What are you watching?

[Torsten]

I've just watched the video about the Sutton Hoo helmet. Very informative. I had a good laugh at 12:00, where the "style" changes unexpectedly when she says "...and by wearing a helmet like this, that is covered by this aggressive imagery, he's really saying 'I am like the dragon, I am like the snake - cross me at your peril!'"

[Gillianren]

Seasons four and five of The Muppet Show. We own the first three seasons on DVD, but with the last two now available on Disney+, we're seeing a bunch of episodes we hadn't in years. There are two episodes currently held up by music rights issues . . . and one because the guest star (a guy who was even then really obscure and was filling in when Richard Pryor canceled, apparently) has since served time for child pornography charges.

[CJSF]

Fleabag. A woman anti-hero this time, and while funny in spots, I just can't get behind this woman, no matter her grieving. She's a liar, thief, pervert, and generally not a nice person. It's a 6 episode series, and we just finished episode 2, so hopefully it gets better.

Travelers has remained at least interesting enough to have us keep watching, despite some plot holes and kludges. We're near the end of the 2nd season.

And finally, The Dig.. was entertaining. I'd rather watch stuff about the actual dig and finds, so some of the above-mentioned thing seem destined to be nextish.

CJSF

[schlaugh]

We finally got around to watching Ad Astra last night. I don't know why this story had to take place in space vs. on the ocean, in a desert, or in the jungle (*cough*) and that, for me, detracted from the theme because clearly while the producers strove for a realistic look they let elemental physics go by the board. Ah well, it was pretty at least.

We also watched The Burnt Orange Heresy, (Claes Bang, Donald Sutherland, Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Debicki) taken from a 1971 novel by the same author who wrote Miami Blues, a book that was also made into a movie with Alec Baldwin. Burnt Orange is about art, art critics, art crime and obsession. Not bad, sort of noir, with Lake Como as a lovely background.

[grant hutchison]

Fleabag. A woman anti-hero this time, and while funny in spots, I just can't get behind this woman, no matter her grieving. She's a liar, thief, pervert, and generally not a nice person. It's a 6 episode series, and we just finished episode 2, so hopefully it gets better.

Oops. If that's your take after two episodes, give up now--it's very much not going to get better for you.
She's a tragically self-destructive figure, deliberately baroque in her behaviour, with whom a surprising number of people identify. (I've seen more than one "I Am Fleabag" T-shirt. Some wearers, admittedly, will just be echoing a half-understood meme, but some are very serious.)

If the spectacle of a young woman gleefully subverting norms as a way of dealing with grief isn't your thing, then Look Away Now.

Grant Hutchison

[CJSF]

Oops. If that's your take after two episodes, give up now--it's very much not going to get better for you.
She's a tragically self-destructive figure, deliberately baroque in her behaviour, with whom a surprising number of people identify. (I've seen more than one "I Am Fleabag" T-shirt. Some wearers, admittedly, will just be echoing a half-understood meme, but some are very serious.)

If the spectacle of a young woman gleefully subverting norms as a way of dealing with grief isn't your thing, then Look Away Now.

Grant Hutchison

If a "surprising" number of people identify with someone bordering on sociopathic, no wonder we have the world today. So thanks for the warning.

CJSF

[grant hutchison]

If a "surprising" number of people identify with someone bordering on sociopathic, no wonder we have the world today. So thanks for the warning.

Well, the idea is that she's not actually sociopathic, but acting out self-destructive impulses as a way of punishing herself for a certain event in her life. It's an impulse that some people do have, and struggle against, and there was a sense at the time that Waller-Bridge was starting a conversation about something that people had been afraid to acknowledge. Hence the T-shirts.
I actually didn't find it funny or even engaging, but did find it interesting in an abstract sort of way. What I found surprising was that so many people were willing to identify their own life experiences with those of a posh, privileged young woman--the "problems of the privileged" are generally met with a degree of contempt and mockery in the UK.

Grant Hutchison

[grant hutchison]

We finally got around to watching Ad Astra last night. I don't know why this story had to take place in space vs. on the ocean, in a desert, or in the jungle (*cough*) and that, for me, detracted from the theme because clearly while the producers strove for a realistic look they let elemental physics go by the board. Ah well, it was pretty at least.

