What are you watching?

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Even though we've still got part 2 of the season to go, I'm going to say Stranger Things S4 is the best of the series.
 
I'm not through with part 1 (almost, not quite), but yeah, Season 4 of Stranger Things has been really really good.
 
Finished Chosen, a Danish teen SciFi thingy that was hit and miss, but ultimately enjoyable.

Currently watching First Kill, an American Horror thingy that is hit and miss, but seems enjoyable. It's about a Lesbian Vampire Killer and is better, after three episodes than the Lesbian Vampire Killers film was in its entirety.
 
I stopped going to theaters mostly because they cost more than renting a movie. Also I don't like the other people at theaters.

I find smaller, local theatres or campus arthouses have much better behaved audiences. Never had an issue at any of them. Course these days you're lucky if your town can maintain an independent theatre.
 
I find smaller, local theatres or campus arthouses have much better behaved audiences. Never had an issue at any of them. Course these days you're lucky if your town can maintain an independent theatre.
All the more reason to deprive the chain theaters of their exclusives and let them go out of business so small theaters have room to survive and provide more variety.
 
And while AMC whines about its inability to compete in a free and open marketplace, last year it paid bonuses to its CEO that were about 10 times his base salary. I don't have a lot of sympathy for greedy monopolies that cry victim when they face the possibility of their customers having other options.
 
Not to piss in anyone's cheerios I feel going to the theater is slowly becoming a niche interest. I only drag myself to the theater for something really special; Blade Runner 2049 and Isle of Dogs were the last two movies I saw in the theater. I have a non-profit art house theater 20 minutes from where I live and even though they are showing Empire Strikes Back today we're probably gonna stay in and play video games instead. Empire is good, but it's not worth the hassle of going to the theater in a downtown area plagued by hookers, bums, traffic, and no parking.

All that being said, I would welcome a resurgence of indie theaters and art house cinema. It might even get this old man off his ass and back into the theater LOL
 
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Also, nowadays the volume is sometimes so loud you need ear protection for a visit to the cinema, which is just ridiculous. I do enjoy seeing a film on a large screen but I don't need large sound, not that large.
I don't know if they have them in your area, but Drive-ins are a good solution for that.

And I think it's worth pointing out that though I'm on the side of "There don't need to be exclusives" it's not because I don't go. I have a season pass to the Alamo around here, so what I'm arguing doesn't help me personally- I just hate the argument against.
 
Man, I have been thinking and it just dawned on me, I don't go to my local art house cinema because I am in a long term relationship. That's the kind of thing you do when you're single because it's a great opportunity to meet interesting women. Nowadays, when I go out somewhere it's always with my spouse and that's why Brock spends his weekends at the cat cafe and not the art house cinema LOL
 
Finished Web of Make Believe. The 4th episode was pretty intense, and the 2 part finale covered the exposure of secret surveillance tech the government used to capture a hacker (and the hacker and his crimes is covered). I hope they do a second season, because it was pretty well done.

After that, I blazed through season 2 of Netflix's Ultraman anime. Now I'm checking out the live action Cowboy Bebop adaptation.
 
Just went to see the new Jurassic movie. It was a great send off to the series.
Crazy to see that Jurassic World Dominion did more than Lightyear over the weekend. I started to see Lightyear, but decided on Dominion because dinosaurs beat space ships.
 
Blonde Crazy is a 31' Joan Blondell and James Cagney showcase directed by the underrated Roy Del Ruth. A very pre-Code comedy of two con artists and their criminal and romantic entaglements this is the kinda film that Hollywood wouldn't make today let alone by the early 50s. Joan Blondell is a fox but also smart, sassy and independent, a classic 30s dame.

 
Crazy to see that Jurassic World Dominion did more than Lightyear over the weekend. I started to see Lightyear, but decided on Dominion because dinosaurs beat space ships.
My nephews were all brought up on Pixar movies, but they'd all rather see dinosaurs than Buzz Lighyear that isn't Buzz Lightyear.

