Everything everywhere all at once is the film I find hardest to recommend to anyone, but absolutley love it. I watched Swiss Army Man after seeing EEAAO and that’s another film I can’t recommend, but it really touching.
I get that. The dildo fight was just OTT, and for those wanting family drama it would probably generate more than wanted…
We’ve been watching a lot of Korean dramas, which have been fun, enlightening, and on occasion, slightly weirder than a very weird thing. KD shows also have a very distinct sense of pacing, with long shots of people staring at each other, or off into the distance, or over the changing landscape.
I’m enthralled by the stuff I’m learning about the culture and what is similar and yet different. Just finished Tomorrow, which deals with hardcore issues around suicide , featuring a team of grim reapers running a risk management team to prevent suicide.
Not a show for everyone, but as a retired mental health professional who at one point in her career taught suicide prevention, I was impressed at the courage it took to tell a story about the topic that wasn’t damning or voyeuristic.
What amazes me with Korean dramas is how chaste they are (from the perspective of American television).
I recommend the Korean Reply series, Reply 1994, Reply 1997, and Reply 1988. Although sadly if on Netflix and other stream services, they’ve ripped the music off of it and replace it with just general background music. Mostly noticeable in Reply 1988 since it played on the culture a lot from Bubble bobble, to MacGyver.
Saw the new Black Panther movie yesterday. It was pretty solid for a Marvel superhero film. I had a few problems with some cinematography and directorial choices, but the overall storyline was good and probably about the best they could do with the real-world circumstances around Chadwick Boseman.
I mostly came away impressed that Marvel has built a franchise that can get so many people of all backgrounds to go to a movie in which out of the top say 10 characters, 6-7 are Black women.
Nosferatu with live soundtrack tonight, which I am very excited for.
I’ve found that one of the channels on my tv shows Mythbusters pretty much nonstop. I’ve never seen a lot of it, so it’s all new to me. And it’s pretty addictive…I’m not getting of my Nanowrimo stuff written.
Well that was great.
I also discovered that for about 30 years I’ve thought it was the original Nosferatu that I’d seen one night on television, and only now do I realise that it was clearly the Herzog/Kinski version. I obviously knew nothing much of the film at the time, as there wouldn’t have been any question about what I was (or rather wasn’t) watching if I’d had even the most minimal of context; but until now I’ve simply always thought this was something I’d seen!
I may have to seek out the 1979 film again now…
And now you are equipped to watch Shadow of the Vampire too!
The Killers (1946).
Which is one of the films used in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, including recurring parts of the musical score, and the lead characters sharing their last name (which meant that DMDWP was ever-present in my mind throughout), and consequently I spent half of the film giggling to myself, which I don’t think would have been the intended reaction.
I could never bear a grudge against DMDWP though – that film is genius. It’s one of the ones that got better and better every time I watched it, as I noticed more and more of the things they’d done (or needed to do) in order to pull off all the silliness. Tonight I think I really just got to enjoy two films simultaneously.
(I really should try to get my hands on all of the source films, and make a point of watching them all some time.)
It can be a real challenge to watch Zero Hour! if you’ve seen Airplane!… and let’s face it the main reason to watch ZH is that you have seen Airplane.
Because my daughter has a unit on Ancient Rome at school I handed her my old Asterix comics.
Because I handed my daughter my old Asterix comics she wanted to watch Asterix and Cleopatra (which holds up well for me) and Asterix vs Caesar from 1986. Amazingly she watched it in French with subtitles and enjoyed that. If she’s getting good with subtitles at age 8 we are going to try some more new things for sure at age 9.
When I were a lad, it was trendy to give one’s children untranslated Asterix or Tintin comics in the hope that they’d learn French. (No idea whether it was generally useful, but it was fun.)
A bit late now but I started Season 3 of The Crown. Enola Holmes is fiction spiced up with a dose of fascinating history. It’s fun to read up on these things. Thanks @SteveB_uk for making me aware of this. But the Crown is something else entirely and I am not sure what it is or what it wants to be. I think the cast is really good. The images are good.
But more and more I see the amount of fictional plot-glue that is being invented to portray the characters in this series very much apart from their historical or public personas. And I am find it increasingly difficult to deal with this dichotomy. And I am tired of reasearching Thatcher’s relationship with her children. Is the show trying to make a point? Is there a history there that it shortens into plot? Is it just drama? It is hard to tell if this is basically one long op-ed, or a drama or a piece of documentary. The longer I watch the more I think it just wants to be a drama show and the closer we get to the present the more I am convinced it is too soon.
edit: it’s really Season 4 I am watching. Sorry about that…
Thatcher was an incredibly good politician. For a highly specific definition of good. Beyond that it’s all fiction.
Tell your daughter that there are complete strangers who think she’s totally awesome for watching subtitled films, and she will experience lots of amazing things from all around the world if she keeps that up!
Watching the Crown. I have to say Dominic West does really well as Charles and Jonathan Pryce is great as Prince Phillip. I have no idea how close it all is to real history and tbh I don’t really care - the whole royal family thing is such a fantasy world anyway, I’m not sure it matters!
There, fixed that for you. 
That’s very true.
Just finished watching Thor: Love and Thunder.
It was great. I loved it! Not top 3 MCU ever, but that’s a tough crowd to get Top 3. Might be Top 5…
Black Panther, Ragnarok, Iron Man 1, Endgame… maybe Love and Thunder… Ant-Man is in there, as is Iron Man 2, Dr. Strange, and the original Avengers… Top 10 definitely. Top 5 probably.
Anyway. Really liked it. Thompson is a joy to watch, Hemsworth is perfect and gets better every time he dons the cape, and Portman is just amazing. Korg is probably the weakest part of the film, but forgivable, and Christian Bale is a fantastic baddie.
Super glad I saw it. Can’t wait to see the next Black Panther when it comes out on Disney+ as well!