What are you watching?

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Voros said:
I love that show, made by some of the same people behind Squidbillies. My wife also digs it and finds it funny that so few people would expect her to like that kind of show.

At first it being live action threw me but eventually that becomes part of its gonzo charm.
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I just found out about this show last night and can't stop watching. So funny.

Mrs Savage has zero interest in the show, it is too dark and weird for her. She doesn't get the whole Abrahamic religion thing; I think most of her knowledge on the subject comes from American Dad or Family Guy.
 
Rewatched Werner Herzog's masterpiece Aguirre, Wrath of God last night. This film never gets old. This story of a group of greedy and brutal conquistadors looking for El Dorado in the Amazon is an intense fever-dream that also functions as a fable about moral decay, colonialism, racism and fascism.

It also has a great score by Popol Vuh, terrific central performance by Kinski and is full of beautiful and terrifying images. Coppola acknowledges its influence on Apocalypse Now and even borrows one of its central images.

For rpgs I'd mention this film as a great example of a film that captures a real sense of the past, I have no idea how 'authentic' it is but the costume design, acting and overall tone feels like you're really in the past. It reminds me of what Fellini said about Satyricon (to paraphrase as I can't find the exact quote): that he shot it like a sf film because the world of the past was much more alien and strange than we imagine.

 
It's funny that I never realized Anthony Hopkins has a major role in A Bridge Too Far. I've seen this movie dozens of times, and never made that connection before
 
We watched two episodes of Unorthodox on Netflix. Very interesting series.
 
I've been watching episodes of NCIS: New Orleans again. Only seen 1 or 2 so far. I'm on Season 4, which is interesting, as the lead agent is now working somewhere else, but still helps his old team with missions. What i like it one of the actors from Grimm is one of the agents working with him, and questions his methods sometimes, which is what the character needs
 
Watching The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez on the recommendation of my sister in law. It's easy to dismiss this sort of thing as sensational Ameritrash truecrime but it's also a heart-wrenching expose of the system that failed this poor child.
 
Finished Unorthodox and subsequently watched Making Unorthodox. The latter is not particularly informative. Would've preferred an actual documentary.
 
Watched the first episode of Freud on Netflix. Quite enjoyable.
 
Finishing up the most recent season of The Flash on Netflix
 
The new season of Queer Eye is up on Netflix!!!

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urbwar said:
Since i'm watching war films, I decided to watch A Bridge Too Far on Prime.
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Despite being all star cast Hollywood extravaganzas A Bridge too far and its companion The Longest Day are excellent war movies and stick very closely to the non-fiction books they were based on. Sadly plans to complete the 3rd book of the series The Last Battle (Battle for Berlin) as a joint US / USSR project never came to be.

Cornelius Ryan was one of those historians who can write history in a very engaging way by using a lot of personal stories.
 
3rik said:
Finished Unorthodox and subsequently watched Making Unorthodox. The latter is not particularly informative. Would've preferred an actual documentary.
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So you wanted something more orthodox? :hehe:
 
Toadmaster said:
Despite being all star cast Hollywood extravaganzas A Bridge too far and its companion The Longest Day are excellent war movies and stick very closely to the non-fiction books they were based on. Sadly plans to complete the 3rd book of the series The Last Battle (Battle for Berlin) as a joint US / USSR project never came to be.

Cornelius Ryan was one of those historians who can write history in a very engaging way by using a lot of personal stories.
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Along with To Hell and Back, A Bridge Too Far and The Longest Day are my 3 favorite WW2 films. Though I think my favorite cast is Kelly's Heroes (even though it's a heist movie that takes place during the war).
 
urbwar said:
Along with To Hell and Back, A Bridge Too Far and The Longest Day are my 3 favorite WW2 films. Though I think my favorite cast is Kelly's Heroes (even though it's a heist movie that takes place during the war).
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Kelly's Heroes also has all that fantastic and mostly authentic WW2 hardware which was still being used by Yugoslavia in the 1970s. Also one of the greatest movie prop jobs converting Soviet T-34s into a decent resemblance of a German Tiger tank.

One of the more bizarre WW2 movies I like is Hell is for Heroes, with Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Bob Newhart. Honestly it isn't a great movie, but the premise of a squad trying to appear to be a much larger unit is great material for a group of PCs and the bits with Bob Newhart are hilarious as he performs his standard one sided conversations to deceive the Germans into thinking they are facing a larger unit.
 
My picks for best WWII films from the US, the least sentimental and jingoistic and made by men with direct experience of the war, would be John Ford's They Were Expendable and Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One.



 
Kelly's Heroes is great...


...but I think In the Name of the Father is even better.
 
Voros said:
My picks for best WWII films from the US, the least sentimental and jingoistic and made by men with direct experience of the war, would be John Ford's They Were Expendable and Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One.



