German tv used to have roughly a half hour of commercials before evening entertainment, i.e. movies & shows started.
I was hella annoyed by the constant commercial interruptions when I first moved here.
Now when you watch a flick on Hulu, you’ll hear something like “please enjoy this uninterrupted feature AFTER (clearly unironic)… this initial interruption.” 
The fun and twisty Crime 101 with Halle Berry, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, and an ancient Nick Nolte.
Donkey Skin (1970) - dir. Jacques Demy
This is a colorful, musical version of a French fairy tale directed by the same director as the beautiful Umbrellas of Cherbourg. And I cannot emphasize enough just how 1970’s French it is.
Catherine Deneuve is her usual stunning self as a princess who runs away from her father the King. Her mother, the Queen, has died and Dad has decided only his daughter is beautiful enough to be his wife. This, we get an entire musical number by a rather materialistic and modern Fairy Godmother about how sleeping with your father is bad, mm’kay?
The film is an odd but very amusing mix of totally child appropriate plot and characters (even with the incest angle!) and a cynical, amused wink at the audience. It is a ridiculous tale, and everyone knows it. So you get this odd tension where everything is perfectly fine, except it’s all just a little bit off. It’s delightful.
Also, of particular note to this space: there’s a song where the princess is baking a ‘cake’ for the expected charming prince, and they give you an entire recipe, in song!
I’m half tempted to try it!
4 of 5 horses painted in primary colors. Errr, “colours”..
When I go to the US, I find watching television to be near intolerable with the number of interruptions and ads. That so many are also pharmaceuticals adds to the dystopian flavour of it all. (I also remember flying back to the US, where I had lived for a while, and on my first trip being overwhelmed by 1) the size of things and 2) the number of adverts EVERYWHERE, outdoing what I had already seen as “a lot” of advertising in Europe.
I couldn’t believe the LAWYER ads barking at me from the teevee. So … jarring, and shady. People will advertise damn near anything here!
That said, most channels / streaming here barely have any ads nowadays.
We started the new season of Beef last night. I was ready to turn it off halfway through, as the fight and everything about it seemed so Very Over The Top, and — despite being married and having had some tiffs — entirely unrelatable.
Glad we stuck to it, bc the couple’s troubles are only the overture & we binged the first 4 epis. Probz gonna finish the remaining four tonight.
Fun.
I was in the mood for a over the top, mindless, violent action movie last night so I watched Vengeance on Prime. It delivered on all 3 things I was looking for and more. Very John Woo-ish, but not nearly as good.
5/10 Would not recommend unless you’re in the mood for something silly and violent.
Youtube is by far the worst, Prime is a close second but at least they get all the ads out of the way in the beginning.
I mostly watch music videos on YouTube, with the sole recent exception being the latest Talkmaster season, as it was the only way to catch it.
We watch our cats in the commercial breaks, pee, or get a drink refresher 
Ended up enjoying American Classic with Kevin Kline and Laura Linney. They left it open for perhaps a second season. Now have to go and cancel MGM+. Started the Comeback which was funny and very topical with A1 in Hollywood concerns and complaining about too many damn streaming channels (see my MGM+ comment). I will cancel HBO when I finish Comeback and Hacks and then wait patiently for the Gilded Age.
Fk them commercials, I just switch to something else. Ain’t nobody got time fo that.
I always enjoy Taskmaster but I’m so delighted with this lineup. I’m so glad to see Amy Gledhill and Armando Ianucci there. I recommend you use YouTube to watch The Armando Ianucci Shows (perfection) and also The Delightful Sausage’s Ginster’s Paradise which is unhinged: https://youtu.be/0KZCA0SbsJk?si=1EvlmtiyiBclbP1J
The Shining (1980) - Stanley Kubrick
I saw The Shining at its original release. I was 12. I had seen 2001 earlier that year at a repertory house. It’s entirely my dad’s fault. He would take me to just about any movie, regardless of rating. I was 8 when he took me to The Battle of Midway (in Sensurround!) So when I started demanding to see the new film by the 2001 guy, he shrugged and said “Let’s go!”
To say it had an impression on me is somewhat of an understatement. This is the film I wrote my final paper on for my college film course, and probably what made me jump at the opportunity when I managed to fall into the business.
I probably don’t need to tell you much. You have Shelly Duvall giving it 1000% as a caring mother reduced to a frightened rabbit by a savage abuser, Danny Lloyd as the unsettling psychic boy, and, of course, Nicholson being captured at the very moment he is becoming “Jack Nicholson”, a collection of leers and eyebrows and sneering screen presence that would go on to dominate his roles going forward. He manages to be both hilariously funny and absolutely terrifying at the same time, all while turning into what would essentially become a parody of himself. It’s utterly mesmerizing.
Beyond the actors, if there one real star here, it’s the camera itself. Kubrick hired Garret Brown, the inventor of the Steadicam, to do most of the shooting, with Brown inventing further modifications to allow him to get those famous low tracking shots. The camera and Kubrick’s maze-like set, filled with impossible geometry and shifting layouts, become a larger presence than any of the actors. The setting itself is the antagonist.
It’s part of the “Kubrick in 35mm” series running this month, and again, I was surprised how that frisson of analog clicks and pops and film scratches really pushed the atmosphere. A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket are next.
5/5 fire axes.
i admire your film dad so much. i didn’t get The Shining at the similar age – i got Friday the 13th (i was 9) and it royally messed with me. my film dad made up for that experience later on and the balance was fully restored. at the time The Shining was considered the most horror, of all horror films, which is why I probably didn’t see it then (for good reason).
He and I struggled to connect in a lot of ways. He was much more of a “guy’s guy” where I was nerdy, as well as sickly. But he lived classic comedies, and he introduced me to Marx Bros, Abbot and Costello, etc. and when I found some old rep theaters in Evanston that ran Marx marathons, and that led me to the rest of the schedule. A Tommy/Quadrophenia double feature. Universal monsters and Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein in October, and so forth.
Jaws, Close Encounters, all that. Though insistently remember him attempting to drop my brother and I off at the theater to see The Jerk (rated R), and the cashier would NOT let us in unless he came with and stayed.
He wasn’t pleased. I don’t remember if he liked it. I thought it was the funniest thing in the world.
The Jerk had an R rating? 
Yup. Lots of swearing, ‘adult’ humor, and a VERY brief shot of bare breasts.
OH NO NOT BARE BREASTS & “BAD” WORDS!!!
Joe Bob says check it out! (IYKYK)
I haven’t thought about Joe Bob Briggs in a long time.
