Film and TV Thread Recommendations

 
Don't know what's going on with my previous post, i was trying to post the below but it didn't want to work no matter how many times i edited it.



BBC news have been reporting on this hard the last few days, apparently the last episode is soon out. I too didn't realise it was still going, mainly because we seemed to stop getting that influx of wannabe ozzie pop singers that went through the show and then came here to burn our eardrums Maybe that was just the sudden influx of wannabe X-Factor pop singers shunting them aside...

I realise that 4 posts in a row is bad form but since 2 of those were supposed to be in 1 post i'm counting this as number 3

Sticking with the whole Tolkien thing, i noticed that LOTR:Rings of Power TV show starts next month on Prime. I don't know whether i'm looking forward to it or not. On the one hand i do love the stories, on the other hand the trailers haven't been exactly inspiring and they don't have the Rights to the Ages in which the story takes place so it's likely not based on Tolkien's stuff apart from some character names. Oh well, will give it a go at least.

Season 2 of Reservation Dogs (another Taika Waititi TV show) started this week (in the US anyway). Continuing the good stuff

The Prestige - Christopher Nolan movie about a stage magician rivalry. Can't believe i hadn't watched it before, it came out in 2005 or something. Really enjoyed that, well told twisty story as expected from Nolan. 9/10

Happythankyoumoreplease - Indie film. Some friends live there lives in New York. Not really much else to say about it. I liked it though, slow and not much happens i guess, but likable characters and fun in places. 7/10

Jurassic World: Dominion - Much like LOTR i love the franchise and have watched all the films and read the books multiple times. More of the same here, of course it can't match up to the original but lots of exciting Dino action. I mean sure, the plot only slightly makes sense, and the deadliness of the Dino's seems to change depending on whether they are after a goodie or a baddie (or an extra of course), but who cares really So after the last movie (spoiler alert i guess) Dino's are roaming freely over Earth and living with us Humans, quite dangerously, so Biosyn and Lewis Dodgson (which as a book reader meant more to me than a non-book reader) have set up another reserve for them somewhere. What they are actually doing is some naughty experiments and kidnapping etc... though. A good set up for some Dino mayhem. 8/10

Thanks for that


I used to play The Bards Tale on my speccy which was one of those move forward one place, you've been attacked by 4 goblins, attack attack attack, defend defend defend types games. And i had one of those big A4 copied walk throughs for it as well. I think actually it was more like maps than a walk through but still very helpful. I'd have never finished it without it. It was also one of those games that you had to constantly move between maps and load each one only it worse than Monkey Island because it was on tape and you had to get the exact right spot to start to load I think my copy had loads of numbers on it on where to start the tape for each thing. Wow that was boring, sorry.



I actually know the reason for this, and unfortunately it too is boring as hell. They had a hiatus every year in Oz, but they showed it every day here. Then when we were like 2 weeks behind or something they had a binge in one week with extra episodes to finally bring it up to date. I remember there was a bunch of news stories around the time about it.

The Legend Floyd: The Dark Side of the Rainbow - So apparently in the 90's someone came up with the theory, most likely while stoned to hell, that Pink Floyd made The Dark Side Of the Moon as an unofficial soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz and it spread big time. The theory is that if you start them both at the same time (obviously with the sound muted on the movie) then there are some definite moments of synchronisation. Everyone involved in the album has said it is nonsense of course (and not even possible with the tech available at the time) but the urban legend continued and someone actually put it together. There really are some great bits in it, the best surely being The Great Gig in the Sky being weirdly well sync'd with the tornado sequence. Unfortunately the album is only 45 mins long, while the movie is 110mins so after it plays the album once it just starts it again... i actually stopped after the first play. At the very least it's an excuse to listen to Dark Side of the Moon again Can't really give a rating for this one.

Palm Springs - Really enjoyed this. I didn't know anything about it going in, i thought it was a simple rom com, so the plot really took me by surprise. Recommend doing the same if you can. 8/10

Yeah you're going to be disappointed in Palm Springs It doesn't so much change genre, just had a twist in plot that i wasn't expecting in the least. I have since learned that all you have to do is watch the trailer and it won't be a surprise, but i didn't do that so i had no idea Meh, you'll get what i mean if you watch it. I did really enjoy it though. It's got the main guy from Brooklyn 99 and The Mother from HIMYM as the leads in it who are usually pretty bankable.

Valhalla passed me by, i don't remember that one at all. Back to Monkey Island though, and a bit of a weird coincidence, I saw an advert yesterday saying that a brand new version called Return To Monkey Island was being released on PC and Nintendo Switch next month

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood - Latest Quentin Tarantino movie, as usual a bunch of loosely interconnected story threads this time about the "golden age" of Hollywood, whatever that means. I wasn't a fan really, it goes on forever and really doesn't need to and most of the story threads aren't very interesting. Brad Pitt's character was fun (him kicking the crap out of Bruce Lee was hilarious) but otherwise i was mostly bored. 5/10

Prey - The latest movie in the Predator franchise, this one is a prequel set 300 years ago. A Predator crash lands in America and a member of the nearby Comanche Indian tribe tries to stop/kill it. It's very much like the original (at least what i remember of the original) except that it's a tiny Comanche Indian woman instead of, you know, Arnie Still it was fun, way better that the recent Predator movies. 7/10

I haven't seen Night of the Comet in yonks, but thought it was a great film. It's a solid 7.

