Films & TV Shows

[Spastic Hamburger]

Over the course of the series, you can see how technology advances in their Stone Age society. For instance, cars are initially powered by running and are powered by critters in a hamster wheel by season 4. There are other bits too, such as the advancement of arms.

I believe it was due to Lucas never being quite happy with the result and wanted to perfect it but never reaching the perfection he envisioned. Could be wrong, though, but it would make sense with how many times he changed the films. He also blocked The Holiday Special from ever being released after the first run on TV since he was not at all happy with how it turned out

Will try to catch those! Looks like only the original 1969 version of The Swimming Pool is available Stateside but I’ll try to catch it! Still haven’t gotten around to giving Twin Peaks a viewing 🙁

[DeVaultSetter]

To be frank, never have been disappointed sitting down in front of the Flintstones, and not the only one there. It was an instant hit for Hanna Barbera, and an instant hit for working parents wanting the kids to shut up for half an hour while getting dinner ready. 😛
No matter what or how he does, the Lucas Blooper Ghosts will out! 😛
Do have a soft spot for Audrey’s Dance:

Can’t help noticing all the public Twin Peak clips on Youtube are less than a minute. You get a block notice otherwise.
Thing about the white elephant of copyright in its current form, you’d expect each and every one of the billions of video pages to have a copyright frame attached, with the log of the copyright owner and a tick or cross next to it. That means YouTube and the rest have to engage in a more meaningful relationship with these content providers along with advertisers, where deals involving permissions can be made for the more discerning (and paying) subscribers.
Not happening soon, but there will com a re-imagining one day. 🙂

[Spastic Hamburger]

The final season does move away from much of the lore into more standalone sketches but still fun 🙂

Caught up on the Scooby Doo Show, only ever saw half of the episodes. It does a wonderful job expanding on the existing lore. One of the best moments was when Fred randomly told Shaggy to use plan 47 and Shaggy sits in thin air digging through a book trying to figure out what Fred was talking about. It shows how Fred doesn’t keep everyone in the loop, which was hinted at in Where are you but never explored as the first incarnation was pretty much just monster of the week without too much depth. Yes, I’m in the mood to hyper analyze cartoons these days 😛

Huh, could be due to the rights holder aggressively defending the property. Nintendo does something similar. I’ll try to set a time to watch the show soon! 🙂

Been watching some of my favorite genre lately: 1950’s sci-fi! First up was Them! followed by Earth vs the Flying Saucers.

Also saw this gem. Very much a B-movie but they definitely had fun doing it. The jokes were a riot and made fun of a lot of the films in the genre.

[DeVaultSetter]

Well after what has occurred in the Middle East since then, it’s even a more pressing issue than ever. A job for a politico notable to dress up as a large, friendly crime solving dog, then go delving in the mysteries of the hallowed region, find the culprits, solve the mystery and bring in eternal peace. The Middle East saved by … Scooby-Doo!
IA hosts the first two, not Battle of the Planets, how odd. Might have seen those yonks ago on FTA, they used to screen things of that genre very late at night.

San Andreas had nice scenes like the Earthquake shots, tall buildings swaying and the early helicopter edit: Taylor Swift??? rescue. There’s also someone’s “Does the Science Hold Up” series, links for those later. plenty of bloopers good and bad. Nice cast, visual angles and camera shots, shame about the drek wreck team of writers and directors. First impression.
My theory is the writers and directors actually made this bad for fear of getting the sponsors too rich from the box office windfall. Why? They would surely be sued by the real owners of the skyscrapers that fell down at an alarming pace, complaining all buildings should have done so. That surely implies their buildings are worse than others. Ridiculous maybe, wouldn’t it make superb entertainment for a real life (and a later fictional rehashing) court drama?

• This reply was modified 6 months, 2 weeks ago by DeVaultSetter.

