The NYC accents less a problem than 1) the main character is awful and 2) yet another Jewish woman played by a non-Jew.
Perhaps for you as I don’t know your tastes but I think there is so much good stuff on TV it’s hard to keep up. We’re in a glut that I’m finding quite challenging to keep up with. My suspicion is that if you don’t think there’s loads of good stuff on, it might be because it’s not even hitting your radar for the amount of other very reported on stuff out there.
Yeah you don’t know my tastes but I just posted two shows I enjoyed. I watch Will Trent and all the Law & Orders. Much of what you like probably doesn’t interest me. So to me it’s not good as in not worth my time. I have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, YouTubeTV, Tubi, Vudu… But why don’t you throw out some suggestions instead of making assumptions.
Also, I have no problem with Rachel Brosnahan playing Midge Maisel. Would you think the Jewish Scarlett Johansson would have been better in the role? Or the Jewish Emmy Rossum?
Huh. Your response tells me that our exchange is best ended here. Good luck finding shows you enjoy!
- is a slippery slope when what needs to be represented gets more and more specific. Also not necessarily underrepresented in Hollywood. But that’s not a discussion for here.
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Lol works for me. Perhaps you don’t realize how you come across. I’m more cognizant of that. Best regards.
Invention for Destruction (1958 Dir- Karel Zeman)
Karel Zeman’s films have a curious quality that makes them seem as if they were produced in the 19th century. His love for Jules Verne is stated explicitly, and this film is inspired by several of Verne’s works, most notably Facing the Flag, but draws on ideas an images from other works, including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Robur the Conquerer. He also was greatly inspired by early silent cinema, most obviously by Georges Méliès.
Through a variety of techniques, including matte paintings, in camera-mattes, double printing, overlays, and inventive use of painted cutouts, Zeman brings to life 19th century woodcut and lithographed illustrations, combining live action, 2D and stop motion animation to give the sense of an animated story book. Even the costumes are painted with long, thin stripes to emphasize shading, giving everything a truly hand-made quality that, oddly enough, is coming back into vogue, with films like Sony’s Into the Spider-verse and Dreamwork’s Bad Guys, showcasing 2D drawn or printed qualities to 3D animation.
This film, along with Zeman’s similarly Verne-inspired Journey to the Beginning of Time and his amazing version of The Fabulous Baron Munchausen are available in a boxed set with great supplemental material, including short documentaries showing Zeman’s process and several of his early shorts.
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Ha! You might be the first person to take a comment about the age of too much TV personally. Or maybe not.
Uninvited (1988 - Dir Gregory Clarke)
In the first 2 minutes of the movie, we meet our monster, an adorable long-haired orange tabby cat who escapes from the world’s least secure genetics lab. The cat has another, mutant cat living inside it, that emerges through its mouth, ala’ the Alien xenomorph’s second set of internal jaws.
Through various circumstances found only in terrible Hollywood plotting, the cat finds itself brought aboard Wall St. criminal’s yacht by a group of spring break college students. Shenanigans ensue.
George Kennedy and Clu Gulager slum it through this feather-weight creature feature, though calling it such drastically oversells things. The mutant cat is little more than a hand/rod puppet or just a stuffed prop. The limited effects budget was spent on swelling veins and spurting blood effects, which are fine as these things go.
It’s 80’s direct-to-video schlock at its most base level.
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One of those “I’m leaving but not just yet” types, I see.
unwatchable to me. but there is a rifftrax of this that makes it very bearable. https://tubitv.com/movies/495871/rifftrax-uninvited?start=true
Funny, I am probably enjoying this season the most and look forward to Sunday night all weekend. Maybe because I know it’s the last season and every episode has brought big change, lots of drama and some characters back (hello Marcia and Matsson). Really enjoyed this season of Perry Mason and hope it comes back. Love the LA in 30’s noir and exploring all of its growing pains. I was a young kid when Perry Mason was on TV and let’s just say the characters are very different. Finishing up Gaslit about Martha Mitchell and Watergate break-in and thought actors did a good job of portraying people who many of us still remember. Just started The Diplomat and it looks interesting. Love this season of Schmigadoon.
I’ve been disappointed in Ted Lasso’s last season. Just feels disjointed and too many threads. Will probably finish but more of a chore than something I look forward to. Gave up on TMMM a few seasons ago. Liked the first season but the “wisecracking” got tiresome. Also gave upon Shrinking although I have friends that love it. Maybe give it a second try this summer. Transatlantic looks interesting.
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That would be the way I would recommend exposing one’s self to this, if one has desire to do that in the first place.
I will put the rifftrax on my watchlist.
I have developed a very VERY tolerant attitude towards objectively bad cinema. Sort of like how some folks can easily handle capsaicin-heavy food, and others run from merest whiff of jalepenos.
