One example of typecasting that had no regard for real age was Margaret Dumont. Best known as the poor foil in so many Marx Brothers movies she was cast as an older matron though barely in her thirties.

I watched the Barbie movie…. It was alright. Ken had the most interesting story. Whereas stuff just kinda happened to Barbie. I really can't tell what the creators were trying to say about feminism. But it was really colorful and cool looking.

lothar wrote:
I watched the Barbie movie…. It was alright. Ken had the most interesting story. Whereas stuff just kinda happened to Barbie. I really can't tell what the creators were trying to say about feminism. But it was really colourful and cool looking.

It's earned a billion dollars at the box office so far apparently XD
People are saying it was due to brilliant marketing.

Obviously it deserves a lot of credit for the success, but it also had simply massive name recognition so that marketing team honestly didn't work harder than any other successful marketing team.

———–

I finished Boston Legal.
It was amazingly meta, especially towards the end. It has SO many people from all the Star Trek series in it and it often acknowledged that with all sorts of subtle things and non-stubtle like Shatner's flip phone making communicator noises when he opened it.
They had so many leading people from 80s shows guest staring in major roles or coming on to be temporary leads, that was really cool to see.
It could get very preachy about politics but that was just part of he show and the characters…

They often acknowledged that they were a TV show with characters singing the theme song, talking about episode structure, complaining about having their show time changes, saying they would get letters for certain lines… Well before Rick and Morty started doing that meta stuff.

I liked it as a series, especially the relationship between James Spader and William Shatner's characters and how they got married in the end.

Watching the show Suits from 2011, it just ended a few years ago. This was around the time Monk, Psych, and a very similar show White Collar offering loads of quirky characters.

Suits is about a New York law firm that hires a genius, Mike, who makes money taking the LSATS and the Bar for underachievers. Zany antics ensue as Mike causes constant trouble for the law firm, putting hundreds of jobs at risk on a daily basis. Mike makes bad decisions that would cause real harm to people. I, for one, was happy to see Mike get his ass kicked by an angry husband whose wife Mike was sleeping with.

Not even a season goes by before you start routing for the weasely villain Louis Litt. A loyal workhorse in the firm who clearly deserves better than he is getting.

Another legal show is called FISK starring Kitty Flanagan. This is the funniest show I have seen in a long time. It reminds me of Doc Martin, House, or many of the Steve Martin movies when he is in sarcastic mode.

sleeping_gorilla wrote:
Another legal show is called FISK starring Kitty Flanagan. This is the funniest show I have seen in a long time. It reminds me of Doc Martin, House, or many of the Steve Martin movies when he is in sarcastic mode.

Interesting! I remember Kitty from her sketch comedy days back in the 90s. I love that she's still around working ^_^

Ozoneocean wrote:

Boston Legal

I liked that show very much back in the day! The constant, rapid cast changes threw it off quite a bit for me, and making so many characters “wacky” with less and less “normal” people to contrast the oddballs took me out of it after the first two seasons or so. It'd be interesting to check it out now - the politics of the time were sort of post-911 George W. Bush and then Obama. Definitely got heavy handed at times. Good show, though. Alan and Denny were great characters.


I'm finally continuing with “Louie”, the Louis CK show from a few years back. I'd seen bits of it before, so doing a complete watch this time. Just started season 3. Very good stuff. It's got the feel of a Woody Allen film in most episodes, with the look and the jazz music. It's Woody Allen's New York. I enjoy the more earthy style of Louie, I guess I'd say? It celebrates the weirdness and rough edges of humans. It veers into the surreal in a nice way. I will say that with season 3, it's a lot funnier than the first 2 seasons. I'm laughing out loud much more.

Also joined Crunchyroll to see some anime. I'm liking “ZOM 100”. A miserable, overworked and deteriorating office drone gets a new lease on life from, of all things, the zombie apocalypse. Finally free from his brutal job, he's an exuberant, enthusiastic survivor. So far it's great. Love the animation and character design, and the main character himself.

