What Are You Watching in Sept-Dec 2025? - TV Shows or Film!

Continues: What Are You Watching in May-August 2025? - TV Shows or Film!

If you caught something in August but haven't gotten around to posting, you can do it in this thread.

If you're reporting on a movie not viewed in a theater, it would be helpful to indicate what streaming or cable/network service you accessed, or whether it was a streaming rental, or a DVD/Bluray from your collection (have I missed something?), in case other members want to consider watching/or avoiding as well. (If a film or series is exceptionally long, e.g. The Brutalist or Killers of the Flower Moon, it would affect my decision as well -- when I can be watching UConn Women's Basketball! or my various reading projects)

For my part, I'm continuing to explore Homicide: life on the streets on Peacock -- would like to re-read the David Simon book on which it was based if I can make the time ... maybe start writing up some of my streaming purchases & more of my DVD/BluRay collection.

I had an unusually busy week at the cinema last week, going to see three movies.

Weapons is a horror-tinged thriller with a terrific premise, which is spelled out in the movie's very effective publicity/advertising campaign. At 2:17 in the morning, 17 children from the same third-grade class leave their homes, run into the streets, and disappear. Only one child from that class is left behind.

Suspicion quickly falls on the teacher (Julia Garner), with one father (Josh Brolin) leading the crusade against her. The movie's told in chapters, each centered on one character, so we're often backtracking to fill in new pieces of scenes that we didn't entirely grasp the first time around.

The movie teases a couple of social issues that it really isn't very interested in, which is irritating, but on the whole, I liked it a lot. Strong cast, with particularly good performances from Austin Abrams as a drug addict who gets caught up in everything that's going on, and Amy Madigan as the eccentric aunt of the one kid who doesn't disappear.

Relay gives us Riz Ahmed as a man who offers multiple names throughout the movie; the credits call him "Ash," so we'll stick with that. Ash helps potential whistleblowers negotiate with their companies; he stays anonymous to both parties in each negotiation by communicating only through the relay service used by the deaf to make phone calls. His principal client in this movie is Sarah (Lily James).

For most of the movie, Ash and Sarah communicate only via relay service; we barely hear his voice at all, since everything he says is being communicated to Sarah by a relay operator. It's also a novel twist that Ash isn't a typical punch/shoot/drive real fast action hero; he solves problems mostly through cleverness, often involving some creative use of the US Postal Service.

Alas, in the final act, the movie becomes a much more traditional action flick, with car chases and shoot-outs and fistfights. To be sure, those things are well done, and had they come at the end of a more conventional action movie, I'd probably have been content. But coming at the end of a movie that had been doing something different and more interesting, it was a bit of a letdown. Worth seeing, though.

Lurker is an obsession story in which Matthew (Theodore Pellerin) worms his way into the life of Oliver (Archie Madekwe), a minor pop star. The movie's playing with the idea that there's no innocent here; each man is using the other. It's clear that Matthew is just one in a long line of hangers-on who will be dismissed by Oliver the instant that they become comfortable enough in his entourage that they don't express constant admiration. After all, if he's not contantly being praised, then what's the point of being (very slightly) famous?

But the both-sides-ism of "we're all exploiters on this bus" keeps the movie from generating any real narrative tension; you can't really feel much pain at someone potentially being hurt when everyone is constantly trying to hurt those around them.

Jaws is getting a 50th-anniversary theatrical release, and since I'd never seen it, it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of the chance to see it on a big screen.

And I tell you what, that there Jaws is a pretty good movie.

>3 KeithChaffee: 👍

I don't think I mentioned already. I finished watching Whiskey Cavalier a while back. Very interesting show that had a bit of mystery and action and had some quipy lines.

Should have been renewed for another season when it was on the air, but I think it got lost in the shuffle competiting against streaming. Network at time aired should have embraced streaming the latest episodes free to get more viewers to current tv schedule.

The Girlfriend, now streaming at Amazon, is based on a novel by Michelle Frances. It's a six-episode psychological thriller that can't decide whether it wants to be deliciously trashy or austerely prestigious.

Daniel (Laurie Davidson) is at the center of the drama. He's from a well-off family, and is training to be a surgeon. His new girlfriend, Cherry (Olivia Cooke), is from a working-class background and works in real estate.

Daniel's mother, Laura (Robin Wright), who runs an art gallery, is immediately suspicious of Cherry, who she sees as a dangerously manipulative golddigger. Laura's not entirely wrong, but Cherry is also on the mark in finding Laura to be a clingy mother who's terrified of losing her son to any other woman.

That sets in motion a cascade of escalating paranoia, pranks at increasing levels of menace and criminality, and power games between the two women. The show alternates between their points of view, often showing scenes twice with minor, though significant, differences.

The show's inability to settle on a tone weighs it down. It certainly isn't the classy prestige drama it occasionally aspires to be, but it takes itself too seriously to really wallow in the campy trash that it ought to be. Its best moments come when it gives in to nighttime soap opera silliness -- think DALLAS or DYNASTY -- but only Tanya Moodie, playing Laura's best friend, is consistently finding the right over-the-top tone.

The even bigger problem is that the show pretends that the culpability is evenly distributed between the two women, and it isn't. One of the women is clearly more evil and manipulative than the other, whose worst moments are in reaction -- over-reaction, to be sure -- to extreme provocation.

And the final scene is a cheap non-resolution that seemed designed only to leave open the possibility of a second season.

The Girlfriend isn't unwatchable, and Moodie is delightful, but it falls far short of what it might have been.

Just finished A Place to Call Home. Very interesting Australian drama series. Would recommend for someone that like complex characters storylines with lots of plot twists.

Would preview if watch with family. Some topics could be controversial.

I’m still spending most of my TV time watching Homicide on Peacock (now nearing the end of Season 5: epi 22). Feeling as grumpy as Plankton at the recent scheduling change on Nickelodeon, where the afternoon segment of Spongebob has been replaced by the Loud series -- since Spongebob has been my landing channel all summer while I’m making dinner.

In any case, for a change of pace I decided to check out a couple of items. Started S1, E1 of The Summer I Turned Pretty -- you’ve probably noticed I’m collecting a lotta links to what seems like a national obsession with the Amazon Prime series, but I’m not a young enough adult to get hooked so far, & would Jane Austen have a heroine nicknamed “Belly?” For that matter, does JA assign nicknames?

However, in the wee hours switched to HBO (streaming version) & decided to watch a bit of Superman, the 2025 version directed by James Gunn, whose superhero films I’ve enjoyed. I did get hooked on this one & watched to the end ca 1:30AM here on the East Coast. Even watched the credits, initially to find out who was playing Supergirl. (Milly Alcock, uncredited, is, per IMDB, Kara Zor-El; I had to Google search to learn that Kara Z is the super party girl) Seriously, I have come to really enjoy these long credit runs for the big tent CGI movies that provide employment for so many! It should be noted that Superman (David Corenswet) is only dog-sitting Krypto (couldn’t find an actor credit I confess); the super-canine is actually Supergirl’s pet – apparently she has been partying in another solar system with a red sun – we learn that the super “metahumans” can only get drunk in systems with red suns, while the super-metas can only exercise their superpowers clean & sober under the yellow sun systems.

