LET'S TALK ABOUT IT 2025:1

Happy 2025! General chat about films & TV here; if the thread gets too long (ca. 200 postings?), I'll start a 2025:2. Continues: LET'S TALK ABOUT IT 2024:1.

For specific films (or tv shows), see: What Are You Watching in Jan.-April 2025 -TV Shows or Film! (or subsequent threads as time passes)

For books about movies & TV, see: Books on Movies & TV.

For thoughts on books made into movies, see: BOOKS MADE INTO MOVIES OCT 2023-? (Not the lengthiest of threads!)

Try this one.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/366614#n8712218

>2 Carol420: Getting a blank screen; anyone else have any success w/this link?

Maria San Filippo. LARB, 01/04/2025: The Screenwriter Strikes Back: Leigh Brackett in Hollywood. "Maria San Filippo explores Leigh Brackett’s career as the screenwriter of “The Big Sleep,” “The Long Goodbye,” and “The Empire Strikes Back.”"

Christopher Luu. BBC Culture, 01/01/2024: 'She believed you have to take sides': How Audrey Hepburn became a secret spy during World War Two.

Hope any members in the LA area are doing OK

Travis Andrews. WaPo, 01/13/2025: Tubi or not Tubi? The weirdest streaming service has the most devoted fans. Temporarily unlocked.

Sam Wolfson. Guardian, 01/16/2025: ‘I hate this movie, and I haven’t even seen it’ – Americans won’t let a chimp Robbie Williams entertain them. "Better Man is a genuinely good movie but it’s bombing – and now his song has been disqualified from the Oscars too."

I'm not sure why they ever thought the movie would be a success in the US, where neither Robbie Williams as a solo act nor his boy band (Take That) ever really caught on. Take That was a one-hit wonder here -- "Back for Good" reached the top ten in 1995 -- and Williams never made the US charts solo.

Guardian readers. Guardian, 01/16/2025: ‘I didn’t sleep for days’: readers on the TV shows that went way too far.

I started watching the HBO/MAX Game of Thrones series but, having read the books, stopped before it reached the Blood Wedding episode, though I did watch the concluding episodes to see how the show runners ended it since the author never finished. Still unable to get through the episode & watch the rest of the series.

The scene in the film Attack! (1956) where Jack Palance gets his arm caught under the tread of a tiger tank haunted me for years when I saw it at too young an age. Great movie, nonetheless.

Got any Wish I Hadn't Seen That experiences with TV or film?

>11 featherbear: I watched every season in the hope that the producers were getting informatiojn from Martin how it was all supposed to end. He stopped writing his books, leaving them come up with their own vision, creating the horror that was the last season. a pity because the acting and basic story was excellent. but the producers were ready for their close ups for Star Wars...and thats all she wrote

oh when I was little my big brother was watching a movie called Them where this man is sitting by a wll and suddenly the wall and the man are covered with big red ants. Had nightmares about that for a while

Pragati K.B. NYT, 01/16/2025: Saif Ali Khan, Famed Bollywood Actor, Is Stabbed at Home in Mumbai. "The police said Mr. Khan was recovering in the hospital after an intruder attacked him. He sustained a major injury to his spinal cord, a doctor said."

"Mr. Khan, 54, has acted in more than 70 films in a career spanning three decades, with roles ranging from fun, romantic heroes to dark, gritty villains. His mother, Sharmila Tagore, was a celebrated actress, and his father, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, who had royal lineage, was the captain of India’s cricket team. Mr. Khan is also married to another prominent actor, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and his daughter, Sara Ali Khan, is also an actress.

"The actor and filmmaker Pooja Bhatt called for a greater police presence in the neighborhood, writing on social media, “The city & especially the queen of the suburbs, have never felt so unsafe before.”

"Last July, two gunmen opened fire outside the star actor Salman Khan’s house, also in Bandra. The police arrested two men in that shooting, and said the suspects were connected to the imprisoned gang leader Lawrence Bishnoi.

"In October, a former Maharashtra state minister, Baba Siddique, was fatally shot by three gunmen near the office of his son, also a politician, in Bandra. Mr. Siddique had close ties to Bollywood stars."

Update:

Cherylann Mollan. BBC Culture, 01/20/2025: Man arrested over stabbing of Bollywood actor.

I have a question for the "movie-watchers". I need a book that was made into a movie for a challenge...so I thought I would pick the brains of the people that actually watch movies. What book that was made into a movie would you choose if you needed this? Genera is not too important to me...I'll read most anything that contains print...I'm not fond of westerns, or books that are overly political, but I could read one if need be. Thank you in advance.

>15 Carol420: Does it have to be a movie, or can it be a TV/streaming series?

>15 Carol420: How about The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, movie The Leopard aka Il gattopardo (1963), director Luchino Visconti, w/Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale? Historical fiction.

Back in the day, Robert Mitchum's scary performance in The Night of the Hunter (1955) got me to read the novel of the same name by Davis Grubb; I just checked Amazon & was surprised to learn it's still in print, & even available on Kindle. If you haven't seen the movie, it's a gothic classic, Charles Laughton's only directed picture, with, in addition to Mitchum, Shelley Winters & Lillian Gish.

Currently residing in my DVR queue is The Tin Drum aka Die Blechtrommel (1979), director Volker Schlondorff -- I saw it when it came out, & liked it. At the time it seemed a good adaptation of the Gunter Grass novel, but I'd read that one many years before.

Currently started the Jane Campion version of The Portrait of a Lady (1996) via Criterion Channel, with Nicole Kidman in a Katharine Hepburn hairdo. A favorite Henry James novel I haven't read in many years.

Lots of versions of Little Women out there; I liked the Greta Gerwig & Gillian Armstrong versions.

George Cukor's version of David Copperfield (1935) gives you an excuse to enjoy the Dickens novel again. W.C. Fields is Micawber.

2 books I liked but haven't had a chance to watch the movie versions:

Kim by Rudyard Kipling, the movie (1950) dir. by Victor Saville w/Errol Flynn.

The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki, the movie (1983) dir. by Kon Ichikawa.

>17 featherbear: I looked at the book description and it sounds promising. Thank you. I can get this one from my library. i know there had to be lots books out there that are on the "Big Screen". I remember reading The Night of The Hunter. I would be willing to revisit it. I knew that this group would know what I needed.

>15 Carol420: Two more Henry James stories that occur to me -- shorter reads:

The Heiress (1949) William Wyler, director, w/Olivia de Havilland & Montgomery Clift, based on the stage play of the same name, which in turn was an adaptation of Washington Square

The Innocents (1961) Jack Clayton, director, w/Deborah Kerr, an adaptation of The Turn of the Screw

Plus so many Jane Austens, among them

Sense and Sensibility (1995), Ang Lee, director, w/Emma Thompson & Kate Winslet

Emilia Petrarca. NYT, 01/17/2025: The Movies That Fashion Designers Watch Again and Again. "Nine designers discuss the films that continue to inform their aesthetics, from “In the Mood for Love” to “The Exorcist.”" Temporarily unlocked.

>20 featherbear: Thank you so very, very much. "Sense and Sensibility" would be a good one.

Both excellent films & something to look forward to, but upcoming streaming source(s) a bit vague:

Peter Bradshaw. Guardian, 01/22/2025: Stray Dog/High and Low review – Kurosawa lifts crime drama to astonishing new peaks.

Guardian, 01/23/2025: Oscars nominations 2025: the full list.

For many years now, I've drawn up my own top ten list at the end of each movie year. I always give myself the month of January to catch up on things I might have missed, and there are inevitably things I would like to have gotten to that I just never did. But my top ten for 2024, beginning with #1:

I Saw the TV Glow
Hundreds of Beavers
Robot Dreams
Conclave
Thelma
Hard Truths
I’m Still Here
His Three Daughters
Sing Sing
The Last Stop in Yuma County

Any other list makers in our group?

I keep a list of the movies I see on IMBD. I watch a lot of movies but inevitably I sometimes re-watch older films that I have already seen. My goal is to double check my movie list on IMBD before I watch a movie I have already seen.
I really liked Thelmabut I don't make my list of my year's favorite movies.

Michael Schulman. New Yorker, 02/06/2025: How the Oscar Race Got as Messy as “Conclave.”

" Last year’s Best Picture winner, “Oppenheimer,” was a widely admired favorite, much like the beloved Pope who dies in the first scene of “Conclave.” This year’s race has never had a stable front-runner; instead, it’s populated by smaller, more polarizing movies, each vulnerable under the scrutiny of the Oscar spotlight.

Karla Sofía Gascón: "“I have never, at any point, said anything bad about Fernanda Torres or her movie,” Gascón had told Folha de S. Paulo. “However, there are people working with Fernanda Torres tearing me and ‘Emilia Pérez’ down.” ... "old tweets by Gascón “resurfaced” ...

The Brutalist: "Last month, its editor revealed that A.I. had been used to tweak the Hungarian accents of its stars, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones ... This touched a nerve in Hollywood, where A.I. was central to the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes ... But wait, there’s more! Did you see the flak over Fernanda Torres, who had to apologize after a clip of her wearing blackface in a comedy sketch in 2008 resurfaced?"

