I really prefer things to be more accurate… I'm not a fan of making characters more beautiful and young.

————

I watched the Myiazaki film “When Marnie was There”
Very touching, like any good Ghibli film. Not much supernatural in it… Just a hint of ghost fantasy.
The main protagonist, Anne, is a foster child who's sad and doesn't get on with people. She feels unloved and hates herself. She's very boyish too, which is unusual for one of these films.

There are also fat, overweight characters that are NOT played for comic relief and not villains either. Her aunt who she goes to stay with is an overweight, rather mannish woman and she's a wonderful, friendly, motherly, arty person.
There's also an overachiever girl obsessed with boys who's quite large and the same age as Anne. Completely unprovoked Anne calls her a “fat pig” which is shocking, because she was making an effort to try and be nice and include Anne in her group.

I found those aspects very interesting and it made it MORE touching because these are hints of reality that are normally absent in anime, especially Miyazaki films where the protagonist is basically a pure soul and blameless, where evil is ugly and good is beautiful.

Major John Andre WAS trim, young and good looking and considered an excellent marriage prospect for the ladies of Philadelphia. One of the better film depictions is in the Benedict Arnold movie with Kelsey Grammar hitting it out of the park as Washington.

The Tudors was pretty good even if it didn't show Henry balloon in weight and taking some liberties with his family situation. They cut out his other sister among other things. But they were more than fair with the wives. Considering I saw the old BBC Six Wives of Henry VIII concurrently which did have Henry getting obese.

A lot of times movies and shows make historical characters younger and prettier because the actors are younger and prettier. Or the actors are totally different in size like six foot tall Gary Busey playing the 5'2" General Wheeler in Rough Riders. But damn if he didn't nail the character! And then there's Patton. George C. Scott was heavier and the voice was all wrong. Darren Mcgavin didn't look anything like Patton but he had the voice and the manic presence.

And then there's that whole skin color thing. Historical movies casting people of color to please modern sensibilities. So if you do a movie about Medieval China there better be some black Africans in the cast. Personally I don't care about that especially if the actor nails the character. The recent BBC Shakespeare War of the Rose's series did that with some great casting decisions. It didn't matter the race or ethnicity because the actors were that good.

Is it a history lesson or a good drama? I've read a lot about the ahistorical bits in The Favourite and how things were adjusted according to the artistic vision of the director. But the main historians of the period liked the new fresh look st the characters of the story. Queen Anne was uglier, Sarah Churchill may have been less conniving but it caught the essence of who they were.

The Favourite.
For someone who prefers accuracy, this film would be difficult to take in stride. As the extra footage notes, when history serves , it was observed. The gowns, the camera angles, The Ball! – everything is assembled for effect, and many times that would be a jarring one.

I saw it last night and am still absorbing it. No doubt, the three female leads are all amazing and, if I wasn't already, I am a devoted Olivia Coleman –fan (“Look At Me!” … I can't stop). Whereas, deliberately, men served as a supporting cast, as peacock-y as they were (“Men are suppose to be pretty”).

I can't say there was a single false step, but the film was not inclined to let you know the path it was taking, in the emotional sense. I would guess it's not for everyone, but I liked it, especially since I have a theory on those rabbits.

I still want to see the favourite, especially after making my own 18th century outfit 😊

I disagree strongly with Bravo about history and ugly actors. The fact that Henry Tudor is a hottie absolutely and fundamentally changes history and all sense of his narrative because you make the relationships and the story about charm and sex when it should be ONLY to do with power, intrigue, alliances, position, and politics. There are amazing actors aplenty who are not young and pretty yet still draw an audience. I think that idea is mostly a recent fad.

I saw Onegin with Ralph Fines and Liv Tyler as the stars.

I have not read the book so I don't know how close this was. I don't think it was though 😂

As to the actor's beauty: Ralph was probably too old for the part, still a mesmerising and amazingly handsome man though. Cold and callous as ever he can be…
Liv seemed gormless, like an 18 year going going into society for the first time… Not a good match for Ralph's Onegin at all.

