Thx to @Annegrace, @damiano & @tomatotomato for bringing The Residence to my attention. Occasionally LOL funny & very entertaining.
Your Friends & Neighbors, OTOH, seems to have lost steam.
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I like the show a lot although probably could have been 6 episodes…We watched episode 7 last night and need to finish it up soon. Juggling it with Bosch, The Studio, Welcome to Wrexham and my hubby’s favorite-a new series (long way around and long way down and long way up preceded this one) with Ewan McGregor riding his motorcycle around Europe in a Long Way Home.
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We finished 7 last night, so we have one more to go. And then we hopefully start on S2 of Severance. Or Love, Death & Robots. Either way 
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I finished watching the finale of The Studio. Brian Cranston was hilarious.
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Paprika (2006) - dir. Satoshi Kon
Anime is an intimidating topic if you’re unfamiliar, because it really isn’t a category any more than ‘movies’ are a category. It encompasses stories from quiet character studies to coming of age stories to epic long form fantasy to purile pornography and can range in quality from execrable to sublime.
Paprika is definitely among the latter. It’s a trippy sci-fi tale about a machine that allows psychologists to enter and interact with patients’ dreams. And yes, Christopher Nolan absolutely ripped this off was inspired by this for the central premise of Inception. But the beauty in Paprika isn’t found in the plot or characters, though they are worthy of consideration in their own right. Rather, it’s the cinematic magic of director and animator Satoshi Kon that will pin you into your seat and glue your eyes to the screen. The fluidity and beauty of the scene transitions in the title sequence alone are worthy of a thesis, and the brilliance continues throughout the run time. This is as much a love letter to filmmaking and movies as it is an exploration of identity and self-perception.
This was, sadly, Kon’s final film, as he passed from pancreatic cancer at only 46 in 2010. But his entire filmography, though small, is all stunning, particularly the tense psychological thriller Perfect Blue (upon which Aronofsky based Black Swan) and Millenium Actress. Each is a brilliant animation, but they are also brilliant films, full stop. And they all use the fact that they ARE animated to do things that simply aren’t possible in live action.
If you’re in the mood to really be wowed by something, pull this up. It’s not hard to find, and might even be a gateway to a lot of other very interesting properties.
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Ho-lee crap, you weren’t kidding! We watched it yesterday. Brian Cranston was incredible, but I thought Zoë Kravitz did a pretty amazing job, too. What a wild finale!
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Dave Franco wasn’t too bad, either.
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Totally. And Catherine o’Hara. It was a great cast for the most part, and good fun.
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Nice! I didn’t realize Zoë Kravitz was in it!
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Ho boy, is she ever 
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I love that show-sad I’m going to be watching the last episode tonight but happy they have another season. I also love Greta Lee, Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard cameos.
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Six is generous – (our content judgment, (but we got it in two and soon tired after starting 3) but schtick in place of script (let alone editing – but contract must have called for some number of minutes of “content” in the 400+ range?) is proved to keep audiences) . . .
It’s today’s Netflix, so 'nuf said . . . we were around when we more than once chuckled on the way to work seeing someone slide more than one white/red Netflix return envelope into the USPS box on the corner . . .
P.S. Bosch is a good one, especially in print – likely influencing our take on the genre.
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Bullet Train Explosion, a Japanese action flick whose title is the plot, pretty much.
Fun. Kind of like Speed minus Keanu Reeves plus Japanese landscape & Japanese craziness.
Followed this up with Sarah Silverman’s latest special, PostMortem. Probably the weakest we’ve seen from her, but then it’s gotta be tough to make one’s parents’ passing hilarious. Helps that I really like her & would watch almost anything she does.
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They Call Her Death (2024) - dir. Austin Snell
Take a spaghetti western and stick it into a 70’s female-led vengeance thriller package. Sprinkle in over-the-top gore and blood fountains, and film it all in grungy, grainy Kodak 16mm. That sounds like a good time to me!!
This is a very entertaining… well, what I described, above. Molly Pray and her husband Thomas are living on their country pig farm when Thomas is shot dead by a bounty hunter, and now she’ll stop at nothing to find those responsible and MAKE. THEM. PAY.
She does this by being suddenly a complete and utter bad-ass, beating the shit out of misc townsfolks and eventually arming up for a bloody 3rd act. The acting is kind of amateurish, but it comes off as charming and in keeping with the whole feel of the thing. Currently on Shudder.
3.5 out of 5 dead husband’s corpses appearing in visions driving you to mete out righteous justice.
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i really appreciated the new Paul Reubens doc. there’s a full backstory here filled out with a lot of archival photos and film. i did get a sense for Paul as an artist, which is what the film set out to do. bravo.
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Very much looking forward to this — perhaps as early as tonight
Thx for the reminder!
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This was spectacular.
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season finale of The Rehearsal. the whole season is strong. you never know where it’s going but there are two standout episodes including this finale.
season 2 came off a bit better for me than 1 (although I really liked that one too). if you’re not already a fan of Nathan, i doubt this will change that view. but if you do tolerate him, and get to the end, you will be rewarded with one of the craziest and brilliant episodes of television you’ve ever seen.
a discussion with spoilers
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/arts/television/the-rehearsal-finale-nathan-fielder.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KE8.k8Qe.wMIkPuIHruI4&smid=url-share
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The first 2 episodes of the last season of the excellent series, Transplant, just came out on NBC and Peacock. It’s been 2 years since the last season ended. I forgot how good this show is.
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The latest episode of Conan O’Brien Must Go (in Austria) is hysterical.
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