"... “Anora,” which got blanked out at the Golden Globes, and which had its own scandalette when its star, Mikey Madison, said that she had declined an intimacy coördinator for her sex scenes, undermining the emerging industry practice and casting a shadow over the film’s depiction of sex work."

"But who knows what bombshells await before Oscar night. We have three and a half long weeks to go. As Cardinal Lawrence would say, “Let God’s will be done.”

Association items for >26 featherbear: from BBC Culture:

Steven McIntosh. 02/07/2025: Gascón vows to stay silent after offensive tweets.

Emma Jones. 02/07/2025: How true is The Brutalist? The real-life history of Jewish immigrants in post-WW2 America.

Rebecca Liu. Guardian, 02/08/2025: Splat’s entertainment: I watched Rotten Tomatoes’ 40 lowest-rated films to find out which was worst.

Archie Bland & Ruth Spencer. Guardian, 02/11/2025: With a new hit film, Netflix has reduced disabled lives to feelgood fodder – and got the facts shockingly wrong.

"With the third movie now in theaters, let’s look at how the 2018 film became a sleeper hit, thanks to Hugh Grant’s villain and its showstopping end credits."

Sarah Bahr. NYT, 02/17/2025; upd 02/18/2025: Why Everyone Is Still Talking About ‘Paddington 2.’ TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.

Christopher Hawthorne. Yale Review, 02/18/2025: America the Brutal: Why The Brutalist isn’t really about architecture

Koh Ewe. BBC Culture, 02/19/2025: 'Captain America must die in China': Nationalism fuels Ne Zha 2 fans.

Julie Stone Peters. LARB, 02/21/2025: Law, Lies, and Hollywood: Stanley Fish’s Cinematic Jurisprudence. Review of: Law at the Movies: Turning Legal Doctrine into Art / Stanley Fish.

Kyle Buchanon. NYT, 02/23/2025: SAG Awards 2025: ‘Conclave’ Comes on Strong. Temporarily Unlocked.

Steven McIntosh. BBC Culture, 02/23/2025: The SAG Awards red carpet in pictures.

Alyx Gorman. Guardian, 02/23/2025: Sag awards red carpet 2025: Wicked drama and men without ties – in pictures.

Stuart Heritage. Guardian, 02/24/2025: ‘Writhing in agony’: how are we only now learning Andrew Scott passed a kidney stone at the 2020 Sags?

Paywalled unfortunately; will try to quote the most interesting bits

Fran Hoepfner. Vulture, 02/27/2025: The Death of the Classic Film Score.

"The Brutalist’s score is a prime example of film music’s tilt toward electroacoustic classical music, in which composers combine elements of the organic instrumental sounds we’ve come to expect in a film with electronic manipulation. If the past 50 years of scores were all about boundless emotionality, these newer scores are pulsing and discordant — closer to Steve Reich or Karlheinz Stockhausen than European Romantic composers like Beethoven or first-generation Americans like Leonard Bernstein.

"Think Hildur Guðnadóttir’s relentless Joker theme, Volker Bertelmann’s pummeling All Quiet on the Western Front score, and Mica Levi’s terrifyingly modest music for The Zone of Interest. These new impulses have been fed both by technological advancements in sound producing and an increase in composers from independent-music backgrounds. ... While the success of a score once relied upon its enduring quality — like, say, whether anyone would go see it played live at a symphony hall — for artists who have never been part of a studio system, what responsibility is there to uphold tradition?

"“Sometimes you have to go against what you actually see,” says Bertelmann, who wrote the music for the 2024 papal drama Conclave, nominated alongside The Brutalist for Best Picture and Best Original Score this year. “I love to use music to bring tension but not to direct the audience’s emotions.”

"For Veronica Fitzpatrick, an adjunct professor of modern culture and media at Brown University, the changes in composition date back to Clint Mansell’s work with the Kronos Quartet for Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 film, Requiem for a Dream. Mansell’s score blended myriad genres — hip-hop, electronic, conventional classical — to establish a memorable and overwhelming theme repeating descending melodies as the characters submit to their drug addictions.

"For decades, unless the film was a musical, scores like Tapia de Veer’s or Blumberg’s would likely have been added into movies during postproduction; a director would score a work with temporary music in order to work through the edit, and the composer would get post-shoot rough cuts as the starting point of their contributions. “Sound design was kind of an afterthought,” Dessner says. That the sound designer, sound mixer, and composer are now more regularly in communication with the director during the production of a film, if not in preproduction, came up again and again in interviews with working composers. ... The overture to The Brutalist predates the sequence’s shoot: Adrien Brody’s journey as Tóth from the bottom of the ship up to the open air was choreographed to the music rather than filled in during postproduction.

"Now, the quality of a film or television score lives in its ability to transcend its original images: Could you hear it at the club? Can this music be repurposed for memes or jokes? Can you put it over a different scene from something else to evoke a new feeling altogether?"

Mayukh Sen. Atlantic, 03/01/2025: Merle Oberon Was Way, Way Ahead of Her Time. Sen is the author of Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star forthcoming in March.

"She was Asian, technically making her the first performer of color to be nominated in any acting category at the Oscars. Oberon, who was born into poverty in Mumbai to a Sri Lankan mother and white father, had followed her publicists’ demands to “pass” as a white woman from Tasmania—a deception that would continue until her death, in 1979, and that was revealed only in the following decade.

"I first learned about Oberon as an Oscar-obsessed high schooler in the late aughts. I was drawn to her story because of our shared South Asian heritage and our connection to Kolkata, the city where she—like my Bengali father—was raised. Her work as the tragic heroine Cathy Earnshaw in William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights, arguably her most famous film, transfixed me.

"Through her work, she was an early—if accidental—proponent of so-called color-blind casting, in which a performer’s race does not limit the parts available to them, long before such a concern became standard in the industry.

"Two years ago, Oberon’s name briefly reentered the news cycle when Michelle Yeoh became the second Asian actor to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, 87 years after Oberon’s recognition in that category. The complexities that Oberon’s story presented had outlets scrambling—some relegated her to a “technicality,” while others engaged in semantic contortions and called Yeoh the Academy’s first “Asian-identifying” Best Actress nominee.

"The role that made her a star was that of Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII—playing a woman who was, to be clear, white. But in Oberon’s early days, most other roles she played were foreign women—French, Spanish, even Japanese—due to her “exotic” looks, to borrow from that era’s dated parlance.

"... in 1934, Hollywood beckoned. At the time, the United States had outlawed immigration from India and barred Indians from obtaining American citizenship, conditions that would not change until 1946’s Luce-Celler Act. Raising the stakes were the injunctions of the Hays Code, whose puritanical rules demanded that studio filmmakers in Hollywood shy away from depictions of interracial romance.

"... Marlene Dietrich, who called her “that Singapore streetwalker,” a quip that conveys the disdain with which many in Hollywood’s Golden Age regarded Oberon.

"Today, one might read irony into the fact that Oberon played a character whom Emily Brontë had conceived as canonically white, while Oberon’s white co-star, Laurence Olivier, played Heathcliff, a man of indeterminate racial origin."

>35 featherbear: I don't find Hoepfner's complaints very convincing. Times, styles, and technologies change. Acting styles have changed since Bette Davis was a star, and movies aren't usually made in black and white anymore; why should we expect (or want!) film scores to still sound like Max Steiner?

>37 KeithChaffee: It didn't strike me that Hoepfner was complaining; just that how film scores are created & used has changed -- an example she didn't mention was the one for Flow which worked pretty well for me which was ambiguously atmospheric -- if anything the sort of old school score that tells me exactly how to "feel" can be a little off-putting -- Steiner being a pretty egregious example

PS the subhead from New York Magazine: "Movie music is better than ever -- even if you can't tell which instruments are being used."

>36 featherbear: My parents gave me Merle as a middle name and I hated it. kids would tease me about Merle Haggard and hee haw. wasnt till years later that my big sis told me who I was named after. Started reading up on her, and I now am honored to share her name. I will have to read that book, thank you for that post!

I watched the entire Oscars show -- haven't been following closely -- was surprised at how many films were nominated for best picture -- they all seemed interesting to me, so I'll be on the lookout. For the record, they were:

Anora (the winner -- an indie film that I read was coming to Criterion Channel in March -- maybe because it wasn't expected to win anything? but it cleaned up, w/best director & best actress Mikey Madison (spelling?))
Emilia Pérez (Netflix; a musical in Spanish; won a supporting actress award for Zoe Saldana -- old school tearful acceptance speech)
A Complete Unknown A biopic about Bob Dylan
Conclave Still on Peacock last I checked
Nickel Boys based on a Colson Whitehead novel; recently added to MGM+ which usually means it shows up eventually on Amazon Prime
I'm Still Here (it did win for best international film, though it was also nominated for best film)
The Substance (used as part of the opening gag by Conan O'Brien; I'm guessing it got an award for best make-up, though I could be misremembering -- reminded me of another recent film I'd like to see about a man with a genetically malformed face who gets a new one -- title escapes me, though I'd like to see it)*
Dune Part 2 (HBO/MAX last time I checked -- watched a little of the beginning but didn't get far; it got an award for special effects, & the sandworm was used in a couple of jokes -- I would like to see it all the way through if time permits)
Wicked (or should I say Wicked Part 1? -- people are saying it's better than Cats; the Oscars show opened with a duet from the principal cast members that didn't rock my world, but the Cynthia Erivo green witch looks to be interesting; I believe it's going to be on Peacock)
The Brutalist (I worry it will be on a streaming service I don't subscribe to & at 3.5 hrs almost as long as Adrien Brody's acceptance speech for best actor -- would be fun to do a comparison with The Fountainhead? Now that I've defended the film score without hearing a note I'm almost obligated to give it a watch; it did get the award for best score, interestingly enough)

*Note to self: the film title I was trying to remember was A Different Man, director Aaron Schimberg, starring Sebastian Stan. Apparently showing on HBO/MAX per IMDB

>39 cindydavid4: You're welcome! Maybe add a review to the Books About Movies thread at some point when you get around to reading it

And here's another review (not paywalled):

Akanksha Singh. LARB, 03/04/2025: Passing in Black-and-White. Review of: Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star / Mayukh Sen.