I'm getting over COVID at the moment, and I'm having a tough time staying awake for a whole movie but I watched the first half of Del Toro's Nightmare Alley last night. I am very much looking forward to watching more tonight.
 
Star Trek Strange New Worlds.
I love it, Loved Picard as well, but I am REALLY loving ST:SNW.
It's really not the best of new Trek; it's the newest of old Trek. And Anson Mount is killing it as a man who knows he's going to Hell and is committed to going on his own terms. Even if the fandumb trying to "save him" makes me want to open one of my six mouths and sing the song that ends the Earth.
 
It's really not the best of new Trek; it's the newest of old Trek. And Anson Mount is killing it as a man who knows he's going to Hell and is committed to going on his own terms. Even if the fandumb trying to "save him" makes me want to open one of my six mouths and sing the song that ends the Earth.

I am also loving it, and I think newest of old trek is probably accurate. And maybe why I’m loving it. I can feel the bears of the older treks in each episode, along with its relative optimism. Also Anson Mount’s hair has several Twitter accounts and I feel like that’s worth something.
 
I watched Shaun of the Dead last night for the second time, the first time having been quite a while ago. I think it was after seeing Hot Fuzz, which I loved (and still do), having wanted to see more by the same creators.

It's an interesting time capsule of a film in a way, having been fairly early in the zombie movie resurgence of the 2000s, and also being one of those "slacker comedies" you don't see as much of these days.
 
Just finished the last episode of Legacies, and it's fun watching the fandom and munching popcorn in reaction. Started back from the Vampire Diaries and going to actually watch the whole thing all the way through (was dragged kicking and screaming by my wife and daughter the first time)
 
I watched Shaun of the Dead last night for the second time, the first time having been quite a while ago. I think it was after seeing Hot Fuzz, which I loved (and still do), having wanted to see more by the same creators.

It's an interesting time capsule of a film in a way, having been fairly early in the zombie movie resurgence of the 2000s, and also being one of those "slacker comedies" you don't see as much of these days.
If you haven't already, you might want to check out Spaced. It's the TV series done by the same people before they made Shaun of the Dead. It's also a time capsule, in a good way in my opinion.
 
When it comes to watching old seasons of TV shows, I have just started "The Great British Sewing Bee," a competition show about (you guessed it) sewing. This is following my viewing of all the seasons of "The Great Pottery Throwdown" and "Best in Miniature," and my ongoing attempt to watch every season I can find of both the British and American versions of "The Antique Roadshow." I may be a middle-aged American man, but at heart I'm an elderly British woman. :smile:

Yeah, the best things I've seen on broadcast recently were a re-run of a "New Tricks"' episode and the first episode of the new Masterpiece offering "Hotel Portofino," which looks likely to scratch my "Downton Abbey" itch.

My wife and I tried to watch the recent "Tolkien" on DVD from the library last night, but it wouldn't play in parts, although the disc looks uninjured--the same problem we had last week with season 3 of Stranger Things on DVD. I'm beginning to suspect that the problem is our DVD player, which must be 20 years old, and perhaps cannot handle newer discs effectively. I guess I should look into buying a new one, though many would consider that like looking for a new manual typewriter.

Oh, we also watched DVDs of series 13 of New Dr. Who, "Flux," which I guess constitutes the end of Jodie Whitaker's run on the show (and Chris Chibnall's as well). Not bad, exactly, but I felt they were trying to cram too many adversaries and plot-lines into the relatively short series.
 
It's really not the best of new Trek; it's the newest of old Trek. And Anson Mount is killing it as a man who knows he's going to Hell and is committed to going on his own terms. Even if the fandumb trying to "save him" makes me want to open one of my six mouths and sing the song that ends the Earth.
I'm kind of feeling that if ST SNW keeps it's momentum it will join DS9 in my personal top tier Trek series. :smile:
New trek, old Trek, It's all Trek to me. Star Trek is that old friend that you may not always stay in touch with but when you do, despite their changes and both of you getting more mature, you pick up the last conversation you ended and it's as if no time passed at all. I cannot say that any other franchise does that for me.
 