I’d put Uninvited at a good solid habanero hot sauce. Not quite to the scotch bonnet sort of reek of Mutant Hunt, but still…
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yes. and thank you for the mutant hunt rec., i somehow hadn’t seen it.
i’m in the same mode. i’ve watched a lot of schlock in the past few years. i have a deep appreciation for good film, but i’ve also seen it and thought about it for a lifetime. when you come across these ridiculous directors it can be interesting to see all of the bad decisions being made, and it makes me appreciate how difficult achieving actual quality is.
in the ‘good bad’ mode, i would recommend https://tubitv.com/movies/646274/the-legend-of-the-stardust-brothers (tubi is really lousy with bad movies). stardust brothers is a kinda great bad movie.
Tubi is a great resource for this, as they have the (almost?) complete Full Moon features catalog (aka all the beloved, and much less beloved Charles Band films. Evil Bong, anyone?) It’s probably missing their biggest hits like Reanimator and From Beyond, but they DO have new versions of those stories, combined into a 3 part sort of miniseries that I think is called The Resonator.
You’ve undoubtedly heard of (and seen) Tommy Wisseau’s The Room, which just drips with barely concealed personal bitterness, but for a similar mismatch of ego, ambition, and talent, I urge you to seek out Glen Danzig’s (yes, THAT Glen Danzig) Verotika, a horror anthology film based on his ‘adult horror’ comic, Verotik. It is mind-blowingly awful. Like Battlefield Earth, it’s the rare film that starts bad and NEVER GETS BETTER. Ever. Every moment is just a little worse than the one before. You will find yourself trying to put yourself in the camera operator or actor’s head, wondering what they could possibly be thinking. Goodness knows, you’ll have the time, as the camera pans endlessly over sets and effects props never meant to withstand this level of scrutiny. It’s truly one for the ages.
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While the offspring was always exhausting, I found them to be particularly grating, whiny, and exasperating. The writing picked up after the 3rd episode, I thought, but I still won’t miss the family as much as, say, the Fishers 
I only liked the first season of Ted Lasso, too soft & sweet in the second. I really did enjoy Shrinking a lot. And I liked the first season of Shmigadoon.
From just started back up again, too 
Moon Garden (2022 - Dir. Ryan Stevens Harris)
I was lucky enough to see this totally blind, as the opening film for the Sacramento Midnight Film Festival held by The Dreamland Cinema. It’s been making the festival rounds and has been picked up by distributor Oscilloscope, so there’s a reasonable chance you’ll have a shot to see it a theater later this year, and it should get reasonable streaming distribution.
During a tremendously tense opening sequence, we are introduced to 5 year old Emma (Haven Lee Harris, daughter of director/writer Ryan Stevens Harris), who can only be described as an utterly adorable moppet, with a shock of red hair and striking eyes. Mom and Dad are fighting. Emma slips on the stairs, striking her head and falling into a coma. When she wakes, she’s in a dark industrial landscape, pursued by a monster I immediately named in my head as “Mr. Chatterteeth” that feeds on her tears. She must find her way through to get back home, guided only by her parents’ voices coming through an old transistor radio.
Shot on expired 35mm film with vintage rehoused camera lenses, the colors and framing are absolutely stunning. Relying on practical effects and really masterful editing, we get a film that rivals Pan’s Labyrinth for dark (VERY dark) fantasy horror, and a child performance that is, frankly, unnerving in how good it is.
I was unprepared for just how effective this is. It is a HORROR movie, and (especially the first half) is as emotionally intense as anything I’ve seen since Aster’s Hereditary. It will give you, as the kids probably don’t say, “all the feels”, and provide nightmare fuel for weeks.
The film isn’t terribly subtle in its themes, and occasionally allows itself to be a little indulgent with its visual setpieces, but they’re so arresting, it’s easy to forgive it these minor flaws.
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Your movie reviews are definitely one of the biggest, non-food related reasons that have me visiting this site
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I am humbled and flattered that you think so. I’m glad people seem to enjoy them.
I’m filling them in to my letterboxd account. I’m trying to make that a more complete record of the stuff I’m watching. There’s a lot of not-great stuff. I don’t post ALL of it here, since “eh. it’s fine” often limits how entertaining or interesting a review is, and I’d rather put stuff out there that I feel something about, either positive or negative. I’m trying to fill in more stuff I’ve watched over the years. Here, I’m mostly posting things I’ve just watched in the present.
here’s the all of it, should anyone want to follow along: https://letterboxd.com/lectroid/
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I feel the same way about food reviews. Middling reviews are just that… whereas a great diss or praise, now - that’s good reading.
I should keep track of the movies I watch/ed. My brain has zero retention of movies or shows I’ve seen longer than a few days ago 
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