For bollywood fans (booksandmovies?):

Tasneem Merchant. Guardian, 03/03/2025: ‘Instantly uplifts my mood’: why Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham is my feelgood movie

Guardian, 03/02/2025: Oscars 2025: the complete list of winners.

Matt Fidler. Guardian, 03/03/2025: Mick Jagger, a sandworm and when Harry re-met Sally: inside the 2025 Oscars ceremony – in pictures.

Also, the fact that the winner for best feature documentary couldn't get a distributor now makes me curious to see it:

Benjamin Lee. Guardian, 03/02/2025: No Other Land directors criticise US as they accept documentary Oscar: ‘US foreign policy is helping block the path’ to peace.

Sonia Rao. WaPo, 03/04/2025: ‘No Other Land’ won an Oscar without U.S. distribution. Now what? TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED

>40 featherbear: "...was surprised at how many films were nominated for best picture..."

Yeah, the Academy bumped the number in 2009. For most of that time, it was a variable number -- anywhere from 5 to 10 -- but it's been locked at 10 since 2021.

I saw 8-1/2 of the 10 nominees this year. Skipped Dune 2 because I found Dune 1 too boring to sit through, and watched enough of The Substance to get a sense of what it was doing, but bailed out before it got to the really gross-out body horror in the last act, because I don't enjoy that stuff at all.

On the whole, I thought it was a good group. A Complete Unknown is a blah music biopic, elevated somewhat by its supporting performances (though Chalamet's Dylan has been much overpraised), and Emilia Perez is a vile movie, glibly offensive to both Mexicans and trans people, and incompetent as a musical. But the rest of what I saw, I could at least respect even if the movie wasn't to my taste, and I could sincerely recommend at least half of the nominees. I would have preferred Conclave or I'm Still Here as Best Picture over Anora, but not by a whole lot.

>45 KeithChaffee: re Complete Unknown, check out the documentary Festival (1967) which includes Dylan & Joan Baez & probably many other colleagues in the biopic -- real thing I imagine is better!

>46 featherbear: It probably is, but I'm not much of a fan of either Dylan or Baez, so there's only so much "better" it could be. :)

>41 featherbear: Another Merle Oberon article; temporarily unlocked:

Anna Kode. NYT, 03/09/2025, updated 3/10: A Hollywood Star With a Secret That Could Have Ended Her Career. "Merle Oberon was a popular actress who was once nominated for an Oscar. But a fact that she hid from the public threatened to unspool her entire life’s work." (w/90 comments & counting)

The link is from X so it might not be paywalled:

Namwalli Serpell. New Yorker, 03/09/2025: The New Literalism Plaguing Today’s Biggest Movies.

Annie Aguiar. NYT, 03/11/2025: Some Vegans Were Harmed in the Watching of This Movie. "A film critic who provides “vegan alerts” for animal cruelty goes beyond onscreen violence. Milk and eggs are problematic, too." TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED

How Netflix can make bad (?) movies successful:

Ian Youngs. BBC Culture, 03/15/2025: Netflix's $320m sci-fi blockbuster is 'soulless', 'dumb' and a hit.

Jesse Hassenger. Guardian, 03/17/2025: Why are the most expensive Netflix movies also the worst?

Guardian readers. Guardian, 04/25/2025: ‘I miss those days terribly’: readers share their defining video store memories.

Olivia Pavao. Public Books, 05/01/2025: Triumph of the Undead: The Public Domain as Horror Hero. Vampires elude copyright laws!

Got the link from Twitter, so I'm assuming it isn't paywalled.

Shane O'Neill. WaPo, 05/06/2025: What ‘Conclave’ gets right — and wrong — about papal politics.

This might be a tempest in a teacup; I confess I'm confused about the impact -- no more Chinese movies on Amazon Prime? No more Indian romances on Netflix?

Emma Saunders. BBC Culture, 05/05/2025: What impact might Trump's Hollywood tariffs plan have? Tariffs would be on "foreign films" w/the rationale that they undermine national security in some way. In other movie related news, the POTUS wants to restore the former Alcatraz prison into a functioning prison, apparently inspired by the Clint Eastwood movie Escape from Alcatraz playing in the Mar-a-Lago area the night before.

Adrian Horton. Guardian, 05/09/2025: Pope Leo XIV watched Conclave movie to prepare, brother says. "In a new interview, the new pope’s brother reveals he ‘knew how to behave’ because he had seen the 2024 hit thriller."

Eliane Glaser. Aeon, 05/13/2025: Our narrative prison. Subtitle embedded in the link, though not visible: "Why does every film and tv series seem to have the same plot." Still trying to wrap my head around this.

Charlotte T. Rosen. LARB, 05/18/2025: The Radical Cringe of “The Pitt.”

Apologetics for the so-called DEI moments. I noticed some of them, but I interpreted these as the short hand the caregivers need to regurgitate to quickly get to the next emergency patient. That being the whole (unstated!) point of HR training that I recall from my (non-medical) institution experience.

Emma Jones. BBC Culture, 05/23/2025: Cannes Film Festival: Why Sentimental Value is being called 'the best film you might see all year.' "Following a record 15-minute standing ovation at its world premiere, Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value is winning rave reviews and generating the biggest buzz from the Cannes Film Festival."

Hannah Devlin. Guardian, 05/25/2025: Arctic, feathered … or just weird: what have we learned since Walking with Dinosaurs aired 25 years ago. "As the BBC updates its groundbreaking series, a look at some of the recent scientific discoveries."

"Now, 25 years after the series first aired, a new, updated Walking With Dinosaurs is back on the BBC this weekend."

Wonder where it will turn up in the US. Dinos bring out the kid in me.

>60 featherbear: Walking with Dinosaurs begins airing on PBS on June 16. Not much info on the DirecTV listing, so I can't be certain, but it seems unlikely that there are two new series with the same name, and PBS does air a lot of BBC programming, so I'd bet that this is it.

>61 KeithChaffee: Close to the estimated tax date so I might remember! Still got PBS; hope I still have room on my DVR. Thanks! Also just noticed I had a typo in the link, so I hope it now works. Interesting article.

I was able to access this via X, & I'm using the X link, but I'm a subscriber to the New Yorker online, so it might be paywalled:

Richard Brody. New Yorker, 06/10/2025: Video Stores, Revival Houses, and the Future of Movies. "The documentary “Videoheaven” and MOMA’s series “A Theater Near You” consider how people watch films and why it matters."

The documentary is inspired by a book "new" to me (I may have cited it in one of my bibliographic postings?) that sounds interesting: Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store / Daniel Herbert.

>61 KeithChaffee: Thanks! Just added episodes 1-2 to my DVR schedule; PBS is indeed showing Walking with Dinosaurs June 16

This is in my DVD collection if I recall; need to re-watch it.

Natasha Tripney. bbc culture, 06/17/2025: 'It has the appeal of an actual horror': How Return to Oz became one of the darkest children's films ever made.

Eventually gets to the role of crabs in movies:

Michael Garfield. Aeon, 07/04/2025: Homo crustaceous: ‘Everything becomes crab’ is more than an absurd meme. The crab is a deep symbol of our devil’s bargain with technology.

Emma Jones. bbc culture, 07/11/2025: Too Much: What film and TV get wrong about London.

Emily Steer. Guardian, 07/28/2025: ‘Always provided a release’: why Aliens is my feelgood movie.

I remember catching a train from New Haven to NY to catch this movie. Worth it (though I had some other things to do)

Sarah Dempster. Guardian, 07/29/2025: TV’s best (and worst) historical epics: from Wolf Hall to I, Claudius. "Sweeping dramas set in days of yore are everywhere. But which are some of the finest television ever created? And which are little more than an excuse to show naked backsides?"

Notable caveat: "Given their abundance, some arbitrary judging criteria are clearly in order. Hence: no “fantasy” nonsense (ie Game of Thrones) and nothing set after the early 1800s, the latter on the grounds that a) there are too many of the sods and b) Julian “Downton Bloody Abbey” Fellowes has effectively tucked the era under his top hat and run off with it while honking like an overprivileged goose."

