What're you watching?

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What movies and TV shows are you watching?

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The Two Popes also has black and white sequences and some subtitles.

 

I watched Three Identical Strangers last night, a documentary (film, I think? maybe just a long TV show) by Channel 4 and CNN looking at the feel-good story from the early 80s of three triplets who were separated at birth and found each other by chance; one went to college where his brother had been the previous year and was immediately mistaken for him by everyone before an amazed friend sped him over to the brother’s house to introduce them, the other found them after seeing a newspaper article about the two meeting.

The film picks up on that story and manages to show how pretty much everything about the situation was actually rather sinister and uncomfortable. I mean not so much the brothers finding each other again, but the circumstances around their separation. It’s a really compelling documentary with some particularly dark “twists”.

David Lynch just released a short film on Netflix in which he interrogates a monkey about a murder: WHAT DID JACK DO?

https://www.netflix.com/title/81226955

Anonymous wrote:

The Two Popes also has black and white sequences and some subtitles.

 

Does the film answer the question I often hear posed, that no one ever gives the answer to?

paul f wrote:

David Lynch just released a short film on Netflix in which he interrogates a monkey about a murder: WHAT DID JACK DO?

https://www.netflix.com/title/81226955

Wow, that’s unexpected. Hope this is a precursor to a Netflix relationship, I know he’s been shopping around a sci-fi screenplay called Antelope Don’t Run No More for a while.

Anonymous wrote:

Does the film answer the question I often hear posed, that no one ever gives the answer to?

The answer is “Yes, the pope shits in the woods.”

That’s a very strange answer to the question – is the Pope Catholic?

Fuck this thread.  It keeps eating every post I try to make. Every attempt at a fucking movie review it refuses to fucking post.

It posted that one.

And I can’t see why.

Other threads seem OK

No editing or formatting or anything allowed it seems including punctuation

All I want is to know what passes what is needed why is this thread so different

Finally finished the first season of Servant, and…the first half was definitely better. Like, they had a great groove with the first three episodes, and some fun follow up in the fourth and parts of fifth, that the last five really struggle at meeting. There’s no bad episodes, as such, but more that it drags and feels…a bit unnecessarily stretched out. It could have been cut by 2 episodes and might have been all the better for it. That said, the home stretch still has a lot of good stuff in it, and the ninth episode had me pausing every few seconds because of the intense mood of unease.

I’ll definitely be back for a second season, mainly because I want to see where this story and the characters go next….but I kinda hope that it will be the final one.

Overall: 8/10

Ben wrote:

Fuck this thread.  It keeps eating every post I try to make. Every attempt at a fucking movie review it refuses to fucking post.

If you’re on a computer, hitting back will at least bring you back to your text… but you might want to copy your posts (if they’re long) before hitting the submit button, just in case… sometimes the forum gets a brain fart…

That has worked on other threads but not this hellspawn

Ben wrote:

Fuck this thread.  It keeps eating every post I try to make. Every attempt at a fucking movie review it refuses to fucking post.

Were the posts long?  Gar has said longer posts have a higher chance of being labeled as spam.

RonnieM wrote:

Ben wrote:

Fuck this thread.  It keeps eating every post I try to make. Every attempt at a fucking movie review it refuses to fucking post.

Were the posts long?  Gar has said longer posts have a higher chance of being labeled as spam.

We told Ben being a Nigerian prince would have some downsides.

Ben’s post was discussing how he watched this great show on Netflix where a guy was selling cheap Ray-Bans and then met a Nigerian Prince who needed his account details to deposit his inheritance. Feeling lonely he searched for MILFs that were looking for sex in his area now.

(Ben’s post didn’t go into the spam folder, I can’t say what the problem is).

 

I’m a pasty white Nigerian prince with billions to spare? Damn, where’s the cash?

Ronnie’s idea might be closer to the culprit or, if this makes it, maybe it’s Firefox? Would expect a more uniform effect and not limited to a couple of threads.

It is what it is.

Watched the new Hellboy yesterday, as it was on amazon prime. Bit torn on that one. I liked the creature designs (especially the baba yaga and the demons at the end), liked many of the things they took from the books. Liked the big foul-mouthed pig fairy. Also liked the trashy B-movie atmosphere of it and how far out if sometimes was, with English snobs with electric spears being gorily eaten by ugly fairytale giants. I mean, that’s definitely my can of beans right there. Some of the action scenes were really good, too.

On the other hand, the writing was often just terrible and there was just too much exposition. The plot was kind of lame, and Hellboy and everybody else was just too one-note. (David Harbour’s acting for Hellboy seemed to consist of screaming/shouting at the top of his lungs half the time.) Some of it looked just too cheap (first sequence, for example), and I didn’t like Alice much.

 

I don’t know, man. It was worth watching, overall. Fun enough. Could’ve been better if they’d thought it through some more.

Elvis Dutan wrote:

Avenue 5 is off to a pretty good start. It’s definitely seeming like it’ll be more strictly serialized than Veep or somesuch, but the pilot has enough bones for a good foundation. Didn’t find it all that funny or fascinating, but there’s potential there. Hopefully once we start to see more of the big picture, it’ll start feeling like can’t-miss television.