[Spastic Hamburger]

What’s New Scooby Doo does a good job of expanding the characters’ personalities and even does more to establish the Fred and Daphne relationship. Do wish I could get the whole franchise but only bits and pieces are available. 🙁

Never have been a bit fan of disaster films, Gilligan’s Island was always preferred. Granted, I will watch some of them when we’ve got a bad storm or something on the way just for giggles 😛

[DeVaultSetter]

Well, to suss out the mysteries of who disposed of the missing Scooby Doo franchise will no doubt require the investigative skills off someone like … Scooby Doo!
Absolutely, they have to be convincing without invoking a lighter comedic edge, San Andreas has problems with varying tsunami height, from 100m to less than 10m in a short time, for example. The blooper types correspond to many from other genre, particularly sc-fi, so it seems.
Twelve Monkeys had sufficient tension to keep one onto the end titles, anything which glosses over the enormous complexity of impossible time travel wants a enough structure in the plot to make it credible. Not quite enough in this case, despite the highlight of Pitt enjoying his part in the infirmary.
CSI Cyber never made it to series three, even with our old favourite Ted Danson on board. No surprises there when it came to the lame banter and thin character expositions. The technical wizardry of the crimes did somewhat bedazzle, even after their explanations later, which turned out to be unsurprisingly short on detail.
Found Snakes on a Plane to be an unsettling film of slasher ilk, thus a dampener on enjoyment. Memorable, so that the takeout is to check for any sign of the slithery critters next time one takes a flight. May also inspire one to not take the trouble to look out for Snakes on a Train whenever it next pops up on FTA.
The energy in Black Adam is wambam relentless and never ceasing. Spoiler alert: here are some fight scenes:

[Spastic Hamburger]

Yeah, only about half of the franchise seems to be available. All of it used to be shown as reruns on broadcast TV but broadcast TV hasn’t shown them in two decades 🙁

What’s new is also highly self-referential: they make jokes about the cliches all the time. It also confirmed that Pup is canon and takes place in the mainline franchise and even brought Roadrunner and Coyote into the universe. By extension, Bugs Bunny now exists in the Scooby Doo universe as he filled in for Roadrunner once.

The Day After Tomorrow has similar absurdities. Granted, I haven’t seen it yet.

The Alpha Test had a good concept but the implementation wasn’t at all good. Can likely be skipped and why I don’t generally watch newer films. It didn’t have any campyness to make it enjoyable to me and the acting was terrible.

[DeVaultSetter]

Tucked into an episode of Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!. Fun certainly, very 70’s, also comes with extra short music or recap/explanatory interludes that didn’t elevate appreciation. Lot of folks like it, do you?
Sometimes things come of as pure flat, no matter what they pump into them. If you can’t correct visuals, sequencing or parts, then the dialog is the last resort. In the flunks of yester-year, the cast and crew could laugh it off and hope for the best, these days, reparation with a po-face doesn’t cut it somehow.
Never viewed Wheel of Fortune before, only localised variants thereof. This one sprays a bit of pizzazz around to make it more than a nothing show, guests can surprise, Seacrest can be funny when he wants. The FTA here will show it, not stream it, pity. Youtube has it through the Fetch service, thus if not a paid Youtube subscriber, one has to manually search and select episodes that haven’t been viewed yet, each time YouTube is launched. Despite ending up in many selections at the beck and call of weird editing by fans, one may not be disappointed at all.
Also streaming The Darkness, so have those beanies, snow boots and warm jumpers handy. 🙂

[Spastic Hamburger]

That’s one of the ones I can’t get, sadly. Part of the franchise is only on HBO Max, part of it is available free, while the rest simply isn’t available. 🙁

Did try Get a Clue yesterday but it focuses too much on slapstick comedy and does away with the entire premise so I stopped watching after a single episode and after a look through the summaries of the next few episodes. The art style was weird, as well.

Did watch The Looney Tunes Show. Not sure how I feel about it yet but it’s sort of in the style of The Odd Couple with a few modern shorts mixed in for short “breaks”. Will watch another few episodes before I make a decision.