Watching the new Indiana Jones and especially the part with the de-aged Ford in the beginning of it, I realized how little CGI benefits this whole thing. Yeah, I mean the not-so-old Indy looks great while the old one just makes you uncomfortable at places, but the Adventure genre is dying. It's dying because it relies on action. And 40 years ago there was something to strive for when it came to action, you could always get something better, louder, grittier and be at awe. There's a reason people rewatch Die Hard over and over again despite getting flooded with gunfights and explosions every month. There's a reason 8 times out of 10 we find more reason to complain about “bad CGI” than to say “holy shit, that was epic”. There's not much left to strive for. We're addicted to stimuli and there's little or no supply left that lives up to our standards. Yet, we have to force it. It has to go loud it has to go big because God forbid we try something different. And the only thing besides action this movie relies on is a long checklist of nostalgia. Apart from the action and the trendy “one last ride into the sunset” trope, it's just 2 and a half hours of ‘member berries. And what’s the worst thing about it is that you know… YOU KNOW that if it would've settle for what IJ was 40 years ago, perhaps with some original ideas, but not trying to adjust it to modern standards, it would've been a blast. But with such expensive projects with the studios having such high hopes, you can't do less. You have to do more in order to try and satisfy the zoomers that grew up on F&F. And it's a shame, because every once in a while a fantasy or sci-fi adventure flick can still make its mark in good hands, but the adventures we feel nostalgic about are gone. Because we got so used to the magic, that we can't find it anymore.

Also… it's really cringe when you have a dozen reasons to put a bullet in the protagonist's head and 0 reasons left to drag him along on your little joyride, yet you still just proceed to drag him along, simply because otherwise the movie would end.

Since I'm constantly seen bitching about movies here, I've picked some of my favorites from the past 5 years.

Shoplifters (pure perfection. Tought-provoking and entertaining, a found-family drama without being shallow)
Uncut Gems (rarely so much pressure is portrayed, no wonder it's not everyone's cup of tea)
Aftersun (so down-to-earth, yet much depth packed into it that won't leave you after the film)
Everything Everwhere All at Once (one of my favorites, amazing how they made it work)
An Elephant Sitting Still (one of the best debuts and unfortunately his last film as well, since the director died)
Parasite (often movies get overhyped, especially when they win best picture, but in this case it's hard to say it's without style or substance)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (one of the best sequels to films)
Bullet Train (far from perfect, but entertaining af)

Nimona the film, the fifth season of the Dragon Prince, and Etra Chan Saw It on YouTube.

Watched Strays recently. I probably have to be a dog or some gangsta to appreciate this type of “humor” every 10 seconds or so. But let me just say that the obsession with mutilating men's genitals as revenge / justice is a notion that people find entertaining for some reason (take that fucking Wednesday for example, or this one) and I'd like to see if the same people would still giggle behind devilish smiles if it'd be female genital mutilation instead. Something tells me that wouldn't be the case. Rendering a man unable to reproduce for the rest of his life is a joke. Rendering a woman is an unforgivable act of violence, a horror words cannot express. Movies like this is why I hate people.

I finally finished all of Steven Universe. It's really a loved show in every way. I'm glad I finally watched it all.
I started on it years ago when I was sick in Cambodia and stuck in my room. I binge watched it and really fell in love with it.

It's a good show with not many bad points or dud episodes.

I saw Elemental last night on Disney plus

Pixar REALLY have to get over their obsession with family based stories about coming of age and making life choices… That's most Pixar movies these days. They're all about important things that happen at various points on a person's life - usually focussing on parent and child relationships. It's as if they went to a damn therapist to get all their ideas XD
I don't mind stories about that but I like variation

The story:
Fire elementals arrive as new immigrants in a water elemental city and over the years despite a culture clash and some xenophobia establish themselves and become the focus of a community of other fire people.
The have a daughter with anger issue. The dad wants her to take over his corner shop and she wants to but she's bad at dealing with people. The dad gets old and sick and needs to retire…
The daughter meets a water elemental guy and they gradually fall in love. She wants to keep that a secret from her parents because they have resentment towards the water elementals.

And so the love story/coming of age/finding yourself/family focussed story progresses.