The sound track often used horror effects, which was strange. Sometimes it worked well, especially on transitions and making everything more cold and unearthly… But mostly it was an alienating film where you couldn't really sympathise with the characters.

ozoneocean wrote:
I still want to see the favourite, especially after making my own 18th century outfit 😊

I disagree strongly with Bravo about history and ugly actors. The fact that Henry Tudor is a hottie absolutely and fundamentally changes history and all sense of his narrative because you make the relationships and the story about charm and sex when it should be ONLY to do with power, intrigue, alliances, position, and politics. There are amazing actors aplenty who are not young and pretty yet still draw an audience. I think that idea is mostly a recent fad.

Pssst- Henry VIII WAS a hottie until his diabetes and syphilis got bad after wife 3. Saw a documentary on the forensics of Henry VIII as well as a dozen books over the past six years. I followed the historical wikis while watching the series because I was convinced the series was all wrong especially not going with a fat Henry. But the research changed my mind.

And it's hardly a recent fad. Guess you never saw any historical biography from the 1930s and 40s. Many were vanity projects for studios and stars. Thing is as skinny as Norma Shearer was she was very close in appearance to some surviving portraits of Marie Antoinette. Kirsten Dunst was a good match for the skinny and awkward young Marie. We get too tied up with historical stereotypes and the mythology as opposed to what the people really looked like. Now as Ms. Dunst has filled out she looks more like the mature queen than when she did the movie 10 years ago. Read the books they got the incidents in the script from. It wasn't so much looks they screwed up as tidying up the historical portrait and skipping and condensing events and people.

Turns out I read the book the go to historian for critique of The Favourite wrote. Great biography of Queen Anne.

Anyway I just binge watched Star Trek Continues a fan produced series about the last year of the five year mission of Enterprise. Very well done and a lot better than so many other fan productions. I highly recommend it as it really captures the essence of the original series and in my opinion is better Trek than Discovery. They didn't try to reinvent everything like the twits on that show did.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES - Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea (be still my heart) Riseborough. Based on the famed tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Was OK especially any scene with Andrea, wow, she looks different in every movie but super gorgeous in this one as Billie Jean's lesbian lover. Imagine being in bed with Andrea & Emma, whoa! They lift it to a 3 on the Moizmeter.

Pssst- Henry VIII WAS a hottie until his diabetes and syphilis got bad after wife 3. Saw a documentary on the forensics of Henry VIII as well as a dozen books over the past six years. I followed the historical wikis while watching the series because I was convinced the series was all wrong especially not going with a fat Henry. But the research changed my mind.

Henry wasn't quite a hottie… He was a big, tall, beefy, muscular man with a big nose who LOVED fighting and screwing and hunting XD
Not fat though, till that leg injury.

POOR AGNES - Lora Burke, Robert Notman, Will Conlon. Serial killer and total whacko Lora, takes poor Robert captive and tortures him slowly into becoming her partner in crime of sorts. She has men's heads in her freezer along with a few steaks. Really weird but totally captivating for me, never heard of Lora but fascinating to think if she's really like her character Agnes. A strange 3 on the Moizmeter.

I re-watched the 1970 film Waterloo :)
It's a great film, Amazing acting from some real heavyweight stars like Rod Stieger, Christopher Plummer, Orson Welles… Thousands of extras and amazing costumes that were authentic.

There's not a strong narrative to it though, it's just a bunch of loosely connected scenes really, with Napoleon and and Wellington at the centre… which I suppose is the way you have to tell a story this huge and fractured.

It stands up to a second viewing. Sieger's acting is excellent. The fact that the French characters kept their native American accents was probably unusual for the time but it works.
No one plays a bad guy. There are NO bad guys in a war film from 1970. That's not a usual occurrence either.

It stands up to repeat viewings. It's a 2 hour film that rushes past. It makes me wish there were more epic films from the day that were such high quality productions.

I've seen Waterloo easily 50 or 60 times.

They keep finding “lost” scenes and the original director's cut was between four and six hours long with most of it sadly missing. So thatadds to the episodic nature of the film.

A recent semi restored version adds some bits that fill out some scenes I never understood before like Napoleon going “with all his men!” They added the bit that explains it.

The cavalry at the squares with the “why?” Theres a whole sequence leading up to it.

and the ending with Soult and Napoleon and the escape after the battle. It never made sense. Again there's a whole sequence of events that was left out.