Speaking of meta humans, the film introduces the members of the tentatively named “Justice Gang,” consisting of Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Mr Terrific (Edi Gathegi who gets a lot of screen time deservedly), & Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced); Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan) is a late addition. The villain is Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) represents Science Gone Amok, who believes brains will always triumph over Superman’s brawn – he could learn something from watching Spongebob or, for that matter, national politics. Worth noting that there’s a rather clear underlying political theme (immigrant superpowers) throughout – note also how the Justice Gang goes from apolitical to political.

The core of the Superman saga is Superman/Clark Kent & Lois Lane, & how to make this rather bland couple interesting is always a challenge. In part Gunn allows to be physically challenged – perhaps overdoing it – I almost agreed with the Peacemaker cameo that suggested Superman could use some time in the gym – though I also thought of images of magnificent sea creatures strangled in plastic as I watched Superman gagging on “nanites.” But the conflict with Superman’s biological parents’ plans & his/Clark Kent’s “simple” adoptive parents I found moving, especially in the snapshots of his childhood as he recovers from his battles in The Fortress of Solitude.

On a completely different topic, I’ve been listening to lieder singer Mitsuko Shirai on Spotify while typing this up & discovered her version of Das Lied von der Erde: VI Abschied from her 2017 Jubilee Edition, with Hartmut Holl doing a piano transcription of the orchestration. Wonderful, contemplative stuff which I recommend seeking out.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is the third feature from director Kogonada, and the first that he didn't also write (this one's by Seth Reiss). His first two movies, Columbus and After Yang, were smaller films aimed at the arthouse market; this time, he's gone big-budget Hollywood.

Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie star as David and Sarah, who live in the same city, but don't meet until they attend the same wedding, a day's drive from their home. Each has been forced at the last minute to rent a car from The Car Rental Agency, a vaguely magical business run by Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (dead perfect in her few short scenes), who ask personal questions that have nothing to do with car rental, and insist that they take the GPS option.

It's not your standard GPS, though. It brings David and Sarah together and takes them on a road trip -- the titular BBB journey -- that will force both to revisit moments from their past.

The tone here is all over the place, starting with whimsy and veering midway through into Pinterest board levels of earnest, feel-good sincerity. For the first few minutes, the whimsy works, and I was hopeful that I was in for something interesting. But once Kline and Waller-Bridge are gone, things become overbearing. It's as if someone has whimsically dropped the world's most whimsical anvil on your head.

Everything and (almost) everyone here is trying way too hard. Farrell has cranked the Irish accent into overdrive (*); Robbie is playing a variation on Manic Pixie Dream Girl, an archetype which, even if it hadn't almost instantly started to feel creepy and gross, she's now a decade too old for.

(*--Farrell's character tells us that he's lived in the US since he was 13. Surely his accent would have faded and become more Americanized over 35 years. And if you think it wouldn't, there's still the problem that when we meet the 15-year-old version of the character, his accent, which should be at least as strong as Farrell's if not more so, is barely noticeable.)

There are a few lovely images here, for which kudos to cinematographer Benjamin Loeb -- an outdoor wedding in the pouring rain, two cars in a parking lot with a glowing sunset in the distance behind them. And there's a lot of terrific music on the soundtrack. But when all you can find to praise in a movie is a few pretty shots and some catchy tunes, something has gone very wrong. I would, however, happily watch a whole movie of Waller-Bridge asking uncomfortably inappropriate questions of the people whom fate has brought to The Car Rental Agency.

>6 KeithChaffee: oh dear, damming with faint praise. I was getting really excited about this new series to your last line.

>12 kjuliff: Might as well give it a shot if it sounds appealing. I know several people who liked it more than I did.

>13 KeithChaffee: I just might do that. I don’t subscribe to any other TV or film streamings services.

The History of Sound is not quite the gay period romance that the poster and trailers would suggest, though that is an element of the story. It is mostly the story of Lionel (Paul Mescal), a Kentucky farm boy who gets a scholarship in 1917 to study voice at the New England Conservatory. That's where he meets David (Josh O'Connor). They become friends and lovers, then embark on a trip through Maine to gather and record traditional folk songs.

The movie is fine, I guess, though there's nothing particularly interesting or memorable about it. The gay romantic element of it is made with the sort of oh-so-tasteful restraint that I thought went out of style decades ago, and there's not a hint of horniness or emotional passion from either man, even in the gently filmed sex scenes.

Some other serious quibbles: We hear Mescal sing several times in the movie, and while he has a pleasant enough voice and sings in tune, it is a small, breathy voice. Never does he hint -- not even in an early scene where he is singing for an audience -- at the sort of power, control, or vocal range that it would take to get a conservatory scholarship, much less to have an international career as a singer.

And that Maine song-gathering trip, during which the men are mostly sleeping in a tent in the woods? That's happening in January. Even in climate-changed 2025, you wouldn't go on a month-long camping trip in Maine in January (and you certainly wouldn't be as underdressed for the weather as these two are); a hundred years ago, it would have been even more foolish.

>15 KeithChaffee: Keith...do you know if this is available in print?

>16 Carol420: The History of Sound: Stories / Ben Shattuck; 978-0593490396

>17 featherbear: Thank you so very much.

The K-Pop Demon Hunters sketch made tonight's SNL worth it!

>19 featherbear:
Now vindicated by Erik Adams in The Atlantic, 10/05/2025: SNL Is Reading the Room.

"The sketch that earned the most live hooting and hollering was not the politically topical one, but the pop-culturally zeitgeisty one—about a very particular movie that surprised many with its wild success this summer. In an episode featuring a pair of established Top 40 hitmakers—host Bad Bunny and musical guest Doja Cat—the real-life stars of the animated Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters stole the spotlight. And they underscored SNL’s clear desire to keep up with the shifting center of the pop-culture universe.

"The women of HUNTR/X, the fictional pop trio that leads the sleeper hit, provided the kicker to a sketch that poked fun at what it’s like to be on the inside (and outside) of a huge cultural phenomenon. Bad Bunny is the lone KPop Demon Hunters–obsessed member of his friend group, played by Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman, and Sarah Sherman. His affection for the children’s movie—in which a pop song is all that stands between humanity and a demonic apocalypse—comes as a surprise to them: He has no kids, so this is something he cued up on Netflix all by himself; he’s so familiar with the soundtrack that when Fineman’s character suggests they shift the conversation to a different topic, he goes right into daydreaming about HUNTR/X singing its Billboard No. 1 hit, “Golden.” In the mind of Bad Bunny’s progressively more frustrated Hunters lover, nothing is as important or relevant as the animated pop stars’ tussle with the soul-sucking minions of Gwi-Ma.

"It all sounds perfectly silly coming out of a grown man’s mouth, and the film’s taxonomy of magical entities really gives Bad Bunny a run for his cue-card-reading money. But the enthusiastic crowd seemed to find much of the lingo legible, and many of the folks at home could likely follow along too—whether they’re parents or not. According to Netflix’s internal data, KPop Demon Hunters is the most popular English-language original in the company’s history. It is also, in a rarity for a streaming movie, a merchandise-generating, box-office-topping sensation, reminiscent of a time when a handful of popular movies could make for reliable watercooler fodder. Returning from its summer hiatus, SNL had plenty of other blockbusters to base sketches on: reimaginings of Superman and The Fantastic Four, even the idiosyncratic horror-comedy film Weapons. That it tried to make a splash with HUNTR/X shows where the SNL team sees the most cultural heat coming from—and demonstrates that it has a little more savvy than the movie studio that initially handed off KPop Demon Hunters to Netflix in the first place.

