You could also spell your assessment as Goode. As for the good lead, we caught up with Imitation Game on a recent flight, a worthwhile two-hour investment.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) - Pedro Almadovar
An early hit for Almadovar, this screwball black comedy has voiceover actress Pepa (Carmen Maura) in the midst of being left by her lover, Iván. Desperate to find the reason, she crosses paths with his ex-wife, his stepson (played by a baby-faced Antonio Banderas) and a friend who has somehow gotten involved with Shiite terrorists planning to hijack a plane. It’s full of the sort of misunderstandings, near misses, and shifting alliances that have been part of the genre since before Shakespeare. The dialogue is snappy and the performances range from the wittily dry to the hugely melodramatic, all in keeping with the established tone.
It’s a lovely, low-stakes comedy full of, well, much ado about nothing, really. Which is often the best sort.
4 of 5 cups of barbituate-laced gazpacho
3 Likes
Now that we have only 1 episode left in S2 of Severance, I gotta say… we’re relieved.
S2 seemed far more interested in style over substance, and we were really beginning to lose our patience.
I seem to recall @paryzer loving the season finale, so hopefully it’ll make up for the slog of the last few episodes.
Our very own George Crabtree:
1 Like
Well, it was pretty crazy and some of it very well done. And, naturally, yet another cliffhanger, as the show’s clearly not over yet.
Remains to be seen if we’re up for another season…
Started Murderbot yesterday, which is pretty funny, so we binged the first 4 epis.
2 Likes
I just finished the latest 8 episodes of “Somebody Feed Phil” (Season 8) His latest adventures take him to Amsterdam, San Sebastian, Boston, Tbilisi, Sydney & Adelaide, Las Vegas, Manila, and Guatemala. I continue to enjoy his combination of humility, curiosity, enthusiasm, and yes, even the goofiness, as he explores these various destinations. Based on the handful of spots that he visited that I had experienced directly in the past, it’s clear their production department is doing a good job in finding representative places to enjoy. This is certainly way more life affirming than the last Netflix show I saw “Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster”.
4 Likes
His personality grew on me over time. Have not seen the latest season.
1 Like
We’re really enjoying Murderbot as well. The title of the show almost pushed me away but I’m glad (so far) it didn’t. Alexander Skarsgärd’s character somehow manages to reaffirm humanity in all his awkward roboticness. Well, that’s as of a few episodes in, so I don’t yet know where the story arc goes.
This weekend I think we’ll catch the Boston episode of Somebody Feed Phil from the new season 8 out now. It took me awhile to warm to Phil Rosenthal’s persona, but after I did I started to like this show a lot. I appreciate that he thinks of other people and the show isn’t just about him exclaiming how delicious the food is. It’ll be interesting for us to see Boston through his eyes.
3 Likes
If you love (or even just like) Somebody Feed Phil, dig up I’ll Have What Phil’s Having, the original PBS series.
It’s available on Amazon Prime and plutoTV at the moment. It might also be on the Roku channel or Tubi.
The PBS series was my introduction to his particular brand of travel/food reportage. It seems like ages ago since he jumped from PBS to Netflix. I know that he’s given shoutouts to other stalwarts like Rick Steves and Samantha Brown. Like I said, he’s done his homework.
1 Like
He’s definitely grown on me and now feels like a beloved friend. I love his enthusiasm and goofiness and the seasons with his parents at the end of each episode was very heartwarming. I know the last season they had someone tell a joke in honor of his dad at the end of every episode.
I do like that he travels around and we get different cuisines in different countries and cities. I’m finding with the latest Stanley Tucci season that the Italian food part is a bit repetitive. Anyway, love that Phil is back on and we have something fun and cheery to add to our tv show rotation.
2 Likes
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s son wrote the books that prompted this series:
Mr. Green turns out to have vocal chops, famously paired with Game of Thrones stalwart and compelling Ripper Street character:
Mr. Flynn, Geordie’s partner in song:
Bobby Hatfield:
1 Like
Over the past couple of. Months I’ve been watching Coroner on Netflix. It’s Canadian procedural that follows the life and cases of a woman who’s a coroner in the Toronto area. It stars Serinda Swan who was in season 2 of Reacher and several other things.
It may not be the best of its genre but it’s interesting and keeps me involved when I need some diversion.
2 Likes
Well, darn. We blasted through Murderbot in two nights, and now we have to waittttt for the next epi 
So we started a new show, Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue. Watched just the first episode, but so far, so good.
