The mysteries aren't all that baffling, but I enjoy Mark Williams' (Mr. Weasley from the Harry Potter movies) and Sorcha Cusack's performances.
 
I think action movies suffer badly from Sturgeon's law and coming out of a B-movie heritage, aimed at a low-brow audience. There are a few good ones, but as a genere there's a lot of dross.

I think the Dirty Harry films are a good example of this - if you look at the earlier ones, particularly, there are a lot of B-movie actors and stock B-movie tropes. Even though the franchise was iconically successful (pop quiz: i. Do you feel _______?, II. Go ahead, make __________) and contributed significantly to Clint Eastwood's career, one could have easily seen Dirty Harry sink back into obscurity.

Even at it the genre's peak in the 1980s, good action films weren't really thick on the ground, even though they got A-list budgets. I can't think of anything done by Sly that I really liked, and the second-tier ones like Steven Segal or Charles Bronson were all pretty crap. Arnie worked better than most by not taking himself seriously - I still have a soft spot for Commando due to its over-the-top silliness - but Die Hard-level highlights were actually pretty thin on the ground.

If you trim the sci-fi and other ones from that genre, I think you could fit the list of really good ones onto the fingers of one hand. Of the modern ones such as the Bourne films, I can't think of a single one that's even memorable.

Dirty Harry (the 1st) was not a B movie, and it wasn't the first of its type but it certainly helped to establish a particular style of B movie crime action / drama. It moves along more quickly than The French Connection, Bullit, or the 7 Ups, but it is definitely of a similar style. The action to drama ratio swung to more action as the 1970s progressed.

Something that may not be well known to many outside the US (and even many inside the US) is that the common theme of criminals being let off by judges over technicalities in films of the 1970s and early 80s is a reaction to the 1966 Supreme Court ruling that established the reading of the "Miranda warning", and later rulings that resulted in a lot of police reform.
Part of this did lead to some suspects being freed due to improper police work, which of course the media helped to frame as an epidemic of lawlessness (which in turn fueled a rash of vigilante flicks). Kind of ironically Miranda, whose name has become attached to reading a suspect their rights when arrested, was retried and convicted with new evidence a year after his first conviction was overturned.
 
So rewatched Ravenous for the first time since....1999 apparently (how is that 20 years ago?), it didn't quite hit the same buttons as Bone Tomahawk, bt it was a thoroughly enjoyable movie. Purchased the soundtrack outright, I really loved the theme, not quite like any I've heard before

 
Yeah, I looked at both of those, but neither premise appealed to me. I'm not much of an "action movie" fan at all, without a historical, science fiction, horror, or fantasy element to capture my imagination.

Neither of the later films is an 'action' film by today's standards, their pace is much slower, grim and more contemplative but the violence when it does arrive is spectaculary ultraviolent. But yeah they aren't remotely part of the fantastique tradition, more part of the exploitation pulp crime genre.
 
I saw part of the Trek TOS episode "Is There in Truth no Beauty" on broadcast recently. I was struck by the way that, at one point, Kirk's dialogue almost turns into iambic pentameter. It's when he is upbraiding the blind Dr. Miranda Jones (Diana Muldaur), claiming that she is not really trying to save Spock's mind as he lies in a coma brought on by seeing the Medusan ambassador Kollos. Kirk says:

With my words, I'll make you hear such ugliness as Spock saw when he looked at Kollos with his naked eyes!

I'd remembered them a little differently:
... With my words,
I'll make you hear such ugliness as Spock
Saw when he looked on Kollos' naked face.
 
OK, it came out of left field a year ago. I can't be keepin up with all the happenings and goings on like you youngsters!

I'm guessing it won't be based on the book sequels, since they killed Willow and every other main character from the film in the first 5 pages.
 
Yep, they were trash
An excellent example of why George Lucas should stick to being an idea man and never actually try to write things. Did these books foreshadow the trash writing of the Star Wars prequels? Yes, I think they did.
 