Savannah Salazar. Vulture, 07/31/2025: BritBox Is Going on Holiday to HBO Max.

"Starting Friday, August 1, BritBox will launch a curated collection of television shows on HBO Max for subscribers to enjoy. Presented as “The Best of British TV,” BritBox will offer a sampling of 15 shows — from plenty of Agatha Christie adaptations to detective dramas to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s The Office — the same sort of licensing agreement HBO Max has sealed in the past with the likes of AMC+.

"This collection comes as an effort to match what HBO Max and BritBox are identifying as a “75 percent increase in U.S. demand” for British television. Americans are dreaming about another country right now, apparently.

"The full list of shows is as follows:

➼ Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy
➼ Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero
➼ Blue Lights Seasons 1-2
➼ Father Brown Seasons 1-2
➼ Luther Season 1 (August), Season 2 (September)
➼ Shakespeare & Hathaway Season 1-2
➼ Sherwood Season 1
➼ Silent Witness Seasons 26-27
➼ Sister Boniface Seasons 1-2
➼ The Inspector Lynley Mysteries Seasons 1-2
➼ The Office Seasons 1-2 and The Office Christmas Specials Parts 1-2
➼ The Sixth Commandment
➼ Three Little Birds
➼ Time Season 1 (August), Season 2 (September)
➼ Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?"

With Public Broadcasting closing up shop, access to British TV crime series might require turning to subscription streaming services. I notice that a number of Britbox series aren't included: Midsomer Murders, Vera, & Shetland. Wonder if HBO will experiment with the other streaming service for British mystery, Acorn?

Peter Bradshaw. Guardian, 09/01/2025: Kim Novak’s Vertigo review – the dizzying demands on Hitchcock’s leading lady.

Welcome to new Movie Lovers members joining in August & Sept. I don't have access to movie theaters (none here in New Haven; I also don't drive) so always interested to see what members are watching at The Cinema. And if, like me, your primary or only access is via streaming, network, or DVD, don't hold back. We're also interested in TV series, limited or ongoing, books about movies (or TV series), & movies/TV based on books. There's also an obit thread for directors, actors, etc.

Benjamin Lee. Guardian, 09/14/2025: Emmys 2025: full list of winners.

Alyx Gorman. Guardian, 09/14/2025: Emmy awards 2025: red carpet looks at TV’s big night – in pictures.

Benjamin Lee. Guardian, 09/14/2025: Adolescence triumphs at the Emmys while The Studio breaks records.

Nardine Saad. bbc culture, 09/15/2025: Cash for speeches and big wins for The Pitt and The Studio - Emmys highlights.

Steven McIntosh. bbc culture, 09/14/2025: Sydney Sweeney and Lisa from Blackpink walk Emmys red carpet.

Leo Braudy. LARB, 09/16/2025: The Lucas Museum and the Question of Narrative Art.

>75 Carol420: Best wishes; take a day off from reading books about movies!

Thanks! Julie and John

Brenda Fricker fans might find this interview to be of interest:

Brenda Fricker, interviewer Rory Carroll. Guardian, 09/17/2025: ‘You think rape’s your fault’: Oscar-winner Brenda Fricker on her devastating memoir. Regarding forthcoming She Died Young: A Life in Fragments / Brenda Fricker (publisher not given). "She had a zest for life that propelled her to the heights of stage and screen – but behind all this lay a shocking story of violence, grooming and abuse. From her bed, flanked by pills and cigarettes, Ireland’s grande dame looks back."

Koh Ewe, Riana Ibrahim. bbc culture, 09/19/2025: How a man's affair with his mother-in-law became a viral film in Indonesia.

Link is from Twitter, so it might be accessible.

Anthony Lane. New Yorker, 09/22/2025: The Exacting Magic of Film Restoration. "Each year, at a festival in Bologna, movies that were once lost or damaged come back to life."

Got this from Twitter, not sure if the link works:

"Hundreds of film enthusiasts gathered in London to set a record for the largest assembly of people dressed as characters from films"

https://x.com/Reuters/status/1972304034838323553

Two from Guardian:

Pamela Hutchinson. 10/01/2025: Julie Andrews at 90: the magical nanny with a sideline in the sly, sexy and subversive. "Britain’s practically perfect star enters her 10th decade today. To celebrate we look back over the remarkably rich, radical – and sometimes risqué – career of an actor best known for tucking up children in the mid 1960s."

Guardian film. 09/30/2025: A Fistful of Dollars to Rambo: the late Renato Casaro’s movie posters – in pictures.

>82 featherbear: oh I so loved her in movies and in theaters. The Liza part in the film of My Fair Lady was given Audrey Hepbern always thought andrews was robbed

saw this tho She remembers Hepburn saying to her, “Julie, you should have done it, but I didn't have the guts to turn it down.” “We were friends from then on.” Julie Andrews recalled. - info credit: parade.Aug 11, 2025

I've got 55 mystery tv shows cataloged in my Librarything account. All of these shows I've seen in it's entirity or partially. As I am starting to rate these shows, I have noticed that some of these tv shows have few users that have cataloged. I thought as I rate I would start sharing a list periodically of great mystery shows that people might be missing.

First up those I rated with a five rating. In my rating system for books and other media (movies, tv shows, podcasts, etc.) I am rating 5 star as I consider the book or media to be excellent and would definitely re-read or re-view it again.
(And for frame of reference, i am rating 4 Star as I consider the book or media to be good and I might re-read or re-view it again.)

Overall these tv mystery shows have well written mystery, dialogue, or character storyline, or all the above that has made me want to re-watch these shows. I am linking these to the Librarything pages so further details over these tv shows can be seen.

Diagnosis Murder
Foyle's War
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
Veronica Mars

>84 BooksandMovies: I'm on season 6 of Homicide: Life on the Street: The Complete Series on Peacock. Definitely re-watchable!

For further research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_Life_on_the_Street

Had a scare last week when I thought I'd have to replace my cable box & lose the contents of my DVR (dodged one this time!). Made me think about what I found personally re-watchable over the years -- today's my 76th bday -- so indulge me -- making lists as an aide memoire as the grey cells deteriorate. In no particular order, & the grey cells probably didn't always do their job:

Ugetsu
Jules and Jim My intro to European films my first year in New York.
Seven Samurai The Honolulu of my childhood had all-Japanese TV channels, which is where I saw this for the first time.
A Christmas Carol (1953) First watched this on late TV as a child, but was holiday viewing in college & grad school on the East Coast when it was too expensive to go back home for the holidays; Alistair Sim was Scrooge. I also like the Bill Murray version, primarily for The Ghosts of Christmas Past & Present.
The Night of the Hunter Nightmare film also from childhood -- Robert Mitchum vs Lilian Gish; Charles Laughton directed.
Attack! I played w/toy soldiers as a kid, but this permanently disenchanted me on warfare. Robert Aldrich directed; Jack Palance gets run over by a German tank. Cp w/ Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch or John Woo's Hardboiled, where the violence is aesthetisized. I do like action films where I don't have to take things too seriously -- Sergio Leone is certainly re-watchable.
McCabe and Mrs Miller the visuals, the overlapping dialog, the Leonard Cohen songs, Warren Beatty dying unnoticed like the wife speared in the background in Ugetsu; Elliot Gould picks up Beatty's Altman muttering in The Long Goodbye, my 2nd favorite Altman.
Swingtime for the way Ginger Rogers uses her skirt in the first dance w/Fred Astaire.
Way Down East for Lillian Gish.
Weekend my favorite Godard
Seven Chances for the long tracking shot of all the women laughing at Buster Keaton for daring to propose to them; every guy's nightmare
The Shining too often I think Jack Torrance c'est moi; visuals that suck you in, plus it has Shelley Duvall, only bettered in Thieves Like Us.
Floating Weeds (1959) favorite Ozu, for now -- so many to watch; Machiko Kyo a principal in this one and Ugetsu
Cave of the Yellow Dog a late discovery of a culture probably lost by now -- recently read Tristes Tropiques & I think of this nomadic lifestyle probably absorbed & regularized by the Han state at this point with similar melancholy
City Lights for the last open ended shot everyone whose seen it knows
Spirited Away
Red Desert when I feel existentially bereft
Le Plasir (Max Ophuls, 1952) for the vignette of the bordello ladies on a country outing to celebrate a rural marriage - based on a Maupassant story. Prefer this to the still excellent Earrings of Madame de ...
The Music Room my tentative Satyajit Ray preference
Groundhog Day & The Other Guys for modern comedies; The Awful Truth, Libeled Lady & The Lady Eve for Golden Age.
Coppola's Godfather films are great, but personally, too depressing to re-watch on a regular basis (sort of why I stopped before the blood wedding episode in the Game of Thrones series)
Re-checked my handwritten list & noticed I left off Vanya on 42nd Street, a Louis Malle "rehearsal" of Chekov's Uncle Vanya, with the memorable closing monologue by Brooke Smith.

Veronica Esposito et al. Guardian, 10/11/2025: ‘Verging on unwatchable’: Guardian writers on their most stressful movies.

Mine is Attack! (Robert Aldrich), runner-up Hell is for Heroes (Don Siegel w/Steve McQueen). What's yours?

