Safe. The new series starring Michael C Hall doing a very inconsistent english accent. Somewhat soapy murder mystery but pretty enjoyable.

Dark. Apparently Germany's answer to stranger things, a decent but slow paced thriller with sci fi ish elements. Don't watch it dubbed, has to be subtitles.

The Rain,
Another to watch subtitled. Another pretty decent one. This time post apocalyptic where the threat is the rain as well as other people.

I rewatched Super Mario Bros. a few days ago. It has such a bad reputation, but I still like it. I liked it back when I watched it on the big screen as a kid, and every time I rewatched it since. Great actors, great production design, fun stuff happening at a fast pace. Certainly not great, but nowhere near deserving all the hate it's gotten.

I’ve had to catch up a lot of TV and films I’ve missed over the last couple years, and watching it all on top of each other I’m finding there’s a lot of storytelling approaches which I feel are being used more than once they were.

- “Bright,” wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be given general reviews. Imagine the SF film and TV series “Alien Nation,” only with fantasy creatures and, as such, a slightly larger world view and social structure than simple single-species Tenctonese(species)/Newcomers (human reference point)/Kleezantsun (selected slave overseers). For those not old enough, imagine “District 9” post-integration. “Bright” is not brilliant film-making, don’t get me wrong, but the dynamic between Jakoby and Ward is so very much that of Sam/George Francisco and Matt Sikes, and they deal with similar racial and cultural biases. And, honestly, looking back at “Alien Nation,”…not high art. “Bright” is, simply, a modern fantasy iteration of “Alien Nation” from thirty years ago. No more, no less.

Also, I just finished watching “Quantico” s2 and I’m in the middle of “3%” s2, along with a variety of other shows.

- “Quantico” is a law enforcement series. Watched on Netflix. I wouldn’t even begin to imply it’s a procedural. It’s more like a soap opera with pretty FBI agents in training, each with a boatload of psychological issues so weighty it’s a wonder any one of them got beyond a competent screener. The first episode opens on the aftermath of a terrorist attack and jumps back and forth between that and a year earlier when a bunch of FBI recruits start training to be agents. Every episode involves elements of the training and how the characters got from there to the attack, and who might be involved. But it’s so convoluted it probably should have lasted half as long, and by the time I got to season 2 I was hate-watching it. The training sequences are so painfully boring I want to fast forward through all of them because modern dumbed-down storytelling says I won't really miss anything; I can skip half an episode every few – if it's “important” I'll get it in a pre-episode recap or in-episode exposition later, because the studios think everyone in the audience has wetbrain/short term memory loss from week-to-week.

- “3%,” which also does a lot of parallel storytelling through the past and present, is on Netflix here. It’s Brazilian, but dubbed in English. The series is dystopian and has hints of Bay’s “The Island” from `05 (Or “The Hunger Games,” which, really, is just a rip off-of “Battle Royale” 1 & 2 with a fanfic finale). Basically, 97% of people live in squalor. Shanty-towns. Favelas. They’re crime-ridden and desperate and much of the population lives for a yearly choosing where a select number get to compete in both mental and physical exercises, whittled down to join the 3% who live in luxury on an island offshore. But not everyone is happy with the process. It’s about a third the length of “Quantico,” and even still it drags at times. It has flashes of good visuals, but otherwise feels like an under-funded web series trying to do what it can with a handful of locations. Season 2 is better in that respect, but still seems soap opera contrived. Kinda hate-watching it at this point, too.

- I also just finished watching “Safe,” (Netflix) with Michael C. Hall about a widower (a doctor and ex-soldier) in a gated community whose eldest daughter goes missing. Everyone has a secret. Hall's is where his acting ability went after “Dexter” and how to shake the creepy Dexter smile when he's supposed to be normal dad. Marc Warren (“Doctor Who,” “Band of Brothers”) does a great job. Again, present story-line with added past elements throughout building to an overall reveal.

