Speaking of whom:
I was greatly saddened to learn that Shudder has axed The Last Drive In. I believe this weekend will be the final regular season episode. There will be a couple of holiday specials to finish out the year.
Darcy the Mail Girl and Joe Bob have both said they aren’t done, they have plans, and announcements will be made.
If we’ve corrcetly understood the UK system, a justice of the peace struggles to pass Justice 101 on the job. Truly bi-lingual to boot, though not available to us on our streaming.
The 2nd season of Criminal Record, (on Apple), is off to a great start.
rejoicing to see lect back on this thread.
I had similar parents-- kind of. That is. I had parents who were not really checking what they were taking their littles to see. I was taken early out of sleepover (primary school age) to watch The Life of Brian, for instance. We definitely also saw The Jerk and I’m pretty sure my Dad laughed a lot.
Big J and I just finished David Attenborough’s Secret Garden. As usual, absolutely brilliant! It makes me want to rig up some cameras to see what’s in my own backyard.
What a koinkidenk! We watched Attenborough’s beautiful A Gorilla Story last night.
Will have to check out Secret Garden!
I was just coming to post about that series. I really like Cush Jumbo and love Peter Capaldi so looking forward to watching second season.
found myself watching Apex (2026). probably because of Charlize Theron. a damsel is in distress.
it’s essentially a two-hander with an unhinged Taron Egerton. after seeing 10 minutes of it, you KNOW exactly what this movie is, and how it will end. i did appreciated the scenic vistas and the action choreography, and it sometimes punches above it’s weight. the tone is baffling. two committed actors with good photography? yup, i’ll stay to the end.
2.5 sticks of jerky on the Lectroid scale.
Brewster McCloud (1970) - dir. Robert Altman
Coming off the smash hit of M*A*S*H, Altman was given a blank check by MGM, and what he bought with it was a rambling, shaggy dog of a movie that captures the absurd aspects of 1970 America. Thumbing its nose a reactionary patriotism, racism, police corruption, as well as the hippies’ naive ‘peace & love’ slogans, we get a funny, strange, and tragic fable.
Bud Cort is the odd, owlish Brewster, who secretly lives in the fallout shelter, living off low level cons and building a set of mechanical wings to ‘fly away’. Helping him is Louise (Sally Kellerman), a mysterious woman who might be a former angel(?), and Shelly Duvall in her film debut, playing Suzanne, a flighty Astrodome tour guide. There’s also great bits by Stacy Keach and the Wicked Witch of the West herself, Margaret Hamilton.
Like most of Altman’s work, a lot of the dialogue was improvised. The look and feel (and politics) feel very similar to his Nashville. The film gets strangely “meta” at points at a time when that was a relatively radical thing.
A fascinating time capsule and a delightfully weird tale with sparkling performances all around.
4.5/5 car chases with an AMC Gremlin.
Really good finals week on Great British Menu and a nice banquet. There were some surprises and I loved the winning dish. Again, no commercial tie ins and hawking of products. So nice. I think I’m going to start watching master chef which is also available thru Hdclump.com.
Started S1 of Criminal Record, a British crime procedural (of course) on Apple. So far, so good — like most of these.
It took a while, but I’ve now watched all six episodes of Heated Rivalry, and it grew on me a bit, but it’s just not a good show.
Another show hyped by The Media we couldn’t get through even one episode. I was hoping to like it but no..
It’s not just The Media. Several of my friends tried to convince me that if I stuck with it, I would see what the fuss was about. Well, I did, and I didn’t.
Yes;?!
I hope you mean Master Chef. Professionals! It’s way better than the US version of Master Chef. I’ve not watched the other countries.
I started watching a master chef set in the UK but not sure about wading through all these amateur chefs. I did watch the first episode of 24 in 24 which is kind of cheesy but has some good chefs on it this year.
Finally got around to this one. Almost through with Season 1. We find it really binge-worthy if a bit over done. It got terrific Rotten Tomatoes ratings and I’d read lots of raves on line….. except one forum where they really disliked it as predictable and unbelievable. I can see some truth to that but I guess we are just in the mood for that kind of thing right now. Anyone else???
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026) - dir. Lee Cronin
The director’s name in the title was just a way to make sure people knew it was distinct from the 1999 comedy/action franchise. Because they are VERY different sorts of films.
This version goes for hardcore horror. It shares a certain feel with the recent Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, a willingness to be nasty to its characters, even, or especially, when those characters are kids. The plot here involves an young American girl, living in Cairo owing to her father’s job as a journalist, who is captured and mummified until circumstances lead to her return and reanimation, as the evil spirit trapped within her goes to work on her family.
The movie has a number of sequences that really deliver on the scares, the body horror, and all the other cringing, wincing moments one expects from this sort of film. Unfortunately, the connective tissue stringing it all together is a shamble. The obligatory prologue to set up the main plot takes almost 20 minutes (!!), and every further development necessitates a clumsy exposition dump, right down to the clichéd archeology professor at the local college who just so happens to be able to translate ancient Egyptian script. There’s a perfectly decent 90 minute film in there somewhere, but this one runs 135(!) minutes, and there’s just no excuse for it.
The Mummy 4 w/ Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz is due in October of 2027. More than enough time for this to fade away.
2 out of 5 dangling plot threads that are spun out and lead nowhere.
My friend was telling me about this the other day. She and her pal were told to shush because they were laughing so much. Now I kind of want to watch it.
