DEATH OF ME - Maggie Q, Luke Hemsworth, Alex Essoe….looked interesting until I watched, kept getting dumber and dumber but I toughed it out hoping it would start to make sense, notta. A less than 1 on the Moizmeter.

THE VANISHED - Anne Heche, Thomas Jane, Jason Patric, Aleksei Archer, Kristopher Wente, Alex Haydon, John D. Hickman. Seems Anne & Thomas's young daughter has gone missing at this trailer park. Police, led by Jason, organize massive search of park and lake area. No luck finding young girl but a few other bodies are found shot or stabbed, and park manager is killed by Anne when he tried to assault her. What a mess and finally Jason makes a stunning discovery and wraps up the case and everyone goes home. I really liked it getting a 4 on the Moizmeter!

SIGHTLESS - Madelaine Petsch, Alexander Koch, December Ensminger, Jarrod Crawford. Madelaine is a well known concert violinist who loses sight when attacked in street. She is placed in large apt high-rise? by herself? A male nurse is used? and detective doesn't notice anything unusual? weird next-door neighbors? then she gets attacked by male nurse but months later she returns to play violin and all is well? What a crazy movie getting a 1 on the Moizmeter.

THE DIG - Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, Johnny Flynn, Ben Chaplin, Ken Stott, Monica Dolan. Carey is a rich land owner and she hires Ralph, an excavator, to dig up some weird mounds on her property. He makes a very interesting find and it attracts government types and the question of who this find belongs to arises. I found it quite boring as I was hoping it would be an alien spaceship maybe? but just some old gold coins and the outline of an old boat which had rotted away. They fill the hole up and so be it and Carey's character dies 3 years later. Based on a true story. A 2 on the Moizmeter.

The Vanished gets a 4 on the moizmeter? Dang, that's gotta be a standout! I haven't seen many who pass mustard on your metric! I'll have to look that one up!



I'm watching WandaVision - compelling stuff. An intriguing departure for Marvel. Well, so far. From the start it's clear that the characters are living in a non-real, temporary condition. But the specifics of how this strange existence came to be and what it's all about - I'm eager to learn the answers.

The two leads are fantastic at capturing the vintage sitcom energy in their performances - it's a masterclass on that level. And the 50's/60's comedy world is a perfect contrast that really emphasizes the feeling of horror whenever the illusion is briefly weakened.


The latest episode has a shift in perspective. I found myself greatly annoyed by the pov character's dialogue and delivery though. The 10-quips-a-minute style has paid off for Marvel obviously, but to me it's been overdone, and needs to be delivered (or directed) well to work. Not everyone has the comedy chops of Robert Downey Jr. It's funny to lampoon/capture the humorous style of those outdated shows, and then be seemingly blind to the modern stylistic prison. The ‘real world’ episode was cringe-inducing.

I may be coming across too negatively. I do like the show but jeez, Marvel - tone that crap down a bit, I beg ya!


p.s. I KNOW it's ‘pass muster’, not ‘mustard’! xD

Okay, with the end of the new episode (5), and that jaw-dropping ending, WandaVision is doing some wild, wild stuff. There's been hints of this “stuff” already in the Marvel movies, but this…this was a mindbender!

The implications! The implications, I tells ya!

Edit: More to the point, wow do these Marvel people want to serve their audience by delighting and surprising them, and sometimes downright blowing their minds!

I saw Bliss recently, which is a film with Owen Wilson and Selma Hyak.
The premise is that the world is a simulation and only the two of them and some others are “real”- as in the old style pioneered by Exestenz, the 13th Floor, the Matrix, Dark City and so on.

The contention is that “is it REALLY a simulation or is this a psychological break exacerbated by drug trips” -left to the audience to decide.

I find that very poor personally because ANY story what so ever can be seen in that way, it's moronic.
Either make it EXPLICIT or don't bloody do that. NEVER do that. EVER.

Anyway, aside from that stupid factor it's a good film, well done. I just WISH they didn't go with the childish “is it all a dream, what's real?” bulshit.

Ozoneocean wrote:
I saw Bliss recently, which is a film with Owen Wilson and Selma Hyak.
The premise is that the world is a simulation and only the two of them and some others are “real”- as in the old style pioneered by Exestenz, the 13th Floor, the Matrix, Dark City and so on.

The contention is that “is it REALLY a simulation or is this a psychological break exacerbated by drug trips” -left to the audience to decide.

I find that very poor personally because ANY story what so ever can be seen in that way, it's moronic.
Either make it EXPLICIT or don't bloody do that. NEVER do that. EVER.

Anyway, aside from that stupid factor it's a good film, well done. I just WISH they didn't go with the childish “is it all a dream, what's real?” bulshit.

That sounds like they want you to hop on IMDB and Reddit and Google to see how other people interpreted the ending. It's a conspiracy I tell you! The premise of the movie sounds interesting!

