I don't think the people who run that station know that; they have been running Christmas movies all summer long too, lol.

But... but... DieHard is a Christmas movie!

Die Hard defines Christmas.

Right? He is even carrying a load of Christmas presents in that limo and the building lobby had a Christmas tree!

I even got a dvd set of the first 3 DieHard films (the others hadn’t come out yet, never watched those though.) for Christmas one year. True story.

I asked for the full set one year for Christmas, but never got it, lol.

NASA's Black Hole Safety Video.

The Kareer of King Kong from Dark Corners Reviews. I'm pretty sure I've seen all these but the Jackson remake, with a bit of uncertainty about Skull Island. The commentators opinions seem pretty spot-on to me. Certainly the original is a timeless masterpiece. Which reminds me it's due a re-watch. I'll need to view it via living room audio/video setup as I've no way to play laserdiscs via computer.

I just finished watching the first episode of Batwoman. It was good. Very cool, and a lot of fun. Ruby Rose is perfect as Kate Kane, even without the red hair and bone white china skin that the comic character has (even out of costume). The show definitely has ovaries too, because in less than five minutes we are seeing the protagonist kissing another woman. The kind of thing so many other shows will never, ever do, even with minor characters.

They worked the story of how you have Batwoman but no Batman in a simple but elegant way. Batman disappeared 3 years earlier. Why? No one knows. They also changed Kate's backstory a little. In this version she, her sister, and mother were driven off the road by the Joker, who was in a hijacked schoolbus, being chased by Batman. Batman paused to shoot some grappling lines to hold up the car so it did not fall off the bridge it was precariously teetering off of. Then he went on to stop the Joker and save a ton of kids in the bus. But back at the car the steel of the trunk gave way, and the car went off the edge, with only Kate getting out in time.

OTOH, the show does keep that she was thrown out of a military academy that clearly West Point in disguise due to being a lesbian. It also keeps her backstory of being sent by her father for training afterward. Which is where things start. In this one however, her dad runs a security/mercenary company called The Crows (love the name), which is really big in Gotham City. After Batman disappeared, The Crows stepped up to try to hold things together.

This first episode seems a little rushed. But I am not complaining. There is always something happening. There is tons of conflict, especially in Kate, which of course defines character and drives plot. So thumbs up. She pretty quickly gets into Wayne Tower, which is now abandoned, and finds the Batcave. It does come off feeling natural however, thanks to the character's childhood history of being cousins with Bruce Wayne. She practically grew up in Wayne Tower. So she knew every nook and cranny, and everything out of place.

There are some nice, subtle homages to Batman too. First is the switch to open the way into the Batcave, the pearl necklace Bruce's mother was wearing when she was murdered. There is a movie in the park event in the city, which is showing Zorro. Things a die hard Bat fan will recognize. But nothing screaming in your face either.

All in all fun. I look forward to more!

CW is pretty much a leader in telling stories that a lot of other networks wouldn’t tell due to politics and such. One such show is The 100. I don’t know if you’ve seen this show, but it’s a totally ridiculous sci-fi post apocalyptic series and I kinda love it. The main female protagonist of the show is a lesbian.

I got finished watching the Joker movie and I really loved it, I highly recommend it also I'm not going to spoil anything you'll just have to watch it !

I’m excited to see it!

I just finished watching the first 'season' of Ren: The Girl With the Mark. Like Dragon Age: Redemption, it is a series of webisodes about 9 minutes each. They all add up to a mini-movie about 45 minutes long. Amazon has it all put together into one episode. I believe it is also on YouTube.

It was really good. Like Mythica, it is another indie fantasy adventure story. I thought the setting was really cool. Lots of neat ideas and mythology that they hint it. I liked the protagonist: the eponymous Ren. My only dislike is that it is over. I look forward to more. I wish there was a novel to go with the show.

I watched the second episode of Batwoman. Once again, it was solid. The plot has been very personal for these first two episodes. It is good. It gives Kate/us an immediate, personal stake in events. Often a series is not that personally focused right at the get go. It makes for a very engaging start.

Thug Notes - The Heart of Darkness A really good review of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I read it a few months ago. This guy is spot on. Thug style.

I finished watching the 2004 Battlestar Galactica. It was good mostly, but not great. The show really fell off the rails after the second season. Though it certainly had issues before that. Mainly in that they went for over the top drama. Every episode has some sort of manufactured conflict, even if it requires characters acting out of character to make it happen. Plus lots of gratuitous sex, again, even if there is no reason for the two characters to hook up - like Starbuck and Baltar, or Tigh and Caprica Six. Then there are no consequences for anyone's actions. At least until the final season. Then they decided to start killing off the characters since they knew they show was ending.