Pontypool - One of those annoying late night American talk radio types is just starting his show when news comes through that some kind of virus based incident is happening in single location horror thriller drama type thing. This was quite a frustrating watch. There's a few things didn't make a lot of sense but the biggest mystery of whole thing is why anyone would listen to that guy's radio show. What an irritating and boring man 5/10

How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town - Stumbled on this while googling some information and tips on...it doesn't matter what about. A woman returns to her home town, and with the flimsiest of setups, gets roped into organising an orgy for old acquaintances. It's a kind of good natured quite bland comedy drama which is not really what I was expecting from the title. It's one of those films that feels like it's meant to be comedy but nobody came up with any actual jokes. Bonus half for Catherine Isabelle. 4.5/10

Hustlers - A journalist interviews a former stripper as she tells the story of how she and several colleagues started scamming wealthy customers. We switch back and forth between the current day and filling in the story, in stripper crime drama. I think it's based very loosely on real events. Enjoyable enough but if it was a bigger and more dramatic could have been like a sexy goodfellas rather than a tale of a fairly minor crime that got a bit out of hand. Jennifer Lopez wears well. 6.5/10

I don't mean to brag but i was on holiday in the Caribbean during all that "lets cancel everything fun out of respect" nonsense a few weeks ago. "The Queue" also completely passed me by and all it's coverage. I realise this wasn't mentioned in this thread and was in the News thread but i couldn't be bothered to post in 2 seperate chats.


Unfortunately the holiday wasn't all good... on my first morning a glass door shattered into a zillion pieces because i had the audacity to try and open it. It left me rather comically holding just a metal door handle, attached to nothing, with a look of shock on my face while covered head to toe in glass, standing in a sea of glass and bleeding from about a hundred tiny cuts and one particularly large chunk of skin removed from my thumb and everyone staring at me in horror. Then an almost stereotypically nice Canadian woman in her 60's suddenly died a few days later and then on the day before i left i got chronic diarrhea and spent that day and the next on the toilet and worrying about how i was going to manage an 8 hour flight without accidentally shitting all over my seat (it didn't come to that thankfully). The 3 or 4 days inbetween all that were fun at least

I read this and my mind immediately went to Jive Bunny for some reason. Not the same thing from what you describe but it's weird how things pop in your head that you haven't thought about in years

I think the last time i watched Question of Sport Bill Beaumont and Emlyn Hughes were still team captains   And i can't remember the hosts name...?

Thor: Love and Thunder - Very disappointed in this. One of my fave's, Taika Waititi, took over writing and directing the previous Thor film and it was cracking. It was a completely different Marvel movie, lots of silly jokes but they really landed. He wrote and directed this one as well and just went all out on the silly jokes and completely forgot everything else like making the jokes fit the story and, you know, making the jokes funny! First one of his movies i've thought was all out crap. Anyway, Thor is targeted by the "God Butcher" and has to save everyone. 3/10

I'll pass that recommendation on to my sister, she loves the Godfather films. I'll wait for one for Goodfellas 

Multiple cuts, death, and diarrhea - the big three for any successful holiday. You probably also missed the fact we've appointed a new queen. And it's a man! A man queen it's political correctness gone mad.

I don't know why Jive Bunny didn't just carry on working through the years. They had three or four number ones with that early 60s stuff, they could have churned out those things for years like a 'Now that's what I call..' in a single song. I'm glad they didn't, but they could....

It was David Coleman.

Baurau - Well, that was unusual. It starts with a young woman returning to an isolated village for her grandmothers funeral, then a few weird things start happening, the town isn't showing up on maps, drones are lurking above, there's a water shortage, a dispute with the mayor. it's all a bit odd and you wonder where it's going. Then it goes somewhere in a Brazilian mystery drama horror western political satire type thing. 7/10

Lowlife - Four related stories come together over a kidnapping/illegal organ sales in blackly comic crime caper in the style of a poor man's Pulp Fiction. 6/10

I think Ted Lasso's success had a very large part due to coming out in Lockdown. Everyone was a little fed up and feeling down and then this show with bucket loads of positivity from the main character came along. It was funny too though, i enjoyed it. I do like Nick Mohammed though, his Mr Swallow on Cats Does Countdown always makes me laugh



Been loving Andor, another great Star Wars TV series. I had my doubts, with it being a prequel series to a prequel movie but it really does work. I ended up really liking Lord Of The Rings: Rings of Power TV series as well, against expectation. Gutted Westworld has been cancelled. The showrunners had always planned for a 5 series arc but the stupid network cancelled it at the end of series 4. Oh well, there was at least sort of an ending there if you just ignore the last 5 minutes of the final episode that set up season 5

Confess, Fletch - Remember those Fletch movies in the 80's starring Chevy Chase? I always remember quite liking them as a kid. This is not a remake, there were apparently loads of Fletch books the original movies were based on and this is just another one of those books made into a film. The new Fletch is Jon Hamm. I really enjoyed this actually, again against expectation. It's less zany and slapstick, but still very much on brand and a lot of fun. The mystery isn't very good, but the fun is in the characters and interactions. 7/10

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story - I assumed this was going to be biopic but I started watching and was immediately confused by how ridiculous and stupid it was. About 5 minutes in, when Al's Dad is cartoonishly beating the crap out of a salesman for no reason, I felt the need to pause it and look it up. Apparently Weird Al (he is more famous in the US i think and did a bunch of popular song parodies, for example "Like a Surgeon" to Madonna's "Like a Virgin") had a very straight-laced and drug-free personal life so they decided to make his "biopic" also a parody, like his songs, but of the recent bunch of sex, drugs and rock and roll biopics like Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody. As i say i only got 5 minutes in (even before Harry Potter showed up as Al) but i didn't go any further. I might try it again with a few drinks in me some time though No rating, DNF!