I have watched the first 12 or 24 episodes. I get a few good laughs every episode. It’s interesting to watch as a take on the dungeon crawl rpg genre. Why the dungeon is there, how its ecosystem works, how it supports an economy of delvers and supports rpg tropes. In particular, resurrection is commonplace; the in-media explanation and how it plays out is pretty interesting.
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Yup, dungeon meshi, as it is known here, is one of the good ones.
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Also watched on Netflix the very German, slightly absurd KLEO.
Has a lot of things to say about reunification after the wall, and some of the East / West jokes must be absolutely scorching if you’re German. Very enjoyable spy nonsense with some really acidic observations that make it stand out.
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Hahaha, the last episode goes COMPLETELY off the rails, it’s hilarious.
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And after seeing the incredibly talented Jella Haase as a ruthless assassin in KLEO, I just saw a trailer for “Chantal in Fairyland” where she plays an airhead influencer who goes through a magic mirror to fairyland and continues to be an airhead influencer, and… my brain is having difficulty with the whiplash.
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I watched the new season of The Dragon Prince that just came out and it’s still good, but is getting very dark as it’s heading towards the end.
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Last night we watched Star Trek The Motion Picture; The directors edition on Blu ray.
The two hours and seventeen minutes edition released April of this year.
So, five minutes longer, but more importantly, now with all the SFX remastered. This is basically a remastered version of the 2001 directors cut, which I haven’t seen.
So, what do I think?
I enjoyed it. This is the film the director wanted to release back in the day, but due to the difficulty of delivering the SFX in time, the released film had to be cut to account for the shortfalls. The film didn’t bore me, which the original cut did.
If you like Trek, then this might be a welcome surprise, given all the negativity that led to its original nickname of The Motionless Picture.
Motionless no more.
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Myself and my partner have been watching Penny Dreadful - didn’t know much about this, it seems to be The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen the TV show, but pretty good at least so far. Eva Green is phenomenal in at, as ever.
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So we just watched 2 episodes of Kleo… well because.
I am not sure about the East/West jokes… there is not that much there that is funny—but maybe that is just making fun of German humor. The best line so far was „du bist dicht wie eine Silikonfuge“ (which means to say „very drunk“ but also waterproof like a silicone joint, I haven‘t heard that one before). Everything else felt like it could easily be translated.
The funniest thing is though that Kleo is really made to look like photos of young Angela Merkel. The haircut and facial expressions… I am too lazy to look up if that is intentional or if I am just imagining the similarity. Also I like the idea just too much to be intentional that it would be a disappointment finding out I am imagining it.
And of course the Pulp Fiction suitcase…
Also why is everyone always in their underwear? this is not the German version of Bridgerton.
I guess we‘ll keep watching just to find out where this is going.
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LOVED Penny Dreadful!
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I think the East/West happens more later in the series (the Westerners are very casual about rubbishing the East, which provokes fury). Also, the opening is very brutal and realistic, but as the episodes go on it gets more into total comedy instead.
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I watched a 2020 film called Sleep (or Schlaf; it’s a German film). It’s ostensibly horror, but it’s really blending a lot of different things, and it’s far more mysterious/strange than it is scary. It’s one of those films which I think isn’t amazing, but which still does so many nice/unusual/interesting things along the way that I’m really pleased I watched it. A rough diamond. Or a partly polished diamond, maybe :).
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And she’s back at it again in Paris (with obviously-excellent crews, in her events thus far):
I mean… the gap between 1st and 2nd place is larger than the gap between 2nd and 8th:
She was in the winning K4-500 team before that, and has the K1-500 to go, where she seems a shoo-in for another medal. None of these are even her best event (the K1-200 was dropped from this year’s Olympics).
Absolute legend.
Edit: Gold in the K1-500 by a boat-length, with a new Olympic record time. She has 9 Olympic medals now, and 8 of them are gold. Interestingly the three medals in this race were taken by the exact same people who won them in Tokyo.
