What are you watching?

[John Thomas8]

[SuzieC]

Just finished watching Willie Nelson's 90th birthday celebration on CBS. The best music I have seen in many years including Willie who is still going strong.

[John Thomas8]

Just finished watching Willie Nelson's 90th birthday celebration on CBS. The best music I have seen in many years including Willie who is still going strong.

I was privileged to see Gordon Lightfoot at age 79. If Willy passes through your area, go see him. They're not making musicians like they used to.

[Reddog]

Darn, missed it. Forgot it was on. Was watching “All Creatures Great and Small”.

On another note. I’ve been watching “Slow Horses”. I really like it. Main character I’ve decided is a cross between James Bond and Ignatius J. Reilly. What I noticed is that Slough House is packed full of bank boxes, stacked everywhere. I wonder if it’s an homage to merde a lago. The books weren’t complimentary to tfg. I get the impression he is anti populism.

[jez]

Being the Godzilla fanatic that I am, I've been watching (and re-watching) classic Shōwa era (Toho studios) Godzilla movies, the modern Monster-verse movies which moved over to the series on Apple TV+: Monarch - Legacy of Monsters.

I'm 6 episodes in to the Monarch series and I must say, I like it. What's really cool is they have Kurt Russel playing one of the founders of Monarch and in flashbacks, his son Wyatt plays a younger version of the character. I've really liked it so far.

It takes place somewhere between Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla: King of the monsters (2019), I think.

[bill_g]

We have been catching up on "Shetland" whose 8th series is just starting on BritBox.

Shetland, where the ponies come from, is an archipelago, part of Scotland, located north of Scotland about halfway to Norway.

For a group of small islands with a total of about 22,000 inhabitants they certainly have a lot of murders.

Kind of like the part of the NE where Jessica Fletcher lived. Pastoral, but deadly.

[Volkonski]

"Carol for Another Christmas"

This 1964 TV movie was shown once on ABC on December 28, 1964 and then not shown on TV again (or made available on home video) for 48 years. It can now be found on Max and TCM.

This film was written by Rod Serling, produced and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It was part of a series of movies supporting the UN sponsored by Xerox.

The star-studded cast-

Percy Rodriguez as Charles
Sterling Hayden as Daniel Grudge
Ben Gazzara as Fred
Barbara Ann Teer as Ruby
Steve Lawrence as Ghost of Christmas Past
Eva Marie Saint as WAVE Lt. Gibson
James Shigeta as Doctor
Pat Hingle as Ghost of Christmas Present
Robert Shaw as Ghost of Christmas Future
Peter Sellers as Imperial Me
Britt Ekland as Mother

The story is about a wealthy man (Daniel Grudge) who wants the USA to adopt an extreme isolationist foreign policy. He sounds a lot like today's MAGAts.

After quarreling with his nephew on Christmas Eve he is visited by 3 ghosts who pull no punches.

The movie starts slowly but once the ghosts get going things speed up and get quite grim. By comparison Scrooge had it easy.

[Luke]

Being the Godzilla fanatic that I am, I've been watching (and re-watching) classic Shōwa era (Toho studios) Godzilla movies, the modern Monster-verse movies which moved over to the series on Apple TV+: Monarch - Legacy of Monsters.

I'm 6 episodes in to the Monarch series and I must say, I like it. What's really cool is they have Kurt Russel playing one of the founders of Monarch and in flashbacks, his son Wyatt plays a younger version of the character. I've really liked it so far.

It takes place somewhere between Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla: King of the monsters (2019), I think.

Toho is an amazing company, I know/knew several of their senior executives. One of my mentors/senseis was a founding producer of Toho, he and his family lived on the studio lot. He had tons of Kurosawa stories. One of his first jobs after the war was going to NYC and subtitling films (both Japanese to English and English to Japanese). I think he said Godzilla was one of them. His roommates/best friends then were Akio Morita, the founder of Sony, and Seiji Ozawa the conductor. Imagine: There were only like 3 Japanese restaurants in NYC at that time. He's passed away and I still miss him very much, his stories about the Japanese movie, TV & theater industry (he brought the first Western musical to Japan, My Fair Lady) are legendary.

[bill_g]

I am not a Godzilla fan. It never captured me. But, thanks to my brother and Blockbuster Video, I was was briefly immersed in Kurosawa and Mifune titles in the 90's.