Finished First Kill, bit of a damp squib ending. but still enjoyable.

Again, not sure what to watch next.
 
Watched William Seiter's pre-code Professional Sweetheart starring Ginger Rogers and the largely forgotten Norman Foster.




She is a radio star with a public image of the pure, good hearted country girl but is really an orphan who wants to drink, smoke and hit the jazz clubs of Harlem. Foster is a Kentucky yokel who is randomly chosen to be her public bf.

Romantic comedy shenanigans ensue with lots of shots of Ginger Rogers in her underwear. Not that I noticed, I swear. This one pushes the scenes of the scantily clad Rogers so far it may be solely responsible for the imposition of the code.
 
Still watching the live action Cowboy Bebop. Also watched The Pirates on Tubi, which was a fun Korean swashbuckler/comedy. There's a semi-remake on Netflix that I started watching, with the plot heavily changed
 
By dint of borrowing a DVD player from my place of employment (where nobody had used it in years) I was able to finish the 2019 Tolkien film the other night. I enjoyed it, on the whole, and was relieved that my wife did too--maybe more than me. She's never read any of his work, except I think for his edition of Sir Gawain in school years ago, and she dutifully sat through the Peter Jackson LotR and Hobbit films with me.

I actually know relatively little about Tolkien's life--I've never read the biographies--but I'm sure this takes some liberties with the historical record. It's certainly upfront in its Romanticism, to the point that Edith Bratt becomes about as idealized as, well Galadriel (interestingly, the cut scenes made her a bit less so). The imagery in the battle scenes was maybe a bit too heavy-handed--the audience could see the links to Tolkien's later work without it, I think--but it was that kind of movie.

Anyway, it convinced me to check out John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War from the local library.
 
So, a question for any fans of the old series "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" out there. I've recently seen the first series of this, which was made c. 1989. One recurrent set of sketches, titled 'Spies' I think, deals with the head of an intelligence agency (Control/Fry) and his underling (Tony/Laurie) and their interactions in the office. The dialogue is precise and stilted, with a lot of attention given to politeness and office minutiae and the acting is obviously wooden. You can find the script of the first such segment here: https://abitoffryandlaurie.co.uk/sketches/spies_one There are several later installments in series one.

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?
 
I'm still watching my way through the MCU movies but hit a bit of burnout when I finished Black Widow... the formula is wearing thin.
Black Panther is next... but I'm holding off for a week or so.

So I'm taking a breather and wading through my list on Shudder... last night was The Clovehitch Killer, which was pretty good despite not being overtly horror... more like a darker take on Nancy Drew. Lots of good stuff on Shudder, but sometimes I have to dig for it.
 
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I'm not watching it myself, but my partner is watching the latest season of The Umbrella Academy, and every time I walk in the room I always wonder WTF is going on.
I am watching it, and half the time I'm wondering the same thing, but enjoying the hell out of it.
 
Work was so boring today, I watched two movies on Tubi: Bangkok Knockout and Terra Formers. The first was an action film that continued the trend of early Thai action films where they kept upping the ante started by Ong Bak. Much like Born to Fight, the end of the movie features a lengthy mass fight between our heroes and the bad guys. Terra Formers is a live action adaptation of some anime.

I had seen BK before, and still enjoy it. The fights are really well done. Terra Formers was ok, but it did make me want to see the anime now
 
"Slave to the Grind", a pretty good documentary about grindcore. Back in the early '90s, someone described grindcore to me as "the end of music", and I think that's a great way to describe it. This spends a fair bit of time on the infamous Seth Putnam, and the varied and conflicting appraisals of him as a person are, in a way, a perfect metaphor for grind itself.

 
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