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Given the star of To Hell in Back was (at the time) the most decorated US soldier of WW2, and it's about his exploits, I wouldn't consider it sentimental at all. The man lost pretty much all his friends in battle. I was watching it on the History Channel (as part of their "Movies in Time" afternoon movie), and the host would speak with real historians about accuracy in the films shown. The historian they had for To Hell & Back said that Audie Murphy wanted this movie to honor his lost comrades, so he actually had them downplay his heroics in the film (so as not to take away from their deaths). From all accounts, he was very humble, and considered what he did in the war as simply doing his duty. That's why it's remained my favorite WW2 film.

Anyway, I'm now catching up on Supergirl. Found out Batwoman won't be coming to Netflix, but they brought the entire season back on the CW roku channel, so I'm also catching up on that one as well. I had see up until Crisis on both, so I don't have to watch the entire season of both.
 
Brock Savage said:
One of my favorite WWII films is a Russian flick called Come and See.
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I definitely consider Come and See not only the greatest war film it is one of my all-time favourite films. If one can consider such an assault on your senses and self a 'favourite.' Criterion has just recently put it out on blu and I will have to pick it up sometime. J.G. Ballard, who famously experienced the Pacific War as a child (Empire of the Senses is based on his memoir of that experience) also thought it was the greatest war film ever.

A similarly great WWII film from a non-US perspective is Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain, a nightmarish film about the Japanese retreat in the Phillipines based on a equally classic Japanese novel.

 
urbwar said:
Given the star of To Hell in Back was (at the time) the most decorated US soldier of WW2, and it's about his exploits, I wouldn't consider it sentimental at all. The man lost pretty much all his friends in battle. I was watching it on the History Channel (as part of their "Movies in Time" afternoon movie), and the host would speak with real historians about accuracy in the films shown. The historian they had for To Hell & Back said that Audie Murphy wanted this movie to honor his lost comrades, so he actually had them downplay his heroics in the film (so as not to take away from their deaths). From all accounts, he was very humble, and considered what he did in the war as simply doing his duty. That's why it's remained my favorite WW2 film.

Anyway, I'm now catching up on Supergirl. Found out Batwoman won't be coming to Netflix, but they brought the entire season back on the CW roku channel, so I'm also catching up on that one as well. I had see up until Crisis on both, so I don't have to watch the entire season of both.
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I wasn't commenting on that specific film just in general US films about the war tend to sentimentality. I haven't seen To Hell and Back so I can't comment on it.
 
Finished watching the old Cadfael TV show. It's about a medieval monk sleuth solving murder mysteries set during "The Anarchy" similar to Ken Follet's "Pillars of the Earth" if you know that.

Accurate enough to give the show flavour with being slavish about it. Plenty of adventure seed ideas for a Pendragon or historical medieval games.
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Voros said:
I wasn't commenting on that specific film just in general US films about the war tend to sentimentality. I haven't seen To Hell and Back so I can't comment on it.
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I get that. I was pointing out how one of the ones I mentioned isn't sentimental. I know of quite a few others (mostly older films). I honestly don't think I've seen many WW2 films that are sentimental, to be honest. I don't doubt they exist (since The Longest Day could be considered Sentimental), but I don't recall most of the ones I've seen being that way. Then again, I'm picky about which ones I like/watch, and I prefer the older films. Saving Private Ryan is probably the "newest" war movie I've seen (I don't count Overlord or similar films that are horror movies set during WW2)
 
Voros said:
A similarly great WWII film from a non-US perspective is Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain, a nightmarish film about the Japanese retreat in the Phillipines based on a equally classic Japanese novel.
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I like to read about non-US perspectives on 20th century wars and wish I made more time to pursue this interest; unfortunately it's difficult to summon the mental energy after work. I have an unfinished copy of The Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger on my desk as I type this. There aren't many memoirs of North Vietnamese and Korean combatants (that I can find at least) which is a shame. It's easy to demonize "the enemy" but the truth of the matter is that most combatants in a total war scenario are "cogs in the wheels of history" to quote Dan Carlin.
 
The Mrs convinced me to start watching a cartoon she watched as a kid, Avatar: The Last Airbender. We have been working our way through season one and so far I quite like it. I makes me think of Exalted, my favorite RPG that I've never played.
 
Brock Savage said:
The Mrs convinced me to start watching a cartoon she watched as a kid, Avatar: The Last Airbender. We have been working our way through season one and so far I quite like it. I makes me think of Exalted, my favorite RPG that I've never played.
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It's an excellent show.
 
Back around April I picked up the complete Batman the Animated Series in Blu-Ray. I used to watch it quite a bit in the 90s and again with my older son in the early 2000s. Had bought a couple of seasons for him but kids don't take the best care of DVDs. Never regularly or in order though.