It's a very pretty movie. Probably the prettiest Pixar film. The mechanics of the world make no sense at all, which makes your brain spin (elemental people that function as their element… watch and see what I mean). The story is good but would have been farrrrrr far better told with human or animal based characters. These magical elementals deserve a story that centres more around their magical existence.

Last Stand
This was a movie starring an elderly Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The plot is that a Mexican cartel head in the US escapes a prison transfer by the FBI and heads to the border on a ruthless and carefully planned escape.
Sherif Arnold and his small town band of Misfits are the only thing between him and freedom.

This was a bloody action movie that had a lot of firearms fantasy. Basically just pure magical stuff happening with those guns.

Weirdest for my was Peter Stomare doing a terrible fake American accent and weilding an antique Colt Walker pistol, firing shot after shot Long distance and people with modern, much better guns running away 😅
The Walker was a big gun but not good at long range, plus it only has six shots and it's super slow to reload.

Oh and someone gets blown to pieces by a flare from a flare gun 😅

The most powerful gun they have is a Vickers machine gun which they fire for 15 seconds and then just ignore - you can litterally fire that for several days straight without stopping. It would have cleared the entire town of every badguy… as long as the assistant keeps reloading the belts.

And there was so much more 😅

Ozoneocean wrote:
I saw Elemental last night on Disney plus

Pixar REALLY have to get over their obsession with family based stories about coming of age and making life choices… That's most Pixar movies these days. They're all about important things that happen at various points on a person's life - usually focussing on parent and child relationships. It's as if they went to a damn therapist to get all their ideas XD
I don't mind stories about that but I like variation

The story:
Fire elementals arrive as new immigrants in a water elemental city and over the years despite a culture clash and some xenophobia establish themselves and become the focus of a community of other fire people.
The have a daug

Yeah, it was sort of a letdown. They put so much emphasis on how the science of it is magical and then they really do a magic ass-pull. Plus I've nothing against family stories. Maybe a little less acting like only immigrants have culture and traditions that gives way to conflicts between generations. Otherwise Pixar can really be outstanding in that regard, but they have to let go of making non-living creatures their protagonists and get you invested in them, because the whole world is just a setting to illustrate their base concept and I could not care less about anyone in it, neither the main nor the side-characters make you wish you'd see more of it. The whole forbidden love thing that it's centered around could use better symbolism (what are we, toddlers, that unless it's fire and water, we wouldn't get it?) and we get it, racial preconceptions are bad, geez, whoever doesn't get it, this won't make any difference for, especially since most character's personality just happens to be exactly as you'd associate from their form of existence.

And yeah, Steven Universe is great. Although I can't get myself to binge it, 1-2 episodes sometimes is the most I can do for some reason. Probably because it's episodic and wholesome.

InkyMoondrop wrote:
Yeah, it was sort of a letdown. They put so much emphasis on how the science of it is magical and then they really do a magic ass-pull. Plus I've nothing against family stories. Maybe a little less acting like only immigrants have culture and traditions that gives way to conflicts between generations. Otherwise Pixar can really be outstanding in that regard, but they have to let go of making non-living creatures their protagonists and get you invested in them, because the whole world is just a setting to illustrate their base concept and I could not care less about anyone in it, neither the main nor the side-characters make you wish you'd see more of it. The whole forbidden love thing that it's centered around could use better symbolism (what are we, toddlers, that unless it's fire and water, we wouldn't get it?) and we get it, racial preconceptions are bad, geez, whoever doesn't get it, this won't make any difference for, especially since most character's personality just happens to be exactly as you'd associate from their form of existence.

Very much so!

———-

I binged all of White Collar and finally finished it. It wasn't a clever show but the fake art they made for the scenes was always very high quality, and the characters were friendly and entertaining and had good, mature relationships with each other that ware nice to watch. The actors played them well.

The ending was a big let down for me though.

–Spoiler–

So this guy is a criminal conman working for the FBI in order to get time off his sentence, that's the setup. But through the course of the show with all his experiences and growing relationships with other characters he was changed from liking the criminal like and conning people and preferring to be a “good guy” and one of the team. But in the final episode he fakes his death in order to finally escape for good and go back to conning people as a lone wolf baddie :(
As if NONE of the hours of the show you watched mattered, all that progress for nothing.