"The KPop Demon Hunters sketch ultimately argued that for all of the movie’s peculiarities—the weaponized music, the demonic lore—it’s a classic crowd-pleaser at its core. The songs are bangers, the visuals are bright and engaging, and the women of HUNTR/X are every bit the superheroes that Superman and the Fantastic Four are. And for some members of the SNL audience, these pop stars are news makers on par with, if not exceeding, the self-styled “secretary of war.”

A hundred years or so ago, Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov demonstrated the editing effect that now bears his name: Audiences will assign emotion to an image based on the images that follow. Show them a neutral face followed by a bowl of soup, and they will interpret the face as being hungry; replace the soup with a lovely woman, and they'll see not hunger, but lust.

Turns out it works just as well if the face is that of a dog, and that's the basis for the clever haunted house movie Good Boy. Director Ben Leonberg co-wrote the film with Alex Cannon; Leonberg filmed the movie in his own home, with his dog Indy as the star. It took three years, filming for an hour or two every few days. The theatrical release has a post-credits "making of" in which Leonberg explains how the movie was made; it's a few minutes long, but the movie itself is on the short side, so it doesn't feel like an undue imposition on your time.

Indy really is the star of the movie; when the credits roll, he's first billed -- "starring Indy as himself." The story is told from his point of view, and he's in nearly every shot. The principal human actor is Shane Jensen, who plays Indy's owner, Todd. Todd has decided to move into the house his grandfather left him, located in the middle of nowhere. Not the wisest choice, perhaps, since Todd has some serious health problems, and the house has been thought by some to be haunted since his grandfather's death. As Todd gets sicker and his behavior gets stranger, Indy begins to sense a dark presence in the house.

Of course, as Leonberg repeatedly tells us, "Indy had no idea he was making a movie," so his "performance" is entirely a matter of editing, and Curtis Roberts has done a terrific job of cutting the film together. Leonberg, Roberts, and cinematographer Wade Grebnoel make some smart decisions that not only sell the illusion of Indy's POV, but help to get across certain story points that might be unclear because of that limited POV.

It's a smartly made movie, and a terrific debut for Leonberg.

And a pair of interesting streaming movies:

At Apple TV+, there's Deaf President Now!, a documentary about the 1988 student protest at Gallaudet University. Gallaudet is the world's only university for Deaf students, and when the university's board offered the job of president to a non-Deaf candidate, the students rose up in anger. Gallaudet had never had a Deaf president since its 1864 founding, and the students rightfully thought that it was about damn time it got one. Four of the primary student leaders are interviewed; instead of subtitles, each of the four is given a voice-over translation of their ASL.

At Amazon, I watched When Fall Is Coming, a 2024 film from French director Francois Ozon. Two women in their 70s, former co-workers, have retired to the countryside to live as neighbors. Each has an adult child. Marie-Claude's son is in prison, and she is less inclined than her friend is to forgive him for his offense. Michelle's daughter resents her for offenses real and imagined, and Michelle puts up with her mostly in order to see her adored grandson. The movie eventually becomes a sort of crime thriller, and while it pulls one too many moments of "was there a crime or not" ambiguity, the performances are teriffic, especially Helene Vincent as Michelle.

Prior to the television networks in the USA broadcasting TV shows, many had been radio networks. NBC was one of these. I just finished listening to Rocky Fortune which aired on NBC in the 1950s staring Frank Sinatra. The main character often takes innocent jobs, which often ends up putting the main character in danger and quickly makes him try to solve who is behind crimes in order try to maneuver them so he can survive.

I started listening to the show expecting it being a so-so show that was overally male chauvinistic. Yes the main character did flirt sometimes with the female characters, but the female characters either flirted back or shut him down and the male main character usually quickly took the hint. Also there were many female villains and heroes, they were not always damsels. The main male character although tried to be witty at times did not try to play heroic, but tried to help others who were in a jam as well. There were several near misses before he scraped by to make it another day.

So bottom line try listening or watching something for a bit even if you have preconceived notions. You might be pleasantly surprised.

t(A friendly note: I do tend to go on about musicals, because I love them so. I will understand if this is more than you care to hear about this movie.)

Bill Condon's film Kiss of the Spider Woman is the latest in a long line of versions. Manuel Puig wrote the novel in 1976, and adapted it into a stage play in 1983. A 1985 film adaptation starred William Hurt (who won the Best Actor Oscar), Raul Julia, and Sonia Braga. It was adapted as a musical in 1992; Terrence McNally wrote the book, with songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb. That musical is adapted for the new film.

It's set in 1983, in an Argentina prison, where two very different men are sharing a cell. Valentin (Diego Luna) is a political prisoner who is being tortured for information about the resistance to the country's military dictatorship; Molina (Tonatiuh) is a gay window dresser, serving a sentence for public indecency; he is obsessed with classic Hollywood films and the divas who starred in them.

To pass the time, Molina begins telling Valentin the story of his favorite old movie, "Kiss of the Spider Woman," a kitschy B-movie musical starring Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez). We see excerpts from the movie, as narrated by Molina, in splashy brightly-colored musical scenes. In Molina's imagination, he and Valentin are playing the movie's principal male characters. Through their sharing of a story with parallels to their own lives, the two men find their relationship evolving.

This is, especially by the standards of Kander and Ebb, a rather weak score. Ebb's lyrics are particularly bad, feeling like a rough draft, always going for the most obvious rhyme. Several songs from the stage version have been cut, removing any song that took place in the movie's "real" world of the prison cell; the film's musical numbers exist almost exclusively in fantasy, with only one brief diegetic number sung by two prisoners in the yard outside the cell. Three songs that were cut from early versions of the stage musical have been restored, with Kander patching together some new lyrics from Ebb's notes. (Ebb died in 2004.)

The movie belongs to Tonatiuh, the only one of the three leads who can sing, dance, and act at the necesssary level. He's riveting, and brings humanity to a character who has always been an offensive cliche of a self-loathing gay man. (For my money, he's giving a better performance than Hurt did.)

Diego Luna is not asked to sing very much, which is a good thing, because he can't; the choreography (by Sergio Trujillo and Brandon Bieber) has been skillfully designed to disguise his limitations as a dancer.

Jennifer Lopez has a fine voice for perky, disposable pop music -- not a slam; I love perky, disposable pop music -- but it's not a theater voice. She can't sell the emotion of her songs (and she has a *lot* of songs), and a score this flimsy demands performers who can convince you that the songs are more potent than they really are. She does magnificently with the dancing, though, and (unusually for Condon), the dance is reasonably well filmed -- longer takes in which the entire body is visible.

The sharp divide between the drab, gray prison cell and the brightly colored musical scenes is effective, and Luna and Tonatiuh make the prison material work better than it has any right to. (I have never found the way their relationship develops to be remotely convincing in any version of the story, though I haven't read the novel. ) The quality of the dance and the orchestrations is enough to make the musical scenes entertaining despite the vocal limitations of Lopez and Luna.

But the reason to see the movie is Tonatiuh. He's not a complete newcomer -- he's done some television work -- but this really is his breakthrough role, and it ought to open a lot of doors for him.

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is, I think, the most stressful movie I've ever seen. It makes Uncut Gems look like Mary Poppins.

It's the story of a woman well into a nervous breakdown. She's got a very sick kid who she's struggling to keep in treatment, a military husband who's posted overseas for months at a time, and is currently living in a cheap motel because of water damage to her apartment. The movie constantly ratchets up the tension, as everything that can go wrong does. There are a few too many hallucinatory drug-trip scenes, and one particularly unpleasant bit of body horror.