I just watched episode 1 and really enjoyed it.  Got a good few out-loud laughs, I love how Zach Woods is basically playing Jared from Silicon Valley on his worst day.  And aside from the artificial gravity the science is pretty good!

Oddly I’ve completely missed this show existing, despite being a fan of Iannuci’s work; first I’d noticed it was an ad for it on cable TV here as we watched the SAG awards.

Unfortunately it’ll be available here only on cable, and we’re ditching our cable TV in a few weeks (we’ve had Foxtel for about 15 years I think) – much to my wife’s pleasure (she resents giving Rupert Murdoch money – and it is a lot; over $100 a month, and apart from the movie channels they all have commercials!).

We’ll have to make do with our existing Netflix/Stan accounts, plus the few channels that will be bundled in with our new internet package.

I’ll miss the music channels.

As a replacement for the music channels you could use some of the money you’ve saved to go to some local gigs.

Anonymous wrote:

As a replacement for the music channels you could use some of the money you’ve saved to go to some local gigs.

This is my favourite post in the entire history of the forum

 

Andrew wrote:

Oddly I’ve completely missed this show existing, despite being a fan of Iannuci’s work; first I’d noticed it was an ad for it on cable TV here as we watched the SAG awards.

Unfortunately it’ll be available here only on cable, and we’re ditching our cable TV in a few weeks (we’ve had Foxtel for about 15 years I think) – much to my wife’s pleasure (she resents giving Rupert Murdoch money – and it is a lot; over $100 a month, and apart from the movie channels they all have commercials!).

We’ll have to make do with our existing Netflix/Stan accounts, plus the few channels that will be bundled in with our new internet package.

I’ll miss the music channels.

I haven’t had a TV of any sort for about 7 years and I get by… somehow.

Christian wrote:

Watched the new Hellboy yesterday, as it was on amazon prime. Bit torn on that one. I liked the creature designs (especially the baba yaga and the demons at the end), liked many of the things they took from the books. Liked the big foul-mouthed pig fairy. Also liked the trashy B-movie atmosphere of it and how far out if sometimes was, with English snobs with electric spears being gorily eaten by ugly fairytale giants. I mean, that’s definitely my can of beans right there. Some of the action scenes were really good, too.

On the other hand, the writing was often just terrible and there was just too much exposition. The plot was kind of lame, and Hellboy and everybody else was just too one-note. (David Harbour’s acting for Hellboy seemed to consist of screaming/shouting at the top of his lungs half the time.) Some of it looked just too cheap (first sequence, for example), and I didn’t like Alice much.

 

I don’t know, man. It was worth watching, overall. Fun enough. Could’ve been better if they’d thought it through some more.

This echoes how I felt about it when I watched it over xmas (on Netflix so we didn’t really pay for it either!).

I don’t think it deserved the absolute critical mauling. Things happened. Action was done. Some stuff looked cool. It wasn’t good but, at times, it was perfectly adequate. At its worse it was boring in terms of writing and cheap looking (the fight with the giants looked particularly bargain basement). It’s a shame as it took a lot of the story beats from the comics. Maybe it should have taken less and done a better job on fewer plot elements.

I did have a laugh at the fact it had not one, nor two but three end of movie/post credits stings setting up future storylines. Jumped the gun a bit there lads!

I thought it was near total waste of time. I like everyone in it and associated with it but it’s not a film I’ll ever watch again.

Should Netflix announce a series, I’ll be happy to give that a go though.

The comics have done some very cool stories over the years.

Hellboy’s best line was its opening one delivered by McShane:
“Called the dark ages, for good fucking reason.”

Ok, looks like the board ate my post, so I’ll try this again. (should have copied so I could paste).

Satanic Panic

I had the wrong idea about this film. I thought it was going to be a parody of, or at least a smart, genre-savvy revisionist take on, horror B movies. The name, for me at least, conjures more images of over-reacting parents getting het up about D&D than it does genuine horror and satanism.

But no, this film plays it straight and its ambition seems to be nothing more than being a modern B movie. Which is a terrible aim. Old B movies work (the ones that are remembered anyway) because they have big ideas that outstrip their budgets and so some charm and spark of interest. This film doesn’t. It’s only real idea is “rich people have all their money because of satanism” and then does nothing interesting with that.

It’s to the credit of star Hayley Griffith that this film is even watchable. She stars as Sam, a pizza delivery girl on her first day who gets stiffed for a tip and runs out of fuel, so goes breaks into the mansion she last delivered to in order to get some money or help. Unfortunately, it turns out this mansion is hosting a satanist coven and they’re down a virgin sacrifice.

Sam initially seems like she’s going to be a decent lead – she’s certainly got a decent look for a bad ass horror heroine – but she doesn’t out to be much. The film barely bothers to sketch in anything to suggest why we should care what happens to her and by the time it dumps in some tragic backstory for her, we’ve had to put up with her dragging down the film for ages being unutterably stupid. Not even in a way that’s played for laughs, just stupid so other people can explain the plot to her and bad things can happen to her.

