On 6/9/2022 9:36 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
> On 2022-06-09 08:30:41 +0000, Ubiquitous said:
>
>> What did you watch?
>
> I dialed back on movies during the day yesterday - I needed a break! -
> though I got to a couple movies in the evening...
>
> The Outpost (recorded) - "Someone Has to Rule" (ep. #4.1).
>   Months and months after Anim watched the final season, I'm finally
> ready to tackle this one (I'm going to use it as my new "lunch" show).
>   Boy, this is going to be somewhat painful for me, though - the show
> killed off my three favorite characters in the preceeding three seasons,
> and I know for a fact that the only new person that I really like,
> Falista (Georgia May Foote), doesn't even make it through the last
> season. This is going to be some tough sledding.
>   The first episode of season #4 does do some things right - they don't
> forget about "The Three", and basically bring them back. And I don't
> hate the introduction of the "Gods" (at least, not yet).
>   But it also does things that annoy me - like introducing the
> Dragman's "sister", which only reminds me that I miss the Dragman and
> wished they didn't write her out back in season #2! (I think moving the
> production to Europe likely precluded that child actress's further
> involvement though...)
>   Anyway, mostly this premiere is figuring out, 1) who takes over after
> Gwynn's death?, 2) Falista trying to resurrect(!) Tobin, and 3) the new
> character of the Dragman's sister trying to "kill" Talon.
>
> soaps: DOOL - Mostly boring. EJ dreams of having done the deed with
> Belle; later, are they actually going to do it?! Meanwhile, Leo Stark
> has sneaked inside the DiMera mansion, where he is discovered by
> RedAbby's and Chad's kid, though he may have talked himself out of it.
> If anything else happened, I don't remember...
>   GH - The new "enthusiastic" worker for Sonny is revealed to be a
> plant for Michael - I assumed he was a plant for the mysterious rival
> West Coast mob, but the show seems to have either dropped that
> storyline, or has merged it in with the Michael one. I don't think
> anything else noteworthy happened the whole episode.
>
> Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+) - "Part IV". This episode worked a lot better
> for me than "Part III" did.

I've seen a lot of complaints online about part IV. I don't get them. I
thought IV was fine.

>   BTR noticed their cool light saber-lighting effect in "Part III" -
> this episode continues that, and does it one better in a scene where
> Obi-Wan attacks a couple of stormtroopers in the dark!
>   This epie also sees Obi-Wan starting to get his "force" mojo back.
>   In this one, with the help of Ms. Pucci, and some other assorted
> rebels (one of whom is played by Maya Erskine ([unethusiastically]:
> yay...)), Obi-Wan breaks into an "impenetrable" Imperial base, to rescue
> Leia from Reva. Along the way, Ms. Pucci's imperial officer cover gets
> blown, and Vader almost toasts Reva for failure... until she reveals
> that she has a tracker on Leia.
>   Anyway, this was a better episode, and it was good to see Obi-Wan get
> some mojo back.
>
> The Batman (HBO Max) - While this isn't awful, there are lots and lots
> of things to dislike about this film... Like, *a lot* of things.
>   It's over-directed. I mean, it's clearly over-long (the 3-hour
> runtime is (totally) unneeded!!) - really unnecessarily so, with at
> least one false ending (the film would have been a lot better if it had
> just ended with Batman capturing Riddler),

I could have lived with that.

and plenty of scenes that go
> on too long. But it's also "over-directed" - it's clear that this
> director cared more about making "cool shots" than about tight,
> contained story-telling.
>   But there's lots of other stuff to dislike. Like completely
> unnecessary changes to the backgrounds of Selina Kyle and the Riddler.
> Like making the Riddler much more dangerous and brutal than the Penguin
> (what?!!).
>   And I really, *really* hated this iteration of Bruce Wayne - he's a
> sad-sack emo millennial, not someone to be respected or feared.
>   One thing - I can't believe is that it is Colin Ferrell under there
> as the Penguin! - he's almost completely unrecognizable. It's a good
> performance.

Agreed.