But, Rose Byrne's performance is absolutely stunning. She's in almost every frame of the movie, often in very tight closeup, and she sells every nuance of Linda's increasingly frantic reactions. I will be surprised if I see a better performance this year.

So I'm somewhat at a loss to answer the "should I see it" question. Byrne is magnificent, but I can't honestly say that I enjoyed the movie or that I would ever willingly watch it again.

Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite is currently getting a limited theatrical release before hitting Netflix on October 24. It's a thriller set inside the US political and military leadership, as they respond to the launch of nuclear missile at the United States.

It's a deep and solid cast that includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke, and Renee Elise Goldsberry. Of the principal players, Gabriel Basso is the weakest link as the deputy national security advisor; he's far too boyish for the part, and feels like a nervous college student who's somehow been Freaky Friday'd into doing Daddy's job.

The movie is told in three sections, each covering the same time period, but focused primarily on different groups of characters. That does allow the story to play out each time in something close to real time, boosting the tension and the sense that time is running out. I think that's a fairly small gain, and would have preferred the increased comprehensibility we'd have gotten from a single linear narrative. And if you're frustrated by a lack of resolution, the ending is likely to greatly piss you off.

A good movie, not a great one, and I suspect that the early Oscar buzz is going to fade pretty quickly as more people see the movie.

Richard Linklater's Blue Moon spends a night with Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke), former songwriting partner of Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott). It is the opening night of Oklahoma!, Rodgers' first musical with his new collaborator, Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney).

Hart, after masochistically attending the opening night, is punishing himself even further by doing his post-show drinking at Sardi's, where Rodgers and Hammerstein have scheduled their opening night party. He commiserates with the bartender (Bobby Cannavale), chats for a while with fellow writer E. B. White (a charming supporting turn from Patrick Kennedy), and looks forward to the arrival of a young woman with whom he is infatuated (Margaret Qualley). There are a few other familiar names in the crowd -- the photographer Weegee (John Doran), a barely-teenaged Stephen Sondheim (Cillian Sullivan) for one awkwardly written scene.

These actors are doing fine work, but Hawke owns the movie. Robert Kaplow's screenplay is, for long stretches, essentially monologues for Hart, with other characters' contributions limited to an occasional "really?" and such comments. The only other character who gets a significant moment of their own is Qualley's Elizabeth, and while she delivers her big speech very nicely, it doesn't have much to do with the rest of the movie, and I spent the scene wishing we could get back to Hart. Only Kennedy's E. B. White really holds his own in scenes with Hart, perhaps because he's the only character who is able to appreciate Hart's talent as a peer, and (more importantly to Hart) in the mood to shower Hart with said appreciation.

Hart was quite short, and the least successful element of the movie is Linklater's use of forced perspective, holes for Hawke to stand in, and a few oversized pieces of furniture for him to stand next to. Those moments are always obvious fakery, and a bit distracting.

Lovely movie, with superb work from Hawke.

>27 KeithChaffee: where can one see this? Is it in theatres or on a streamer? It sounds terrific. I love the music of Rodgers and Hart

Watched the last episode of the series Homicide: life on the streets on Peacock. Still gathering my thoughts.

Watched the first episode of Lynley on Britbox. Reconstituted version of the Elizabeth George mystery books; Leo Suter & Sofia Barclay have the Nathanial Parker/Sharon Small roles from the original TV series. 90m epi complete in itself (4 epi season). Didn’t appear to be based on one of George’s books, but I haven’t read them all.

Watched S3, E2 of the BBC series of Beyond Paradise on Britbox. Comfort viewing.

Got bored watching Monday Night Football, checked my e-mail & an alert from HBO & opened the streamer. Had to actually use the search function to find it though: Baby Assassins Every Day. 12 epi TV series based on the movies! Half hour episodes; watched half way through the series past 12AM. Less about assassination than it is about the Zen of Japanese cuisine, though gun/knife play/ass-kicking not ignored. Try to catch it before Warner Bros Discovery sell-off.

Watched 2 Margaret Qualley featured movies on Peacock. Thinking I need to watch The Substance (just added to HBO) & Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to complete a Qualley viewing tetralogy. Stay tuned.

>28 Maura49: Blue Moon opened in limited theatrical release on the 17th; it wii be on more screens in more cities on the 24th. It will get to streaming eventually, I’m sure, but I don’t know where.

>30 KeithChaffee: Thank you>30 KeithChaffee: for the info. As I am not a subscriber to the major streamers this is great newws. i will look out for the film.

>29 featherbear: I loved the Lynley series!

Over the last 2 days watched 2 Halloween appropriate items on HBOMax: the film Weapons & the pilot episode of Welcome to Derry.

Weapons (2025, 2h 8m), director/writer Zach Cregger. Structured like Pulp Fiction, with segments w/different points of view that gradually knit the plot together. Also like PF, leans more toward comedy horror. Complaints that the authorities overlook some apparently glaring oddities perhaps overlook the general brain fog of the whole town.

Welcome to Derry is a prequel to the 2 It films of 2017 & 2019, and the TV series of 1990, all based on the Young Adult novel by Stephen King. Apparently frightened the New York Times episode blogger to the extent that he recounted his trauma reading Stephen King as a YA as well as the effect of the movies, then goes on to detail everything that happens in the HBO pilot – which has a significant deviation from the King formula OH NO THEY DIDN’T! -- with a compulsiveness that recalls the Ancient Mariner. Checked out the comments & astonished that King has had such an effect on young minds. If you’re a snowflake or generally have fond memories of your children, you may want to just read the NYT summaries; I had oatmeal & granola for dinner as I watched the whole thing then fell asleep an hour post-viewing, w/no resulting nightmares. (Read the blog entry after I got up, by the way, so I had no spoiler vaccination) Link to NYT shared article.

Watched this weekend most of 8 episode series of The Halcyon. Of what I have watched so far the storylines and characters are very interesting.

Amazon Prime is streaming the Slow Horses series Season 1 complete, probably for a short time, as a means of enticing Apple+ subscriptions. I’ve caught the first episode; based I believe on the first book in the Mick Herron series, which I’ve read. Seems to have caught the ambience quite well, with Gary Oldman really getting into the character of Jackson Lamb, running a group of espionage researchers considered too incompetent to perform in the flagship MI-5 divisions. If you have an Amazon Prime sub but don’t have Apple+ (my situation), check it out before it leaves. If I had the time I’d read the other novels in the series; will try to finish the season.

Was it The Guardian that did a story on reader guilty pleasures? In my case, so much guilt to go around, but most recently the 2 Becky films. I believe I cracked a molar last week grinding my teeth from doomscrolling Twitter & muting fascist repliers – apparently Elon Musk’s crew thinks I’m a bot. Becky is a sort of Dirty Harriet who at age 13 (Becky via Showtime) & 17 (Wrath of Becky via Netflix) offs members of neo-Nazi cells via grenades, lawnmowers, & throwing knives. Even more unrealistic is to see her being employed covertly by the CIA to continue her crusade at the end of Wrath. Not wholesome, but ugly cinematic relief. Also Kevin James as a neo-Nazi was kind of unexpected; he gets the lawnmower treatment.