The ending was... less than stellar. It was also really depressing. Though that is a separate from the explanation for everything being "God did it."

Tonight I fired up the pilot movie of the original series - Saga of a Star World. It is nice to see Richard Hatch playing a good guy. Even after all these years, there is still a lot to like about the original show. I still love the original centurions, especially their voices. That "By your command!" is pure awesome. I love the original Cylon fighters and base ships. Though I did I like the base ships in the reboot series too.

I love the Colonial Warrior outfits, especially the jackets. The original vipers are also fantastic.

I finished the last of the Mythica movies today, Godslayer. It was good. They are all good. If you ever played tabletop RPGs, you will adore it. It has kind of a sad ending, but they certainly showed it coming. But even then, it is not all that sad. I highly recommend all five movies.

I just finished bingeing Dad of Light, a Netflix original series. It's a short (8 episodes, each less than 30 minutes long) Japanese series about a young man working in an office and living at home with his parents. He is flummoxed when his workaholic dad suddenly quits his job, but is unable to ask him why since they haven't had a close, or even a speaking relationship with each other in quite some time. This young man plays Final Fantasy XIV every night after work, so he gets the idea to introduce his dad to the game. He buys his dad a PS3 (or was it PS4, I can't recall) console and hooks him up into the game. Then he runs upstairs and secretly logs into the game and meets his dad's character in game, only Dad doesn't know Akio plays the game too.

It's light, it's enjoyable, and fun because so much of the show takes place inside the game. The sense of camaraderie shared by online players remind me so much of ESO that I had fun watching it. When Akio finally discovers the real reason his dad quit, I wasn't too surprised, as I've seen that trope before - it seems quite prevalent in Korean and Chinese dramas as well. But I thought it was well handled.

Recently watched What We Do In the Shadows. Hilarious!

Yes!

Keeping up my Spooky October viewings, I watched Quatermass and the Pit (aka 5 Million Miles to Earth). It is very British, and a rather slow build. Ok, but nothing great. I was tickled to recognize that the Military Guy was played by none other than General Veers.

What really got my attention was this quote from two of the main characters however.

Professor Bernard Quatermass : Roney, if we found out earth was doomed - say, by climatic changes - what would we do about it?

Dr. Mathew Roney : Nothing. Just go on squabbling as usual.

A 60 year old movie, and exactly on the nose.

My latest spooky film was Flatliners, which I have not seen in ages. It was good, but not great. The premise seems a little wonky. Scientists want to flatline and be revived to learn the Truth About Death. Given that people had certainly technically died and been revived before this, and came back with no world-changing revelations, why would Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Bacon think they were going to do anything different?

But it is still a fun ride, as the characters face their inner demons, and have to find forgiveness, or give them their own forgiveness. So it has a nice human element, and is not really about spooks and scares, but rather atonement. What I liked about it was that none of it was necessarily supernatural. It could be. Or it could just all be in their heads, and the ghosts be metaphorical ones.

I am not sure why, but I watched the "old" Fantastic Four movie from 2005. It was not good of course. Kind of bland. Though Michael Chiklis was awesome as Ben Grimm. I think part of the problem is that the F4 is just from such an old era, that so many things about it seem hokey. The names are eye-rolling. Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm. "It's clobberin' time!" *sigh*.

I also watched the "new" Fantastic Four movie from 2015. It started out ok, with Reed and Ben as kids. Then I liked them in school and going to the Baxter Building, which was actually a tech university like MIT. But it wastes too much time in the early movie. Then once they get to the point where they get their powers they completely rework the origin story. I give them props for trying to do something fresh. But it the rest of the movie just falls flat from there on out. So pretty meh.

At YouTube (where else?) I watched a well-made documentary (?) on the life of Marlene Dietrich. What an interesting individual!

I got finished watching a new IP on YouTube called Hazbin Hotel and for an indie adult cartoon its a really great show hope they make more of it.

Just realized Hazbin=Has been...good one.

I'd post a link but the shows uses a lot of "colorful words". Just go to YouTube and search for Hazbin Hotel, I think you'll guys will like it, specially if you like the old Beetlejuice cartoons.

It looks interesting!

Still watching Batwoman. I can see that they are definitely using Chicago for Gotham City, aside from the few comics-specific sites like Wayne Tower. I was also tickled to see that the villain in episode 3 is none other than January's brother Romulus - Gabriel Mann. He's just as big a dick in this as he is in the Stormcrow fiction. I guessed I picked the right actor to imagine Romulus as.