But what about the other hour or so of missing footage? Supposedly it's about Bluecher.

Therr are tons of historical touches but others where they really muffed it. The ball is particularly bad. And they put in whole careers worth of quips and sayings into one sequence of events.

Why was it so good? Di Laurentis and Sergei Bondarchuk.

The battle scenes from this movie have appeared in just about every documentary on Napoleon ever.

I recommend watching it with another more accurate view of Wellington and the ball as well as “Silly Billy” the prince of orange who is strangely missing from Bondarchuk's movie. Sharpe's Waterloo Hugh Fraser plays a version of Wellington more in keeping with the historical record. And the parts of the battle it shows compliment the other movie. It shows bits of battles missing from Bondarchuk's movie like La Haye Saint and Quatre Bras and of course Silly Billy.

Yep, I've seen the Sharpe version. Sad to see all the 95th die at Hougoumont farm though. :(

I can imagine that the rest of the film was about Blucher… I have a book that was put out at the time by the costume people that details all the the uniforms in the film. But the first half of the book is a complete and detailed history of the battle. You have to wonder why that amount of historical narrative detail was put into a book about the costumes in a film.
Anyway, there's particular focus on what was happening with Blucher during the battle at Waterloo and the bad decisions of his stupid generals (it seems they didn't much care for Wellington OR Blucher and thought they knew better, but Blucher was a stubborn bastard and determined to do right by Wellington)

I wondered why that stuff wasn't in the film. Now I know. Thanks Bravo :)

-They also went into detail explaining why Ney assaulted the hill with his cavalry.

ozoneocean wrote:
Yep, I've seen the Sharpe version. Sad to see all the 95th die at Hougoumont

La Haye Sainte. It was at the other end of the line. Middle of the day Napoleon sent a combined arms force to take it. As portrayed in Sharpe they ran out of ammo and the French overcame them.

Precisely what didn't happen at Hougamont though it was a near run thing.

I can imagine that the rest of the film was about Blucher… I have a book that was put out at the time by the costume people that details all the the uniforms in the film.

Got a copy too. I actually had to hunt down a vintage copy as at the time it was out of print. And about thirty Osprey books on Napoleonic uniforms and the Historie et Collections series which often gave the specific different French uniform of the Hundred Days.

And I have miniatures for so many. ^_^

I did a bunch of drawings back in a costume thread back at the bicentennial.

Speaking of which Bernard Cornwell did a new history for it. Great how he weaves together all the recent scholarship and revision of how the campaign progressed. Seems all these years the accounts in English were based almost entirely on the British point of view. The Dutch, Belgian and German views were all missing except as how the British saw them.

Mine's vintage too :)
And I've got a collection of Osprey books about the uniforms as well, AND I have that recent Bernard Cornwell history of Waterloo too! Hahaha!

I don't have any miniatures, but I have a musket ball and a few swords that may have fought in the battle… Though you can never know for sure with those things.

It's since been reprinted in an enlarged page format paperback. I have the uniforms of the French Revolutionary Wars and saw the American Revolution War book.

There's also a new series of coffee table books on uniforms. The Histoire et Collections are the best as they record many variations per unit in each section they also do a great series on different Napoleonic battles but not Waterloo. I just got the ones for Marengo and the crossing of the Beresina.

I have so got to get to my hussar figures. Finally have enough figures to do every French regiment.

—

If you are thoroughly into Star Trek, there is a low budget fan film made 10 years ago with many actors from the series. Nichelle Nichols finally gets her shot at carrying a whole Star Trek story. Star Trek: Gods and Men. There's a bunch of other regulars from all the ST series like Voyager and DS9. Other than the joy of seeing them all the story is another “meh” alternate universe. What if Kirk was never born?

Then there's the series these same producers started last year. Star Trek:Renegades Remember that dark underground that DS:9 and Voyager touched on? Section 31? Ever wonder who took care of dirty tricks for the Federation? Good stuff. IMHO, better than ST:Discovery.