Not that she’s dragging down a good film. As I said, the film’s only real idea is “what if rich people were satanists” but has nowhere to go from that. Rebecca Romijin plays the cult leader and she’s fine, I guess, but she’s given no good motivation (especially as the film sees her having to kill her husband and daughter to maintain her current wealth) and instead has to deliver some truly insipid lines about how “you can never beat the system, so you might as well get down with satanism” nonsense.

The script is generally terrible, with flat dialogue and a lack of clear direction that ends up expressing itself in a mish-mash of half-baked ideas, flat gore and then what feels like a few niche kinks being catered for (for instance, a teenage girl in a giant drillhead strap-on). And yet there’s a budget there, so it looks pretty good through out.

Ultimately it feels like it wants to be somewhere between the accomplished satirical horror of Get Out and the smart, action gorefest of the Babysitter, yet is nowhere near as good as either of those. It’s a real waste of potential.

Martin Smith wrote:

“rich people have all their money because of satanism”

And didn’t Ready or Not do that already?

Anonymous wrote:

As a replacement for the music channels you could use some of the money you’ve saved to go to some local gigs.

Sadly Neither Liam, nor Noel live in my local area.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

I haven’t had a TV of any sort for about 7 years and I get by… somehow.

We’ll still have the free to air channels – I’m quite fond of flicking between channels and settling for something; we’ve had Netflix for years now and I think I’ve gone out of my way to watch one thing of my own accord on my own. I’d rather just watch some junk I stumble upon.

No worries, Andrew. Liam and Noel live just over the water from me. I’ll relocate them your way. It’s closed now, but somewhere I have a badge that Brian Fallon gave to me from Liam Gallagher’s clothes shop.

I’ve just watched David Lynch’s What Did Jack Do? I’ve no idea why, but it’s the greatest, most surreal thing I’ve ever seen. Someone at Netflix should give David Lynch all the moneys to make everything. He’s also the world’s greatest actor. How does he keep such a straight face?

No one else will pay much heed – my favourite thing, aside from the noir chook and the damned fine coffee, is that the wee, ickle monkey’s wardrobe was by someone named Bernadotte.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Elvis Dutan wrote:

Avenue 5 is off to a pretty good start. It’s definitely seeming like it’ll be more strictly serialized than Veep or somesuch, but the pilot has enough bones for a good foundation. Didn’t find it all that funny or fascinating, but there’s potential there. Hopefully once we start to see more of the big picture, it’ll start feeling like can’t-miss television.

I just watched episode 1 and really enjoyed it.  Got a good few out-loud laughs, I love how Zach Woods is basically playing Jared from Silicon Valley on his worst day.  And aside from the artificial gravity the science is pretty good!

I watched the first episode tonight. I wasn’t that sold on it at the start but it got better as it went on, and the second half was pretty good. I think it definitely has potential and I think the cast is already working well together.

The highlight for me was the slow decay of Hugh Laurie’s character. Just that increasing descent into disorder is something he’s excelling at.

DavidM wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As a replacement for the music channels you could use some of the money you’ve saved to go to some local gigs.

This is my favourite post in the entire history of the forum

 

Awwww. All the yaaays! 

Because it’s how it should work:

10,ooo Karma points to David, Andrew & Mrs. Andrew and my favourite whatshisface apiece!

Anonymous wrote:

No worries, Andrew. Liam and Noel live just over the water from me. I’ll relocate them your way. It’s closed now, but somewhere I have a badge that Brian Fallon gave to me from Liam Gallagher’s clothes shop.

I’ve just watched David Lynch’s What Did Jack Do? I’ve no idea why, but it’s the greatest, most surreal thing I’ve ever seen. Someone at Netflix should give David Lynch all the moneys to make everything. He’s also the world’s greatest actor. How does he keep such a straight face?

No one else will pay much heed – my favourite thing, aside from the noir chook and the damned fine coffee, is that the wee, ickle monkey’s wardrobe was by someone named Bernadotte.

I watched it last night and really enjoyed it.

I would love to see an anthology series where every episode tells a very different story but they’re all written and directed by Lynch.

Elvis Dutan wrote:

The highlight for me was the slow decay of Hugh Laurie’s character. Just that increasing descent into disorder is something he’s excelling at.

Yeah, that scene with his real accent coming through was brilliant in the way it played with what audiences know about the actor.

Dave wrote:

Elvis Dutan wrote:

The highlight for me was the slow decay of Hugh Laurie’s character. Just that increasing descent into disorder is something he’s excelling at.

Yeah, that scene with his real accent coming through was brilliant in the way it played with what audiences know about the actor.

I really liked that scene.

What was he, Australian?

What Did Jack Do? was pretty funny. “Who’s gonna believe an orangutan?” and “They say love is like a banana” were my favorite lines. The sound design and diner setting were appropriately Lynchian. If this isn’t followed by an announcement of a full-length David Lynch project for Netflix I’ll be really disappointed.