An excellent example of why George Lucas should stick to being an idea man and never actually try to write things. Did these books foreshadow the trash writing of the Star Wars prequels? Yes, I think they did.

They didn't reflect very well on Chris Claremont either
 
Nope, and he's a guy who's writing I generally like. I think we can guess who was in the driver's seat there.


I dunno, I've never read of Claremont's other novels. It may just be that the writing skills that work for comics don't translate to a prose novel. I recall reading a Peter David Star Trek book when I was 12 that was horrible as well
 
I read a couple of his science fiction novels. They were okay, there was a big one human girl (who is a tough warrior type but also sensitive and soft) / room full of stoned cat people orgy in the first book but we're talking Clairmont here so I don't know what else you'd be expecting.
 
I started Pennyworth yesterday. Quite enjoyable. I really like whasname in the main role. He's excellent.
 
Nope, and he's a guy who's writing I generally like. I think we can guess who was in the driver's seat there.
Actually... Claremont is the problem. He has two archetypes he writes variations of: The spunky, strong-willed girl, or the powerful goddess. Which frankly SAVED the X-Men in the 80's, and helped raise them to prominence. However, he has a much... I would say harder, but he'd have to have an interest in writing male characters, which he's proven he does not. He tried to remove Cyclops from the X-Men because he thought ol' one eye was boring, instead of doing the smart thing and expanding him, like the 90's animation thing did by making him a mechanic and typical boy who likes cars. Yes, it's stereotypical, but it does give Scott something outside of 'Leader' (which frankly, some of the better comic scenes, made interesting. I believe it was during Claremont's run where he actually helps Bishop acclimate to the rest of the team by choosing a more combative sport, showing that even outside of combat Scott cared enough to make his team better. A man who knows people.)

The whole point of Madeline Pryor was to give Scott his 'happy ending' and remove him from the Claremont's writing duties. Marvel Corporate said 'Hell to the No, Homie, you don't get to do that.' So he made Scott boring because HE thought the character was. And I get the impression (which I may be wrong about) that he was striking back at Corporate for making him write Scott Summers, when he'd rather focus on Kitty Pryde, Jubilee or Storm.

His sci-fi pilot book followed the same model. And so did his Willow 'sequel'. If George Lucas has any blame in it, is due to Lucas' inability to human well, if the Prequels are any indication, he gave Claremont too much free rein. The reason (just to go off topic a bit) that a lot of the old Comic Greats don't seem to be doing so well NOW, is not because their attitudes changed, or skills diminished, it's because of a key factor that no one seems to have figured out: They all had GREAT editors. People that could walk up to them and say: Hey, Monkey, this don't work, redo! We don't have that anymore, most of the 'Editors' of the big two spend most of their time on Twitter, instead of doing their jobs, which is reining in their employees and focusing them. Lucas also had that problem during the Prequels, which he admitted to: No one had the balls to tell him 'No, George, let's do this instead, 'Kay?'

I will contend that Chris Claremont was both the BEST and WORST thing to happen to the X-Men.
 
I recall reading a Peter David Star Trek book when I was 12 that was horrible as well
See also: my ratings of Star Trek novels over in the "Whatcha Readin'" thread. Peter David is a terrible novelist. Haven't read his comic books.
 
Peter David is a terrible novelist. Haven't read his comic books.

I have issues with his professionalism, but he had a very long run on Hulk that was really good (many consider definitive), and his Spider-man 2099 title was also well done.

He's one of that second generation of comicbook writers/artists, like Byrne, that grew up as fans though.
 
We watched a couple of movies recently, mostly on Netflix, some off BluRay:

The Lego Movie (2014) Fun.
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Werewolf of London (1935) The highly enjoyable classic!
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I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) At times unsettling, but too sleep-inducingly slow and boring to actually hold my interest. Would not recommend.
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Apostle (2018) Excellent folk horror.
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The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) I'm somewhat familiar with the TV series and enjoyed this movie adaptation by Guy Ritchie.
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