I wish this wasn’t a thing now, as I loathe these types of stories as they almost always come off terribly contrived, anti-climactic, or just plain confusing. Quentin Tarantino and the original “X-Files” series folks have been about the only ones I've ever seen pull that multiple time-frame storytelling and not have it absolutely distract from, or simply ruin, any sense of drama (can’t speak to “SAW” as I haven’t seen the last two films, and at this point I really need to start from the first all over again).

There are others I'm watching, but this post is long and it's late at night.

I watched Bottle Rocket last night. That was the big début for Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson and their other bother Andrew Wilson. They didn't play brothers in the film though strangely

It was an ok movie, not up to the standards of the films any of these people were involved with later. Just a very low key, very conventional indy film. Owen's character was the only real Wes Anderson character. Weird to see him with such short hair!

Been watching some TV shows lately, and I basically loved them all, so I'm wondering whether TV shows have been getting so good or I just lowered my standards.

Shows include:

• The Terror
  Cloak & Dagger
  The Tick
  Little Witch Academia
  Better Call Saul
  

…well, okay, the Marvel Netflix shows have been rather mediocre lately, so I guess my standards are somewhat intact.

I've been watching the old Xholic series.
It's interesting… The figures have the typical elongated styling of CLAMP, so they look very distinctive.
The show doesn't have much conflict at all, which is fine, but the character development is slow and minimal- you NEED that to make up for the lack of conflict.

What's pretty notable is that the main character has no power to do anything, his only real power is in observation.

The show centres around a boy who sees spirits. He gets tricked into working for a strange witch lady who's very elegant and graceful. Through her he gets sent on adventures to deal with various spirits, but all he does is see them and talk to them. For anything physical or direct action he has a jock friend/enemy/love rival that helps him.

I love that dynamic! The only issues is that it's so slow moving.

HBO's Sharp Objects

This drama leans on the intrigue of small town tradition, a US southern one at that, and how our heroine, Camille (played by Amy Adams, who continually surprises me with her range and depth) attempts to survive her town's culture and her personal past.

There's so much going on with this drama: a serial killer of young girls to apprehend, the tragedy of self-wounding, the complicated ties of family, the enigma of small town history continually rewritten.

There's one episode left to air. I hope it's as magnificent as the prior seven.

I've been searching YouTube for good old movies I've missed. Stuff like They were not Divided, The Forty Second Parallel or A Hill in Korea. Wartime films that go beyond propaganda. I had been trying find the last one for years.

Then there's been some binge watching of old TV Miniseries like the Pierce Brosnan, Eric Idle and Peter Ustinov in Around the World in 80 Days and Timothy Dalton and Joanne Whalley Kilmer in Scarlett. Earlier I had seen the Armando Assante Odyssey and loved it so there is something for me to those old 1990s miniseries outside of nostalgia.

And I've also been finding solace in watching old comedy routines by Abbott and Costello and W.C. Fields. A good laugh is always a good tonic for what ails me.🤣🤣

DOWNSIZING - Matt Damon, Kristen Wigg, Christoph Waltz, Hung Chow. One of the worst movies I've toughed out in quite awhile. Over 2 hrs long and the only good feature is Kristen Wigg who lasts only 1st 1/2 hour. Straight downhill after that, story beyond stupid and gets a 1/2 on the Moizmeter. Have much catching up to do here and stay tuned.

IN DARKNESS - Natalie Dormer, Ed Skrein, Joely Richardson, Emily Ratajkowski, Neil Maskell, James Cosmo, Jan Bijvoet. Natalie is a pianist and has been blind since she was 5 yrs old. One night she hears noises in apt above her and the resident woman falls to her death. Seems her father was hated Serbian leader and story really gets complicated for no apparent reason except one wonders how Natalie does such a good job with her eye make-up, liner, mascara and shadow for someone who has been blind since 5. Wow, does Joely still look good or what? A 2 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