THE SILENCE - Stanley Tucci, Miranda Otto and a young girl who's name I've forgotten. Virtually the same idea as Emily Blunt's Quiet Place, with flying bat-like things that have super hearing but can't see, and they've spread like wild-fire everywhere. Also Stanley's daughter can't hear either, whoa, talk about story theft. Do these little pests have a weakness? Head north folks, maybe they don't like cold, and they leave us up the garden path getting a 1 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

US

After GET OUT, which was one of the best horror films I had seen in awhile, I caught Jordan Peele's US. The reviews love it. Lupita Nyong’o plays Two roles–double the excellence. No brainer, right? I went; I saw; I walked out realizing I'd never have those two hours of my life back. What a disappointment.

Although the acting is capable, and Nyong’o was great again, fully realizing her two characters, the writing was not nearly as strong as GET OUT. The “twist” was predictable (SO Many hints, geesh), the obligatory comic relief was lame without the clever observations from Peele's first movie (just shut up, Gabe), and the pace was sloooow.

Contemporary horror films are generally formulaic: build-up, faux climax, faux resolution, and then there's more, often a reveal. With a good horror film you're not continually aware of the formula. With US I was always aware. There were few surprises and, other than something I can't mention or I'll be sure to spoil, the only scares were the blood incidents.

As to those viewers who have to watch it twice because of all the symbolism (“What's the meaning of the kid wearing a Jaws t-shirt?!”) sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

You might have a better experience than I did. I had expected another “Sixth Sense” but got “The Village” instead.

bravo1102 wrote:

What I want is a coffee table photo book of just hussar uniforms from all different countries and eras (NOT “Polish hussars” though).

————

I watched the anime series Ping Pong Club.

Oh my lord, this one was special ^_^
It's pretty old as anime goes… looks like it's 1990s in style and the way it approaches subjects. Early 90s…

It's ostensibly about a struggling school ping-pong club, but what it's really about of course are the characters. They're a bunch of silly boys. 3 of them in particular are quite pervy… Two of them have a bizarre relationship that is not quite same-sex but could be.

The fun part of this is they take things to the next level, which you can't do at all in any modern anime that isn't porn. Characters will show their dicks full frontal for example. It's sort of refreshing to see something that doesn't pull punches: immature stupidity that ironically treats you like an adult.

The hi-jinks and humour are silly, over the top, offensive, problematic and surreal- all the things missing from modern anime.

It resembles the original Dragonball series in art style and humour.

I watched Aquaman last night. It was good eye candy and there was a lot to like, but there was really two films worth pushed into one. As a result it was too condensed and didn't take time to breath or properly establish many of the characters.

ozoneocean wrote:

bravo1102 wrote:

What I want is a coffee table photo book of just hussar uniforms from all different countries and eras (NOT “Polish (winged) hussars” though).

Well Historie et Collections makes a three volume set on French hussars 1783-1816. And there's another that covers the Restoration coming.

The French were still wearing the traditional colors, fur hats and pelisses in 1914. The Austro-Hungarian had gone to frogged sky blue tunics and the Germans were in field grey.


Just about every variation on hussar uniforms showed up in the French Revolutionary volunteer regiments. I especially like the “canaries ”. The Hussars du Mort are the typical black with death's head types like Leib hussars and Brunswickers.

You know if it doesn't exist you could write it. I know others who've done it.

Watching news of Notre-Dame cathedral burning. So unreal watching this. They are saying 50+ acres of wood the cathedral was built from is going to take a while to burn. All the art work inside on the walls are lost. My prayers to the first response team there. I’m glad no one was hurt from this but man it is still hard to watch. God bless.

LEAVE NO TRACE - Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie, Dale Dickey. Ben suffers from PTSD and withdraws from society with his 13 yr old daughter Thomasin. They live in forest parkland near Portland, Ore. and make do with the bare essentials. Park rangers finally discover them and they are brought in for analysis and then to a work farm of sorts. Ben cannot fit but Thomasin likes being with other people. But she leaves with him on another trip into the forest life he loves. No mention of what happened to her mother. Will she go back to that bushy existence? No action scenes if that's what you want but fab acting by both lead characters getting a 4 on the Moizmeter.