I also watched a Chinese movie from last year, Ash Is Purest White by Jia Zhangke. It apparently remixes some of Jia’s earlier movies into a new storyline but as someone new to his work I still found a lot in it to enjoy. Told in three chapters in northern China between 2000 and the present day, it follows Qiao (Zhao Tao), the moll of a local gangster named Bin (Liao Fan), who goes to prison to protect him only to learn he’s moved on when she gets out. Worse, he won’t even see her to give her the news in person. So, using ingenuity rivaling the scammer clan in Parasite, Qiao hounds him across the province until he’s forced to meet with her and give her the face to face breakup she deserves. Once this is done, she’s left with no choice but to rebuild herself on her own terms, and by the time the story catches up to the present she’s a transformed woman, with a dignity that Bin never had on his best day.

Her and Bin’s transformations over the course of the film reflect the modernization that China, and especially the northern provinces where the film is set, has gone through in the 21st century: Qiao finds a calling and Bin degenerates into a bitter middle-aged man who feels out of place in the modern world. I found the movie beautiful and moving, and was astounded by Zhao Tao’s simmering performance. And there’s a visceral and brilliantly choreographed martial arts brawl early in the film. I really recommend this.

Richard Stanley’s The Color Out Of Space was absolute gold. It felt like an entire lost Stuart Gordon film, through and through. Forget about Gordon’s adaptations of Dagon/Shadow Over Innsmouth or Dreams in the Witch House, Stanley’s film lives up to the tone, humor, visuals, and creativity of Re-Animator/From Beyond to a tee. If you enjoyed any of those shlock horror classics from Gordon or Brian Yuzna then you’re going to love this one, is what I’m saying. It’s a complete, almost certainly intentional, throwback that carries the torch.

As an adaptation of the short story, however, like all of those other films…it falters. The story and structure is mismanaged in a haze of style over substance and purple neon filters. But, as it stands, it’s all well executed and fun in the style. It knows what it wants to be, most of the time. The movie works better when it stays focused on what it’s bringing to the table…but whenever it tries to tie itself to the short story, all of the seams and forced reaches it takes to try and seem similar to the story are so noticeable. I mean, Bride of Re-Animator was more faithful, if we’re being real.

Overall though, it’s a fun time. The film’s storyline is simple, the shocks are effective, and it’s incredibly energetic and manic in its descent into complete chaos. Cage is a delight, as usual, bringing a fun, and oddly engaging, portrayal of a former hippie-turned suburban-esque farmer. But everyone else is surprisingly fun. Especially the actor playing “Ward Philips”. I don’t know why they didn’t just call the character Randolph Carter, because he has the same sorta function, and the actor does it so damn well. Stanley has said that he wants to make a Lovecraft Cinematic Universe, and I say…go for it. But make Ward Philips the central character. Adapt all the Carter stories.

In the end, it shocked and impressed me a lot more than it let me down as a Lovecraft fan. Which is a good thing. If you’re going to go and do your own thing, then better make it enjoyable…and this does that.

Overall: 8.5/10

(Wards character is meant to be Pierce from the story, no? Or is he Tommy Chongs character?)

He’s meant to be Pierce, but since the emphasis is more on the family and we don’t need, or get, a framing device – he just starts to give off a lot more Carter vibes. Especially in the heat of the third act.

I watched Personal Services, Terry Jones’ 1987 comedy starring Julie Walters as a woman who starts running a brothel to make ends meet. It’s very broad, but a lot of fun.

I’m not sure if it’s a sign of how forward-thinking the movie is or how backward the world is that a scene where a trans character gets berated by the lead’s bigoted family for using the wrong public bathroom (any of them) could pretty much be slotted into a modern movie without much change needed.

Ah thanks – I’m pretty interested because I love lovecraft and also like this era of Nic Cage.  It feels like from the trailers this could be a companion movie to Mandy.  A friend of mine who is a director has seen it and said similar things about the B movie vibe (rotoscoping and puppetry?). He’s ostensibly working on a horror film right now with a similar budget and was gushing about what they managed to do in TCOOS with similar money (especially since Cage’s fee probably took 10% of that).

I’m watching Hellboy on Amazon Prime and, I’m not really watching it.  It feels like a really unnecessary remake and has kind of a Paul WS Anderson feel about how earnest the main plot is presented,  but maybe that’s just because Jovovich is the villain.  I also think someone needs to check on Ian McShane because I think he’s really been sleepwalking through the last few years of his career.

double post

I still need to see Mandy. Shame about Hellboy. Harbour seemed Cage-enthusiastic about the role.

There’s a new Radio 4 adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness set in Rendlesham forest. Suitably spooky.

Mandy is a ride

Mandy is a ride

Anonymous wrote:

Mandy is a ride

I’ve been told it’s a very intense watch?

I don’t recall it being very long, but i don’t think i can think of a good comparison off the top of my head.

It’s kind of comic-booky in that it just takes the concepts it introduces by the horns and doesnt give a shit.  All to a prog-rock soundtrack just for David.

