I mostly agree, though I will say I will watch the 4th one just for Penélope Cruz as Angelica.

But yeah, the 4th and 5th were not great.

I am watching the 'new' Race To Witch Mountain, with The Rock. One of the kids is Alexander Ludwig, back when he was little, before he became Cato the Elder, or Bjorn Ironsides. Wow, it is wild to see him so young.

Twice now the film had two cosplayers dressed like stormtroopers. That got my attention because this is a Disney movie. But it was made in 2009, 4 years before Disney bought Lucasfilm. If some other company did this now, Disney would sue them. They sued a day care center for having a mural of Winnie the Pooh.

Watched the first installment of the "Grant" mini-series on the History Channel- (which was actually showing "history" for a change!)

The material is first rate- I have some doubts about the accuracy of certain design elements, but the factual parts, as well as the acting, are quite good.

However, we sat through 2 hours, of which it seemed at least HALF was repetitive ads. We will wait for the other 2 installments to be available in a different format.

I almost watched this too! I really wanted to see it; but at the last minute a friend called and we ended up talking through it.

What really bothers me about the electronic recording devices that the cable TV and Satellite use now is that you can no longer edit out the commercials while taping these things (or even after it is taped) like you used to be able to with the VCRs. Really irritating; because the constant ads end up draining my interest in the shows based on their sheer number of interruptions and length of time I have to wait through each before seeing the show I was trying to watch each time.

So yeah; I'll wait till it comes out in some other format too.

Ikea Heights. It is a soap opera which takes place entirely in an Ikea store. It is hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9gkYw35Vws

Supposedly, Ikea workers and management had no idea what was going on. This is real!

I watched the first two episodes of Stargirl. It is good. I enjoyed it a lot. It is a very fun show. The beginning was a little confusing, as it starts out in what seems like the 50s. Then it fast-forwards a decade, to the current day. So that was not the 50s. In a couple scenes one of the characters is looking at a villain's dossier, and it lists his date of birth as being in 1971. So that opening scene had to be at least 1990 something, if not later. Maybe 2010.

But other than that oddness, it is enjoyable. I like the characters, I like the setup for the story. I look forward to more.

Decided to give Avatar: The Last Airbender a go since the whole series was recently released on Netflix. I’m only a few episodes into it. It’s a Nickelodeon show so it’s very kiddish, but I can see that it has potential to be a fun series.

I just finished watching 4 episodes of the live action Moribito series on Amazon. Sadly, those are the only ones they have, even though I think there are over a dozen episodes. There is also an older anime: Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, that I saw years ago. These new live action episodes are an hour each, and roughly tell the same story as that the anime did. They do it a lot quicker, as it all wraps up about 2/3rds though the fourth episode. Then it starts into what is clearly a new arc.

If you do watch them, do it in this order:
Guardian of the Spirit
The Hunter and the Hunted
Fight to the Death
Trail of Blood

It was good, really good. It stars Haruka Ayase, who is just awesome. She also starred in Ichi from some years back. While it is a Japanese production, and the actors and spoken language are Japanese, the setting feels more like Korea. It is an Asian fantasy world. So I guess where Westerners think of a fantasy world as Merry Olde England, Japanese think of it as Merry Olde Silla. Which is not a slam. It just might look more like a Korean show than a Japanese one.

Both the live action series and the older anime are based on a book series by Nahoko Uehashi. I am seriously tempted to pick up the first one and give it a read. She really builds a rich and engaging fantasy world, and peoples it with interesting characters.

Criterion recently released the movie 1985 Russian anti-war film Come and See on DVD and Blu-ray. This movie has been on my want-lest for years. I decided to take the plunge. Ordered it off Amazon. It arrived Friday, 10 Jul 2020. I watched it that afternoon. Magnificent! Harrowing too.

For those not in the know (and those that are, I suppose), the film follows a Belarus youngster as he joins the 'resistance', then experiences the horrors of war. Extreme horrors, realistically portrayed. We first see him as an innocent, naive, eager recruit. Ere film's end he has morphed into something quite different.