Another woman of wrath is Ana De Armas in Ballerina, a John Wick spinoff. She takes on a whole alpine village of an assassin guild led by Gabriel Byrne. She gets some help from Keanu/Wick. For Wick completests. Caught this during Xfinity freebie week for the STARZ channel. The Wick films, as I’ve probably noted before, are like watching video game violence without a controller. Well done of its kind, if you like that sort of thing; nothing as gory as the Beckies – cerebral violence. Revenge incentives are there but come across as perfunctory to my taste.

Just starting Season 3 of Darkwinds on Netflix. I don’t have a subscription to AMC+ so this is my chance to catch up. The principals, Zahn McClarnon, Kiowa Gordon, Jessica Matten, & Deanna Allison (Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee, Bernadette Manuelito, & Emma Leaphorn) are back, though with some job shuffle (Manuelito joined the US Border Patrol & Chee, formerly FBI, is now part of Navaho Police).

Watched 2 more episodes in the soothing Britbox/BBC series Beyond Paradise via Amazon Prime sub-subscription. The Leaphorn (Darkwinds) & Goodman (Paradise) marriages are 2 of the noteworthy happy ones in crime series, & Paradise is certainly cutting down on the murders – more small town property damage in recent episodes.

Also via Amazon Prime sub-sub Britbox: Season 2 of Karen Pirie. Single arc over 3 90m episodes. Just realized that w/Scots accent Pirie is pronounced “Perry.” Unlike the other Britbox detective Humphrey Goodman she’s not comically brilliant. To my mind she does a lot of stupid things, but is saved by the even dopier behavior of the criminals. Cold case involving the kidnapping of a mother & child, offspring of an oil billionaire. The kidnapped were never recovered & presumed dead, but one of the kidnappers turns up, dead, many years later, & Pirie & crew are forced to re-think what actually happened. Unlike the BBC “Paradise” genre series, the Pirie series, each so far based on a Val McDermid novel (pretty solid procedural writer, though I don’t recall reading any of McDermid’s Piries), is not played for laughs: deep, dark family stuff.

Finished the Amazon Prime Slow Horses full season 1 teaser for Apple+. If you have AP but not Apple+, check it out before it cycles off. As noted earlier, I’ve read the opening novel of the series but appears I’ll need to revisit it again. The first episode of the series clearly recalled it for me, but I’m not sure I remember whether the frenetic false flag sardonic thriller it becomes in the later episodes were reimaginings by the showrunners or my (usually) failing memory. Can certainly empathize w/Jackson Lamb’s farting issues. Besides Gary Oldman, Saskia Reeves as an alcoholic PTSD agent was emotionally affecting (nothing emotionally affecting about J Lamb to be clear). And Christopher Chung as Rodney Ho is comically awful as their computer nerd. I believe it’s Brian Vernel as Curly the psycho kidnapper/ax murderer who gets Season 1 villain honors, unless it's Kristin Scott Thomas as the temporary head of MI5. Not quite ready to subscribe to Apple+ though; still tempting since there are 3 more seasons already in the can. But then I remember getting locked into Peacock to watch a Kansas City football game ...

Starting a new series on Peacock: All Her Fault (8 episodes if I recall). Middle of E2. Nanny absconds w/little boy from preschool. Whose fault? (aside from the snoring responsibility shifting daddies): mother (Sarah Snook) who forgot to double check the number of the text message? or “new friend” (Dakota Fanning) whose nanny is the prime suspect – vetting wasn’t thorough enough? Or, in a last scene in E1 with the police, is it much much more? Do “rich bitches” deserve these problems? So many questions. I’ve downloaded the book; not looking until I’ve watched to the end.

Via Peacock: Jurassic Park: Rebirth (2025). Story revisits (too) many of the franchises themes, in particular greedy irresponsible capitalists (in this case a Big Pharma capitalist), but I’m always there for dinosaurs & the director is Gareth Edwards, who did Monsters; featured are Scarlett Johansson & Mahershala Ali. Innovation was genetically altered mutant ‘saurs with bulging heads which I didn’t care for, but one of the mercenaries is swallowed by a ‘dactyl – something similar w/a helicopter. To make things less mercenary, a family sailing through the mosasaur infested Caribbean on a visit to South Africa (what?! – to celebrate daughter going off to college!) is thrown into the mix, & picked up somewhat reluctantly by the mercenaries (the mercs need to draw 3 specimens of dinosaur blood to make the ultimate heart medication).

With the death of Tatsuya Nakadai (as noted in the obit thread), Criterion Channel is streaming what appear to have been his best movies; I’m eager to explore.

On Peacock in a few minutes: UConn women’s basketball vs Ohio State; later will try to fit in another episode of All Her Fault on the same streaming channel. Still checking out Season 3 of Dark Winds on Netflix, Welcome to Derry on HBO (finished episode 3 yesterday), & trying to begin Dublin Murders on Britbox via Amazon Prime.

Tim Travers and the Time Traveler's Paradox is a low-budget indie SF comedy that had a microscopic theatrical release early this year; Wikipedia lists its box office as $2,725. It's streaming at Hoopla and Tubi, and rentable at Apple and Amazon.

The titular Tim (Samuel Dunning) is exploring the most basic of time travel paradoxes: What happens if you go back in time and kill your younger self? The movie dives deeply into the ramifications and complications of that idea, piling variation on top of variation to great effect.

There are eventually multiple Tims, and Dunning does marvelous work in giving us a variety of characters who are all the same mildly misanthropic guy at heart, but with enough differences that we can distinguish among the most important Tims. Writer-director Stimson Snead has a supporting role as an assassin who can't make sense of why Tim keeps popping up again after being killed; the other key roles are played by Joel McHale, Felicia Day, Danny Trejo, and Keith David, a cast of bigger names than you expect to see in a movie this indie, and all of them well used.

The special effects are inexpensive, but effective, with a mix of split-screen and body doubles used for the multiple Tim scenes (which make up most of the movie).

Snead's script is limber and funny. It doesn't quite pull off the increasingly cosmic stuff it aims for in the last 20 minutes or so, but it's a valiant effort, and it never gets boring.

I'd never heard of this movie until the New York Times' SF movie column recommended it last week, and I'm thankful that they did. I had a lot of fun.

>38 KeithChaffee: Got a link to the column by any chance?

Finished The Halcyon series. It was an interesting series about a time that I have not seen reflected on TV much before. It took place in a high end hotel during WWII in London during The Blitz. It showed how The Blitz was a constant shadow for Londoners at that time that they prepared as best as they could, also continued their daily livelihoods, but also they lived to the fullest within WWII rations. (This show took place within a hotel, so they had their ballroom open with swing and jazz music and often.)

>39 featherbear: Elisabeth Vincentelli is the New York Times SF movie columnist; her latest column is here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/movies/five-science-fiction-movies-to-stream-...

She appears on "Genre Movie Wednesdays," alternating with Robert Daniels (on action movies) and Erik Piepenburg (on horror). Each column recommends five movies recently available on some streaming service or other. There's a second "what to watch" slot that rotates among children's, international, and documentary films; and a monthly "beyond the algorithm" feature highlighting titles that don't fit into any of those categories. There's a "what to watch" tab on the Arts page, and you'll find the most recent installment for each genre in the "latest" listing at the bottom of the page.

>42 KeithChaffee: Much thanks!