Another underrated Owen Wilson Film is Midnight in Paris. A departure from the dippy movies he is usually in…

So, I have FINALLY gotten around to finishing The Mandalorian. I know there was some discussion about it earlier in this thread. It was entertaining, and “Baby Yoda” was cute AF.“ I liked that there was homage to the 1977 Star Wars, and the guy who played Gus Freling from Breaking Bad did well as the main villain. The episodes were very short and felt repetitive at times. Basically, some iteration of ”Mando goes to planet to try and accomplish main objective, but in order to get help, he gets sidetracked into some other mission to get the intel he needs" So it took a while for the story line to really develop. Also, the end credits lasted about as long as the actual episode…

Banes wrote:
Okay, with the end of the new episode (5), and that jaw-dropping ending, WandaVision is doing some wild, wild stuff. There's been hints of this “stuff” already in the Marvel movies, but this…this was a mindbender!

The implications! The implications, I tells ya!

Edit: More to the point, wow do these Marvel people want to serve their audience by delighting and surprising them, and sometimes downright blowing their minds!

On first attempt I didn't make it through the first episode, but I tried again knowing it would develop. Good stuff even though potentially predictable if you've read certain comics.

L.C.Stein wrote:
Another underrated Owen Wilson Film is Midnight in Paris. A departure from the dippy movies he is usually in…

I really like that movie :D

I still have to finish The Madalorian.
The main villain in it also played the first main villain (or the second?) in Miami Vice back in the 80s. I think it's really cool that he has that pedigree!
–edit— nope, I was wrong haha, he only played a minor role https://miamivice.fandom.com/wiki/Giancarlo_Esposito
:(

@Genejoke - Ah, yeah, I've heard about it being based on a well-regarded comic series. That's cool; they have all this history to pull from, but I guess it does make a mystery show like this more predictable. I've never read those comics, so I'm completely in the dark on it.

Ha, Giancarlo Esposito is actually a nice guy in real life…I mean, here's a pic I found of him on IMBD wearing a Fedora :)

He does seem like a great guy - the polar opposite of Moff Gideon and Gus Fring! Cant wait to see Mr. Fring again! Hopefully it’s less than a year away but hard to say…

I like him as an actor. That's the sign of a great badguy actor I think- charm.

I'm watching all of Mythbusters slowly. It's such a good show for the basics of scientific inquiry.

ST: Discovery season three and ST:Lower Decks.

Great stuff. LD especially picks up on a lot of things you'd think would be going on in the rest of the fleet but you never see… until now. And of course being an old trekkie I know all the references. They even salute ST:the Animated Series.

ST: Discovery can be very touchy-feely and sentimental but crews really can bond like that and it's good to see some estrogen for a change on ST.

bravo1102 wrote:
Great stuff. LD especially picks up on a lot of things you'd think would be going on in the rest of the fleet but you never see… until now. And of course being an old trekkie I know all the references. They even salute ST:the Animated Series.

Lower Decks was fun!
I felt it was a pretty superficial take on Star Trek though by people who didn't quite get it… I mean it had all the references right but it's been put into the form of a silly animated sitcom so characters have to conform to very different tropes from those that exist in the Trek universe- being a nerd and studying hard is bad, being a jock and a fighter is good and popular rewarded behaviour-
This is absolutely contrary to the world they E developed, so much so it's ridiculous, but those are the standard forms for American sitcoms so that's how it has to be.

I finally finished The Mandalorian. It was really cool to watch. Loved it.
Now I finally don't have to be annoyed by the stupid spoilers 🤣

Anoyences: it ties in the prequel movies and the clone wars animated series with the original trilogy, to me that feels dirty and unnecessary. Just stay pure and forget that shit, it's not needed. Buuut Disney owns the lot now so they want to Marvel it and make it allllll count.
The creators are skilled enough to make it work even with the taint.

Ilya Muromets (1956) an epic fantasy movie with knights, massive armies, an evil emperor, a three headed dragon, made before the era of epic fantasy. It's all based on the Russian folk tales and isn't bad. Amazing to see all the tropes of the epic fantasy story before they were tropes. Back when fantasy was Lord of the Rings, an expensive hard cover from an academic publisher and the pulp magazines.

ozoneocean wrote:

I finally finished The Mandalorian. It was really cool to watch. Loved it.
Now I finally don't have to be annoyed by the stupid spoilers 🤣

Anoyences: it ties in the prequel movies and the clone wars animated series with the original trilogy, to me that feels dirty and unnecessary. Just stay pure and forget that shit, it's not needed. Buuut Disney owns the lot now so they want to Marvel it and make it allllll count.
The creators are skilled enough to make it work even with the taint.

I'm psyched to ask you about what you thought about certain details!
By the end of the season I was breathlessly excited and later watched the whole series again, appreciating it even more.

You asked me a trivia question the other week about the name of a certain bounty hunter's ship - seeing it…and him…make a triumphant return might be my second favorite piece of season 2.