There were minor contributions from the space setting--the "emotionally repressed astronaut" was already a trope, so the nature of Pitt's character didn't need much work to establish; and the strange space setting helped with the sense of "Is this actually happening at all?" which (for me, at least) pervaded the film.
But, yeah, these could have been established other ways, and the story could have been told in another setting quite easily. The disadvantage of the space setting is that people watched it who would never have otherwise watched a movie primarily about a guy with daddy issues, and they sat down expecting a science fiction story, and then they got really annoyed.

Grant Hutchison

[schlaugh]

There were minor contributions from the space setting--the "emotionally repressed astronaut" was already a trope, so the nature of Pitt's character didn't need much work to establish; and the strange space setting helped with the sense of "Is this actually happening at all?" which (for me, at least) pervaded the film.
But, yeah, these could have been established other ways, and the story could have been told in another setting quite easily. The disadvantage of the space setting is that people watched it who would never have otherwise watched a movie primarily about a guy with daddy issues, and they sat down expecting a science fiction story, and then they got really annoyed.

Grant Hutchison

Yes i had been warned but, as you said, still found it annoying mostly because the mistakes were a distraction. I suppose military veterans were equally annoyed with Apocalypse Now.

[Van Rijn]

The disadvantage of the space setting is that people watched it who would never have otherwise watched a movie primarily about a guy with daddy issues, and they sat down expecting a science fiction story, and then they got really annoyed.

Yep. I was familiar with reviews so only watched it when I didn’t have to pay for it (well, beyond my standard cable fee). If I had watched it cold and paid to see it in a theater, I would definitely been very annoyed. As it was, I just thought it was a poorly done movie.

[Extravoice]

Over the weekend, I got sucked into a series of YouTube videos about historic events by someone called “Oversimplified”. They include cartoon characters explaining things like the French Revolution, US Civil War, Henry VIII, etc. They are surprisingly informative and entertaining.

[Trebuchet]

I've watched several Time Team episodes on YouTube lately. Anybody have favorites to recommend?

[Gillianren]

I keep thinking about watching those, to see the ones that aren't on Prime.

Currently, I am watching a series called Cinema Therapy where "a guy who needs therapy" and a therapist are watching movies together. I didn't care for the Silver Linings Playbook episode, and not just because they liked it way more often than I do, but their Runaway Bride episode is solid and makes me want to rewatch the movie.

[Torsten]

Finished a couple of seasons of Mystery Road, an Australian production, on DVD. Entertaining for sure, but I'll need to watch it all again as I missed a lot of conversation detail due to the accents and Aaron Peterson's peculiar mumbling.

[ozduck]

Finished a couple of seasons of Mystery Road, an Australian production, on DVD. Entertaining for sure, but I'll need to watch it all again as I missed a lot of conversation detail due to the accents and Aaron Peterson's peculiar mumbling.

Not that it really matters but Mystery Road was filmed in the north of my state - Western Australia. But so far north, around 2,200 km, that I have only ever flown over that area.

[Trebuchet]

Finished a couple of seasons of Mystery Road, an Australian production, on DVD. Entertaining for sure, but I'll need to watch it all again as I missed a lot of conversation detail due to the accents and Aaron Peterson's peculiar mumbling.

Is closed captioning available?

[Torsten]

Not that it really matters but Mystery Road was filmed in the north of my state - Western Australia. But so far north, around 2,200 km, that I have only ever flown over that area.

I eventually figured out that it was in the north of Western Australia because of the occasional wall map that shows up in a scene (showing ocean to the west) and references to the big city in the south, which I guessed would be Perth. Other than that, the small town names must be fictitious.

Is closed captioning available?

I'm not sure. I didn't think to check! I just hit the rewind button a lot.

[ozduck]

I eventually figured out that it was in the north of Western Australia because of the occasional wall map that shows up in a scene (showing ocean to the west) and references to the big city in the south, which I guessed would be Perth. Other than that, the small town names must be fictitious.



I'm not sure. I didn't think to check! I just hit the rewind button a lot.