Binged my way through the last five episodes (of 8) of the Peacock series All Her Fault. The early episodes had me hooked, but around episode 5 (enter at the climax/end of episode girl with a gun) w/accusations/counter-accusations was like Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf going off the rails; & the subsequent episodes became a sort of twist within a twist Harlen Coben melodrama that has become familiar fare on Netflix. (Hoben’s thrillers are pro work, but midway through the Peacock series seemed to be aiming for something deeper) Each episode seemed interminably long, though the content of each was under an hour, due to the obscene commercial interruptions. The come-uppance also had an over the top Jacobean revenge climax. One of those series you kind of hate yourself for watching all the way through. I should point out that the title is ironic.

Watched Welcome to Derry on HBO episode 4. Suspect this will also fall into the “series you kind of hate yourself for watching all the way through” bucket, as the origin story of the Pennywise phenom came across as the boring young adult fare that seems aimed at impressing children as told by children. I did appreciate the special effects of the girl with glasses who gets eyeball erections she needs an electric saw to subdue. Couldn’t identify the actor from IMDB, but the post-credit making of episode looked like the scene was fun to make.

Hope you’re not having a bad Cloudflare day. Appears I’m also allergic to autumn leaves so general misery may be affecting my observations.

Declining memory I suppose but I did catch on Netflix The Thursday Murder Club (2025; 1h 58m) a couple weeks (?) ago. Murder-solving club at an old age home (assisted living? What are they called these days?). Based on one of the Richard Osman books of the cosy mystery genre I haven’t convinced myself are worth reading. Aimed at my age demographic, but I found it rather slow. Lots of senior star power including Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, & Ben Kingsley. Not sure if they were made-up to look older or just wore less make-up to look their ages. The “feisty” image seemed a bit condescending.

Peacock premiered Nobody 2 (2025 1h 29m) on its streaming service. Wasn’t crazy about the first one & word was that this wasn’t as good, but I found it entertaining enough. In the original always wondered about how the family was kept out of the loop regarding the assassin Hutch Mansell's (Bob Odenkirk) job, but on a family vacation it becomes rather unavoidable but they all seem nonplussed. Connie Nielsen is the (sharp shooting) wife, Christopher Lloyd is the father-patriarch-founding killer, RZA is Hutch’s foster brother (Hutch was also a foster child, as it turns out). RZA gets to again work out his katana obsessions (can’t remember the earlier quasi-chanbara he starred in). Quite unrecognizable for me was Sharon Stone as the (Germanic? Scandinavian?) crew-cut Cruella villainess Lendina. The family returns to Hutch’s lone childhood happy memory, a run-down amusement park/carnival (in Canada apparently) for family bonding time. The park has an underutilized (by the film’s creators) wolf-dog whose role seems to be to bark at the opportune times. Many explosions along with the destruction of Stone’s enormous army of thugs as well as the annihilation of the decrepit Canadian complex. The daughter takes lots of pictures that are utilized in the credits.

On Britbox via Amazon Prime watched what I believe must be the last episode of this season’s Beyond Paradise: the small town couple, a detective Kris Marshall & catering “fiancée” Sally Bretton are unable to conceive a child, so the seasons have them coping with a different foster child; they say good bye to this one in this episode. As noted earlier, unusual in that murders are rare. Sweet, gentle stuff for the most part. Only Marshall’s Sgt Williams (Zahra Amadi) has commitment problems with Bretton’s former beau Archie (Jamie Bamber – I’ve compared him earlier to a generic romance book cover art hunk). One hopes patrolman Kelby (Dylan Llewelyn) will find love, or at least a dog. Exceptionally likable characters.

On Amazon Prime from its MGM Studio comes a generic action comedy, Playdate (2025 1h 33m). Hey why not pair Reacher w/Mall Cop? With clones genetically modified to lack empathy? Alan Richson & Kevin James sort of act like send-up action heroes to their sons, one bewildered & the other bewildering. Dopey, but kind of a relief from the Peacock All Her Fault series, here featuring men less menacing & probably more real, i.e. clownish insecure dunderheads. Alan Tudyk has a brief role as an Elon Musk madman billionaire tech guy; Zach Galifanakis is not given credits but I suspect he’s the schlub who gets waterboarded (w/an homage to Reservoir Dogs). Stay for the Jackie Chan-inspired credit flubs. Banks Pierce is unempathetic CJ (J is for Gif) who, like the tin man, finds his heart. I also enjoyed Isla Fisher's emoting when accidentally tasered by her son. Hope she's now safely divorced from Sacha Baron Cohen.

Starting on Britbox/via Amazon Prime: Dublin Murders (2019; I believe 8 episodes; I’m on #1). Based on 2 novels by Tana French; I’m not a fan of her writing but the books are: In the Woods & The Likeness; I think I’ve read the former, which was better than the later ones, in my opinion, where different detectives are involved.

Also starting the movie Hedda (1h 47m) via Amazon Prime. Director, Nia Da Costa, screenplay by Da Costa based on the Ibsen play. Historical costume drama, featuring Tessa Thompson as Hedda. Shooting a pistol in the opening scenes; so Chekhov alert.

apologies for the typos, repetitions & infelicities I keep discovering; becoming a candidate for the Thursday Murder Club group

I believe my soundbar is on its last legs* so I’ll be watching everything with subtitles for the holiday season. Still had sound on the following, even though the first had subtitles. Recently discovered that Amazon Prime has (for now) Baby Assassins: Nice Days (per IMDB, 2024, 1h 43m, though I aka it mentally as Baby Assassins 3 which may be how Amazon was labeling it. If you don’t have access to HBO to catch the TV series Baby Assassins Every Day, Amazon Prime has in addition to “#3,” Baby Assassins 2 Babies, i.e. #2. Probably the first (no subtitle) Baby Assassins is rentable. Writer/director Yugo Sakamoto; principles are Takaishi Akari (Chisato, the brunette) & Izawa Saori (Mahiro, the blonde). If you hear occasional bits of Wagner in the soundtrack it’s because the Japanese transliteration for the movie is Baby Walkure* Naisu Deizu. The 2 Gen Z killers are vacationing, excuse me, on the job in the seaside town of Miyazaki with the syndicate assignment of whacking an embezzler, but confusion ensues when they encounter a freelancer & a duo of senior syndicate killers. A bit bloodier than earlier entries, though I prefer Sakamoto’s baby bullet ballet (plus knives) to the John Wicks. Not enough focus on food after the joys of Every Day’s Tokyo meals, though the 2 “kids” noshing on Mahiro’s birthday cake somewhat makes up for it, the climax of the syndicate celebration of grilled Miyazaki beef that includes both the senior assassins & the familiar clean-up duo of the earlier episodes, in addition to Chisato & Mahiro, bloodied but unbowed. The bday & their injuries are perhaps the first acknowledgement of mortality in the series as a whole.

*Is the assumption that only the Japanese will get the Wagner reference? Too high-brow for the Americans?

Binged the last episodes of Dublin Murders on Britbox via Amazon Prime (it originated on cable’s Starz network). There was only one season as far as I can tell – one can imagine why. Probably my favorite crime procedural I’ve caught this year, along with Homicide: life on the street (the old NBC series, resurrected on Peacock). As noted earlier, it’s based on 2 Tana French novels – of which I believe I’ve only read the first. What’s notable is that there are 2 foundational murders/victims (presumably the second is derived from the second novel), neither of which is resolved. Really enjoyed watching the Dublin police confounded, as the villain of the first half of the series throws a monkey wrench into the first of the present day murder investigations, this due to the bad judgment of the 2 lead detectives, Cassie Maddox (Sarah Greene) & Rob “Don’t Call me Adam” Reilly (Killian Scott), who let personal issues undermine the legal credibility of the entire investigation. Maddox is instrumental in intentionally undermining the case she gets pulled into in a second murder investigation of a woman who appears to be her double, in this case because the senior investigator becomes too immersed in undercover puppet-mastering (the last straw occurs when he brings his little daughter to one of his rendezvous w/Maddox – playing her double undercover of course) that leads to the unnecessary killing of the prime suspect. Think of the senior investigator Frank Mackey (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) as the surrogate for the novelist – I can get away with anything no matter how ludicrous, except the novelist can deliberately undermine herself. Another positive for the series is that it can avoid French’s purple overheated prose.