Writers tend to be a bit lazy and get addicted to easy tropes and character setups, they WRONGLY think that basic crap is more important than growth. Characters “reverting to type” is absolute amateur hour and the biggest kick in the groin to an audience.

Watched a 6 episode mini-series starring Florence Pugh “Little Drummer Girl”. She is a college student during the Cold War years in London who has expressed pro-Isreali sentiments. Michael Shannon and Peter Skarsgard recruit her into their small nest of spies to do a simple, but harrowing terrorist mission.

“Show me a terrorist, and I will show you a freedom fighter.”

I had a whole rant about how Little Drummer Girl is what Andor should have been. Basically, both shows are conversation-driven spy thrillers, but Drummer Girl understands that the audience needs some payoff. More things happen in a single episode than in the entire Andor series. Events are impactful and significant to the story and force the characters to change their perspective and make decisions.

X-Men: The Animated Series, Season 2 | Episode 4
“Red Dawn” (original air date: November 12, 1993)

Jubilee joins Colossus on a journey back to his home country to defeat a villain who has been causing conflict since the fall of the Soviet Union. Wolverine follows for personal reasons because he has a score to settle with long-time nemesis, Omega Red.

(Remembering the days when Saturday morning cartoons incorporated interesting voice actors for an international cast)

===

Movies Seen in Crowded Theaters

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
Modern day Splinter is a concerned single father of four mutated turtles that he found in New York’s underground sewers. He teaches them how to defend themselves using video clips of Kung Fu and Karate films on YouTube. The turtles learn that Splinter’s concern is justified when they each get milked in the real world.

The Nun II (2023)
Protagonists: Two Nuns; A Schoolteacher and her daughter; a Groundskeeper
A period piece film, set in 1950s France, a Demon traveling across Europe is making its presence known leaving a trail of flame-broiled priests. A nun goes on a quest searching for a pair of holy relics, while a boarding school harbors an unwanted entity.

I just watched Red Dawn too! (1984) great movie!

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among thieves.

It was like Lord of the Rings meets Seinfeld

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
X-Men: The Animated Series, Season 2 | Episode 4

Cool. I should watch that too. Especially since people here say they ripped off one of our retro tv show's theme song for it. (And by retro I mean an 80-s style European crime-comedy series about a police woman who beats up everyone using karate.) Ah, the childhood memories… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-6AfYgqe_4

I started watching Futurama. I guess I haven't binge-watched The Simpsons and this so far, because… well, I was never good at binge-watching western animated series due to their episodic nature. AtLA was different. But better late than never and even when it's not the type of joke that stays with me, it's above-average comedy cartoon entertaining.

Futurama is fun on a bun! And it does have a little bit of a story arch

Last weekend I binge watched ST: Lower Decks before or left AmazonPrime. This weekend I binge watched an anime season one of The Eminence in Shadow. I've a feeling there's going to be a season two. I'm still trying to digest exactly where it was and/or is going. I really don't think the creators have much of an idea either because a lot seems missing.
And as always seeing any number of old black and white movies including a childhood favorite Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein considered by many to be the penultimate Universal monster movie.

bravo1102 wrote:
Last weekend I binge watched ST: Lower Decks

What did you think of it?
I binge watched the first two seasons again last week. The 3rd season is now locked on Paramount plus T_T, but I've seen it before. And I saw the first 3 episodes of the 4th season on a link Tantz set ^_^

I felt the 3rd season expanded things a bit too much. But season 4 brings it all back again ^_^

Ozoneocean wrote:

bravo1102 wrote:
Last weekend I binge watched ST: Lower Decks

What did you think of it?
I binge watched the first two seasons again last week. The 3rd season is now locked on Paramount plus T_T, but I've seen it before. And I saw the first 3 episodes of the 4th season on a link Tantz set ^_^

I felt the 3rd season expanded things a bit too much. But season 4 brings it all back again ^_^