Thanks. I like the notion you can’t think of a good comparison. Bodes well. Might be a bit much for me right now. I could always watch it here I suppose.

I’ll say one thing – Nic Cage’s performance in Mandy, a scene in Color Out of Space, show to me that he would be the perfect Doomguy.

That is an outstanding suggestion 

The Great Outdoors – Dan Aykroyd and John Candy in a film with a John Hughes script has the potential for greatness, but this lands far from that. It’s directed not by Hughes, but his frequent collaborator Howard Deutch (Lea Thompson’s husband) and it’s a shapeless, meandering mess of a film, more a string of mediocre sketches and vignettes than a proper story, with very little sense of continuity between scenes.

Would it have had a more coherent through-line if Hughes had directed it? Maybe not, as it doesn’t feel like the film knows what it wants to be. The main story is broad like National Lampoon’s Vacation, with Candy and his family on holiday when his brother-in-law, Aykroyd, turns up with his family to crash it, going for an Odd Couple style thing. But it also throws in the barest bones of a Hughes teen movie summer romance thing as a sub-plot, which is just weird. It’s completely at odds with the rest of the film but feels like it could have been a decent story in its own right.

Anyway, ultimately the problem with The Great Outdoors is that it’s just not that funny.

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve been told it’s a very intense watch?

Somewhat. If you can stay invested, it does have something of an 80’s music video immediacy to it, but the fact that it’s really just baffling the farther in you go plays against really investing in it. Cage is “intense” throughout, but the movie itself doesn’t have really clear stakes for the story. It’s kinda like a movie that some quirky heavy metal band like Gwar would make to promote their music.

THE COLOR OUT OF SPACE (is it spelled “COLOUR” in the UK release?) however, is quite good. I expected it to go for something more like THE SHINING or OCULUS where the actual supernatural element is downplayed (or even questionable) until the last act, but nope! It gets right into the weirdness pretty quickly. Hope that’s not a spoiler.  The rest of this post might spoil a little as well, by the way.

It’s similar to ANNIHILATION in premise (obviously, I think Annihilation was influenced by Lovecraft’s story and by the movie Stalker and its source story Roadside Picnic), but the central premise adds the Stephen Kingesque element of a family’s internal disintegration in the face of unknowable forces to great effect. Even before the appearance of “The Color,” there are hints of some internal threat to the family unit (and to the world by extension) inherent in the environment that perhaps draws the meteor to it. Nothing explicit, but even with the metaphorical nods to this being an allegory for the way we react to climate change, the implication is that the invasion doesn’t bring destruction to the Gardners (the family in the story – the “gardeners”) but instead draws their own latent self-destruction out from within.

It’s a very good adaptation. I did get the sense that it was initially going to be more directly a critique of climate change denial, but I think that Stanley, wisely, probably edited most of that out when he started to realize the family’s struggle was too dramatic to saddle with this social statement. Still, there are moments that are quite funny in the movie related to that. When Cage’s character starts to lose it due to the stress and the influence of the alien presence, he starts to act and sound like his father which was his worst nightmare – that he would become like his bitter old dad. However, those moments are particularly funny because his “dad act” sounds and acts like a well-known New York politician that Alec Baldwin is notorious for satirizing on television.

I know it’s able to be pirated right now but I’ll wait until the cinematic release.

It’s true that both Tommyknockers and Annihilation ate inspired by TCOOS so I’m not surprised that the adaptation feels like it harkens back to those. Maybe that’s deliberate by Stanley.

Glad to see Stanley put of his quagmire. There’s an argument to be made about how Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando ruined his career, but perhaps I’ll leave that to those more about the details of that particular production than I.

Martin Smith wrote:

Anyway, ultimately the problem with The Great Outdoors is that it’s just not that funny.

Aw, I liked this film a lot as a kid, but it sounds like one that shouldn’t be revisited.

Anonymous wrote:

It’s true that both Tommyknockers and Annihilation ate inspired by TCOOS so I’m not surprised that the adaptation feels like it harkens back to those. Maybe that’s deliberate by Stanley.

Tommyknockers also had the feeling of some Invaders From Mars and Body Snatchers low budget matinee movie, too. There are a references to The Thing as well, and I think it is hard to avoid that nowadays despite The Thing being a big bomb in the 80’s. It’s become a horror classic now, but still seems like relatively few people have actually seen it compared to the movies that it inspired.

I’ve heard that The Color out of Space (simply Colour Out Of Space was the title of the story) is supposed to be part of a series of interconnected Lovecraft adaptations. There were many moments in the movie where certain tantalizing details and conflicts were included and left open. Nothing you needed closure on to enjoy the film, but interesting enough that they could lead to future stories.

Anonymous wrote:

Glad to see Stanley put of his quagmire. There’s an argument to be made about how Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando ruined his career, but perhaps I’ll leave that to those more about the details of that particular production than I.

Seems like I saw a documentary released recently about this. Island of Lost Souls or something. Stanley is an old school type of “Wild Man” director, but sometimes the movie felt like an expanded episode of the Masters of Horror series which overall was pretty good television with low production values.