*Just tried out a recently purchased battery tester, & it turns out one of the batteries on the soundbar remote was dead. Replaced it, & the soundbar now has a second life! Early Christmas present. Toggling between Spongebob via Nick cable & UConn women's basketball via the DVR.

Today at the multiplex: Wicked: For Good. Like its predecessor, it's a vessel for two magnificent voices, but it gives them significantly less to do. There's not a single song in the second act of the musical that comes anywhere near the twin peaks of the first act ("Popular" and "Defying Gravity"); the two new songs added for this movie are instantly forgettable non-entities.

Jeff Goldblum does tolerably well with his big number, a sort of vaudevillian soft-shoe, but it's badly chopped up with bits of extraneous dialogue. Michelle Yeoh is asked to sing a few lines this time around, and not since Pierce Brosnan croaked his way through Mamma Mia has a "singer" embarassed themself so badly. Jonathan Bailey, who's meant to be the central figure in a love triangle, has zero chemistry with either of the leading ladies, who clearly have deeper feelings for one another than either has for him.

Like the first Wicked movie, the cinematography is dark and murky; this is an ugly movie to look at. And as the story gets more and more boxed in by the narrative prison of The Wizard of Oz, the acrobatics required to get from Wicked's alterations back to the original grow more noticeable and intrusive.

True, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo sing magnificently, and Grande even has a few moments where she isn't obviously copying Kristin Chenoweth. But the finest caviar is going to suffer if you plop it onto an Eggo waffle, and these voices are wasted on such mediocre material.

A Wicked movie that had stuck more closely to the original musical might have survived. But no musical can survive being bloated to twice its length and given a year-long intermission.

>48 KeithChaffee: I like Eggo Belgian-style cinnamon waffles, though admittedly they get an aftertaste after a stint in my freezer. Never tried them w/caviar though

One of the tv shows I have been watching is Who's the Boss. This show aired from 1984 to 1992. Although the clothes, theme song, and occasional pouting of characters are definitely of its time, over all the show is still relatable. I would recomend this show.

I would recommend Melissa & Joey which I can see took much of its inspiration from Who's the Boss.

The title character of Jay Kelly (currently in limited theatrical release; begins streaming at Netflix on December 5) is a successful actor, one of the last great movie stars. He's handsome, talented, and preternaturally charming, and the public adores him, even if they think he's mostly just "playing himself." The critics respect him, too, though they sometimes criticize him of coasting on charm in a way that can seem glib and lazy.

Jay Kelly is played by George Clooney, whose career can be summed up in pretty much the same paragraph, which gives the movie an extra layer of meta. George Clooney plays "George Clooney"/Jay Kelly, who is constantly playing "Jay Kelly."

Clooney, Kelly, and director/co-writer Noah Baumbach are all very defensive about the "playing himself" idea; the first thing we see in the movie is a quote from Sylvia Plath about how hard it is just to be oneself, and the movie returns to that idea several times.

The movie star who begins to wonder if all of his success has come at the expense of actually having a life is a familiar character, but I suppose it's possible that there is something new and interesting to be said about such a person. Alas, Baumbach and co-writer Emily Mortimer haven't found it.

What they've given us instead is a movie in which a rich, handsome, charming, adored movie star wallows in whining about how gosh darned hard it is to be so rich, handsome, charming, and adored, and I found it a challenge to have much sympathy for George Clooney having to bear the terrible cross of being George Clooney.

There are good performances here. Clooney is, after all, handsome, charming, and talented, and though he's not given anything terribly interesting to do, it's pleasant enough to watch him do it. Adam Sandler takes one of his too-rare serious roles to play Kelly's manager, and he's very good; there's also solid supporting work from Laura Dern, Stacy Keach, and Patrick Wilson. Best in show honors go to Billy Crudup, who has a single sequence early on, and in about ten minutes, completely steals the movie.

It's a shame that all of those talented actors and their solid work are wasted on such a limp, lazy exercize in self-pity.

Starting a number of series via streaming services; not sure yet which ones I’ll stick with. In part just a reminder to myself so I don’t lose track. Also saving some energy to watch UConn womens basketball games in the Big East conference.

Criterion Channel. Blossoms Shanghai 2023- Wong Kar Wai directing. The Shanghai boom of the 90s perhaps influenced by Scorsese? Apparently a hit in China in 2023, the series is premiering for US viewers via CC. In addition, CC is showing most of Wong’s films, many of which I haven’t seen but would certainly like to catch. Also hoping that the Tatsuya Nakadai celebration hangs on through December.

HBO/Max. Re-watched the first episode of Mad Men. Apparently HBO has re-mastered the AMC series though some glitches have been noted. I remember watching the first episode & a number of others when Amazon Prime had the rights but I didn’t follow through. Maybe this time?

Netflix. The Makanai: cooking for the Maiko House (2023) The opening credits make it look like a cooking show, but it’s about 2 girls from the Japanese sticks who become apprentice geishas (maiko) in Kyoto. By the end of episode 1, it’s clear that one of them, Kiyo (Nana Mori) is not going to make the cut; but the resident makanai – the cook for the house – retires providentially w/back problems, & Kiyo’s country cooking earns her a job. Nana Mori is adorable though I’m missing tons of cultural references. This was a Hirokazu Koreeda project. Loved his 2015 film Our Little Sister aka Umimachi Diary to the extent I purchased it for streaming on Amazon Prime. I’m at episode 4 of Makanai.

Also in queue on Netflix is Asura (2025), another series project by Koreeda; hope Netflix lets it hang around; I’ve neglected following up. Sisters in a tizzy when one of them discovers their father is having an affair.

On a related note, took a quick look-see to a new film on Netflix, Left-Handed Girl (2025; 1h 48m); adventures of a single mom opening a street stand in Taipei with her 2 daughters. Director Shih Shing Tsou, who collaborated w/Sean Baker on the screenplay. Will definitely get back to this one; though I got far enough in to see that the little daughter’s left handedness did not meet with her grandfather’s approval; reminded me of my father w/one of my left handed sisters, but I don’t recall him trying to reform her.

Hope I haven’t forgotten anything. HBO is doling out an episode per week Sunday evenings of Welcome to Derry; I usually watch an episode the Monday after, dutifully. Stephen King’s a good storyteller – I just finished reading Fairy Tale last weekend, but he seems stronger on depicting the horror of non-fantastic human behavior while the horror/fantasy elements don’t always transcend the childhood reading that obsesses him. This may be a problem with the series as well, which takes off from his It novel & the 2 films & series it inspired.

On Amazon Prime re-watched Knives Out in anticipation of the third film of the series set for December 12 (?) on Netflix. Couldn’t remember the original plot, so the re-watch was absorbing enough, though AP showed it w/a lot of commercials, which threw off the pace. Maybe too much sleight of hand.