I loved it. I've extolled its virtues in any number of Star Trek fan groups. It's the McHale's Navy service comedy version of Star Trek I've always wanted. The whole idea of a fleet with prestige ships and then the ones doing the “grunt” work is so true. It's actually something I learned while doing "Interstellar Blood Beasts " when reader asked me, if it's all officers who cleans up after the monster attacks? I tried to put the grunt workers in for my Star Trek tribute Tales of SIG: Star Strip. But ST:LD is much funnier than anything I could ever write.
“Klingons off the starboard bow”
“Life captain, not as we know it, not as we know it”
Star trekking across the universe…

bravo1102 wrote:
“Klingons off the starboard bow”
“Life captain, not as we know it, not as we know it”
Star trekking across the universe…

Ah, I love that song ^_^

————

I rewatched City Slickers again for the first time in decades.
WOW, weird to watch it again now. Those characters having their mid-life crises are all over 10 years younger than me now LOL!
It was a bit harder watching it now too because I tend to identify strongly with characters I see on the screen- in all the hard riding scenes, especially in the rain and river, I've done that sort of stuff myself at times in my life so it wasn't entertaining to watch, instead I was just transported to feeling how hard and horrible that was. I could feel it and smell the smells. ugh
Overall the film didn't seem like a fantasy escape anymore, it felt too real in a lot of ways.


I also rewatched Scott Pilgrim.
I love it so much. Nerdy dork king Michael Cera is so cool in that movie. This time I caught all the weird little computer noises in the background. I hadn't really realised that the entire thing is basically a platform game. Because of my issue identifying with characters, the heart break Knives feels when Scott betrays her is very hard to watch, but overall I loved the film just as much as ever.

One complaint people often have is that it's too “male” centred, which is utter rubbish- this is a story about Scott told from HIS perfective, of course it's all centred on and skewed around him. If it was about Ramona or knives or any of the other characters you'd expect it to be centred around them.

I am starting my annual Halloween movie marathon and welcome recommendations. I like good Indy horror movies and anthologies.

Already watched:

Ash vs The Evil Dead This is the end of Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams. Ash is a violent narcissist, but Campbell really is a great actor who can weave subtleties into cartoonish characters. A reunion of Hercules and Xena actors and it's clear they had fun.
Creepshow - Season 4: The series found its footing this season and has become more than the campy gorefest it is famous for. Glad to see it back.
Habit - An unpolished, grounded 90's film about a spiraling Gen Xer who begins a relationship with a vampire. The twist is that she genuinely seems to like him, and for the most part, it is a sweet if strange relationship. Let the Right One In is the best Vampire movie ever made. This is the second best.
The Haunting of Bly Manor - This is based on two books by Henry James, and there have been no less than 4 versions of this story made in the past 5 years. In fact, I really enjoyed the 1958 adaptation “Innocents”. Bly had too many episodes and the 8th is just an infodump because episodes 1-7 are just meaningless filler. A lot of likable actors, but I would only watch it if you really like Hill House (Which I didn't)
The Haunting of the Queen Mary I'm one of the few people who likes Alice Eve, she was pretty good for the 20 minutes I watched this.
Hole in the Ground This was highly recommended. I have seen better. Namely Clint Eastwood's “The Changeling”
The House of Shadows - I liked the box art so I gave it a try. The first half is really good. Tension is built by having just a little too much silence. A person leaves the room, and they are gone a bit too long, you look for them and they do not answer you, where could they go? You are in the middle of nowhere? Is there someone else here? Unfortunately, the payoff is confusing, not bad, just confusing.
The Inhbitant It took me about 10 minutes to figure out who the killer was. Enough with the Lizzie Borden cash-in.
Leave Similar to “Hereditary” with a more investigative approach to it. A vague ending but easy enough to follow that they did not need to “infodump” like Hereditary does because it failed to tell a story.
Leprechaun 3 Silly entertaining fun.
Ouija: Origin of Evil - A Michael Flanagan movie. Half of the cast is from the Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor. Suffers from a non-ending.
No One Will Save You - A Sci-fi movie that basically a remake of one of the best Twilight Zone episodes. It commits what I consider an unforgivable storytelling sin, but it is very well made with a great performance by its lead. It actually works, so I give it a pass.
The Blackcoats Daughter - It's an attempt to remake Exorcist II. A beautifully filmed, scriptless, And(b)or style bore-fest saved somewhat by the performances of Kiernan Shipka and Emma Roberts. Takes 3 hours to tell about 3 minutes of story.
Someone is Watching Me - The first movie John Carpenter directed. It stars Lauren Hutton and Adrienne Barbeau. After they finished filming they began working on an obscure horror movie named “Halloween.”
Someone at the Top of the Stairs - An episode of the old British show “Thriller”. Very creepy stuff.
Ghost Stories - An Indian Horror Anthology with at least 2 memorable segments. Some gross stuff I could have lived without ever seeing. Worth watching for the Zombie section.
Night Teeth Limo driver picks up a pair of hot vampire girls who are plotting to take over the vamp community in one night of blood-soaked mayhem. It's entertaining, that is all I can ask of a movie.
Look Away A movie that has been on my watch list for years. Many creative scenes and the lead actress kills them. Though we are supposed to believe this gorgeous young woman is some bullied “nerd.”
Night of the Hunted “White Knucle” thriller with a unique premise.
No One Gets Out Alive From the same author of “The Ritual” it has a different format. Worth watching.
One Cut of the Dead A funny and creative Japanese film. Starts with an amateurish awkward 20-minute uncut zombie short film. Then it moves on to the “making of” which shows the chaotic filming of the short film and that is where things get funny.
The Pale Door When you have a bigger budget for the poster art.
Polaroid Like Final Destination, with a cool monster. Surprisingly good.
Scare Us A “bottle-episode” style film where two self-absorbed writers wait out a storm telling each other stories. The actors actually tell the stories in real time, assisted by sound effects and clever editing. Aya Cash always plays the same character, but she plays it well.
The Puppetman I guess this is a real urban legend. Not bad.
They Live Inside Us A feature-length version of a segment of “The Witching Season” with the same star and director. A writer and his air BnB at a Haunted House to make some progress on his book. It starts slow, and James Morris's acting is questionable early on, with a lot of “I just smelled something rank” faces. However, the slow burn starts cooking in the third act and really pulls on the heartstrings. Morris is especially good considering that he also portrays the three horror villains during the fantasy sequences.
Valley of the Dead - Excellent Zombie film where the hero is a Nazi. Watched it for Spanish actress Aura Garrido who is great in everything I have seen her in.
Umma - Another mediocre movie with a good cast.
V/H/S - A series of horror anthologies. I am watching V/H/S 94 which is considered the best one. There is nothing new storywise, but it makes great use of the found footage style, producing some disturbing monsters. Thank goodness it is not a “shared universe”
The Watcher I saw this a few years ago and did not like it. I enjoyed it more this time, mainly because the close captions worked and I could actually understand what they were saying during the climax. The director owes the actor Maika Monroe a huge paycheck, she 100% made this watchable. If you like these voyeur thrillers, “Someone is Watching Me” with Lauren Hutten is by far the best one.
The Wretched - Oddly enough I have seen this movie before and forgot the name of it. A pretty solid PG horror film aimed at kids. Something creative and different.

The list so far:

All Hallow's Eve
Aurora
10/31: Part 3
The BabySitter
Bloody Valentine
The Bye Bye Man
The Crazies
Cronos
Day Shift
Evil Dead reboot, Rise
From Beyond the Grave
Green Room
Halloween Kills
The Host
Patient Seven
MidSommer
Scare Us
Sirens
Tales From the Hood
Tusk
The Warning

Tusk? Weird film but I can't help love it.

Some of my favorite horrors I could recommend are:
Possession, Hausu.
I also liked some more recent watches: A Dark Song, A Color Out of Space and that time I rewatched the classic Suspiria.

But Zulawski (Possession) always made artistic films that even if weren't horrors or horroristic, they were philosophically loaded and incredibly hard to watch from all the tension and manic behavior the characters portray.

A Dark Song is amazing. I may watch that again this year.