My friends said it was a feel good deal…cynical Brits won over by naive American. I heard this after I watched it but didn’t agree.
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Here he teams up with Father Brown’s Lady Felicia and All Creatures’ Mrs. Pumphrey:
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Don’t hold back, now. I certainly don’t 
‘All of us Strangers’ starring Andrew Scott got very good reviews. It’s on my list to watch. It also has Claire Foy in it - I really liked her as a young Queen Elizabeth in The Crown. I’d also recommend The Crown - we thought we would hate it as we are not a big fan of monarchy. But it was actually really good and not a sycophantic take on the British monarchy.
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We watched The Crown and enjoyed it. Andrew Scott’s not in it, tho?
Thanks for the other rec, I’ll look it up.
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No, Andrew Scott’s not in The Crown. His costar in ‘All of Us Strangers’ Claire Foy is!
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The menu starts at 0:15:
Bonus – before Endeavour was a glimmer:
County Clare star’s handsome family:
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Season 3 Episode 2 “bloater paste”! 
I’ve interrupted my Endeavor binge
How about that home and view “in San Francisco” 
And Mel’s!
Spencer Tracy was ill and died shortly after filming!
When this was released in '67, interracial marriage was still outlawed in 17 states.
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And now for something completely different:
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Classic.
Very much on board for The White Lotus. Especially the “divide and conquer” narrative of the three ladyfriends.
Well, we finally watched the much acclaimed Anora. While I thought Mikey Madison was very good, I didn’t get the hype. I expected more from the movie. Like, a lot more. 
We did enjoy the extra bonus of learning a lot of Armenian swear words 
White Lotus continues to be fun-ish, so we’ll stick with it for now.
Monkey (2025) - dir. Osgood Perkins
Hal and Bill Shelburn are twin brothers. Bill, older by 3 minutes, bigger and stronger than Hal, is cartoonishly cruel to his brother. Maybe because their father, a pilot, left one day for cigarettes and never came back, leaving mom Lois to raise the boys alone. One day, the boys find a mechanical monkey that belonged to their father. It kills people. Wind the key. It plays the drum. Someone dies. Usually in an odd random accident. In 1999, when the boys are teens, the monkey kills mom. 25 years later, it’s back.
That’s the setup, and if it sounds super basic, it is. Based on a Stephen King short story that’s just as sparse, Perkins has taken the idea and fleshed it out just enough to allow a feature to hang together. The plot amd characters are all adequate to their purpose, which is mostly to allow for some hilariously over-the-top Eube Goldbergian deaths that go full in on the gore and viscera. One character remarks of one aftermath, “It’s like that restaurant… Spaghetti City!” More than one reviewer has made comparisons to the amusing (if overdone) Final Destination series.
Perkins (son of Anthony (Psycho) Perkins), has made a decent career as a horror director. The Blackcoat’s Daughter was a really excellent debut feature, but each of his follow-ups, while highly proficient and technically excellent, seemed to have a reach that exceeded their grasp. Last years’s Longlegs, in particular, constructed a great Silence of the Lambs like style and atmosphere but lost its way in the last act and fizzled.
Monkey has no such literary pretensions. It’s here to set up bodies and knock them down in amusing ways for 90 minutes, and it does so with aplomb. It’s clear Perkins knows how to construct a scene, build tension and make it hit properly. This low stakes, stripped down framework lets him do that, and his filmmaking is all the better for it. He even manages to slip in a few Stephen King Easter eggs for those who care to look for them.
Longlegs and others have all suffered from trying to say something, with themes and symbolism that end up reading like a college sophomore essay. Monkey is just trying to entertain, and is completely successful at that.
3.5 of 5 improbable deadly mishaps.
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Hated Longlegs, but looking forward to this one. Once it’s streaming, that is.
Longlegs was disappointing, especially given that it LOOKS so damned good. Monkey doesn’t make you work as hard as Longlegs AND pays off better.
I really do recommend The Blackcoat’s Daughter. It’s a neat little ghost story with an ending that I didn’t see coming.
According to my dood we watched that one pre-covid. I have zero recollection of it, of course , but apparently we thought it was just ok.
I hate to think of what goes on inside Stephen King’s head! That guy!
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Right??? Imagine being married to him 