PRODIGY - Savannah Liles, Richard Neil, Jolene Anderson, Emilio Palame.
Head shrinker Richard is called to examine 10 yr old Savannah,(red hair and freckles galore) who has amazing powers but is very violent to the extent that she must be physically restrained, and will soon be executed for scientific study, but Dr. Richard labours to save her. Another 2 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

THE ACCOUNTANT - Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J. K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, John Lithgow. Ben is born a bratty impossible savant, mathematical genius and amazingly dead-eye dick shot and martial arts fighter to boot. Cooks books for crooks and soon enuf the heat is on his back. Makes stunning discovery in finale, which even I saw coming. Some think it's really good but I found it Saturday Afternoon Matinee material. A 2 on the Moizmeter.

moizmad wrote:
THE ACCOUNTANT - Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J. K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, John Lithgow. Ben is born a bratty impossible savant, mathematical genius and amazingly dead-eye dick shot and martial arts fighter to boot. Cooks books for crooks and soon enuf the heat is on his back. Makes stunning discovery in finale, which even I saw coming. Some think it's really good but I found it Saturday Afternoon Matinee material. A 2 on the Moizmeter.

Love that movie

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD - Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Sam Wannamaker, Peter Van Eyck. From 1965, and saw it last nite for 1st time! Whoa, talk about confusing, I couldn't figure out the who, what or why for most. Bottom line, poor Richard is a spy who falls in love and it costs him his life. All those other guys, friend or foe? The bad guys in the East vs the bad guys in the West I guess. An interesting but baffling watch getting a 3 1/2 on the Confuse-O-meter.

THE SINNER - Jessica Biel, Bill Pullman, Christopher Abbott, Abby Miller, Danielle Burgess, Jacob Pitts, Nadia Alexander. 8 part series about woman (Jessica) who for no apparent reason murders total stranger on beach in front of her own husband and young son. Crusty detective Pullman finds case interesting and digs for answers. Slowly the plot thickens, there's more here than meets the eye. Bit by bit, Jessica starts to remember things she has for some reason blocked out. Could have done without Pullman's private life which had nothing to do with the main story. Still a good watch getting a 3 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

THE CONVERSATION - Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest, Cindy Williams, Teri Garr, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall. Way back to 1974 for this beauty. Gene is a surveillance expert and is hired by Duvall to get the nasty on his cheatin' wife (Cindy). She and her bf Frederic make things very difficult and conduct their business in a noisy public park. Gene uses his amazing skill to capture their conversation. Gene goes downhill from there realizing his tape led to murder. A 4 1/2 on the Moizmeter!

THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN - Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick, Richard Attenborough, Roger Livesey, Bryan Forbes, Kieron Moore, Terence Alexander, Norman Bird, Robert Coote. Another trip down memory lane to 1960, where 8 suddenly down on their luck veterans buy into Hawkins plan to rob a bank and make away with a small fortune each. They each have a skill to be used to acquire weapons, trucks, cars, disable phone lines, gas masks etc. It all goes according to plan except for a couple of little hitches maybe? Watch for a quick part by young Oliver Reed as a very gay chorus boy, knocked me on the floor! A 3 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

FEAR - Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon, William Petersen, Amy Brenneman. From 1996 (yikes), teen Reese falls for handsome, charming Mark but her father Petersen isn't so taken. Seems Mark has a dark side and it quickly surfaces with mucho violence. Not going to end well methinks. Filmed mostly around my town altho supposed to be Seattle. Mark does good job being scary, getting a 3 on the Moizmeter.

LAVENDER - (alternate title Trauma) - Abbie Cornish, Dermot Mulroney, Justin Long, Diego Klattenhoff. Abbie was the lone survivor when her father, mother and young sister died in what appeared to be a homicide. Poor Abbie suffered skull fractures and cannot remember the event. No culprit was found. Now many years later she is married, seeks help and finally remembers the who, what & why of that horrible event. A 2 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK - Rachel Roberts, Helen Morse, Vivean Gray, Jackie Weaver, Anne-Louise Lambert, Margaret Nelson, Wyn Roberts, Dominic Guard, John Jarratt. From 1975! A girl's school in Victoria, Australia circa 1900 sees a bunch of girls and a teacher go for a picnic at a landmark called Hanging Rock. 4 girls go for a climb on the rock, one comes back and 3 go missing. Apparently so did the teacher altho she wasn't with the girls. An extensive search, incl. bloodhounds, turns up nothing. 1 week later one of the girls is found alive but she remembers nothing. The negative publicity does the school no good and many enrollments are cancelled. Watch and see if they ever find out what happened. Peter Weir directed. A 3 1/2 on the Rock-O-Meter.

