I’ve just picked up GBBO again after starting it before the season ended, and I picked up on Ep 7, dessert week.
I am inordinately amused at how the maturity level of the show instantly dropped to the level of a 12 year old during the “Spotted Dick” technical.
I spent most of the movie on my phone, if that answers your question. It was bad-bad, not good-bad, at least for me.
Have you watched Sissy yet? Slashery, and mo bettah.
We enjoyed the Beatles '64 documentary on Disney. Some great footage and interviews.
We watched The Silent Hour yesterday and enjoyed it very much. He really is a great actor.
The French-Canadian Red Rooms, which was billed as one of the top horror movies of the year.
Apart from the obviously horrific crimes alluded to, this was not what I would consider a horror movie by any stretch of my imagination. Meh.
Is nobody watching “The Sticky” ? I am. I thought read about it here, but maybe not. It’s food related! And I’m still “into” the Quebecoise.
Is nobody watching “The Sticky” I am. I thought read about it here. It’s food related! And I’m still “into” the Quebecoise. Six 30 minute episodes.
Gift link New York Times Review
And for Roger Ebert (and the thumbnail !)
It’s on my watch list.
I was reminded of “A Fish Called Wanda”! 
I’ll give anything with Acclaimed Character Actor Margo Martindale ™ a try. Where is it playing?
I’m watching on Amazon Prime.
Amazon is not promoting it for some reason (maybe the show didn’t pay them extra? Not sure how it works)
But I found it, and what fun!
(Either they’ve got enough actors who naturally have Quebec accents, or the actors are doing a decent job with them.)
Ditto. Along with seemingly billions of other shows and movies 
We (finally) finished the second season of Sherwood, which my PIC enjoyed far more than I did.
Looking forward to more Sex Education epis tonight while he’s grabbing a drink with a buddy after dinner 
Return to Oz (1985) - dir Walter Murch
Walter Murch is a curious figure. Widely celebrated for his editing and sound design, especially in the peak years of folks like Coppola and Lucas, he’s a rightly respected creative figure, spoken of in concert with those ‘new Hollywood’ types, the Bagdonovitches and the Altmans. But he only ever directed a single feature film, and a deeply strange one it is.
Return To Oz is attempting to serve multiple masters. On the one hand, Disney licensed to Oz sequels The Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, and the story is a (very) rough conglomeration of the two. On the other hand, Disney knew than the majority of the intended audience was unlikely to have read ANY of the Oz books, never mind two different sequels. Almost everyone watching this movie will familiar with it ONLY through the 1939 film by MGM. That means Return to Oz is trying to be a sequel two VERY different versions of the story.
Like the book, Dorothy is much younger, played by a 12 year old Faruzia Balk (Nancy from The Craft). And like the book, the version feels much MUCH darker than the classic film. But Disney ALSO paid a huge sum to MGM to use ‘ruby slippers’ instead of the ‘silver shoes’ of the book, and often deferred to movie versions of plot beats rather than book equivalents.
When I say the film is dark, it plays like a legitimate horror movie aimed at tweens and early teens while simultaneously being a lazy retread of the first movie. We have 12 year old girl about to be subjected to shock treatment (instead of a tornado) and the doctor and nurse turned into the Oz-dwelling evil Queen Mombi (who steals heads!) and the Gnome king (rather than the salesman and Mrs
Gulch appearing as the Wizard and Wicked Witch) we have a DIFFERENT scarecrow (Jack Pumpkinhead), mechanical man (Tick Tock, a soldier instead of a woodsman) and strange creature allied a Gump (an enchanted moose) taking the place of the Lion. There’s also Dorothy’s companion from the real world, a chicken named Belinda, taking Toto’s place.
The effects in this movie are of a quality that totally outclasses the film itself. Eerie, stop motion rock creatures, along with the Gnome King, are genuinely unnerving. Belinda the chicken is played by a truly remarkable animatronic bird being carefully cut in with a real chicken, and the results are astonishingly convincing.
This whole thing is a fascinating misfire from a Disney that was still finding its way out of the doldrums in the mid 80’s. If you have a middle-schooler in your life that seems interested in the offbeat and weird, show them this. You’ll instantly be one of the cooler adults in their eyes.
The Snow Woman (1968) - dir. Tokuzo Tanaka
A master sculptor and his young apprentice are caught in a blizzard, and unfortunately catch sight of the Snow Woman, a yokai that is the spirit of the blizzard. Any who see her are doomed to freeze to death. She freezes the master, but spares the young, handsome apprentice, providing he never speak a word of what has happened to anyone, ever.
This tale has about a zillion different versions from a zillion different cultures. This particular version leans less on the ‘horror story’ and more on the family drama and tragedy, and is better for it. You become easily wrapped up in the goals of the apprentice as he takes over his master’s task, marries, and so on. And like many Japanese films of classical stories, it has an exquisite sense of formal composition. Every scene is a a gorgeous painting, from frigid forests to warm, homey interiors.
It’s a beautiful film with an ending that hits, even though the audience sees it coming throughout the story, and at a lean 79 minutes, uses each minute wisely.
4 of 5 carved temple statues
Last night I watched for the first time in many years After Hours (1985), a lesser known but hardly lesser part of the Scorsese oeuvre.
The movie almost fully takes place in a far-from-gentrified SoHo. Its Kafkaesque and hilarious.
In addition to the star Griffin Dunne (a proto-Steve Carrell), the movie features some of my favorite cinematic ladies — Linda Fiorentino, Rosetta Arquette, Teri Garr, Catharine O’Hara, Verna Bloom — as well as Bronson Pinchot, John Heard, Cheech & Chong, and of course Marty himself in one of his shortest cameos.
Highly recommended!
Once again, thanks for the hook-up. Mrs. ricepad ordered Seven Samurai (and also Kagemusha) for my birthday. We watched it last night, and I forgot (1) how LONG it is, but also (2) what a wonderful movie it is. Even though it’s well over three hours long, it doesn’t drag anywhere. Now I just need Criterion to offer Ran and Sanshiro Sugata to round out my wishlist!
I had the same experience a few weeks ago! Having read somewhere that some columnist found After Hours to be Scorcese’s best movie (not below’s link), I decided to rewatch it again, after 15 or so years. And indeed, it’s a wonderful ‘small’ movie, that is highly rewatchable. Plus I love 1980s New York!
After Hours is one of my favorites. I love its unapologetic weirdness and the ‘commitment to the bit’ from the entire cast. A new 4K restoration from Criterion is out and it’s great. (I swear I don’t work for them. If only…)
If you want a bit of silly fun, I recommend looking up the 1986 film Vamp. It’s part goofy 80’s comedy, part light horror, and features Grace Jones(!!) as a vampire queen. They manage to stick a weird Grace Jones performance art piece in the middle of it all.
But mostly what it is is After Hours with vampires. The same sort of frantic energy and surreal aura combined with the put-upon protagonist lead to all sorts of fun comparisons.
I always recommend it as a great pairing.
I just finished watching the finale of the excellent Day of The Jackal series on Peacock. I’m still trying to catch my breath.