 

Tommyknockers was mostly inspired by cocaine. That’s actually what King says, it not just me making a joke.

But it does contain some brilliant sections.

There’s a new movie version in development and the potential to extract something good from the wreckage definitely exists. Since King has publicly criticised the book some major changes could be made without pissing him off too.

Anonymous wrote:

Glad to see Stanley put of his quagmire. There’s an argument to be made about how Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando ruined his career, but perhaps I’ll leave that to those more about the details of that particular production than I.

Seems like I saw a documentary released recently about this. Island of Lost Souls or something.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau. It’s on Amazon Prime, and well worth a watch.

SteveUK wrote:

Tommyknockers was mostly inspired by cocaine. That’s actually what King says, it not just me making a joke.

It is strange some of the stories behind the stories. Word Processor of the Gods was inspired by actually switching from a typewriter to a word processor to write. Dreamcatcher was inspired by his recovery from getting hit by a car – that one just seems crazy, too.

He did talk about how he was so high on cocaine when he wrote some of his books he actually can’t remember writing them – like Cujo. You get the impression that a lot of his work is really about writing.

Three of us went to the Secret Cinema ‘Stranger Things’ tonight.

It’s fun, but since it’s my first experience of Secret Cinema I was a little underwhelmed walking around a partial recreation of a 1980’s mall, plus some faux outdoors sections off to one side.

That’s not to say that it’s cheap, or they’ve cut corners. They’ve filled a large space and have a cast of characters giving visitors clues and/or playing roles from the show.

But I think this might have been a tough one to pull off?

Season 3 isn’t entirely set in the mall so they’ve felt they have to add the other bits as well, and the detective aspect of the experience means that they’ve included the local newspaper and even a cabin in the woods.

I feel like a carefully limited experience, based on the mall and only the mall, would be more immersive.

But it’s still a good evening of entertainment despite my gripes. If you want to take a break from sleuthing there are 80’s themed dance events with lots of music and plenty of little set piece performances that pop up out of the blue from time to time, featuring versions of familiar characters.

One last moan; there’s a live action plus projection performance at the end that (for me) goes on a bit too long, but a lot of people seemed to be with it all the way, so mileage varies.

paul f wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Glad to see Stanley put of his quagmire. There’s an argument to be made about how Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando ruined his career, but perhaps I’ll leave that to those more about the details of that particular production than I.

Seems like I saw a documentary released recently about this. Island of Lost Souls or something.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau. It’s on Amazon Prime, and well worth a watch.

I watched it tonight. I don’t know how I managed to forget that I’d seen it before. The whole corporate-tinged fiasco takes some very odd turns. Fascinating links to Stanley and Heart of Darkness and the rivalry between Wells and Conrad.

Also, Skip and lightning and hyenas roaming the Irish countryside!

But now Stanley has his Lovecraftian trilogy. The Dunwich Horror is next. Hopefully he’ll finally get to make his comic book plus TV versions of Moreau too.

Stephen King came across Lovecraft’s The Lurking Fear and Other Stories when he was wee – left behind by his father in the attic.

Martin Smith wrote:

The Great Outdoors – Dan Aykroyd and John Candy in a film with a John Hughes script has the potential for greatness, but this lands far from that. It’s directed not by Hughes, but his frequent collaborator Howard Deutch (Lea Thompson’s husband) and it’s a shapeless, meandering mess of a film, more a string of mediocre sketches and vignettes than a proper story, with very little sense of continuity between scenes.

Would it have had a more coherent through-line if Hughes had directed it? Maybe not, as it doesn’t feel like the film knows what it wants to be. The main story is broad like National Lampoon’s Vacation, with Candy and his family on holiday when his brother-in-law, Aykroyd, turns up with his family to crash it, going for an Odd Couple style thing. But it also throws in the barest bones of a Hughes teen movie summer romance thing as a sub-plot, which is just weird. It’s completely at odds with the rest of the film but feels like it could have been a decent story in its own right.

Anyway, ultimately the problem with The Great Outdoors is that it’s just not that funny.

I loved The Great Outdoors as a kid but it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen it.  I tried rewatching another film that I loved from around that time period, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and was severely disappointed.  It’s possible that they’re of their time and best left to Friday night video rental nostalgia.

I am watching The Man Who Killed Don Quixote with a German friend who’s only expose to the parent text is Rushdie’s Quichotte and I find myself laboured with the quixotic task of explaining the literary history of Cervantes’ hidalgo Alonso Quixano. Also, I am two whiskeys deep.

The varying Sanchos in the varying homages are proving to be significant stumbling blocks.

It’s Sanchos all the way down.

Welcome to my kind of quixotic days. :)

 

Finally got around to watching Doctor Sleep, the Director’s Cut – I waited for that one especially, and I have to say….much better than I was expecting. I wasn’t worried about it being a cash grab or hollow and soulless or anything like that – I trusted Mike Flanagan not to be that cheap about it. But I was worried about how close it would try to hew to the previous movie and how that would work either for/against the movie. And it was a pleasant surprise that, for the majority of the first two acts, it circumvented that completely. It felt more like a completely confident Mike Flanagan film. Totally his vision, his tone, and his own unique sensibilities on display here. And that worked in making the movie feel like its own beast and able to be enjoyed for its own merits.