>85 featherbear: Sounds interesting. I will add to my preview list.

>86 featherbear: That was very lucky and Happy Birthday. (Lady Eve is on my rewatch list as well. )

>87 featherbear: For me it is movies or TV shows that you start to think that it is closer to reality and they don't cover up the reality with unrealistic special effects.
One of these shows that was well written, but stressful was:

Spinning Out tv show that the main character is a competitive skater who restarting her career after a bad injury. Not only does she face the expected pressures of an athlete she also has severe bipolar disorder that she does not always have in check.

I can think of others but this was more intense than some realistic war movies for me.

>86 featherbear: great list. And a belated happy birthday. I do so enjoy your posts.

>87 featherbear: Mine would be Charles Laughton's only film as a director, Night of the Hunter. I have only been able to watch this terrifying film once many years ago. Robert Mitchum terrorising children was stomach churning.

>92 Maura49: The sound that comes out of Mitchum when the children escape on the boat! But I return to the film for the night scene on the river with the shot through the spider web -- wonderful expressionist camera work -- but also Shelley Winters in the transparent river water in the submerged car -- the strength of Lilian Gish protecting her orphans

PS: that night scene sequence now seems to me a transition from the brutal reality controlled by The Preacher, with the serene corpse of the foolish, weak murdered mother -- to the fairy tale world of the strong shotgun wielding mother figure who puts buckshot in the ass of the demonic Preacher (with his parody howls of pain recalling his roar when the children escape to the river).

>89 BooksandMovies: >91 kjuliff: Thanks for the kind wishes; I should add Barry Lyndon -- rewatched numerous times when New Haven still had the York St Cinema -- as a runnerup to The Shining. Will try to re-watch my DVR movies & TV episodes before I'm 77 next year.

>87 featherbear: Caught last night's SNL & I have a new catchphrase to use on Twitter: “That makes me laugh more than the end of Old Yeller!”

News from the streaming world, as Apple TV+ has decided to change its name, adopting what it calls a "vibrant new identity." Effective today, it is changing from Apple TV+ to Apple TV. Not sure I can handle that much vibrant.

Two interesting movie related articles from bbc culture:

Caryn James. 10/13/2025: Mr Scorsese review: This series about the great US film-maker is a must-watch. Unfortunately the doc, like Killers of the Flower Moon is restricted to AppleTV+ excuse me AppleTV.

Rebecca Laurence. 10/14/2025: Frankenstein: Why Mary Shelley's 200-year-old horror story is so misunderstood.

>97 featherbear: Just finished reading the the Frankenstein article you linked above. It was a very interesting article. Because of the previous movie Frankenstein portrayals I have seen in clips I had been dissuaded from watching movie versions or reading the book. From the article it appears the book had more depth, I might have to give it a try.

More stressful movies:

Guardian Readers. Guardian, 10/14/2025: ‘Left me physically exhausted’: readers on their most stressful movies ever.

Nobody's mentioned Hereditary yet?

Susan Stamberg such a life she lead, cracked many ceilings. will miss her on air so sad may her name be for a blessing

>100 cindydavid4: Asleep this evening & missed this; I posted links to NYT & WaPo in the RIP thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/367123#n8976315

Continung my discussion of my 55 tv mysteries. As I said above, as I am starting to rate these shows, I have noticed that some of these tv shows have few users that have cataloged. I thought as I rate I would start sharing a list periodically of great mystery shows that people might be missing.

Next up those with 4 star ratings.
I am rating 4 Star as I consider the book or media to be good and I might re-read or re-view it again. (If i re-read or re-view it again it could graduate to a 5.)

Overall these tv mystery shows have well written mystery, dialogue, or character storyline, or all the above that mighr make me want to re-watch these shows. I am linking these to the Librarything pages so further details over these tv shows can be seen.

Alaska Daily
Body of Proof
Bones
Castle
The Closer
Crossing Jordan
The Doctor Blake Mysteries
The Doctor Blake Mysteries: Family Portrait
Elementary
The Eleventh Hour
Endgame
The Enemy Within
Father Brown on going version beginning 2013
Houdini and Doyle
The Librarians
Lie to Me
Mallorca Files
The Mentalist
Miss Scarlet
Numb3rs
Rizzoli and Isles
Sherlock
Sherlock & Daughter
Vexed
Whiskey Cavalier
Wild Cards
Zoe Busiek: Wild Card

>101 featherbear: Its gonna be hard listening without her

>102 BooksandMovies: pls link castle; a much watch for us for at least 6 seasons, till they ruined it

>105 cindydavid4: Had to remove some links because linked up to books. Will link later.

Continung my discussion of my 55 tv mysteries. As I said above, as I am starting to rate these shows, I have noticed that some of these tv shows have few users that have cataloged. I thought as I rate I would start sharing a list periodically of great mystery shows that people might be missing.

Next up those with 3 star ratings.

Typically I rate 3 stars when I considered the book or media to be decent and I received information or entertainment out of the media. However, I likely would not re-read or re-view it.

However many of these shows I saw a few episodes, which were all good. However, I did not see enough episodes to determine if the shows deserves 4 or 5 star instead, therefore I gave them a 3 star.

Overall these tv mystery shows have well written mystery, dialogue, or character storyline.

I will be linking these to the Librarything pages so further details over these tv shows can be seen (later today).

The Commish
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Miami
Early Edition
House
In the Heat of the Night
The Inspectors
Life on Mars
Monk
Moonlight
Murder, she wrote
Nash Bridges
NCIS: Los Angeles
Person of interest
Prison Break
Remington Steele
Strange Days at Blake Holsey High
Without a Trace

The following show was good, but I would consider a 1 time see.
Case Histories

Related to my 2 star, I am not including because my taste could differ from others.

>107 BooksandMovies: I miss Monk!

>108 JulieLill: So do I

In December and early January, I watch several Christmas movies with my family. ... I have 92 Christmas movies I have seen.
(Side note Countdownuntilchristmas.com has a list of all Christmas movies ever made.)

As I watch movies, I add them to my watched collection in my library and the Christmas Movie (started by dara85), so I can share with other members.

https://www.librarything.com/list/43366/Christmas-Movies

>102 BooksandMovies: >107 BooksandMovies:

No love for Midsomer Murders? Vera? Shetland (no one has a dvd set on LT)?

For myself I would place Inspector Morse in the >107 BooksandMovies: category of "not sufficient episodes watched," but I've seen most if not all of its fine "prequel" Endeavour w/Shaun Evans as the young Morse, & especially David Allam as his mentor. The Morse books aren't bad, but the Endeavour TV series is more atmospheric.

The Dalgliesh series based on the PD James novels is a chiaroscuro throwback.

And the recent Amazon Prime Ballard derived from the Michael Connelly novels, is a nice example of police/amateur misfit crime solvers (Connelly sometimes combined with another series character, Harry Bosch) The Bosch series, also Amazon Prime, is for me another >107 BooksandMovies: "insufficent viewing" but I much enjoyed the Ballard spin-off; it's only 1 season, so far.

In the What Are You Watching thread, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries w/Nathanial Parker & Sharon Small was praised by julie (unless she was referring to the new series on BritBox). Personally I'm a big Sharon Small/Barbara Havers fan; the Havers role in the reimagined version belongs to Sofia Barclay; suggestion seems to be the new Havers is of mixed British/South Asian heritage -- in the Elizabeth George novels Havers befriends South Asian neighbors, so clever ethnic mashup.

There's also the BBC series Death in Paradise, constantly not-reinventing itself, replacing the colonial detective inspector every other season to head the native Caribbean staff, the locals frequently changing season to season; while the mystery solving conventions never change. Relaxing.

Of course I love Homicide: life on the street. (I keep making "street" plural for some reason; Baltimore's colorful nickname is "Charm City"). In the last episode, you could say G dies for the sins of his detectives, who kill almost as many suspects w/out trial than the US kills seagoing "drug smugglers" from South America.

Peter Bradshaw. Guardian, 10/23/2025: Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost review – Ben Stiller’s moving study on the price his family paid for showbiz. "Stiller’s documentary about his parents, comedy duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, is a tender reflection on marriage and what it costs to keep smiling in the entertainment business"

Unfortunately for me, a non-subscriber: Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost is on Apple TV+ from 24 October.

Liby Hays. Paris Review, 10/21/2025: Screenwriting 101: How to Reverse Engineer a Puzzle-Box Thriller.

>111 featherbear: Show availability is a significant factor in these shows not being on my list.

Prior to streaming or YouTube, my family relied on content from the five major network channels, along with local video rental stores or libraries. Occasionally, we would buy a VHS, DVD, or Blu-ray at a local big-box store, and every few years we would go to the movies. Several people we knew had cable and/or satellite TV, but it was as much about choosing how we wanted to allocate our time and resources.

With enough people in this mindset and streaming not being a thing yet, several timeless network shows aired that people are still watching today.

These channels attempted to serve multiple demographics simultaneously, but compared to today's standards, they were more middle of the road. With limited content, individuals who might not typically watch a certain show would give it a try. The scarcity of content meant that people were not as focused solely on their own preferences, allowing them to see the world through someone else’s shoes. This was a positive aspect of that reality.