Yes - to quote Dragnet, "only the names have been changed to protect the innocent ". I actually made a mistake in my distances. The first series was filmed around the town of Wyndham which is just under 3,200 km from Perth by road. That is about 70 km shorter than the 'road distance' between Madrid and Bergen.

[Spacedude]

On Monday (March 1st) NBC has a new series called "Debris" (10pm EST). Apparently an alien spacecraft breaks and scatters it's parts around the world resulting in a lot of weird stuff. I'll give it a shot, here's the preview trailer below...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JgPW1hK_No

[schlaugh]

I just watched the 2018 documentary Chesley Bonestell: A Brush With The Future. As the name says, it's about Chesley Bonestell the artist whose paintings were on the cover of Collier's magazine, among others, and who gave us an iconic view of space travel and outer space in the 1940s and 1950s. You've certainly seen his works at one time or another but I did not know anything about the fellow so it was interesting to learn that he worked until his 98th year, made models first before he painted, and that his architectural design contributions included the Chrysler Building in New York City and the Golden Gate Bridge. He was an incredibly talented guy, and who knows how many future aerospace engineers and scientists that he inspired with his art. Here's the Collier's cover mentioned above.

ETA: Apparently the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics produces a newsletter and a few years ago they reproduced the Collier's articles, written by people such as Willy Ley and Fred Whipple, illustrated by Bonestell. Here's a PDF of the specific newsletter (87mb for the high-res)

http://www.aiaahouston.org/Horizons/...resolution.pdf

[grant hutchison]

Yes, the relevant Horizons issues for the Collier's "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!" series are July/August 2012 to September/October 2013. They're all available to download at https://www.aiaahouston.org/newsletter/
Parts of the articles, and many of Bonestell's paintings, were collected into a book entitled Across The Space Frontier (1952), which is an interesting read if you can lay hands on it. I reviewed it here.

Grant Hutchison

[Swift]

I've been watching some videos on Youtube made by this fellow C.W. Lemoine. He is a retired fighter pilot (both Air Force reserve and Navy reserve). In particular I've been watching videos where he reviews fighter plane sequences in movies and TV, and critiques what is wrong about them. He also does videos on what its like to be a pilot, interviews other pilots, reviews real incidents (such as crashes), and looks at flight simulation games.

[Gillianren]

At some point today, I have to find a way to watch Blacula without the kids, for an article I'm writing for tomorrow.

[DonM435]

At some point today, I have to find a way to watch Blacula without the kids, for an article I'm writing for tomorrow.

Yes, that one would be rather scary for young kids.
However, William Marshall did do a kids' TV show years later.
(He also played Captain Hook in a Broadway version of Peter Pan -- he began as Boris Karloff's understudy!)

[Swift]

My wife and I have been watching CNN's Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy; two episodes so far.

I love it. The food experiences were one of our favorite parts of our trip to Italy. Tucci is very charming and authentic; it is obvious he is loving the experiences. But I also like the backstories about how history, politics, geography, etc., all interact with the stories of the cuisine.

The only problem is it makes me long to go back to Italy and it makes me hungry.

The photo is from our trip. Lunch at this amazing seafood restaurant in Tuscany, and the best razor clams I've ever had.

[Gillianren]

Yes, that one would be rather scary for young kids.
However, William Marshall did do a kids' TV show years later.
(He also played Captain Hook in a Broadway version of Peter Pan -- he began as Boris Karloff's understudy!)

Sure, but I'm writing about Vonetta McGee!

[publiusr]

I think that is the best series CNN has done.

[Trebuchet]

I was looking forward to watching Vera on PBS last night, but it's pledge time so instead they had some health quack followed by an old music show. Old as in at least half the performers were dead now.
I donate to both of our PBS stations, but find it really annoying how much woo they show. Deepak Chopra, anyone?

[Gillianren]

I ended up tracking down some L.A. Law for my article yesterday; wow, some of that has not aged well.

[CJSF]

Watched Finding 'Ohana on Netflix last night. I enjoyed it quite a bit. A definite tribute/homage to The Goonies and the Indiana Jones franchise, as well as seemingly respectful of Hawai'ian culture. The supernatural events toward the end were a bit out of place and not entirely necessary except as that cultural nod, but overall it was good.

CJSF