There were a few “Lucas Poetry-isms” here and there, and the structure of the story hits a few of the same beats as the first movie, but those felt more along the lines of Tron: Legacy than, say, The Force Awakens – where the new context and the continuing narrative made those feel earned and unique in how the story is playing out. And not just – retreading old ground ‘for the fans’. And, to its credit, some of the homages and throwbacks were wonderful, my favorite being Abra pulling off the old school ‘Shining Stare’ wonderfully. Respect to the kid playing her.

The third act is maybe where it gets too reverent and it’s very cheesy in how much it goes for it. Pulled me out of the movie a bit, to be honest, but the characters and the emotional cores were all set-up and cohesive by that point and they carry what might have marred a really good sequel. I had a great time and I’m glad I saw the full scope of it.

Overall – 8/10

Board ate my post :(

Will_C wrote:

Board ate my post :(

NOM NOM NOM

I enjoyed the new Curb Your Enthusiasm a lot. Lots of fun moments and some great gags. Watching it made me realise how rarely I really laugh out loud at the TV these days, because I did it a lot in that half hour.

The newest Avenue 5 was definitely more of what I was expecting. Just a bunch of double handed, two-faced, and self-serving manic energy. I laughed quite a bit. It’s enough that this might be the first Josh Gad role that I’ve actually loved him in. I couldn’t see anyone else in the role. Perfectly annoying fodder. I’m getting a good felling for this series now.

Double post.

People get theirs eaten, I get more. What the heck?

Dave wrote:

I enjoyed the new Curb Your Enthusiasm a lot. Lots of fun moments and some great gags. Watching it made me realise how rarely I really laugh out loud at the TV these days, because I did it a lot in that half hour.

I love the new season so far. LD is only getting funnier.

Elvis Dutan wrote:

The newest Avenue 5 was definitely more of what I was expecting. Just a bunch of double handed, two-faced, and self-serving manic energy. I laughed quite a bit. It’s enough that this might be the first Josh Gad role that I’ve actually loved him in. I couldn’t see anyone else in the role. Perfectly annoying fodder. I’m getting a good felling for this series now.

Zach Woods singing Starman was phenomenal.

Dave wrote:

I enjoyed the new Curb Your Enthusiasm a lot. Lots of fun moments and some great gags. Watching it made me realise how rarely I really laugh out loud at the TV these days, because I did it a lot in that half hour.

I felt the same watching The Goes Wrong Show last week. I was laughing out loud so much that I became conscious of how rarely I actually laugh at comedy (which isn’t to say I’m not amused by it).

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Elvis Dutan wrote:

The newest Avenue 5 was definitely more of what I was expecting. Just a bunch of double handed, two-faced, and self-serving manic energy. I laughed quite a bit. It’s enough that this might be the first Josh Gad role that I’ve actually loved him in. I couldn’t see anyone else in the role. Perfectly annoying fodder. I’m getting a good felling for this series now.

Zach Woods singing Starman was phenomenal.

I thought episode 2 was ok, but still not hugely funny outside of a couple of moments. I hope it gets better.

I watched Messiah… Netflix series… I thought that was gonna be Chosen, but apparently not… anyways, it was quite good, very riveting… I like these types of stories, it’s almost like watching Ultimate Thor: the Movie… =P

Jon wrote:

I watched Messiah… Netflix series… I thought that was gonna be Chosen, but apparently not… anyways, it was quite good, very riveting… I like these types of stories, it’s almost like watching Ultimate Thor: the Movie… =P

It does look interesting. Also, Michelle Monaghan and… Beau Bridges?

Yeah, okay, I’ll take a look.

Ye, it’s worth a look at least… I really like that they speak in foreign language too…

Christian wrote:

It does look interesting. Also, Michelle Monaghan and… Beau Bridges?

Yeah, okay, I’ll take a look.

It’s from Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, and from everything I’ve seen it’s very much in line with their other religious TV shows and movies. Which are fine for what they are, but not for me.

Yeah I enjoyed Messiah too. I though it might be a little bit bible thumping, but I never really felt that from it.

 

 

I’ve seen 2 episodes of Avenue 5 now, and I’m not sure what to make of it. As a disaster movie pastiche it’s not disaster-movie enough, and as an SF pastiche it’s not SF enough. The plot is awfully thin, even for a comedy, and the characters are terrible.

On the other hand, it’s got a really high quota of genuinely laugh-out-loud one-liners. So I’m enjoying it even while thinking it’s terrible

 

 

The Rhythm Section. It’s not very good, but there’s a handful of scenes I really liked. The middle section where Blake Lively’s training with Jude Law is by far the best part; the plot-heavy first and third acts don’t work at all.

