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finished obi wan, up to date on several others. I've got some time this week, looking for new things to watch. I'm sure someone will tell me the Expanse, which I have not watched. Also Umbrella Academy, I suppose. what else should I be considering?
 
finished obi wan, up to date on several others. I've got some time this week, looking for new things to watch. I'm sure someone will tell me the Expanse, which I have not watched. Also Umbrella Academy, I suppose. what else should I be considering?
Not knowing what you've seen, The Boys and Invincible are two good ones.
 
finished obi wan, up to date on several others. I've got some time this week, looking for new things to watch. I'm sure someone will tell me the Expanse, which I have not watched. Also Umbrella Academy, I suppose. what else should I be considering?

We Own this City is great if you're interested in a true-crime, corrupt cops story.

For sf, Raised by Wolves and Station Eleven are both good, one gonzo, the other a strong character-based post-apoc tale.
 
So, last night I inflicted Taras Bulba (1962) on myself and my wife. It's a a Howard Hecht production, based on Gogol's novella, and starring Yul Brynner in the title role and Tony Curtis (who gets top billing). I've never read the story and was interested in it for its Ukrainian setting. The basic story has to do with Poland-Lithuania's conquest of Ukraine and a Cossack uprising decades later against it, with Brynner as the Cossack patriot leader. All this is complicated by a love story between Bulba's son (Curtis) and a Polish noblewoman (Christine Kaufmann, whom I gather became romantically involved with Curtis during filming). It was made in Argentina, which I'd guess is a bit too hilly and dry to make a really convincing Ukraine or Poland.

There are some parts of the film that work pretty well--Curtis gets involved in a trial-by-ordeal with another Cossack that requires jumping one's horse over a chasm repeatedly, for instance. A huge number of horses and extras were deployed for the movie, so there are big-scale cavalry scenes. But the costuming and sets look very fake, much of the time. More importantly, a lot of the film is just hokey. It doesn't help that Curtis is far too old for his part, and looks it. He was around 40 when it was made, though his character should have been a teenager or in his early 20s, I'd guess. In fact, Curtis looks older than Brynner, his putative father. Finally, the movie inserted a lot of singing, dancing, and Cossack partying, which looks rather silly.

Taras Bulba.jpg
 
Finished Umbrella academy and that ending was a lot. Still processing it. Finished Superman and Lois, and they really pulled it together IMO.
 
Watching a documentary series on Muhammad Ali on BBC iplayer. What a truly impressive person he was, definitely flawed but what a combination of courage and charisma and talent.

First episode has lots of pics and footage from his really early life that I hadn't seen despite being a longtime fan.

 
So Monster Hunter was ok, but nothing special. Started Hard Target 2 on Tubi. I feel like I've seen it before, but can't be sure.
 
I felt the same way about Monster Hunter.
It didn't really have much of a story for almost 2/3 of the film. I get it was based on some video game iirc, but what a waste of Tony Ja and Ron Perlman

While avoiding finishing Hard Target 2 for no real reason, I found the humorously titled Tough Nuts on Freevee, an Australian documentary show from 2011 about some of the worst criminals in that country. I'm mostly through the first episode, and I like the mixture of recreation scenes and comments mixed with commentary from various experts, etc. Not as good as Gangs of Britain, but definitely worth a look. Given how much I loved the show Underbelly, I enjoy criminal shows from Australia (along with others, like Sea Patrol).
 
My debt to my wife is really piling up. On a recent trip to the library, I snagged a DVD of a film I'd not heard of: The King's Daughter (2022). It is based (theoretically at least) on Vonda McIntyre's The Moon and the Sun (1997), which won a Nebula, and stars Pierce Brosnan (as Louis XIV) and William Hurt (as his spiritual advisor). We watched it last night.

I don't remember, the novel well, besides liking it, but based on the plot summaries online this movie has almost nothing to do with it, beyond the idea that Louis XIV captures a mermaid in a search for personal immortality. Otherwise it's rather as if somebody who wanted to make a Disney princess movie, but wasn't sure how to do so, got loose on McIntyre's book. "There is much of badness in it," as a friend of mine used to say. Apparently the movie was filmed back in 2014 and 15 but then languished in post-production. I can see why.

One of the more bizarre--though not the worst--things about the film is its approach to costuming. The people of Louis XIV's court wear a strange assortment of dress, some of it being vaguely inspired by late 17th-century styles, but some looking Victorian or even like something from the 1920s. Zippers are clearly on display. I've got no problem with knowing anachronism--I really liked it in A Knight's Tale, for instance--but it's jarring here because a lot of the film was made at Versailles itself. So we see this queer mixture of costumes in picture-perfect Louis XIV setting.... The costumes wouldn't have seemed so off if the film's sets had likewise been anachronistic and stylized.
 
Watching a documentary series on Muhammad Ali on BBC iplayer. What a truly impressive person he was, definitely flawed but what a combination of courage and charisma and talent.

First episode has lots of pics and footage from his really early life that I hadn't seen despite being a longtime fan.


If you haven't seen "When We Were Kings" that is very worth watching.

My only advice on boxing documentaries, movies and books is go and watch the full fights yourself on youtube if it comes up in a book. I remember reading descriptions of the Zaire fight (in the Fighter by Normal Mailer, in Plimpton's book and in George Foreman's book), watching when we were kings, and seeing the fight over and over for myself I have to say it didn't match how it was described by people in a lot of ways.
 
Just watched Wolf of Snow Hollow. Fun film with a really nice twist at the end so if you're interested in it (its a werewolf film with a lot of dark humour) don't read too much about it!
 