[neonzx]

8-bit Christmas (2021) on HBOMax. I no longer have HBOMax but rented the the title from Amazon for $4. Stars Neil Patrick Harris telling the story to his young teenage daughter. Kid wants a Nintendo for Xmas. The story is very much like A Christmas Story

[jez]

Toho is an amazing company, I know/knew several of their senior executives. One of my mentors/senseis was a founding producer of Toho, he and his family lived on the studio lot. He had tons of Kurosawa stories. One of his first jobs after the war was going to NYC and subtitling films (both Japanese to English and English to Japanese). I think he said Godzilla was one of them. His roommates/best friends then were Akio Morita, the founder of Sony, and Seiji Ozawa the conductor. Imagine: There were only like 3 Japanese restaurants in NYC at that time. He's passed away and I still miss him very much, his stories about the Japanese movie, TV & theater industry (he brought the first Western musical to Japan, My Fair Lady) are legendary.

That it too cool. Thank you for the story!

[keith]

A trio of related films/TV based on real story:

1. Film at cinena theatre: "One Life" British Film with Anthony Hopkins as a man who saves hundreds of children from NAZI death camps by getting them adopted in Britain.

2. Netflix series: "Atlantic Crossing" Norwegian Crown Princess goes to Washington leaving the King and Crown Prince in London. She lobbies for Norwegian interests using all her feminine charms with both FDR and Eleanor. To raise money and arms.

3. Netflix series: "Tranatlantic" Trustfund girl and young lawyer go to Marseilles to get Jewish artists and intellectuals (Hanna Arndt, Marc Chagall, many others) visas to foreign countries out of Europe.

[neonzx]

Trevor Noah on the Netflix. Where was I

https://www.netflix.com/watch/81717103

Good watch/stand-up comedy.

[Luke]

Trevor Noah on the Netflix. Where was I

https://www.netflix.com/watch/81717103

Good watch/stand-up comedy.

Agree, HILARIOUS! He's adorable and right about so much about what he covers.

If you want to find out what is "pure, uncut Caucasian joy", you'll have to watch.

[Rolodex]

Just finished All the Light You Cannot See on NF. I liked it better than the book (same thing for me about the Crawdad movie - liked it better than the book). I liked it, and the lead actress is actually blind. Look up her story - very interesting.

Watched the first 4 eps of S2 of Reacher last night (they're dropping one a week, so have to wait for the others). I'm a huge fan of the books and the series has been fun. It's finally been cast corrected (Tom Cruise is such a joke for that role that I couldn't bring myself to watch the movie with him).

Yesterday, Christmas tradition of Die Hard and Star Wars pt IV, A New Hope.

[Frater I*I]

Just finished All the Light You Cannot See on NF. I liked it better than the book (same thing for me about the Crawdad movie - liked it better than the book). I liked it, and the lead actress is actually blind. Look up her story - very interesting.

Watched the first 4 eps of S2 of Reacher last night (they're dropping one a week, so have to wait for the others). I'm a huge fan of the books and the series has been fun. It's finally been cast corrected (Tom Cruise is such a joke for that role that I couldn't bring myself to watch the movie with him).

Yesterday, Christmas tradition of Die Hard and Star Wars pt IV, A New Hope.

If it's any consolation to you, the author himself says that while Cruise might not look the part as he wrote it, he does have the mannerisms and attitude right.

[Maybenaut]

We went to my daughter’s for Christmas yesterday. We watched a little football. Whatever.

Then we watched Swamp People. Who watches this stuff (daughter and her family aside)? She was like, after a couple of episodes of this you going to want to binge-watch all 13 seasons!

Nope.

I was like, let’s watch The Yule Log! To which she replied, we have a gas fireplace already. And I said, yeah, but The Yule Log is way more interesting than this TV show.

[realist]

We went to my daughter’s for Christmas yesterday. We watched a little football. Whatever.

Then we watched Swamp People. Who watches this stuff (daughter and her family aside)? She was like, after a couple of episodes of this you going to want to binge-watch all 13 seasons!

Nope.

I was like, let’s watch The Yule Log! To which she replied, we have a gas fireplace already. And I said, yeah, but The Yule Log is way more interesting than this TV show.

My eldest daughter and her hubby have watched, I'm sure, every single episode of that show. Me, about 1/2 of one episode. I didn't get the attraction, but then her hubby is an Alabama redneck, so ...

[Rolodex]

Just finished All the Light You Cannot See on NF. I liked it better than the book (same thing for me about the Crawdad movie - liked it better than the book). I liked it, and the lead actress is actually blind. Look up her story - very interesting.