As you might imagine, I give the film my highest recommendation. Well, so long as you aren't looking for lighthearted entertainment.

I watched The Old Guard today on Netflix. It was good. A solid sci-fi movie about a group of immortals. Charlize Theron once again rules as an Action Girl, and Kiki Layne is really good as the literal new blood. I loved her character's name - Nile. The story is simple, but good. The characters are well written, with each one having a solid background that clearly informs their actions. So you look back and think, of course he did that, how could he not have?

It was definitely a big step up from the last Netfix action movie I saw - Extraction. That was just gun porn. This is gun porn with a story and characters and heart.

The ending sets up a sequel, which I hope happens.

Just finished watching Terminator: Dark Fate. I wish I had seen it sooner, because it was really good. Linda Hamilton returns as the most awesome grandma in the world. And Ahnold is as cool as ever. They are not the real stars though. Mackenzie Davis and Natalia Reyes are.

I like that unlike the last few Terminator attempts, they did not stick with the Skynet is still sending robots back to kill John Conner. The movie starts with John Conner being killed by a Terminator. Apparently more than one had been sent back, and even though they had stopped Skynet, those other Terminators were still running around in the past, even though their own future had been unmade. It was one of those Terminators that did the deed.

So who is the big bad this time around? An AI called Legion developed by someone other than Cyberdyne, for different reasons. Similar result though. A Terminator is sent back to kill Natalia Reyes, and Mackenzie Davis is an augmented resistance fighter sent to rescue her. Mackenzie was awesome. I loved the scars that covered her body. You could see where they vivisected her in order to implant her cybernetic parts.

The new Terminator was really cool too. It was really two Terminators in one. There was a flowy, gooey one like the one Robert Patrick played in T2. And it had sort of a base unit that was similar to one of the T-800s without any skin. The gooey part normally rides on the endoskeleton, and does all its normal mimicking stuff, and creating weapons from its body, and so on. But it can also jump off the endoskeleton, and the two act autonomously.

Anway, fun movie. Well worth the watch.

Saw two episodes of American Dad last night, and one of them was really good! Not only better than a filler episode, but better than an above average episode!


It involved Stan finding an old fat TV. It was busted up but seemingly not broken but when he got it home he couldn't get any station to work on it, no matter how he twisted the antennas. It just produced static. But as he was fiddling with it late at night in the basement, something suddenly popped on. It was a leisure type of show from the 60s where the courteous presenter in a skyline apartment had some well-dressed guests mingling with cocktails all while smooth jazz was being played and everything had a nice, calm atmosphere. A really feelgood type of thing.

However, it was all a bit weird. For starters, the TV only ever showed the same episode over and over again, night after night. There was never a new episode, only re-runs of the same one. Also, Stan begun to notice oddities within that very same episode. While the presenter always said the same lines and it was all the same overall, suddenly there was a different waitress serving drinks by the piano and a character could be missing from a scene or added. This led Stan to start taking notes, writing down all his observations and of course some humorous theories and deductions.
Wanting to find out more about the show, Stan went to the local TV station in order to ask as the internet came up with nothing. The TV station however was unhelpful too as the manager denied ever having aired a show like that ever. Stan did get help though as other persons had asked about the show before and the manager knew where they were meeting up to discuss it.

Stan decided to meet up with them but when he entered the room (in a library I think) there was only one person there. All the others had disappeared. The remaining guy freaked Stan out though with his quirky behaviour so he rushed home to continue making observations on his own. However, that very night as he was watching the same episode once again, another character had been introduced. Someone he recognized.

It was the guy from the meeting.

It was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Still, it saddens me to announce the death of Golden Era Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland, 1 Jul 1916 - 25 Jul 2020.

(For you younglings, she played a leading role in the 1939 Gone With the Wind and was Errol Flynn's love-interest in a string of classic Hollywood swashbucklers, including one of my all-time favorites, The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Yeah saw this on the news the other day. It’s sad, but, boy, what a life span! RIP Ms. de Havilland.

Ditto what Khajiit said. 104 years; that is a wonderfully long and full life.