I've finally started watching it and it still holds up. Tried to get my younger son to watch it with me (he is 6) but he doesn't have the staying power beyond one episode.


Brock Savage said:
The Mrs convinced me to start watching a cartoon she watched as a kid, Avatar: The Last Airbender. We have been working our way through season one and so far I quite like it. I makes me think of Exalted, my favorite RPG that I've never played.
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My older son watched this quite a bit, I didn't watch it regularly enough to follow the whole thing in any kind of order but it looked pretty good.
 
Kilted Rob said:
Tonight's movie:

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This looks like the kind of movie Cinemax (skin-i-max) used to show late at night in the 80s. Not that we ever watched them as teenagers. :tongue:


It also reminds me of my first sort of date with my wife. She invited me to go "swinging". I wasn't really sure what she had in mind, I thought maybe dancing, could it be something racy-er? :shock: I didn't really care what she had in mind and said yes.

She took me out to a tire swing in the forest, to actually swing. Had a really good time talking and swinging. :heart:
 
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Toadmaster said:
This looks like the kind of movie Cinemax (skin-i-max) used to show late at night in the 80s. Not that we ever watched them as teenagers. :tongue:


It also reminds me of my first sort of date with my wife. She invited me to go "swinging". I wasn't really sure what she had in mind, I thought maybe dancing, could it be something racy-er? :shock: I didn't really care what she had in mind and said yes.

She took me out to a tire swing in the forest, to actually swing. Had a really good time talking and swinging. :heart:
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The title and poster art are far more salacious than the film. It's A mid 70's proto-slasher that isn't all that gory, doesn't titillate yet comes together at the end.
 
Watched The Picture of Dorian Gray from 45'. Directed with style and intelligence by Albert Lewin, who also wrote the adaptation, it was surprisingly literate and captured a fair bit of the cynical wit of Wilde.

Obviously they had to tweak the storyline to make it fit the censor's requirements but it wasn't bowdlerized as one may have thought. George Sanders is excellent as Lord Harry and a very young Angela Lansbury is memorable and yes, even a bit sexy!

At first the actor playing Dorian seemed strangely stiff but as the film progressed I think this was intentional or at least inadvertently appropriate as his impassivity suggests that his young face is truly the mask of a living corpse.

The film is B&W but shifts to startlingly effective colour when the portrait is viewed. Lewin also has some impressively composed shots throughout using the distance between the characters in huge rooms and deep focus as a motif. The print quality shown on TCM was pristine.

 
Brock Savage said:
The Mrs convinced me to start watching a cartoon she watched as a kid, Avatar: The Last Airbender. We have been working our way through season one and so far I quite like it. I makes me think of Exalted, my favorite RPG that I've never played.
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ATLA was best cartoon until She-Ra and the Princesses of Power came out.
 
Jetstream said:
ATLA was best cartoon until She-Ra and the Princesses of Power came out.
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I just finished Season 1 of Avatar so I am unable to make any judgement besides saying they are obviously both excellent shows.
 
Trying to use the quarantine to catch up on some film classics I never got to. Tonight we watched the theatrical (as opposed to the multi-part TV series) version of Bergman's last theatrical film Fanny and Alexander from 82'. It is a turn of the century portrait of a bohemian Swedish family that takes a darker turn about a third of the way in and then transforms into a magical realist fable for the finale.

Although three hours long this is quite well paced, the first hour that recreates the family's Christmas eve and morning reminds me of similarly bravura sequences of everyday life in Cimino's Deerhunter (the wedding), Heaven's Gate (the graduation) and John Huston's The Dead (Xmas eve again!).

RPG-wise I've long been intrigued by the idea of Jewish magic and the last part of this film involves a rabbi magician and ghosts! There is a storygame by Benjamin Rosenbaum on this theme but I find the system, based on a heavily tweaked PbtA ruleset by Avery Alder a bit too obtuse, although that may just be the difficulty of wrapping my head around a truly new system of play.



And what I now realize is a big change in pace I followed Fanny and Alexander up with a late night viewing of Dolemite's Disco Godfather on the free legit streaming service Tubitv.com that has a great selection of b-horror and cult films. The release is by Vinegar Syndrome and as per their usual standards looks immaculate.

The story is an endearingly naive propaganda piece against the scourge of Angel Dust with lots of wonderful disco dancing padding, awesome 70s fashion and absurdly clumsy drug-trip/sex/action scenes to spice things up. This would be a great film for a drinking game everytime someone says 'Angel Dust.'

 
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Dumarest said:
Kelly's Heroes is great...


...but I think In the Name of the Father is even better.
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I absolutely love Black Grape, and Shaun Rider is a modern poet. I think their latest album (Pop Voodoo) is better still, but solidly fails the ‘no politics’ discussion criteria.
 
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