Watched the first 4 eps of S2 of Reacher last night (they're dropping one a week, so have to wait for the others). I'm a huge fan of the books and the series has been fun. It's finally been cast corrected (Tom Cruise is such a joke for that role that I couldn't bring myself to watch the movie with him).

Yesterday, Christmas tradition of Die Hard and Star Wars pt IV, A New Hope.

If it's any consolation to you, the author himself says that while Cruise might not look the part as he wrote it, he does have the mannerisms and attitude right.

That's interesting. I've read all the Lee Child (that's a pen name and now his brother I think writes the books) books and was a Reacher fan from the first book.
No one else in my family has read the books but really enjoy the series, so it's stand-alone good.

The best adaptation for my money is the series Bosch. They hit a home run with Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch. Another long series of books I've read since their start.
ETA: the architecture porn of Bosch is v satisfying

[keith]

The best adaptation for my money is the series Bosch. They hit a home run with Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch. Another long series of books I've read since their start.
ETA: the architecture porn of Bosch is v satisfying

In spades.

Everything about Bosch is incredibly well crafted. I fell in love with the theme music and had to search high and low for the CD. The band is "Caught A Ghost" out of LA. Having found the CD, I then had to find the film that the official video samples: Orson Welles adaption of Franz Kafka's "The Trial" with Anthony Perkins.

I love it when 'inconsequential' things like TV shows send me down a rabbit hole like that.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

I’ve read all the Reacher and Bosch books. Hubby hasn’t read them, but loves the Bosch series. Titus is perfect as Bosch.

[bill_g]

The best adaptation for my money is the series Bosch. They hit a home run with Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch. Another long series of books I've read since their start.
ETA: the architecture porn of Bosch is v satisfying

In spades.

Everything about Bosch is incredibly well crafted. I fell in love with the theme music and had to search high and low for the CD. The band is "Caught A Ghost" out of LA. Having found the CD, I then had to find the film that the official video samples: Orson Welles adaption of Franz Kafka's "The Trial" with Anthony Perkins.

I love it when 'inconsequential' things like TV shows send me down a rabbit hole like that.

Good find Keith. Thanks!

Add me to the list of Bosch and Welliver fans.

[Rolodex]

Whoa I never knew there was a film adaptation of The Trial. That short story still haunts me and that crazy has felt less fictional since tfg arrived in politics. I love Kafka anyway. I minored in French in college and my professor also taught Russian so we read some Russian lit in French (ugh but better than some crazy French authors), so that was weird.

I loved the last season of Bosch (before they started Bosch Legacy on FreeVee - also excellent) when in one episode they did a total shout out to The Wire! Delicious little nugget!

[Luke]

Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher is so fun, search Fogbow for Ritchson, I think I told some stories about him with Paula Abdul on Idol (16 years ago!) and with Blue Mountain State. Might be in the Big Gay Topic because he's gorgeous and was a model for a long time.







Alan was in Kimmel discussing all this 13 days ago...








YouTube finds some strange stuff (cause that's what I watch). Here's The Mike Douglas Show (which is still a bewildering program, who watched that?) with Liberace and Little Richard. The opening with Lee in his fur he had commissioned for when he did a command performance for the Queen and playing from his first "rock album" is hilarious. I remember being backstage or in the wings watching him and every time he flashed the rocks and said to the audience, "Do ya like these? Ya paid for em" I laughed out loud. What a character.






Here's the making of Behind The Candelabra, Matt Damon as Liberace's lover Scott Thorson and Michael "JPC" Douglas as Lee. Here's the Making Of, a 14-minute featurette. Until seeing this, I truly hadn't realized Debbie Reynolds played Lee's Mom, amazing.







Two favorite campy movies are Candleabra and MALICE IN WONDERLAND with Elizabeth Taylor as Louella Parsons and Jane Alexander as Hedda Hopper. It was a 1985 TV movie and we had to track down a VHS tape to have a copy back in the day.

Malice in Wonderland is a 1985 American made-for-television biographical film based on the 1972 novel Hedda and Louella: A Dual Biography of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons by George Eells. Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Alexander, it tells the based-on-real-life stories of powerful Hollywood gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, once friends and later rivals. The film premiered on CBS on 12 May 1985. The film was a ratings success gaining an 18.3 rating equaling to 15,536,700 households tuning in its original air date.

[Maybenaut]

Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix. Loosely based on the EA Poe short story. Creepy, but not too creepy.

I’m 3 episodes in (of eight), so I’ll reserve judgment, but so far it’s well done.