Well...I learned Seagulls don't just eat rabbits but can inhale the poor things ! Keep small pets away from seagulls.

So...beautiful!

I finished watching this excellent documentary:

(YouTube Video) "What Happened To Herculaneum? | The Other Pompeii | Absolute History" (YouTube Video)

I finished watching the first season of Stargirl today. It was fun! A good show, with interesting characters. The bad guys are menacing, and tend to kill each other more than anyone else. We see all of the heroes grow into their parts. The plot is nothing special, but it does have its twists and turns that work. Definitely great for binging.

I finished season 2 of The Outpost today. It was good. I think I liked season 1 better, as it concentrated more on Talon personally. While this season saw more characters added (as one does in a sequel), and so had more fragmented storylines. I was not thrilled that they used Queen Rosimund as a damsel in distress not once, but twice. But that aside, I did like her development over the season as she grew into her role as the queen. The high point of that was also the high point of the season for me. She really shone by the end.

So, good show, well worth the watch.

Lovecraft Country drops next week. So I am looking forward to that.

You’ll definitely have to let us know how that is. I’m really afraid it’s going to focus a lot on race, rather than the mythos.

I expect it will. The book did. Good old American racism is far more evil than the Mythos ever could be. Cthulhu and Yog Sothoth are part of a cosmos so vast that it is indifferent to not only human suffering, but human existence. The same cannot be said for bigotry.

Oh ok, I didn’t know it was based on a book besides Lovecraft’s stuff. Do tell us what you think about it, I’m curious to hear about it!

I mentioned it last summer in the book thread. Here or so

I just finished the first episode of Lovecraft Country. It follows the book pretty closely. The only real deviation was the scene at the end with the Mythos creatures in the woods. In the book they never saw anything. They heard something big in the woods, which took the deputies one by one, without ever being seen. The TV show expanded on it, and gave us a good look at the critters, along with buckets of blood. They weren't any part of the established Mythos, at least not that I recognized. That was good. Because it is more mysterious that way.

It was good. I look forward to more.

Good info. What service is this on again?

It is on HBO. Hopefully they won't screw up the ending like they did with game of thrones.

Oh no, I don’t have HBO
May have to subscribe to it again on Amazon Prime.

And yes, hopefully they won’t mess up the ending, lol

*Edit: addendum*
Also, it helps that this show actually has source material to guide it’s ending.

That's true. It was written by an author willing to end a book.

Finished season 3 of Netflix’s Castlevania series today. Man I love this show, though I will say there was a scene in the final episode that seemed to come out of left field and had me scratching my head a bit, but all in all very enjoyable.

Saw the second episode of Lovecraft Country. The pale blonde who briefly appeared in the first episode is back, and gets much more air time. She is Christina Braithwhite, and she replaces Caleb Braithwhite from the book. She is not the only gender swap from the novel. George and Hippolyta's child Horace in the book is now Diana in the show. Both sound like improvements.

Especially for Christina. She now has much better motivations for her actions to subvert her father. Namely that as a woman, she is cut out from the 'family business' of being a member of the cult. The only way she can truly realize any of her own ambitions, is over the corpses of her father and his cronies.

RIP Chadwick Boseman. Wakanda Forever.

Damn. IMDb says it was cancer. So young. So sad.

I watched the first two episodes of The Legend of Korra tonight. I think I am enjoying it? I liked the characters. But the setting really confuses me, with the blend of magic and a 1920s Art Deco industrial city.

I really enjoyed Korra's first, aborted Air lesson, where she has to walk through the spinning gates without touching them. Watching it demonstrated made me realize that January would love this. It is perfect for her.

And now RIP Diana Rigg. I remember her from the Avengers. No, the original Avengers, from the 60s.

I know her from the endearing character she played in Game of Thrones. She was amazing in the role. Her talent will def be missed.

I had quite the 'crush' on her back then. Here's a short video showing some of her roles through the years:

(video) Dame Diana Rigg, star of the Avengers and Bond movies, dies at age 82. (video)

The Barefoot Lego Song .