And later she gets information out of someone by taking a selfie with them. I love it. Just like January as well. And so 21st century.

Watched Curse of the Blair Witch today, along with a special on Amazon called Creating Modern Ghost Stories: The Blair Witch Project. Curse was a faux documentary created from footage that was originally going to be in the film. But the creators decided that the found footage stuff of the trio in the woods worked better on its own. So they released Curse on the Sci Fi Channel a week before the movie came out. It is basically a companion piece/publicity for the movie. It is created as a documentary about the Blair Witch, and does give a lot of the background folklore about what is going on in the movie. Back in the day I saw this on tv before I went to see the film, and it really did add a lot to the experience.

Creating Modern Ghost Stories is an interview with 3 of the filmmakers and talking to them about the creation of the film. I must confess to crushing on the woman who was the historical fabricator for the movie (that was a real title) She talked about how she invented the documentation used in the film, and the varying grades of real fakes, fake fakes, and actual legit documents they used to create the mythology of the Blair Witch. That includes creating fake sources to make citations off of, knowing that most people will never follow up on those citations and see that they are fake. It was all about creating an air of verisimilitude to draw the viewers in with the premise that this could be real. I knew it was not when I saw it of course. I was a sketpic even back then. But I really appreciated the effort, so I leaned into it for all the extra fun it created.

She even talks about how for years people would try to contact the Maryland Historical Society asking for a book created by the movie, that the mythology claims they have. The Historical Society of course tells these people it isn't real. So the people insist that they are covering it up and refusing to let people read it.

I am not sure if I want to watch the actual Blair Witch Project now or not. I have been planning on doing a Castlevania marathon to end Spooky October, and I have already watched the first episode of that. I might just finish that first and save the Witch for the weekend.

I love the Netflix Castlevania series. Hope they release season 3 soon!

Currently doing my annual viewing of the film Sleepy Hollow starring Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp. I watch it every year on Halloween as for me, this film is the epitome of what the holiday is about: spooky fun!

I just finished watching a very fun B movie called Survivor. Since there are a lot of movies called that, it is the one made in 2014, with Kevin Sorbo in a supporting role. It also has the main character from the Mythica movies in a supporting role as well, which delighted me to no end. As I said, it is a fun, low-budget sci-fi movie about the crew of a space ship that crash lands on a planet, and runs afoul of the Raiders and Goblins that live there. There is lots of action and adventure, and a really fun ride.

The main character is your basic hot chick, and a lesbian to boot. Of course they killed off her girlfriend. Because you got to Bury Your Gays. Then again, pretty much everyone else dies too, so that might be too harsh.

It felt a lot like a video game, a Tomb Raider game in particular. There is a lot of running, and climbing up cliffs, even some semi-parkour when the Raider gang is chasing the protagonist through a warren of rocky outcroppings. When she gets her hands on a bow, well... But none of that detracts from the fun of the movie. It is just an observation.

UFC 244: Masvidal vs Diaz.

As much as I love the Diaz Brothers, I’m gonna side with the Miami Druglord on this one. While the pressure boxing / BJJ of the Diaz’ holds a special place in my heart, Masvidal’s slick boxing and punishing Muay Thai kicks’ll just rip Nate apart, particularly if Masvidal aims his kicks on Nate’s notoriously skinny legs, which is made further vulnerable due to his bladed boxer’s stance.

All in all, this is gonna be a violent 5-round war. I don’t see Nate KOing Masvidal with his attrition-style punches and it’ll take a substantial amount of fight IQ for Masvidal to knock Nate out, the Diaz Brothers’ infamous granite chin and endurance notwithstanding.

Ah, combat sports. We don’t deserve you.

Watched El Camino tonight. It was a bit of a let down; I loved the flashbacks for the nostalgic value; but the continuous flipping back and forth from present to past and back was not worthy of Vince Gilliam's writing abilities. He could have done better with this sequel. The western showdown was trite and immersion breaking. The ending was a complete dud.

Jesse's dialogue and role was good; but lacked the Jesse personality we all know and love. I read that the script didn't have a single "Bitch!" in it; and that Jesse ad-libbed the only one place he said it in the entire movie. When asked about it, Vince admitted he'd forgotten Jesse was famous for saying that and hadn't written it. WHAT? How could he write a sequal for Jesse without remembering that? Aaron Paul's acting was superb as usual; though. He even helped the script he was given by trying to inject Jesse into it despite Vince's failure to bring him to life again.

Even Walter White's part was bland; but as usual Bryan Cranston acted the living hell out of what he had to work with. The writing for his scenes felt a bit flat; as if they just stuck him in there as a novelty but had no real purpose for his role there.