MILE 22 - Mark Wahlberg, Iko Uwais, Sam Medina, Lauren Cohan, Ronda Rousey, John Malkovich. CIA? agent Mark takes his small team to escort Iko safely somewhere before nasty Sam finds out where Iko's nukes are hidden. Couldn't understand anything Mark says in entire film. Sam's bad guys were dropping like flys, I lost count after about 65 or 70. If I was one of them I'd be looking for some other kind of work. Ridiculous fight scenes, mass shootouts on public streets, and this Russian mother and her son I guess was some kind of revelation??? If someone knows, don't bother telling me, a .5 on the Moizmeter.

ANTIDOTE - Randy Couture, Chuck Zito. Maybe one of the worst films I've ever sat thru, a Golden Goose Egg on the Moizmeter.

THE SHACK - Sam Worthington, Radha Mitchell, Octavia Spencer, Alice Braga, Graham Greene, Sumire, Avraham Aviv Alush. Sam (who murdered his brutish dad when he was a kid) slips into a suicidal depression after his young daughter is murdered by some maniac. He goes to “the shack” where it happened and guess what? he meets God! (Octavia) and her assistants Jesus and some woman. For most of film he gets preached to and told to find forgiveness, what a pile of crap. Interesting for me as Cultus Lake used for most of lake scenes and my grandparents lived there and I spent most summers there when I was growing up and loved the lake and area. Some scenes in Oregon but mostly Cultus Lake and Vancouver. As for movie, a 1 on the Moizmeter.

Gone in 60 seconds, the original from the 1970s.

Terrible film by any measure. Some good action from only about 2 or 3 actors in the whole movie. terrible writing, terrible editing, terrible story, sound etc.
It's compelling though because of the beautiful 1970s American aesthetic throughout the whole thing! It's SO “70s”.
Nice colour and SOME nicely filmed scenery…

The first 8 minutes of the film are just scenes with narration over the top… or rather, dialogue conversations by characters that advances the plot and outlines the story but by disembodied voices over the top of tangentially related scenes, and recoded very badly so while a scene might depict a car being cut apart or a sea plane landing, the voices sound like they're in a pipe somewhere.

Avengers endgame.

No spoilers but I have to say that aside from and handful of great moments, some cool fan service and funny bits, the MCU just disappeared up its own arse.

Genejoke wrote:
Avengers endgame.

No spoilers but I have to say that aside from and handful of great moments, some cool fan service and funny bits, the MCU just disappeared up its own arse.

All superheroes generally do in the end. Comic writers think they're all amazing philosophers.

I'm re-watching Magical☆Shopping Arcade Abenobashi

The show is just as crazy and interesting as the title suggests. Based on the title lone I wanted to see it for years and was finally able to when streaming sites became a thing.

It holds up to a second watch-through!
It's a wacky comedy:
There's a small shopping district that's been a thing for the last 50 years since Osaka was being rebuilt in the 1950s. But now it's dying out and there are only two families that are really left there.
The kids of the two families, a boy and a girl, and pretty close. Her family are going to be moving soon because the place has no future and her dad wants to work as a chef Hokido.

So they're spending their last summer together…
By chance they happen to find out some weird things about the founding of the shopping district. There's are animal totems at the four corners. One of them is damaged… The next thing they know they're in an alternative version of the district, there are dragons, a big boobed lady with glasses, their family is all in costume, they meet a mysterious wizard guy who gives them a boob growing amulet, what's happening?

They slip through alternative world after alternative world, gradually learning the mystery of the founding of the arcade, the identity of the wizard guy and the booby glasses lady and who they're connected to all of it.

It's a fun and interesting story. They make good use of the alternative world conceit to lampoon a lot of popular anime styles too. I recommend this one!

THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD - Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson. Beyond stupid, turned it off, which means The Coveted Golden GooseEgg Award….0..on the Moizmeter!

Die Hard (1988)

I finally got around to seeing this “classic” that everyone raves about, and I don't feel dissapointed. It's one of “those” 1980s discharge as many automatic weapons as possible in 2 hours things, which is always good dumb fun.

I was more impressed by the picture on the front of the box, I have nostalgia for those old posters. You know the ones, close up of the actor looking around a corner with his gun at the ready, next to his face. All explody thrillers in the 80s of any merit had the close up face drawn gun thing with the explody background of a skyscraper and a montaged on helicopter/tank rattlin about.

Smashing fun, will get around to the sequel within the next 15 years all things being equal.