I agree that including all the canon is not my preference, but yeah, they do it well. The “Midichlorians” that many fans hated is quickly referenced as an “M-Count” which my brain was able to just accept as a way to technologically measure the strength of the Force. I've never seen the cartoon series, any of them, but I find I'm able to understand everything just fine. It's a good job, serving hardcore fans, casual fans, and the inbetweens. Impressive!

I've been watching 30 rock for a month or so now. Hilarious. Ozoneocean recommended it years ago but I couldn't get on board with it. I think I wanted another Larry Sanders show, and 30 Rock is much more cartoonish.

But now I'm loving it and watch 3 episodes in a row most nights of the week. Tina Fey is a hilarious protagonist and of course a brilliant comedy writer.

Is it possible that ozoneocean has been right, and me wrong about everything all this time?

A disturbing notion, indeed.

Ask away ^_^
I'm going to watch the original movies again :D

——————–

YES! 30 rock! It's a fun show hahaha! There are so many little in jokes… Like that guy's nametag always saying something different, the cameos,Tracy Morgan's character journey… Very sharp writing!

Yes, I was right about it alllll haha!

Next up watch all of Community. The last season isn't as good but they're all pretty great.

Last nite I was desperate to find a movie so I went back and rewatched MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS from 1974 with Albert Finney as Poirot, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark as Mr. Ratshit and many others. The old Agatha Christie classic stood up well and I enjoyed it again. A 3 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

The latest thing I watched was Alita Battle Angel

It was ok, good for an anime/manga adaptation.
I've never read enough of the manga and I saw the anime too long ago, so I'm not too sure what they changed from the source material. I can recognise bits of things changed from the anime.

It seemed to hang together ok. Though the big eyed look should probably have been avoided :/
Sure a character looks like that in anime but only because 9f stylistic conventions and symbolism, they're never meant to represent REAL people that look like that.

I've just finished a full binge of Killjoys. I'd seen the first few seasons bu now I've done the entire run. It's a good fun action sci fi, it might never have had much acclaim but it managed to run 5 seasons and tell a complete story, something many shows don't manage.

Genejoke wrote:
I've just finished a full binge of Killjoys. I'd seen the first few seasons bu now I've done the entire run. It's a good fun action sci fi, it might never have had much acclaim but it managed to run 5 seasons and tell a complete story, something many shows don't manage.

Sounds interesting! What's it about? I like Scifi series… Too many are crappy, low concept stuff…

I just started watching The Orville the other day and I really like it. I don't like the creator/star of the show, Seth what'shisname… but he made a good series there it looks like.

Andromeda started with so much potential, but never fully lived up to it. The visual effects with actors and the CGI were sometimes ridiculously poor too for a show made post 2000, just heinous. OK for a student working from home for but not a commercial production.
The final series was a real head scratcher too!
The show starts off with the cool idea of a revived 300 year old caption of a battleship trying to revive the old commonwealth and bring peace and order back to the galaxy he finds himself in, meeting and uniting different people…
Then the commonwealth is all built all of a sudden and the new threat is a “world ship” of nasty aliens made up of a whole bunch of planets strapped around a star and so badly animated it looks like it's made out of potatoes and wire!
That threat last 2 or 3 seasons and at the end that easily kill it off in just one episode. BIG anticlimax. Pathetic. horrible writing.

The final season is all the crew being revived on some weird no-where place and all having different personalities and hating each other, completely destroying all the relationships and fun dynamics we'd been following for the previous 4 seasons.

Andromeda, is one I'm working through a bit at a time. I've seen the first few seasons before but can't remember much so I started over.

Killjoys is about bounty hunters called Killjoys. it's fairly low budget stuff and doesn't aim too high. Quippy characters, fun dialogue and a bit more depth than you'd imagine when you from the opening episodes.

That sounds good actually!

I've almost finished the first season of Orville
It can be summed up as 1990s Star Trek aesthetics, 1960s Star Trek themes and Seth MacFarlane's bad clunky cliche jokes.

It tackles social issues in a super clumsy, clunky, kackhanded way… It tries to be 1960s Trek with jokes but it's basically Seth's fanfiction version.

Even so I like it. I like the characters. I like the world, and I like that it's a good honest attempt.

Jeez, Orville makes itself hard to like at times…
Because the themes are just SO painfully naive 😭

It's like a teenager trying to be socially aware… its heart is in the right place but it's just not very clever :(

Contrast this with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia or something like that that also addresses interesting social topics in a sitcom format but does it with so much more nuance and cleverness…

Ozoneocean wrote:
Jeez, Orville makes itself hard to like at times…
Because the themes are just SO painfully naive 😭

It's like a teenager trying to be socially aware… its heart is in the right place but it's just not very clever :(

Contrast this with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia or something like that that also addresses interesting social topics in a sitcom format but does it with so much more nuance and cleverness…

ST:TOS and many ST:TNG episodes weren't exactly subtle. Some were downright embarrassing. Gave me headaches, like stop hitting me over the head with the social commentary.

Honestly, I think ST:Lower Decks pulls off a lot of the shtick the Orville tried a bit better.