Saw Abraxas yesterday and that was fun. Just your typical 80’s action flick made in 91. More like a Terminator rip-off than anything 😛

[DeVaultSetter]

You’ll want to watch the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies first without the dubious overlays of 21C “brush”. 😛
Think I saw that last century – anything with Jesse Ventura is bound to have a few good bangs. 🙂
Reason for including WOF is because many of their prize showcases back in the day were stunning, even the envy of some involved in department store displays!

Here’s a short video of someone shopping for a Ceramic Dalmation!

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by DeVaultSetter.

[Spastic Hamburger]

Yep! Seen many of them. Haven’t seen them in a while though so it’s probably time for a rewatch. 🙂

Have you seen the older episodes of the Price is Right? They were good, too! Nowadays, it’s a bit flashy compared to how it used to be and the hosts aren’t as good but can still be fun 🙂

They’re also still running Let’s Make a Deal! Found out a couple of years ago when I stumbled on it channel surfing when the Internet was down and I didn’t have any books downloaded.

In continuing the trend of watching old films, rewatched Curse of the Undead the other day. Fun film but the “villain” was largely misunderstood.

Also watched the original version of The Thing from Another World. Really good film. They do an amazing job of showing that it’s not just a horror film but a science fiction film as well.

[DeVaultSetter]

Haven’t seen yours, do recall the localised versions over here, especially “Turps” Turpie and Emdur who made it fun to watch.
LMAD never took off in a big way over here, so ended up LMADICI (In 101).
TTFAW is on the list! Many of these older movies end their journey in IA, TTFAW is offered in OGG format at 367 mb, so not bad for 360p format over ~90 minutes. The MPEG4 version is well over twice that, could there be a noticeable difference?
Many newer movies uploaded to IA are 1080p, which can be a pain to stream through average bandwidth. There would be many IA subscribers willing to downgrade to 720p for improved buffering no doubt, unfortunately 720p is not on the IA table at this time.
The interrelationship of the two young male leads in Murder by Numbers lends a bit of ballast to a generally empty and scatter-brained affair pf a movie. The matter of fact way Sandra Bullock enters the drama might play to her impressionable character, but doesn’t make sense at all in reference to the unravelling of a rather disturbing chain of events in this bleak and undeveloped story.

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by DeVaultSetter.

[Spastic Hamburger]

I used to catch these films on Hulu back when it was free. They had a huge selection of old science fiction films. When they went paid, they removed almost all of them. Was very sad when that happened 🙁

Watched It Came From Beneath the Sea the other day and that was fun. Tubi has the colorized version of The Giant Gila Monster but those are no fun!

Tubi has The IT Crowd, probably going to need to give it another watch 😀

I read about the case recently. Not sure what I was looking up followed the link trails to it. Shame about the poor synergy 🙁

[DeVaultSetter]

Yes, can get Tubi on Fetch. so will give it a whirl!
Completed The Darkness, not bad, although one can imagine folks making movies in Iceland have a hard time keeping the cold out!
Midnight Special never did deliver the genre of sci-fi these eyes and ears prefer, yet it works quite well as movie, with some genuinely stunning visuals. A bit less of the cannonball runs and volleys, and more … sci-fi please. 🙂

[Spastic Hamburger]

Watched The Atomic Submarine yesterday. Bit different from most flying saucer films as it takes place in the water. Pretty fun!

Also watched Lethal Target, which was an alien rip-off with a lot more sex. A lot more. By the time we hit the halfway point of the film, we had two sex scenes and a lesbian threesome while the rest of the cast was just wandering around in the same rooms and just minding their own business. The actual film doesn’t begin until after all of that takes place, so after the halfway point.

Nova was pretty good for being an obscure unknown. Unlike most films of its ilk, it didn’t feel like a soap opera at all.