I finally finished watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. All seven seasons are done, and the movie Generations. I don't think I will do the last three movies. The Borg one was good, but I have seen it many times already. The other two were not so good, especially the last one where they killed *spoiler* for no good reason.

It was a fun ride. This time out I found Data to be my favorite character. I think mainly because he is so unassuming. But also because he his lack of emotion also means he lacks negative emotions. So he often comes off as the most compassionate person in the crew. He operates on ethics, rather than anger or revenge. Where other movies or shows would portray that as cold and ruthless. To me he instead comes off as pure in spirit.

Now I am into season two of Legend of Korra, which I am enjoying. Though it still feels weird to me at times.

I think I will go back to Andromeda next. I left off of that about halfway through season two.

I have been in a Trek mood, in no small part to listening to the first episode of the Behind the Reactor podcast today. So I decided to try Discovery once more. I am 3 episodes in now, and I am liking it. Though some things in it make me scratch my head. The weird-looking Klingons in corsets among them. But also the show has a much darker tone than I expect from Trek, which is supposed to be a show about hope, that shows the best that people could be, if they really wanted to.

The protagonist of Michael Burnham is interesting, and the actress playing her - Sonequa Martin-Green - is certainly not hard to look at. The tall skinny alien Saru did not do much for me at first, but he has grown on me. I thought Tilly was just adorable. Her big, huge, Brave-like mane of hair made me immediately think of Grits. And it was nice seeing Rekha Sharma again (who played Tory in Galactica).

So it looks like I will be alternating between Discovery and Korra for now.

Found a classic I've wanted to see for a long time - Derek Jacobi's[/i] I, Claudius. After hearing so much about this series for so many years, I was pleased to find it on Acorn TV (all British, all the time). I was considering canceling my subscription after I finished 20+ seasons of Midsomer Murders, but I guess I'll keep it going for a while longer.

I really enjoyed watching the first episode tonight. Recognized quite a few actresses from seeing them 30 years on in various roles on Midsomer Murders and of course, Derek Jacobi's Cadfael Mysteries. A few of the actors, too, including Brian Blesssed. And Livia, Claudius's grandmother, is such a powerful, dominant character that I want to keep watching it. She's not a likable character, but given the climate for women of the time, it's not surprising that she expressed her intelligence in such manipulative ways. Certainly this version of Livia would have given Niccolo Machiavelli a serious run for his money.

The whole thing felt like theater. Of course, British broadcast drama had its roots sunk deep in the stage, and you can tell this not only by the sets, but also by the camera angles and the silences between the words, where expressions are larger than life. Maybe it's not immersive, but it's certainly compelling.

I wonder if this series continues this high quality of writing and stage direction. I would have kept watching, but I have an early day tomorrow!

Yes, I, Claudius remains top-notch from beginning to end. An amazing series, start to finish. So many amazing performances. The actor who played King Joffrey Baratheon in GoT was told to study Caligula's portrayal in I, Claudius. He did so, to GOT and our benefit.

The writing and acting continues to hold through the fifth episode. TBH, it was about all I felt like doing all afternoon following my eye surgery this morning. Oh, and PICARD! I had forgotten he was in this, but that face with those eyebrows is hard to miss . . . So handsome and So Roman! Now I want a Sejanus in my game, ambitious evil sly coot he is . . .

I watched Enola Holmes a few days ago. It was a fun, quirky movie. Mille Bobby Brown was perfect. So was Henry Cavill as Sherlock. A delightful watch.

I also saw Vampires vs The Bronx. It is about a group of scrappy young nerdy kids who take on the vampires who are gentrifying their neighborhood. It kind of reminds me of an updated version of Lost Boys.

Last night I watched Creature From The Black Lagoon with my neighbors. It really struck me how cutting edge that movie was for its time. It had people scuba diving, and this was in 1954. So it was only a few years after Cousteau had invented the modern aqualung. Plus of course it had underwater photography, which I am not sure had been done before in Hollywood. It is difficult even today, given that whole drowning thing...

Then we watched The Shape of Water afterward to make it a two-fer. Really good movie. This time around I really appreciated what a good portrayal they did of the villain - General Zod. I forget the actor's real name. He had a lot of personality and quirks, which really came together with his need to control everyone around him.