If you haven't seen "When We Were Kings" that is very worth watching.

My only advice on boxing documentaries, movies and books is go and watch the full fights yourself on youtube if it comes up in a book. I remember reading descriptions of the Zaire fight (in the Fighter by Normal Mailer, in Plimpton's book and in George Foreman's book), watching when we were kings, and seeing the fight over and over for myself I have to say it didn't match how it was described by people in a lot of ways.
Yes, I have seen When we were Kings, and watched a lot of his fights through. I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation - When we were Kings is amazing, not just for the coverage of Ali & Foreman and the fight but for it's examination of the wider context and the footage from the Zaire concert.

Really good that they got Plimpton and Mailer to comment while they were available to do so.
 
So, it's funny enough, but I get the feeling I'm missing part of the joke. Obviously, it's humorous to have the head of a spy agency and his number two talking this way. But that doesn't really explain the performances--why the two are clearly emulating bad actors mouthing lines. I was wondering if the sketch was maybe a parody of something I'm not aware of--maybe a series of 'instructional videos' that are supposed to teach people how to behave in the office? Or something else?
It is probably taking the mickey out of old "stiff upper lip" British films of the 40s and 50s, which were very much like that.
 
It is probably taking the mickey out of old "stiff upper lip" British films of the 40s and 50s, which were very much like that.
Best parody of that is in Carry on up the Khyber - arguably the best Carry on Film (admittedly a low bar).

The sequence near the end where the Officers and their wives are carrying on with a tea party while the Afghans attack is truly inspired/.

 
Finished Hard Target 2. Totally forgot that Boba Fett was one of the bad guys! Also got in 2 more episodes of Tough Nuts (which I can't help laughing everytime after a commercial break, the female host seriously says "welcome back to Tough Nuts: Australia's hardest criminals"). The third episode covered an Aussie-Italian gangster who was featured in the first season of Underbelly. Now I'm back to the live action Cowboy Bebop, which I'll finish over the weekend.
 
For sf, Raised by Wolves and Station Eleven are both good, one gonzo, the other a strong character-based post-apoc tale.

Binge watched Raised by Wolves this week. It's sweet to have a family drama that I can identify with. It occasionally had too many threads going but it didn't get itself lost because of that like some shows. More happened in the first episode than in the first season of some shows.
 
Found out Tubi has most of the series Underbelly on it, so I'm watching the last season. It's a 3 episode series about Mark "Chopper" Read, based on events after he got out of prison and wrote his book. I also got in a few more episodes of Tough Nuts (which turns out has 2 seasons of 8 episodes), and only have 2 episodes left for the first season.
 
People spend enough time at work and home surrounded by 4 walls and tied to their latest 5G dopamine-dealing parasite. Go see a bigass movie on a big screen, the way the God Emperor intended.
While a movie theatre has four walls and movies seen there are every bit as dopamine-inducing as those seen in a small screen, I am unabashedly sentimental about the silver screen experience myself.

And with the end of pandemic restrictions I have been able to take Baby Butcher, a baby no more, and let me tell you — taking a five-year-old to the theater for the very first time is an amazing experience.

So far he loved Sonic 2 and enjoyed Lightyear, even though the timey-wimey bits went over his head and who the hell can blame him (seriously Disney, wtf). Next up is Minions 2.
 
Binge watched Raised by Wolves this week. It's sweet to have a family drama that I can identify with. It occasionally had too many threads going but it didn't get itself lost because of that like some shows. More happened in the first episode than in the first season of some shows.

It is definitely becomes a mess but a fascinating mess to me, one of the strangest tv shows in a while.
 
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Finished up Underbelly: Chopper. I enjoyed it. Now that my work week is over, I decided to purchase a pass to stream some short films from the Portland Horror Film Festival. I got 5 films or short blocks to watch, so I'm making my way through the shorts. I might purchase another pass for this Lebanese found footage horror film and the shorts block that played with it. I think that and the other 5 shorts will give me enough to watch since I have nothing to do tomorrow
 
I finished up 5 blocks of short films from the Portland Horror Film Festival over the 3 days. A mixed bag as always, but a few good ones. I'm currently watch a movie called Scorpion on Tubi. It's from Uzbekistan, and features a government agent taking on the titular terrorist group. There's a bit more to it than that, but I don't want to spoil anything in case anyone wants to check it out. While it has some decent action, the lead is no action hero. He never takes on more than 2-3 enemies at once, gets hurt, etc.

Thankfully, it's subtitled, not dubbed.
 
Over the last week or so, my wife and I have watched series 1 of Broadchurch on DVD, courtesy of the local library. We found it engrossing, though ultimately it works better as a story about the aftermath of murder than as a mystery--there aren't many clues and the police solve the case largely because the killer confesses. It's the only thing I've seen Jodie Whittaker in except Dr. Who and it raised my opinion of her as an actor. The standout performance IMO was Oliva Colman as D.S. Ellie Miller, though David Tennant was also quite good as her acerbic boss, D.I. Alec Hardy.

I was somewhat surprised to learn that there is a second and third series of the show, since at the end of the first the two main investigators seem done with their careers in the town. Since the library has the later seasons as well, I'm sure we'll watch them eventually.
 
The second season is a drop in quality unfortunately but it improves in series 3. Of course you are better off watching them all.

The seaside areas are filmed about 10 minutes from where I live, I even took the kids to go see them filming at one point.

I would say that this was the series that brought Coleman to a wider audience, she was known as a comedy actor prior.
 
Started Obi-Wan yesterday. Will finish the last episode when I get my next break. Liking it so far
 
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