However, this limited the available network airtime. As a result, some shows that might not appeal to a large demographic or that were too controversial sometimes did not get a chance, except on cable or satellite channels, and sometimes not at all.

Although video stores and big-box stores offered a broader selection of movies, they still catered to the general masses.

British shows were occasionally offered on PBS, mainly during the "Masterpiece" slots on Sunday, usually just for one hour. (In 2008, this expanded to a 2-3 hour block.) This limited the amount of British content available. Unfortunately, we had no DVR, so if we missed a show, we missed it. Sunday evenings were usually very busy with preparations for the week, so very few ongoing storyline shows did we watch on Sundays.

YouTube movies that they hosted allowed us to dip our toes into streaming services. We enjoyed the expanded selection and the ability to stop and start shows. Several years later, we received a couple of Netflix gift cards. Shortly after the COVID restrictions were lifted, I decided we needed to invest in a Roku to access content more easily, rather than manually logging into Tubi, Crackle, etc., and stringing an HDMI cord from the TV to the laptop.

I still like to challenge myself to try new shows, so I have consciously decided to use only free (legal) streaming services. Currently, JustWatch.com in the USA lists 81,283 movies and TV shows that are streaming for free. There are some criteria that apply to filter it further down so I can find content that will please the whole family.

There are some shows, like "Endeavour", for which I have seen snippets, and I am waiting for it to become available for free. But this has led me to discover other shows that I might not have found otherwise.

>114 BooksandMovies: My experience has been somewhat different: from my college years through 6 yrs grad school & the 1st 15 yrs of working I didn't have access to a TV -- not, in fact, until 1992, so I'm probably somewhat less invested in network offerings -- cable from the jump -- antennas could not provide access in my apartment building -- with gradual addition of subscription services via my cable provider (though my Amazon Prime subscription opened up more streaming access). In fact, I was more interested in acquiring a TV in 1992 to catch up on all the movies I'd missed in the 70s & 80s once I'd left New York, via VHS rentals -- plus sports! Meanwhile theaters in New Haven were closing left & right, until finally there are now none. In the meantime, work didn't leave all that much time to watch a lot of TV in any case -- until I retired, which allowed for a lot more exploration, though always in competition with various reading projects, which I confess now take up more time than viewing -- too often I'll watch just to unwind after struggling with some heavy read.

In any case, IMDB says Homicide: life on the street is available via TUBI -- is that one of the free or low priced streamers? By the way, the link on LT is to the expensive $139 DVD set; there's another complete set on Amazon for $35. Homicide was network TV on NBC 1993-1999, per IMDB 122 epis, and in the later stages the seasons were 20+ episodes; not really in the "unwinding" category -- to me it anticipates many of the issues still haunting us today -- & worth seeking out & an investment in time.

Also, I left off my "Brits" list: Prime Suspect w/Helen Mirren; & numerous crime-related American/Canadian cable series: The Shield, Orphan Black, & Justified -- I'm sure others will come to mind. I didn't watch Justified to the end, but the 2 other series came to reasonably satisfying conclusions. A short-lived cop-comedy series I was fond of: The Job: the complete series (2001-2002) featuring Denis Leary -- possibly a parody version of Homicide.

Anne Billson. Guardian. 10/24/2025: Shock therapy: why scary movies keep evolving – and making money.

If you have access to Amazon Prime -- or you can find these via other outlets -- this is a pretty good list -- for me especially for films I've overlooked (sharing the link so hopefully you don't get paywalled):

Jason Bailey. NYT, 10/22/2025: The Best Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now.

Left off, by the way, The Villainess, on AP & also available on other services, which I highly recommend (Korean action over the top shootemup).

Also currently on Prime, Gemma Bovary, a delightful take on the Flaubert’s classic.

I am in the process of tagging more of the movies in my collections. I try to tag with the type that I immediately associate with it. I have over 100 movies that I consider to be predominantly a romantic comedy. Although a lot of other Librarything members have a lot of these works there are some I don't think have enough representation. Anthing with less than 100 members cataloging I am mentioning.

First up those I rated with a five rating. In my rating system for books and other media (movies, tv shows, podcasts, etc.) I am rating 5 star as I consider the book or media to be excellent and would definitely re-read or re-view it again.
(And for frame of reference, I am rating 4 Star as I consider the book or media to be good and I might re-read or re-view it again.)

Romantic comedies are all over the board with their content. I would consider all be on the mild end of the romantic comedy. However, if you consider watching with family I recommend reading more summaries and watching a trailer first.

I provided links to the Librarything pages for further information about specific works.

The Golden Age of Hollywood
* Divorce of Lady X
* The Lady Eve
* Half Angel

New Hollywood ("counterculture of rigidness of Golden Age")
* 40 Carats

Teen comedies of the 1980s and after
* Secret Admirer
* Whatever It Takes
* Drive Me Crazy

TV movies
* I Was a Mail Order Bride
* Perfect Strangers
* Raising Waylon

International
*Seducing Mr Perfect (I feel like because of the title I have to explain. This is an Asian movie that is trying to be cute with title. There are embarrassing scenes for one of main characters, but there are no crude scenes.)

Michael Hogan. Guardian, 10/28/2025: ‘A 66-minute stress bomb’: TV’s most intense episodes ever.

Continung my discussion of my romantic comedy movies. As I said above, as I am in the process of tagging more of the movies in my collections. I try to tag with the type that I immediately associate with it. I have over 100 movies that I consider to be predominantly a romantic comedy. Although a lot of other Librarything members have a lot of these works there are some I don't think have enough representation. Anthing with less than 100 members cataloging I am mentioning.

Next up those with 4 star ratings.
I am rating 4 Star as I consider the book or media to be good and I might re-read or re-view it again. (If i re-read or re-view it again it could graduate to a 5.)

The Golden Age of Hollywood
* Ball of Fire
* One touch of venus

Modern
* The Rebound
* Jumping the broom

International
* Priceless
* Action Replayy
* Hum Tum

Something for the Halloween snowflakes:

Stuart Heritage. Guardian, 10/31/2025: The least frightening films ever – ranked!

"As struggles over the human body escalate, we should return to the work of cinema’s greatest anatomist: David Cronenberg."

Travis Alexander. Aeon, 10/31/2025: Power and flesh.

>122 featherbear: Okay admitting when the Christmas Curious George movie was on PBS, I watched it. I read the books when I was young. (The movie I felt did fit in with the flavor of the books.)

Continung my discussion of my romantic comedy movies. As I said above, as I am in the process of tagging more of the movies in my collections. I try to tag with the type that I immediately associate with it. I have over 100 movies that I consider to be predominantly a romantic comedy. Although a lot of other Librarything members have a lot of these works there are some I don't think have enough representation. Anthing with less than 100 members cataloging I am mentioning.

Next up those with 3 star ratings.
Typically I rate 3 stars when I considered the book or media to be decent and I received information or entertainment out of the media. However, I likely would not re-read or re-view it. Some of these it has been a while since I have seen them. I remember they were decent, but dont rember to what degree.

The Golden Age of Hollywood (1920s-1960s)
* Sin Takes A Holiday
* Kept Husbands

The Modern Era (1980s to 2000s)
* Addicted to Love
* The Beautician And The Beast
* I Do, But I Don't
* Just My Luck
* Love Potion No. 9
* Made in America
* Mr. Wonderful
* Murphy's Romance
* Only You
* Something New
* Secret Admirer

Contemporary Era of Cinema
* Cake
* Can You Keep A Secret?

International movies
* A La Mala
* 5 Weddings
* Rabbit Without Ears

TV movies
* Beauty and the Briefcase
* My Fake Fiance

Related to my 2 star, I am not including because my taste could differ from others.

I am in the process of tagging more of the items in my collections. I try to tag with the type that I immediately associate with it. I have over 44 items that I consider to be predominantly a perseverance theme. Although a lot of other Librarything members have a lot of these works there are some I don't think have enough representation. Any movies, tv shows, or radio series with less than 100 members cataloging I am mentioning. I will be linking these to the associated Librarything pages.

5 star

(I consider these excellent and have rewatched.)
* Last of the Dogmen
* She Stood Alone

4 star

(They were good and I would recommend. I might re-watch it again.)
* Grace under Fire
* 2 Broke Girls
* The Good Karma Hospital
* Rocky Fortune

3 star
(They were good and I would recommend. However, I would likely would not re-watch it.)

* Florence Nightingale
* Beauty shop

Amardeep Singh. Pittsburgh Review of Books, 11/04/2025: What Mamdani Learned from His Mother’s Films.

Amy Hawkins. Guardian, 11/07/2025: Film festival in New York cancelled after China puts pressure on directors.

>128 featherbear: A lot of countries may not be perfect. Being able to openly question your own government without retaliation against you or your family is something that a lot of us seem to take for granted.

In my opinion if you are citizen of x country you should have the right to point out the injustices within that country. Society may agree or disagree that issue or big enough issue. But if each of us strive to improve ourselves and the things within our control and point out those within governmental control, imagine how much better things could be.

For those that live in an oppresive governments, I don't blame the citizens for being cautious. But for the governments that feel like they have to sensor their people I feel pity that they feel like they have to do this. They are stiffling so much potentially of their country and their people.