That said, I question the wisdom of trying to base a HBO
> Max show around him and this character...
>
> I have determined that I have seen almost all of the Bruce Willis films
> made between 2017 and 2020 - FTR, 2018 is when there began to be a
> massive increase in Willis' output of direct-to-video flicks. I think
> the two flicks in this period that I haven't see are "Trauma Center" and
> "10 Minutes Gone". Starting with 2021 is when there are Willis films
> that I haven't all seen (yet) - starting with "Survive the Game" (not to
> be confused with 2020's similarly titled "Survive the Night"!!), which I
> cannot get on a streamer currently.
>
> Anyway, last night, I decided to tackle the last of Willis' 2020 flicks...:
>
> Breach (Prime) - This sci-fi... debacle(!) is another effort co-written
> by Edward Drake (again - what *happened* to this guy?!!), though not
> directed by him.
>   I was interested in this one because it co-stars Rachel Nichols, and
> again sports Timothy V. Murphy, Johann Urb and Johnny Messner (all three
> of whom were also in "American Siege"), and also sports an almost cameo
> apperance from Thomas Jane.
>   This flick was terrible - not quite as terrible as "Cosmic Sin", but
> *close*! Like, it would definitely feel 100% completely at home airing
> as an old Sci-Fi Saturday night flick.
>   It starts off as an "Aliens" ripoff, but instead quickly degenerates
> into the even worse "space zombies" genre! (Come to think of it, wasn't
> that also the problem with "Cosmic Sin"?!!).
>   Even Rachel Nichols can't save something this bad!!
>   Like, why does Johann Urb explode?!! There is no reason given!
>   While released in late 2020, I suspect if may have sat on the shelves
> for up to two years - in this film, Willis is shown to have more direct
> interaction with his co-stars, and sports quite a lot more dialogue
> (than, say, in "Out of Death"), so I suspect it was filmed earlier in
> Willis' "decline"... But it does still sport the same weird ADR/shot
> framing/editing choices as the later Willis flicks - just not as many of
> them, and again also sports Willis being directly in the same scenes
> with his co-stars much more than in the later Willis flicks.
>   I can't recommend this one to anyone - not even Anim!
>
>

I have a number of Bruce Willis movies in my collection waiting to be
watched. But other than Die Hard this Christmas, I don't have any
current plans to watch them. I think I'd probably revisit his good work
before diving into the lesser films. Although as they randomly pop up
on the Netflix disc site, I still add them to the queue.

I watched:

Uncut Gems (4K disc) 2019 drama starring Adam Sandler as a jeweler with
a really bad gambling addiction. He's also cheating on his wife (Idina
Menzel) with his assistant. Lakeith Stanfield co-stars as Sandler's
so-called friend and NBA star Kevin Garnett co-stars as himself. It
holds up well enough.

Hustle (Netflix streaming) 2022 drama starring Adam Sandler as a NBA
scout who discovers a talented young man (real life NBA star Juancho
Hernangómez) living in Spain and brings him back to the U.S. to tryout.
Except his new boss (Ben Foster) wants nothing to do with Sandler's
discovery. It's an OK sports movie. It's sort of like Jerry Maguire
without the romance. Come to think of it, I should have paired this with
Jerry Maguire, they'd go great together. I'm not a sports person and
never know who is who. It was almost comical when the credits rolled
and almost every person with a speaking role in this movie was either
playing themselves or was a real life NBA star playing a NBA star, and I
had no idea.

On 6/9/2022 10:20 AM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:
> On 6/9/2022 9:36 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
>> On 2022-06-09 08:30:41 +0000, Ubiquitous said:
>>
>>> What did you watch?
>>
>> I dialed back on movies during the day yesterday - I needed a break! -
>> though I got to a couple movies in the evening...
>>
>> The Outpost (recorded) - "Someone Has to Rule" (ep. #4.1).
>>    Months and months after Anim watched the final season, I'm finally
>> ready to tackle this one (I'm going to use it as my new "lunch" show).
>>    Boy, this is going to be somewhat painful for me, though - the show
>> killed off my three favorite characters in the preceeding three
>> seasons, and I know for a fact that the only new person that I really
>> like, Falista (Georgia May Foote), doesn't even make it through the
>> last season. This is going to be some tough sledding.
>>    The first episode of season #4 does do some things right - they
>> don't forget about "The Three", and basically bring them back. And I
>> don't hate the introduction of the "Gods" (at least, not yet).
>>    But it also does things that annoy me - like introducing the
>> Dragman's "sister", which only reminds me that I miss the Dragman and
>> wished they didn't write her out back in season #2! (I think moving
>> the production to Europe likely precluded that child actress's further
>> involvement though...)
>>    Anyway, mostly this premiere is figuring out, 1) who takes over
>> after Gwynn's death?, 2) Falista trying to resurrect(!) Tobin, and 3)
>> the new character of the Dragman's sister trying to "kill" Talon.
>>
>> soaps: DOOL - Mostly boring. EJ dreams of having done the deed with
>> Belle; later, are they actually going to do it?! Meanwhile, Leo Stark
>> has sneaked inside the DiMera mansion, where he is discovered by
>> RedAbby's and Chad's kid, though he may have talked himself out of it.
>> If anything else happened, I don't remember...
>>    GH - The new "enthusiastic" worker for Sonny is revealed to be a
>> plant for Michael - I assumed he was a plant for the mysterious rival
>> West Coast mob, but the show seems to have either dropped that
>> storyline, or has merged it in with the Michael one. I don't think
>> anything else noteworthy happened the whole episode.
>>
>> Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+) - "Part IV". This episode worked a lot better
>> for me than "Part III" did.
>
> I've seen a lot of complaints online about part IV.  I don't get them. I
> thought IV was fine.
>
It wasn't a new hope?

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.