[DeVaultSetter]

The hallmark of a bad movie: while the director’s away, folks wander around the set wondering what’s to play! 😛
Have been reading old newspaper reviews of past series that were once available on our state channel. Apparently they don’t have a long holding period, so a lot of good stuff missed is gone until the lazy Susan (hopefully) brings it round again.
The subscription based Cult Cinema Classics have amassed quite a collection as well, streaming through YouTube is not a bad experience as they keep ads to a minimum in long vids, (mostly.)
The Knight of Cups is a mood piece steeped in watery reverie, fancy, and mystery, the mystery being how the audience can gird their dendritic loins around Rick’s mystic travails. A loosely spun narrative which unfortunately tied these neurones in knots, your mileage may vary. 🙂

• This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by DeVaultSetter.

[Spastic Hamburger]

Saw The Monolith Monsters the other day and that was fun. They really don’t make them like they used to!

This was a fun one. Had some pretty good lines but, sadly, the quotes area at IMDB is pretty lacking

May watch Attack of the Crab Monsters next but haven’t made a firm decision. Pretty much pick whatever I’m in the mood for. 😛

Could watch Interstellar but I’m kind of waiting on it until I can get the 4k Blu-Ray ordered. Want to see it in its full visual glory!

[DeVaultSetter]

It also has some cool taglines:

From Outer Space They Came – Meteor Borne, Meteor Strange!
Stranger Than Anything Science Had Ever Discovered As Thrill Crowds Upon Thrill!

Looks like a fun crowd, could this have been the official trailer for it (minus the Cheezy movies bit 😛 )?

Rogue Agent is one of those flicks equipped with a potent payload, a potency which depends on the spoiler effect, or how much is known of the movie beforehand. Half the fun is the guesswork at the beginning, so recommended on the basis of that.
Blood Diamond is a disturbing film displaying levels of violence on par with any from the horror or slasher genre. Although the pattern of the occurrences of action and chase scenes and their duration/outcome seemed contrived and formulaic, the character and drama of this ripping good story was not. DiCaprio as the lead held it all together, his accent was convincing as it was consistent, yet controversial it seems. The question on that for any dialectologist is how it matches up to typical Zimbabwe/Rhodesian lingo and how much it could it vary from Afrikaan.

[Spastic Hamburger]

It was a lot of fun! Not sure how to follow it up. Maybe watching A Boy and His Dog again? 😛

Finally got around to Galaxy of Terror. Mostly jump scares but did have some good scenes of the alien planet.

And the Crab Monsters were a blast!

Deus wasn’t bad. Took a bit to get going before it really gets interesting but once it does, it’s pretty riveting. Finding that the indie science fiction films are often better than the ones from well known studios. Britain, especially, makes good stuff. Maybe it’s because they don’t have the same constraints? Fortunately, Tubi has a ton of indie films

I’ve always said that Britain makes the best science fiction and people always tell me it’s only because of the Doctor when that’s not true! Tons of books, Canadian co-productions, tons of indie films, and their series backlog has a ton of classics!

• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by Spastic Hamburger.

[DeVaultSetter]

Going way back to early Bond, there was Barry Nelson in Casino Royale with Peter Lorre as the villain. With characters like Lorre, many of the ones these days come across as cardboard constructs in comparison. This might be the case in the 2006 film where the villains did make out a little “ordinary” in comparison. Do recommend the latter, although it does stretch out a little in the end parts.
Tombstone is a western in the epic style, the tension and stunning cast are sure to keep you in until the end. Recommended.
Tonight on FTA there is Inherent Vice, which is sure to be a hoot – re the lively dialog:

Well Mornin’ Sam, like a bad luck planet in today’s horoscope, here’s the old hippie-hating mad dog himself in the flesh: Lieutenant Detective Christian F. “Bigfoot” Bjornsen. SAG member, John Wayne walk, flat top of Flintstone proportions and that evil, little shit-twinkle in his eye that says Civil Rights Violations.

Streaming the first few episodes of Arrow, not bad. There’s enough in the novelty and plot to hold interest, only issue is the TV forty minute formula. Same with Gotham, although in many ways the latter is a better show.

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