Funny to see Ólafur Darri Ólafsson again right after having finished S2 of Severance.
That man has the deepest voice ever!
Set/filmed in Wales and just out finding an audience:
1 Like
Just finished season 1 of LAND MAN, didn’t like it at all. Billy Bob is a great actor, and the “inside story” of big oil was really interesting, but the rest of the cast just was unwatchable(wife/daughter/son/ young widow. I fast forwarded through most of it, but it Got a bit more interesting towards the end, I won’t hold my breath for season 2.
Also tried watching the new season of Feed Phill ,just can’t get into him, even though the locations and food look great.
1 Like
We have finished The Handmaid’s Tale. I can’t say I loved every episode, but it was a helluva series, and I’m glad I stuck with it (I almost never bail, so that’s not a surprise). The last three episodes were - as the mister noted - mostly a lot of wise nodding. But you know, after all that, some wise nodding might be just what you need.
Lotta dialogue in the final episodes that felt a little too close to home. Well, a lot in the whole damn series felt a little too close to home.
2 Likes
King Kong (1976) - dir. John Guillermin
Jaws really did change the way movies got made, released, and marketed. After Spielberg’s semi-functional mechanical shark made the whole nation afraid of the ocean, studios began going bigger and more fantastic. Already, the grim realism of New Hollywood had its counterpoint, the long tail of the Big Studio Production, replete with a cast of stars and big action setpieces. You had stuff like The Poseidon Adventure, Airport, and several sequels. So the idea to remake Cooper’s 1933 classic film didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. But in the hands of maximalist, “too much is not enough” producer Dino DeLaurentis, it made sense. 30+ years meant untold advances in special effects. They even got a guy adept at the big budget disaster movie to direct. Guillermin had previously helmed the huge hit The Towering Inferno.
Special effects wizard Carlo Rambaldi teamed up with makeup effects pioneer Rick Baker to realize Kong, with Baker performing most of Kong’s role, using a suit designed by he and Rambaldi, and various masks with elaborate facial controls designed by Baker. This gave Kong a much fuller range of expression than would have otherwise been possible, and meant the film could stay away from stop-motion animation, which would have been seen as old fashioned. Rambaldi also built a full size Kong hand, used to great effect. He also built a 40 foot tall mechanical Kong, but it never worked correctly or looked acceptable, and it’s only seen in a few seconds of the final film. Rambaldi received a Special Achievement in Visual Effects Oscar in '77 for his work, and got two more Oscars in '80 and '83 for the mechanical xenomorph head in Alien and for the design and execution of the titular E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Baker would go on to collect his own awards, a record of seven for Best Makeup, most notably for An American Werewolf in London.
The film more or less follows the basic plot of the '33 original, though instead of the ruthless executive being a motion picture producer, it’s a vry relevant-to-the-time big petrolium company exec, played by the suitably slimy Charles Grodin. Jeff Bridges is the paleontologist who sneaks aboard the boat, and in her film debut, Jessica Lange, then a model with no acting experience, as the Fay Wray stand-in, here named “Dwan” (“It used to be ‘Dawn’ but I changed it to be more memorable!”)
The tone of this big, lumbering beast of a movie is not nearly as serious as the original. There’s a sense of naughty fun put into the whole “Kong + girl” thing that at least lets you laugh a little at the absurdity of it. Kong’s expressions are, indeed, much more readable and maybe even a bit outsized, pushing things just a little bit into cartoonish territory, though there’s a fair amount of blood for a PG film (this was well before PG-13).
It’s hard to dislike this shaggy beast of a movie (and I genuinely apologize for the rather cliche’d metaphor). It feels like something that was trying to extend the life of the shiny old-school studio blockbuster, before folks like Lucas, Spielberg, and Ridley Scott turned it all grubby and ‘realistic’.
3 out of 5 ridiculously horny gorilla faces
2 Likes
It was the first version of King Kong I saw, and I still cry when they blast him with machine guns and he ends up dying at the end. #noshame
9 Bodies in a Mexican Morgue continued to be a fun ‘whodunnit’ until the end, complete with a very satisfying twist.
A couple nights ago we watched Hitchcock with a stellar cast. I thought Helen Mirren outshone Anthony Hopkins as his wife Alma. Very enjoyable. I initially was confused about how GD young everyone looked… until I realized this is from 2012 
Lastly, while waiting on news from the vet back home yesterday we watched the fascinating documentary Memory: The Origins of Alien. Made me want to rewatch the movie on our big screen when we get home. Such a great film, so well done.
2 Likes