Come on, Vince! We love you, and know you can do better than this!

I think Vince fell into the fatal flaw of all sequels = you can never go back; it just never works as well as it did the first time (when all the magic was there).

If he makes another sequel; I hope he remembers the character's personalities when writing their roles.


Also: big time spoiler below:

Spent much of today watching videos from the YouTube channel of a professional painting 'restorer.' Very entertaining and informative. I'll link one. The painting in this video is actually in pretty good shape, compared to many of the paintings he deals with. About all it needs is very minor repair of damaged/missing paint, cleaning, and varnish replacement. The frame, on the other hand, receives a more heavy-duty treatment, in good part to undo changes made during a previous restoration.

The Conservation of George Inness' "The Roman Campagna"


In this video, on the other hand, the painting itself needs a hella lot of restoration.

Ex Multis Ad Unum - Restoring A Split Painting

Rogue One and Solo.

Just finished Rogue One and about to start Solo.

I’m in love with Jyn.

Launched Brave Browser while ago to contribute to a forum that Firefox, for some reason, doesn't show its comment-composition window. That done, I decided to visit YouTube. I'm not signed to YouTube on Brave. Nor have I a 'view history.' Its recommendations page seems alien and saddening. Nothing but Mainstream Media thumbnails, and thumbs to indie vids that mimic MSM. The very sort of programming I watch YouTube to avoid...like the plague. Shows where YouTube's head is at.

History Buffs' evaluation of historical accuracy in the movie Elizabeth.

I'm watching the Spartacus show that was on Starz. My boyfriend is super into historical type stuff and he suggested it. It's usually not my thing, but it was so messy! It's like a Roman novela! I'm on season 2 now

I enjoyed Season 1 (Blood and Sand) and Season 2 (Gods of the Arena), but it lost me in Season 3 (Vengeance). I don’t know if it was Andy Whitfield (the actor who played Spartacus in Season 1) dying and the guy who replaced him not being as likable, if it was because the show really suffered from the departure of the Batiatus household, or if it was because the actual war just wasn’t as interesting to me as the Gladiator stuff. Maybe it was a combination of all of those things *shrugs*. In any case, I hope you enjoy it!

You-Season 2.

The creepy stalker is back! Anyone watched the first season?

I have never heard of it until now. I looked at it on Netflix, and it looks disturbing.

In very non-creepy movies, I watched the Power Rangers movie from 2017. It was a ton of fun. I enjoyed it immensely. I never watched the Power Rangers tv shows. They looked too cheesy for me even when I was younger. This was definitely not cheaply done. They spent a fortune on the cgi, and it does look good, even on 4k. But that aside, the characters were fun, the story simple, and the whole thing a blast. A great popcorn movie.

It is. The main character looks like an average guy and he has some good qualities: he looks out for those in need, especially children and those younger than him such as a fourteen year old girl who’s hanging out with creeps and a young boy who’s being verbally abused by his stepfather. Having grown up a certain way he can sympathize.

On the downside.... he’s a sociopath. A very analytical stalker, a kidnapper, and a serial killer who has severe obsession issues. It’s an interesting take, since we usually see others trying to bring down the killer in mysteries but in this we get deep inside his head as he orchestrated himself into the life of the woman he’s stalking. It’s very psychological. But it does get VERY disturbing.

My wife hated the ending. She couldn’t rest well, it kinda threw her off a bit.

I have never watched any Power Rangers growing up and I really regret it!

All this talk of sociopaths and serial killers has led me back to one of, if not the, best realistic portrayals of those type of cats in movie history. Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor in the ‘86 film Manhunter. He’s what you would expect of a monster wearing human skin; calculated, cold, hollow, empty, but *so filled with synthetic human warmth* as to disarm you the way an old, congenial University professor would.

He’s not too tryhard as Sir Hopkins’ interpretation nor is he an aristocratic snob like Mads’. Brian Cox’s Hannibal is just the sort of guy who would, as ghoulish as it is, probably thrive in our own real world.

I preferred Brian Cox as well. He was a guy who could blend into normal society. Yet was utterly monstrous.

Wow, Khajiit did not even know someone besides Sir Anthony Hopkins had played Hannibal in a movie.

Started watching The Expanse on Amazon Prime. Only about eight episodes in, but it's really good sci-fi.

I watched the first season. I love stalker movies and I got super into it. I was gonna buy the book and everything.

Then the ending happened. I didn't see that ending the way it did and I was mad. Super mad.

I'm not watching the second season. 😒

Meowing cheetah

Dawwww! Who's a good kitty!