I am in the process of tagging more of the items in my collections. I try to tag with the type that I immediately associate with it. I have over 18 items that I consider to be predominantly a courtroom drama. Any movies, tv shows, or radio series with less than 100 members cataloging I am mentioning. I will be linking these to the associated Librarything pages.

5 star

(I consider these excellent and have rewatched.)

* Bull
* Harry's Law

4 star

(They were good and I would recommend. I might re-watch it again.

* Franklin Bash
* Jag
* Matlock (original)
* Matlock
* Suits

3 star

(They were good and I would recommend. However, I would likely would not re-watch it.)

* Ed
* Eli Stone
* The Good Wife
* The Guardian
* Judging Amy
* Shark

Guardian claims Pope is fallible.

Peter Bradshaw. Guardian, 11/12/2025: Holy see: three of Pope Leo’s favourite films are divine. The fourth is hard to forgive.

Brooks Barnes. NYT, 11/14/2025: 25 Movies, Many Stars, 0 Hits: Hollywood Falls to New Lows: It has been a brutal three months for dramas and comedies. Temporarily unlocked

Andrew Pulver. Guardian, 11/17/2025: David Zucker renews attack on new Naked Gun reboot starring Liam Neeson. "The director has taken fresh aim at the new film, saying that producer Seth MacFarlane ‘totally missed’ the spoof-comedy style that defined the original Naked Gun franchise."

my husband turned me on to a wonderful holiday movie called Klaus a well done origin story of christmas. I defy anyone to watch this without needing lots of kleenex. think its going to be added to our usual list of movies "when harry met sally', the original 'grinch' and the 'christmas carol' with alistar sim annd of course 'charlie brown christmas'

As I mentioned back in 2024, "I have watched a lot of Hallmark and Hallmark like movies across multiple free streaming services.

I noticed a while back that there were some movies that I was watching that was not originally produced by Hallmark. I started looking closer at these other producing companies. On the surface, these movies seem very similar to Hallmark movies. However when analyzed closer there are some very slight differences. (It is hard to explain the very subtle differences.) One such company is Reel One Entertainment."

Since then Reel One Entertainment has become Studio TF1 America back in May 2025. (Rebranding and joint ventures involved. See the Wikipedia article for further details. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_TF1_America)

A lot of movies already released still has the Reel One Entertainment logo, which I have tagged with Reel One Entertainment and am rating them as I view them or watch snippets to recal my perspective of the movie.

Incase any one might be interested, I am providing a link to the tag page that you can click to specific LT page for further details about the specific movie.
https://www.librarything.com/tag/Reel%20One%20Entertainment%20movies

And providing link to IMDB specific search that would take you to complete list of the romance movies that are tagged as Reel One Entertainment. Most of these would fall into category like Hallmark, but not all. https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?genres=romance&companies=co0036136

Reuben Baron. Public Books, 11/20/2025: “Totto-chan,” the Myth of Hans Asperger, and Disability Pride amidst Fascism.

"I got to attend the US premiere of Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window at the 2025 New York International Children’s Film Festival, where it won the festival’s Animated Feature Grand Prize. It’s the best new movie I’ve seen this year, and its portrait of discrimination, caregiving, and war-making is one that we desperately need right now."

Michael Hogan. Guardian, 11/21/2025: ‘The sword swung so close to her head!’ What it’s like to commit one of TV’s most unforgivable murders. "From Claire Foy’s Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall to Adriana in The Sopranos, we meet the actors who had to bump off TV legends … and then face the wrath of the public."

Haven't seen many of these -- still avoiding the Blood Wedding epi of Thrones -- but regarding the death of Adriana ... has anyone noted the similarity to the assassination of Dominique Sanda in The Conformist? Probably won't get around to Wolf Hall in my lifetime but just wanted to add my 2 cents that I ❤ Claire Foy based on the TV version of Little Dorrit.

>132 featherbear: It appears that the sequel to Wicked, opening at 150 million, has for now ended the Hollywood drought

>138 featherbear: not deserved IMH. they could of edited both and made a decent 3 hour show. lots of changes from the musical, had lots of changes from the book

>139 cindydavid4: So do you recommend reading the book and just watching clips of the movies?

Side note also for anyone else

* "As Wikipedia neatly explained Wicked is a cynical, adult-oriented revision of the characters and setting of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, along with its sequels and 1939 film adaptation."

*The Wizard of Oz 14 book original series in its time of publication was a bestseller series that sold worldwide. (Think Harry Potter scale)

* There was a children's story aspect it, but many adults at that time and literary historians of today interperete it having political and social critics of the time. I had a professor that was also the archivist that and pointed out some things. Very interesting article on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_...

>140 BooksandMovies: having read the book first and Id recommend reading it then reading the original Baum novel. actually there is a book that speaks of Baum and the writing of the wizard of oz movie that gives you an idea how much changed in the meantime finding dorothy as for the musical there is little of the book in it but it is very pretty. as far as the movies go Id watch the first. really cant recommend the most recent

loved that article but all I could think of in the end was 'sometime a cigar is just a cigar'

David Roskin. Guardian, 11/24/2025: Hollywood’s dark era: where did all the colour from movies go? "Blockbuster sequel Wicked: For Good has become the latest film to receive complaints about both the lack of colour and the inconsistent lighting."

>142 featherbear: Although, I have not watched many recent movies, this trend is not surprising to me. I have read and observed color usage in the past few years. Color trends have become more grounded in some cases it can be interpreted as dull.

* Think about paint colors on outside of commercial buildings. They are usually neutral colors. In my area there are still some that are considering common trees or neighboring buildings and they have rich browns that fits with the streets that are lined with dark trees. But the it color is considered grey, so several buildings are now grey or white. The signage is going simplifying in many cases with graphics and logos and signage closer to the ground.

* If you look at the decorating trends excluding the holidays, often it is either muted colors or neutral color with just pops of color.

* Also look at women's fashion. Although there is still some deep and jewel tones there is a lot of muted, blues, or pastels.

Some say with a lot of us on computers a lot of the days our brains are over stimulated and looking for calmness. This may be the case to some extent. I think also some of our rooms are too busy decorated and subconsciously this along our daily stresses builds into us not being as calm.

There is also the color psychology that is used in advertising usually at least for branding (blue = dependable, trustworthy, etc. )

In some cases people did over use color. However I think Hollywood is forgetting that often times people are sometimes watching movies to escape, not always to reflect on reality. If the storyline is not exceptional, I look for the scenery, either natural scenes that are like a painting, colorful like a gingerbread house, or intricate architecture.

This site is usually paywalled but looks like this particular one isn't ... for now:

Graham Daseler. Quillette11/25/2025: The Jewel in the Crown. "‘The Man Who Would Be King’ turns fifty."

The John Huston film from 1975 featuring Sean Connery & Michael Caine, based on the novella by Rudyard Kipling.

I just watched the New Zealand film, Juniper (2023) on Amazon Prime. It’s worth it for.Charlotte Rampling’s star performance, George Ferrier (NZ) does a surprisingly good job as the grandson. A little bit cloy at times but worth the $4 for members.

As they say in NZ, “get out your hankies.”

For those in the US, enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday!

>144 featherbear: fantastic movie!!

Elisabeth Vincentelli. NYT, 11/30/2025: Movies Written by Tom Stoppard to Stream. "Spinning off Shakespeare, waltzing through Imperial Russia, bantering about literature or diving deeply into history, Stoppard shared his gifts on the screen." Temporarily unlocked

Tom Stoppard obit links on my Oct-Dec bibliographic thread #117: https://www.librarything.com/topic/374292#n9018803

NYT best for 2025 temporarily unlocked:

Manohla Dargis and Alissa Wilkinson. 12/02/2025: Best Movies of 2025: Our film critics rank their 10 favorites of the year.

James Poniewozik and Mike Hale. 12/04/2025: Best TV Shows of 2025.

Mark Sweney. Guardian, 12/05/2025: Netflix agrees to buy Warner Bros Discovery studio and streaming business in $83bn deal. "Streaming service to gain control of studio behind Harry Potter and Batman, as well as HBO, home to The White Lotus and Game of Thrones."

Brittany Allen. LitHub, 12/04/2025: Have libraries have become the new Blockbuster?

BBC has paywalled the site, but this one was accessible last time I checked so check it out while it's available:

Nicholas Barber & Caryn James. BBC Culture, 12/05/2025: Sinners to One Battle After Another: The 25 best films of 2025. "BBC film critics Caryn James and Nicholas Barber pick their cinema highlights of the year – from a "whip-fast" action thriller to a moving family drama and warm-hearted comedy."

Sophie Gilbert. Atlantic, 12/04/2025: The Slow Death of the Prestige Thriller: The genre’s overreliance on pulpy paperbacks is turning into a problem. temporarily unlocked

Gilbert seems to have gotten at some of the issues I had with the Peacock series All Her Fault.

Wish I could share this one from my subscription, but New Yorker doesn't have the function or I haven't figured it out; might be one of those where you get one article access per month?:

Justin Chang & Richard Brody. New Yorker, The Best Films of 2025.