SURVIVOR - Milla Jovovich, Pierce Brosnan, Dylan McDermott, Robert Forster, Roger Rees, James D'Arcy, Angela Bassett. Milla prevents scientist from travelling to USA. Bad guys need him there so hitman Pierce goes after her unsuccessfully. Big brass finally overrule Milla and a nasty New Year's Eve terrorist plot almost takes out NY city and a final battle between Milla and Pierce high atop a bldg takes place. Who will win? A generous 3 on the Moizmeter.

ACTS OF VIOLENCE - Bruce Willis, Cole Hauser, Sean Brosnan. Bride-to-be is kidnapped by drug dealers who also sell sex slaves. Cole and his bros take law into their own hands to take this mob down, with a little help from cop Bruce. Almost silly getting a 1 on the Moizmeter.

THE ENDLESS - Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, Callie Hernandez, Tate Ellington. Lets see, these 2 kids used to be in this goofy cult, and years later as grown-ups they decide to return just for old times sake. Amazingly the cult members haven't aged a bit and somehow still remember these two guys even tho they can't possibly look the same. Then it gets just plain stupid as it seems cult is in some kind of time loop, good grief Charlie Brown, a 1 on the Moizmeter.

“The Bad Batch” (Dir. Ana Lily Amirpour, 2016) I can best describe this film as “A zed and two noughts” meets “Escape from New York”, as directed by Sergio Leone. The plot is about a teenage girl who falls in love with the man who ate one of her arms and one of her legs. It takes place in a desert wasteland where resources are so scarce that people must resort to cannibalism in order to survive. Oh, except there are functioning golf carts and xerox machines sprinkled about in case you want to go on a picnic or publish a 'zine. Throughout its 90 minute runtime, I constantly wanted to shut it off because it was so terrible, but I kept watching just to see if it could get any worse. I was not disappointed. It features a cameo performance by Keanu Reeves, who sports a handlebar mustache. I am guessing that he was trying to hide behind it in order to escape from being associated with this stinker of a film.

1066: the Battle for Middle Earth. Highlights the Anglo-Saxon references that are throughout Tolkien's world building without ever explicitly mentioning him. And it's a very good recreation of the events of the year 1066 from the viewpoint of normal folks called up in the fyrd (armed men), the Vikingr and the impressed Breton auxiliaries of the Norman army.

The Normans don't come off well at all. They're the strangers or orcs. All very real Anglo-Saxon words and all references the old Cambridge professor was quite conscious of as a student of the Old English language and culture.

It was a pure delight to this Medievalist to finally see the events of 1066 get a decent depiction. Nearly every event does appear in the chronicles which are liberally quoted throughout.

And the bit with the Vikingr translator going on about “just wanting to trade” as his fellows brutalize the villagers put me right back into Medieval Studies class. It was one of the jokes my professor told about Norse interaction with Anglo-Saxons.

The true stories are every bit as interesting as four hobbits meeting elves and wizards and dropping off a ring at a volcano (Mordor always struck me as being a bit like the Norse lands)

I'm going through Bojack Horseman.
I'm late to the party but that's how I like to be: after the hype has died down, that's when I check things out.

It's a good show, very addictive, mainly because it follows soap opera rules.
It's a sitcom, adult cartoon, about a sitcom actor who was big in the 90s but now he's just rich, sad and 50, with no direction in life.
There a human characters and anthropomorphic animal ones, but it follows webcomic rules: the animal thing is just an aesthetic choice mainly.