Today I finished season two of The Alienist. It followed the second book - Angel of Darkness. I read it years ago, but have forgotten almost all of it, save for the courtroom drama with Clarence Darrow. Turns out the TV version cut that completely out. So it all felt new to me.

So did you like The Alienist? I’ve seen it too and would like your to read your opinions (maybe mark them in spoiler tags for the uninitiated, lol).

Still need to get around to watching The Shape of Water.

I first saw Creature in one of my hometown's two movie theaters, back when small US towns (population 2,300) were capable of supporting them. I want to say it was during the film's initial run. I'd have been three at the time. Mom took me to a good many movies early on. (Dad was of course at work.) The only ones that made a lasting impression are '50 sci-fi / horror "classics".

I'm pretty sure I saw the other Creature films during their initial runs. Revenge of the Creature? The Creature Walks Among Us? I'm pretty sure that's right. Mid fifyish?

I assembled a plastic model of the Creature at some point during my misspent youth. (As opposed to misspent adulthood and misspent old age.)

Come and See is that last full-length feature film I watched in its entirety. Otherwise, I confine my viewing to YouTube.

The Alienist was good. Season Two put a lot more emphasis on Sara Howard, which I appreciated. In it she has started a detective agency, which is the driving force for the story. So too is the relationship that develops between her and the primary antagonist. Even though I do not remember the book anymore, I was able to figure out who the latter was pretty quick. That is not throwing shade. I have simply seen enough mystery stories to know the rules, and one is that you almost always see the villain, you just don't know that is what they are until the end. So all you really need to do is look at all the supporting characters and guess which one is the killer. Usually it is the one you least expect. Then it is easy.

One thing I did not like about the series overall was the seeming need that these crime shows have to one-up themselves with brutality and insanity. Just like action movies are driven by a need to out do all those that came before with even crazier and more dangerous stunts, crime dramas seem to have a need to make each villain more twisted, brutal, and insane than the last. Because it is always about the killer, not the victim. Which is something that disturbs me about the genre as a whole.

The other thing that disappointed me about the first season was that I think it really missed an opportunity to portray a trans person in not only a positive light, but also with a major role in the story. This all goes back to the book of course. The story is basically that someone is murdering trans kids who are prostitutes. The tv show tries to imply that none of them want to be trans, but that they are forced into it. I am not aware of that ever happening. More real is that trans kids are driven from their homes or run away to escape the brutality of their parents, and then are forced into prostitution to survive. Since no one will hire a trans person.

Both the novel and the TV show could have emphasized the fact that it is bigotry that forces trans children into these incredibly dangerous situations instead. More over, they could have introduced a grown up trans character - someone who lived the same life themselves - as a sort of guide through the underworld, and integral part of the team. They could have been someone who escaped to a better life by becoming a writer, or maybe an artist. Something that has a degree of anonymity (For example, female authors of the 1800s like Jane Austen almost always wrote under a pseudonym). Or they might still be working as a prostitute, or even as a madam, because that is their only option. They might even be a courtesan with high society clients from the Vanderbilts and other 400 Families.

Instead they simply used boys in dresses for shock value, and then moved on with the real meat and potatoes of hunting down a depraved killer. To be honest, that is the least interesting and original part of the story. Where the most original thing would have been to shed a light on the real people who have been erased from history.







I have all the Creature movies thanks to the big Universal horror mega-pack I bought last year. The Creature movies were their last gasp - 1954, 55, 56. The other monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolfman had ran out of steam, and turned into parodies by the 40s.

What did you think of all the high-tech wizardry of the movies? The scuba gear, the underwater filming, etc...?

I too enjoyed The Alienist, for the most part. Sarah Howard is hands down the best character in the show. Did you think that her relationship with John was awkward and weird? It sure seemed that way to me, but then I guess maybe it was supposed to? The whole time during their sex scene I was like “no”. I also remember thinking that they could’ve handled the trans content a bit better. Your observation that it was for “shock value”, is spot on. That’s exactly how I felt too.