I'm getting the Continue this topic prompt, but I plan to hold on & start the new thread in January if I can get away with it ... we've gone this far. Promise to start a second one in July 2026, ok? Regarding the topic of continuations & splicing:

Jesse Hassenger. Guardian, 12/05/2025: Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair – what does the new Tarantino cut offer?"The director’s two-part revenge saga has now been released as one mammoth movie with tweaks and additions here and there.

Scott Tobias. NYT, 12/03/2025: temporarily unlocked 30 Classic Christmas Movies to Watch This Holiday Season. "Our list of classics is broad, from warm Old Hollywood favorites to the sort of boozy, vulgar entertainments that parents can watch after putting the kids to bed."

Caryn James & Hugh Montgomery. bbc culture, 12/09/2025: Pluribus to Alien: Earth: The 25 best TV shows of 2025. "From the Breaking Bad creator's smart new sci-fi to the Alien franchise's first small-screen outing and the new season of Severance, we pick the year's greatest programmes to stream."

"to stream"

David Sims. Atlantic, 12/09/2025: The 10 Best Movies of 2025. temporarily unlocked

>150 featherbear: More on the implications of Netflix purchasing Warner/HBO. What happens to TCM, currently owned by Warner. The following is unfortunately paywalled:

Josef Adalian. Vulture, 12/08/2025: Netflix and TCM: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship?

"Though it wasn’t mentioned officially in any press releases announcing the deal last week, a spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery’s U.S. networks division confirms that TCM will be part of the studios and streaming division of Warner Bros. that Netflix is currently trying to buy.

"The fate of TCM has been a bit cloudy since the WB-Netflix deal was unveiled, in part because in general, Netflix is not buying the cable networks owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. (Those networks include CNN, HGTV, TNT, and Cartoon Network, among others.) Instead, at some point next summer, those channels are supposed to be spun off into a new unit called Discovery Global Networks, while the rest of WBD — the WB film and TV studios, HBO, and HBO Max — continues on as Warner Bros., with current CEO David Zaslav in charge.

"Netflix will then try to close a purchase of Zaslav’s portion of the company, which, in addition to the film and movie studios and HBO, includes smaller divisions such as DC Comics, theme park holdings — and, yes, Turner Classic Movies, we’ve learned.

"It seems possible Netflix could work out an arrangement with Discovery Global, at least in the short term, to oversee both HBO and TCM’s relationships with cable companies, since Netflix has zero experience running linear channels."

The streaming version of TCM is part of the HBO/MAX package & is at best meh & at worst vile, and of course precludes DVR; the question for me is whether the "linear" or cable channel version will continue to exist following the merger, should it take place.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, Erik Piepenburg, Robert Daniels, and Devika Girish. NYT, 12/10/20225: Temporarily unlocked The Best Genre Movies of 2025. "We look at the finest in science fiction, horror, action and international films, all available to stream."

Inkoo Kang. New Yorker, 12/08/2025: The Best TV Shows of 2025.

Radheyan Simonpillai. Guardian, 12/15/2025: Heat at 30: Michael Mann’s electric crime thriller is a film of fire and sadness.

Jesse Raub. The Atlantic, 12/15/2025: temporarily unlocked ‘The Sun Rises and Sets With Her, Man.’ "The director Michael Mann isn’t thought of as a romantic but the men of Heat, which turns 30 today, are fueled by their relationships."

Aaron Labaree. Boston Review, fall 2025: A Good Neighbor. "The late Marcel Ophuls made films about the twentieth century’s great crimes—and the trail of guilt they left behind."

Leah Prinzivalli. Slate, 12/15/2025: Hallmark Gone Wild. Regarding the popular channel.

Jesse Hassenger et al. Guardian, 12/17/2025: ‘A festive tour de force’: Guardian writers on their favorite underrated Christmas movies. "From a John Cusack 80s teen comedy to the other Frank Capra Christmas crowd-pleaser, here are some seasonal picks you might not have seen."

>165 featherbear: Saw in the last few years It Happened on 5th Avenue. I rated it a 4 star (out of 5). I liked it, might watch again, and would recommend.

>161 featherbear: Interesting out of these lists of best shows. Out of my circle of coworkers and other acquaintances of all ages and interests, I have heard them discuss only one of these shows.

>167 BooksandMovies: here's another list! By the way, what was that special show? Also, "best of lists" function for me in part to discover new items to read/watch/sample/explore beyond one's personal circle (which in my case, to be honest, is pretty small)

Sophie Gilbert & Shirley Li. Atlantic, 12/17/2025: temporarily unlocked The 14 Best TV Shows of 2025.

>168 featherbear: Some interesting choices on that list; I'm especially happy to see North of North and Dept. Q included.

Got this from Twitter/X; hope it works!

Former POTUS 2025 favorites:

https://x.com/BarackObama/status/2001752388974121278

Andrew Lawrence. Guardian, 12/20/2025: How Sinners became the most culturally important film of 2025.

New York Times. NYT, 12/17/2025: Temporarily unlocked The 25 Most Notable Movies of 2025.

"Every year The New York Times’s critics put out a list of their Top 10 movies of the year. But there are a lot of film experts in the newsroom, and in a terrific year for the big screen, we wanted to get a sense of what stuck with them the most. So we polled the 16 staffers who play important roles in shaping our movie coverage. Here are our 25 most notable films of 2025, in alphabetical order."

Since I have access to some of the streaming platforms, I'll add to my tbw queue, if they aren't there already:
Netflix: 28 Days Later, Frankenstein, The Perfect Neighbor, Train Dreams
HBOMax: Friendship, Eddington, One Battle After Another, Sorry, Baby
Amazon Prime: Hedda
MGM+: Roofman
Peacock (?): Bugonia

Worth a re-watch: HBOMax: Sinners, Weapons -- Neflix: KPop Demon Hunters -- Amazon Prime (though I watched it on Peacock): Black Bag

Scot Brobst. NYT, 12/17/2025: temporarily unlocked: Why Do Movies Keep Repeating the Same Joke About the Afterlife?.

For a refreshing change of pace, Netflix still has the 2023 Indonesian film Siksa Neraka, that details the fate of teenagers who sneak out to watch a pop concert, drown unexpectedly, & wind up in Hell. Old Time Religion; fire & brimstone; no joking around.

Jess Love. American Scholar, 12/11/2025: The Last Good Thing: DVDs, streaming, and the price of nostalgia.

Bilge Ebiri. Yale Review, 12/15/2025: Terrence Malick’s Disciples: Why the auteur is the most influential director in Hollywood.

The Atlantic Culture Desk. Atlantic, 12/21/2025: shared link: Nine Non-Christmas Movies to Watch During Christmas.

Close to maxing out on my shared article allowance, but the month is rapidly coming to an end:

Alissa Wilkinson. 12/19/2025: shared link: ‘Breakdown: 1975’ Remembers the Distinctive Cinematic Voices of an Era. Netflix documentary to look out for.

Daniel Dylan Wray. Guardian, 12/23/2025: It’s a Wonderful Life – the fart-along version! What Christmas TV insiders really watch every year.

Andrew Lawrence et al. Guardian, 12/24/2025: Dancing! Fighting! Impregnating! The best movie moments of 2025.

Guardian. 12/25/2025: It’s turkey time! The 12 worst films of 2025.

Maya Phillips. NYT, 12/23/2025: shared link: The Best Animated Shows and Movies of 2025.

oh Oh when we were dating used to go to the animation shows all the time at the at the Fox Theater they used to put on the best animated shows and movies and we really enjoyed them for some reason we stopped going but now that I see this maybe they've started doing them again. anyway I'm eager to watch that link thanks for sending

Radheyan Simonpillai et al. Guardian, 12/28/2025: The best films of 2025 … you may not have seen. "From an old-fashioned western to a charming baseball comedy, Guardian writers pick their favourite lesser-known films of the year."

Kate Abbott et al. Guardian, 12/29/2025: ‘A total knockout!’ The best television you never watched in 2025.

She seems very enthusiastic, though where's Department Q?:

Olivia Rutigliano. crimereads, 12/18/2025: The Best Crime TV Series of 2025.

Movie Lovers 2: Tomorrow Jan 1 2026 I plan to start new threads:

What Are You Watching in Jan-April 2026? - TV Shows or Film

R.I.P 2026

LET'S TALK ABOUT IT 2026

Not a lot of postings for the following, so rather than start new threads in 2026, just let them keep going. Disagree?:

Books on Movies and TV

Books Made Into Movies Oct 2023-

Best wishes for the coming year, Featherbear

The last of the besties lists for 2025:

The selections seem unusual for this one; pick your poison:
Xan Brooks et al. Guardian, 12/31/2025: Staying in with the old: the best films to watch on New Year’s Eve.

Common Sense Media. WaPo, 12/31/2025: shared link: The 23 best family films of 2025. "Common Sense Media highlights the year’s best movies for young kids, tweens and teens."

Washington Post staff and contributors. WaPo, shared link I think: The best movies of 2025, according to critics.“Marty Supreme,” “The Secret Agent,” “Left-Handed Girl” and “Sentimental Value” make our list of 2025’s best films."