The MAIN focus of the comedy and the show is the relationships between the characters- who loves who, what's happening between these two, will they won't they? etc. Soap style but without the melodrama or the twists, though there is a bit of that.
It's compelling, amusing and clever enough to keep you interested.

You really have to wonder why they didn't make it live action though. The same show could easily be done with ordinary human actors and be just as good.

HOLD THE DARK - Jeffrey Wright, Riley Keough, Julian Black Antelope, Alexander Skarsgard, Tantoo Cardinal, James Badge Dale, Macon Blair.
Riley's young son was taken by a pack of wolves so she writes a letter to wolf expert Jeffrey to come and…and not sure what he's supposed to do, find the wolves? find the boy's body? Oh well, it is found strangled in Riley's cellar and she has taken off. Her hubby Skarsgard returns from the gulf wars and starts killing everyone in sight. Jeffrey sticks around for some unknown reason, maybe just to see how crazy these people are. Supposed to be in Alaska but filmed in good ole Alberta which salvages a 1 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

SUNSHINE CLEANING - Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, Steve Zahn, Clifton Collins Jr., Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jason Spevack. From 2008, sisters Amy & Emily start a crime scene cleaning service. Yuk. Both need the money, get advice from Clifton, Steve, Alan, so business does well. Amy also juggles having an affair with married Steve, a young son Jason and unreliable sis Emily (who does some fabulous facial expressions throughout) who accidentally burns down customers house, which financially destroys Sunshine Cleaning. But dad Alan has a plan, and gets an Emily inspired 3 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

OPERATION FINALE - Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Melanie Laurent, Joe Alwyn, Greta Scacchi, Nick Kroll. The dramatic capture of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960. Oscar leads a team of Israeli activists who received a tip re Eichmann's whereabouts. After a long surveillance they develop a plan to grab him on his way home from work. Then they have to hide him in safe houses until travel plans back to Israel are completed. In 1960 his trial was well covered on TV thru out the world. Ben is a little too old for the role but he's a good actor even playing a mid thirties man when he is mid seventies! Ha, ha. Eichmann, just following orders mind you, executed in 1962, good riddance! A 3 on the Moizmeter.

My verdict on Bojack Horseman:
They used the show as a way to talk about various gender and social issues in a reasonably funny way. It wasn't heavy handed or preachy but they tend to monasteries the offending male characters a little too much (i.e. in every aspect of their history), and leave the female characters alone in that respect. Which makes it weirdly lopsided.
It's a good show though.
I watched to the end of Season 5

The Deuce, staring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Franco

This is set in New York during the early 1970s. It focuses on bars, prostitution, low level organised crime and the burgeoning porn scene.
That's lots of nudity and simulated sex.
The very best part of the show is that they perfectly captures the look of the 1970s! You'd almost swear that's when it was made, except it's in HD, without blur or graininess 😂
Even all the actors LOOK like they're genuinely from the 1970s. They matched everything so well.

The only thing that harms the immersion somewhat is the lack of casual racism, homophobia and sexisim. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad not to see that but it's really weaid seeing something that really looks like it's from the 1970s and not seeing that as well.

Star Trek TNG. :D Never got to see much of it growing up, so the husband and I are doing a netflix binge!

Star Trek TNG. :D Never got to see much of it growing up, so the husband and I are doing a netflix binge!

ANNIHILATION - Natalie Portman, Oscar Isaac, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tuva Novotny, Tessa Thompson. A really weird zone is expanding and special forces are sent in to see what's going on. They never come out except Oscar, who is Natalie's husband. He seems a bit off and put in hospital. Natalie is compelled to go into the zone along with 4 other women who all specialize in different skills. One by one they get killed by altered creatures, aligator?, bear? Natalie is the survivor and gets out of the zone, which disappears, and is questioned extensively by authorities. Then she is reunited with Oscar and everyone lives happily ever after? I'm not so sure about that, a 2 on the Moizmeter.