You can tell it’s been cut down from a much denser novel; there’s moments where characters will suddenly just know something because the plot requires them to at that point, and it’s never really clear why anyone needs Blake Lively’s character at all. She’s a terrible choice for this spy/revenge mission.

Also, for a movie with a female director and lead, it’s odd that there are more dead female characters (Blake Lively’s mother, Jude Law’s wife, Jude Law’s old partner, a bad guy’s kid daughter) in the movie than live ones (Blake Lively, the mother of a murdered guy, a suicide bomber).

Todddammitt!!!

I have run out of BoJack.  

Everything is not worse now. Thank you Horsey McHorseface and Co. You were all so nice while you lasted.

An imperfectly perfect bunch of miscreants.

Hooray for Hollywoo■

Ian Smith wrote:

Yeah I enjoyed Messiah too. I though it might be a little bit bible thumping, but I never really felt that from it.

 

 

Uh I didn’t realize it was made by bible thumpers… I mean, it doesn’t feel like it’s FOR bible thumpers, quite the opposite in fact… seems like it’s the kind of thing that the american crazies might get upset by…

Currently watching the live action Alita: Battle Angel. I think it says something when even Christopher Waltz, Mahershala Ali, and Jennifer Connolly cannot rescue a film from such utter crapitude.

Yes, I said crapitude.

Bojack Horseman made me have emotions.

I too have all the emotions from BoJack. I shall miss the show very much.

I’m now pondering all the important questions such as,

What is a marshmallow?

It is chemicals

It is chemicals.

Is the marshmallow also BoJack? My initial plan was to savour the show and save an episode per evening. Instead I binged all the marshmallows at once because the chemistry worked its alchemy.

I need a new marshmallow.

Avenue 5 last night made me feel uneasy, queasy, and just outright disgusted. It was pretty brilliant. Just how it can do something like take one of the most annoying and irritating characters and put you in their head, in that moment, was so damn good. It’s excellent. It’s a thrilling and, so far, nauseatingly disturbing show. I love that it’s not pulling punches right now. And the next episode looks like a delight.

Rather than watching the shite that’s on kids tv with the child I’ve put on some real cartoons on YouTube.

She is properly loving it!

On my desk I have a photocopy of the NY Daily News TV program schedule for Saturday, April 18, 1970. The Saturday morning cartoon lineups on the three major networks at the time are as follows:

CBS
8:00 Jetsons
8:30 Bugs Bunny Cartoons
9:30 Dastardly and Muttley
10:00 Wacky Races
10:30 Scooby-Doo
11:00 Archie Hour

NBC
8:00 Heckle & Jeckle
9:00 Here Comes the Grump
9:30 Pink Panther
10:00 H.R. Pufnstuf
10:30 Banana Splits Hour
11:30 Flintstones

ABC
8:00 Gulliver’s Adventures
8:30 Smokey Bear Cartoons
9:00 Cattanooga Cats
10:00 Hot Wheels
10:30 Hardy Boys Cartoon
11:00 Sky Hawks
11:30 George of the Jungle

I can remember my brother and I flipping between CBS and NBC to catch the best offerings; I don’t recall ever watching the comparatively lame ABC line-up. These days Saturday mornings on those networks are mostly news programs.

A Hot Wheels cartoon? Jeez, ABC that line-up is pretty tragic.

Weekend kids shows have been shuffled off the main TV channels over here too, limited to the dedicated kids channels. On the one hand, it makes total sense, but it still feels like they’ve shuffled the kids off into a corner to be not seen let alone heard. Instead it’s wall to wall cooking shows.

I finally got around to watching The Favourite, about a year later than intended. It’s very good – funny and surprisingly dramatic, with the central trio brilliantly cast. All three of them are great and there are some good supporting players in there too. Plus the costumes and scenery are amazing.

After leaving it to fester on my DVR for the best part of a year, I watched Venom tonight.

It’s… fine? If it had come out in 2006 or so, I think it would be beloved by most of the fanbase. As it is now though, it just feels like an odd throwback to when superhero comics were getting watered down adaptations because studios didn’t think audiences could handle the unfiltered content. It’s like the Dead Man Wade from Wolverine Origins, but half-decent. The stuff with the symbiote talking with Eddie is kinda funny and the plot’s passable, but it’s not really Venom because of all the Spider-Man stuff that’s been scraped out of it. For what it is, it’s good, but what it is is unnecessary in a world with the MCU and Deadpool showing that authenticity to the source material and its complexity is rewarding.

Speaking of parasites, I saw ‘Parasite’

This year’s Oscar hopeful (that isn’t ‘1917’) but it doesn’t contain any alien body possession (spoilers).

I think it’s very good. Smart, funny, very dark in places. the first half feels like it’s a bit too slick but then the dominos start to fall in the second half and it plays around with your expectations in interesting ways.

Brilliantly shot and all great performances. One of those films when you forget you’re reading subtitles (for those us that don’t speak Korean).

If I have to pick nits it may be a little on the nose in some places, but overall it’s a fine film.

Martin Smith wrote:

ABC that line-up is pretty tragic.

TO be fair, George of the Jungle was pretty decent.