The other multi-event legend of the Paris games for NZ is cyclist Ellesse Andrews, who has finished up with 1 silver (team sprint) and 2 gold medals (individual kerin and sprint). She had 18 races across 3 different events over 5 days, and out of all of those 18 races there were only 4 occasions where she wasn’t first (being 2nd x3, and 3rd x1 – so only 5 riders ever finished a race ahead of her). What an outstanding performance.
Also, track cycling has the weirdest events. In the Kerin, the first half of the laps has the riders all casually trailing behind a motorbike. In the Madison, pairs of riders repeatedly “sling-shot” one-another forwards for added momentum (they grasp arms while riding, and the one in front pulls the other rider past them). In the Sprint, the riders typically spend a lot of the race riding at about walking pace and not wanting to be in front. There are tactics to it all of course, but it’s still hilariously strange at times. I’d love to see track-and-field “sprint” events that played out like the cycling version – a jumble of runners wandering up and down across the track, trying to figure out when one of their opponents might actually start running for the finish line…
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I didn‘t quite watch it. I was sitting on the couch trying to read while my partner watched but every few minutes he had to stop the movie „Atlas“ because he had to tell me about how this movie was „No Man‘s Sky the Movie“ … with the recent update he got back into the game so it was all quite fresh. The movie is your basic SF „woman has to save the world from rogue AI“. My partner said yes but it‘s more „mech-battle on an alien planet“. Probably won‘t win any awards…
edit: heard that if not for the Borderlands movie being a total disaster this one was a prime candidate for winning a bunch of raspberries
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The Crow is a film I’ve always loved. It always felt damn near perfect (Brandon Lee’s death notwithstanding, obviously). I haven’t seen it in too long. I intended to buy it on multiple occasions, but kept reading that the digital transfers were very disappointing. I see there’s a new remaster coming soon available now, though, so hopefully they’ve done it justice this time.
They made a bunch of sequels, but I never wanted another version of that film, so I’ve never seen any of them. There’s a new trailer for a new one, but nothing about it made me want to see it, either. It’s going to need to get some outstanding reviews to sway me, I think. (If any of you see it and it’s actually good, let us know.)
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I finished watching The Acolyte, the newest (to my knowledge) Star Wars offering.
Great fight scenes. Some astronomical lightsaber duels. And then… the ending.
What a mess.
The ending is outright awful. Just utter nonsense. The writer passed out, his or her face rolled across the keyboard a few times, and they decided to go with it. Almost bad enough to ruin the series.
Which is a pity! They did a good job with the setup and there are interesting characters and most of the plot until the last 15 minutes is quite strong!
Ah well. Apparently they’re making another season of Andor. I’m not sure I want it… that first season was so good.
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thanks for the info need to tell my partner. movie is a favorite here as well and he is very particular about versions
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Sounds as promising as it can do:
https://movieweb.com/the-crow-brandon-lee-30th-anniversary-4k-release/
Edit: Oh, in fact it’s available already!
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I’ll have to keep an eye out for that. I’ve still got my DVD copy from however long ago.
I’ve watched a couple of the sequels (selected by the “what was available in the local video store” method).
Stairway to Heaven - Weird TV version that was bad. I’ve no idea what I actually watched, because it definitely wasn’t a 22 episode series (that wouldn’t fit on a VHS), but I can’t find any info online about any other format …
Salvation - I remember it being fine, but not particularly worth a watch. All I really remember is it had the censored version of a Pitchshifter song in it.
I read and loved the comic as well, which has done better with sequels.
Dead Time - James O’Barr’s idea for a sequel film. Could’ve been pretty good.
Flesh & Blood - Been a while since I read it, so I just remember that it was rubbish.
Memento Mori - Weird and too much about Catholicism for me, but all right.
Edit: Oh, and I recently got this shirt: 
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The label on that shirt is what I expected it to be :).
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