Forgot to mention Hedda on Amazon Prime; still at the starting point.

Like was the case with most countries, before TV networks in the US there were radio networks. Many of the radio networks in the USA established TV networks.

During my lunch breaks I have stared listening to some more radio shows after being pleased with Rocky Fortune, which I have discussed in a previous post.

One such show is hit comedy radio show Our Miss Brooks, which later on became a TV show and then a movie. It centered around the adventures of school teacher Connie Brooks. In today's standards it would be considered to be a sit-com. I was leary at first, thinking it would be dull. This stars Eve Arden (the Principle in the Grease movie) whose quipy dry delivery fits in perfectly with this show. I would highly recommend this show

>53 BooksandMovies: The TV show was a staple of my childhood.

Via HBO/MAX: Shin Godzilla aka Shin Gojira (2016; 2h), considered by Godzilla fans to be one of the top versions to come out of Japan; I’ve been hoping to catch up with it at some point, so I was delighted to find it on HBO. Directors Hideaki Anno & Shinji Higuchi; screenplay Anno, Ishiro Honda, & Takeo Murata. Features Hiroki Hasegawa as Yaguchi, the sharpest blade in a collection of dull bureaucrats, & Satomi Ishihara as the half-Japanese US ambassador Kayoko Patterson w/ambitions to become the next US President. The destruction of various wards of Tokyo is well done; the monster initially looks like a sock puppet but mutates into something of the “familiar” version of the God-monster, firing death rays from its mouth & back fins. First half comes across as a satire of the Japanese bureaucracy, and possibly a jab at its “defense only” military posture. When even maximum firepower fails to subdue the monster, the US becomes the joint “partner” & decides to solve the problem by nuking Tokyo (the president is not specifically identified as Donald Trump). Yaguchi leads the team racing against time to come up with another solution, to be derived from a missing professor’s cryptic diagram, de-coded at the last minute by traditional Japanese origami. Wonder if Kayoko Patterson was a cinematic stand-in for Kamala Harris.

Hi I'm new here, I like watching movies, boxsets and reading screenplays. here's one I watched a few weeks back.

>56 AnishaInkspill: Nice to have a new contributor! By the way, you can write up your response to the novel in the Books Made Into Movies thread.

>57 featherbear: oh, that's good, I have a few of those coming up in 2026

Griffin in Summer begins with 14-year-old Griffin (Everett Blunck) performing at his middle school talent show, playing both roles (sullen stockbroker, discontented boozy wife) in an excerpt from his latest play, which he describes as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf meets American Beauty." It's his biggest project yet, a full-length 2-act play, and he plans to spend the summer preparing to stage it with his friends.

But there are distractions and obstacles. His best friend Kara (Abby Ryder Fortson) is off for a summer vacation with her boyfriend's family; the cracks in his parents' marriage are beginning to show, as dad's (Michael Esper) business trips and mom's (Melanie Lynskey) drinking binges both get longer. The biggest distraction, though, is Brad (Owen Teague), the mid-20s handyman/pool boy who becomes the object of Griffin's first serious crush.

This is a first film from writer/director Nicholas Colia, and it's a promising debut. It doesn't entirely avoid the cliches of the coming-of-age story, or those of the coming-out story, but it finds interesting variations on them, and the characters are drawn with enough specificity to be occasionally unpredictable. I liked, for instance, that Brad isn't a chiseled model of gym-bod perfection. He's a bit scrawny and scruffy, and you sense that he could stand to cut back a bit on the booze and pot.

Even for a theater kid, Griffin is self-absorbed and mostly oblivious to how others are affected by his actions. Blunck handles the challenging role very skillfully, finding the endearing side of Griffin's ambition and awkwardness and allowing us to sympathize with someone who hasn't yet grown large enough for his dreams.

(Streaming at Hulu/Disney+; available for rental/purchase at Apple/Amazon)

Jim Jarmusch's Father Mother Sister Brother is an anthology film, containing three short stories about families. It's a brittle, melancholy movie, and all of its families seem to have learned that one should never actually say anything of meaning. The dialogue is largely polite platitudes and social formulas, and it falls to us in the audience to fill in what's missing as we attempt to understand how each family came to this point.

"Father" gives us Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik visiting their father, Tom Waits. They've been distant from him, especially Bialik, and their afternoon together is an awkward one.

"Mother" is set in Dublin, where Charlotte Rampling is hosting an annual afternoon tea for her daughters, Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps. While they all live in the same city and talk on the phone occasionally, this ritual seems to be the only time they ever see one another.

"Sister Brother" finds a pair of twins (Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat) meeting in Paris to close down the apartment of their parents, recently killed in an accident. They seem to be a somewhat happier family than the others, but even here, there's a sense of how poorly they know each other, and how little they ever knew about their parents.

The performances are all fine, I guess, though the sameness of everyone's blank opacity gets somewhat numbing by the end. And the motifs and images that repeat from story to story -- kids skateboarding in the street, a Rolex, the phrase "Bob's your uncle" -- don't seem to have any particular relevance or meaning, so they feel like Jarmusch playing some sort of private game.

It's not a boring movie, exactly, and I thought Driver and Bialik as siblings were an unexpectedly effective bit of casting. But no matter how good the acting, it's hard to make unending polite restraint and emotional constipation dramatically compelling.

You could be forgiven for mistaking The Choral for a piece of Oscar bait from 30 years ago. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, written by Alan Bennett, starring Ralph Fiennes and a cast of top-notch British character actors -- it practically screams Miramax 1993. And it feels like a movie from that era; it's impeccably tasteful and skillfully crafted, but a touch too restrained for its own good.

Our setting is a small Yorkshire town in 1916, in desperate need after the conductor of the choral society enlists in the war. They reluctantly turn to Dr. Henry Guthrie (Fiennes), despite concerns about his atheism and rumored homosexuality, and the fact that he's recently spent several years studying in Germany. We follow the personal dramas of Guthrie and several of the choral singers as they prepare for a performance of Elgar's oratorio, "The Dream of Gerontius," a last-minute substite for the now-taboo Bach.

All of the singing in the movie is reportedly done by the actors we see, rather than synched to other voices. Amara Okereke and Jacob Dudman play the two soloists, and they are lovely to hear. There's a fine supporting performance from Roger Allam as the town's wealthy industrialist, who funds the society, and is forced to accept that he's not quite up to the solo part himself; and a lovely cameo from Simon Russell Beale as Elgar, who surprises the chorus with a visit on the morning of their last rehearsal.

We are asked to keep track of a few too many members of the chorus; the movie could have cut out one or two subplots, giving those that remained time to be more thoroughly developed. And as was so often true with those tasteful British dramas of the 90s, the movie is so tastefully restrained and genteel that its emotional climaxes never land with any real force.

It's a nice movie. It has its charms, and what we see of Guthrie's unorthodox interpretation of "Gerontius" is lovely. But the movie's plots never quite reach liftoff, and I left feeling that the movie hadn't fully delivered on its aims.

>61 KeithChaffee: I think that your review is very fair. This film has its critics and is not flawless. There are cliches such as the lad off to war on the morrow who wants to experience sex before he goes and visits the local prostitute.
However, overall, I found watching it a joyful experience and one of the very few in my local multiplex worth bothering to see. We seem to have lost these middle range films in cinemas, inundated as we are with superhero movies or mediocre offerings that are more suitable for TV screens than the cinema screen. Hats off to everyone involved in a film with heart and a superabundance of talent.