Current Watching

[Hot Pepsi]

We started Manhunt on AppleTV yesterday. Not a bad pilot, actually pretty good to be honest.

Stars well-known American* actors Tobias Menzies (always reliable) as Stanton and Anthony Boyle as John Wilkes Booth. (The latter having been a key figure/narrator in the just finished Masters of the Air.)

I thought Boyle was too young on first watch, but Booth was only 26 (Boyle is 29). Can't believe how far he's come from Derry Girls.

That was true in Masters of Air too. I think everyone on that show but Austin Butler, who is still partly stuck in his Elvis voice, was Irish or English. Barry Keoghan (Irish) talked like a Bugs Bunny impression of a Damon Runyan character.


It's a good general rule to assume that any historical figure you can imagine, especially any before the 20th century, was probably younger than you imagine when they did whatever they did.

But it's especially true for famous criminals.

Billy the Kid died at 21. Robert Ford was only 20 when he murdered Jesse James, who was only 34.
Bonnie Parker was 23 and Clyde Barrow was 25. John Dillinger was 31.
By the time Bugsy Siegel was my age, he'd murdered a bunch of people, founded Las Vegas - more or less - and had been dead for 10 years. And there isn't even a plaque, or a sign post, or a statue of him in that town.

[matt j]

We started Manhunt on AppleTV yesterday. Not a bad pilot, actually pretty good to be honest.

Stars well-known American* actors Tobias Menzies (always reliable) as Stanton and Anthony Boyle as John Wilkes Booth. (The latter having been a key figure/narrator in the just finished Masters of the Air.)

I thought Boyle was too young on first watch, but Booth was only 26 (Boyle is 29). Can't believe how far he's come from Derry Girls.

[MsD]

I am overjoyed to have discovered there is at least one Montalbano series I haven’t watched.
Oh, to find an unwatched Columbo episode from the peak years.

I’ve paid for Series 10 and watched a little of it last night.

[Sits]

Having sung the praises of The Great British Sewing Bee on here before, we were delighted to discover that Britbox has all five series of its cousin The Great British Pottery Throwdown which is basically the same show but with a different creative medium.

[Sits]

Watched and enjoyed the first 2 episodes (of 7) of Mary & George (Sky/Now), where Julianne Moore is having a hoot as a scheming cut-throat mum whilst she and her son romp through a raunchfest in order to get a leg up in the Jacobean Court. Helicopter parents, eh? Based on a true story, apparently.

Great fun. Son George is the first Duke of Buckingham whose Wiki is worth a read. Beheading warning for later in the series but it’s telegraphed. Mrs. S was able to leave the room.

[Slightly Brown]

Watched this last night. Film was good. Straw Dogs vibe. Sort of. But what made it were the amazing performances by Denis Ménochet and Luis Zahera https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15006566/

[Hot Pepsi]

I’m watching The Larry Sanders Show. I never had HBO when it was on in the 90s, so I never saw much of it.

It’s a great time capsule of pop culture of the 90s when there were a lot of network late-night shows and they collectively had a lot of clout.

Lots of guests and bands from the time, including people who are no longer famous or alive.

[lambers]

They knew the air pressure in the balls was a rules requirement but deflated them anyway* <snip>

*I have no idea how this would have helped one quarter back and not the other btw.

NFL has a curious thing, where one set of balls are specifically for one team's offence, and the other team's offence have their own set. And kickers have separate balls also.

[slackster]

Watched and enjoyed the first 2 episodes (of 7) of Mary & George (Sky/Now), where Julianne Moore is having a hoot as a scheming cut-throat mum whilst she and her son romp through a raunchfest in order to get a leg up in the Jacobean Court. Helicopter parents, eh? Based on a true story, apparently.

[G-Man]

It's OK. I haven't seen Clive Owen for ages, nice to see he's as one-dimensional as always. It's a decent show though. I do wonder if the Sam Spade tag isn't a distraction however. It creates unnecessary expectations, like Owen being no Bogart. As a story I think it'd work as well, or better, without it.

Monsieur Spade plodded along nicely enough, with the characters drawn well enough to be intriguing, and plot twists keeping the thing going. Other than the absurd idea that a mass murder in France might be tried in a Vatican court because the killer is supposed to be a monk -- even fiction shouldn't play the fool with verifiable facts -- the narrative had built suspense.

And the came the final episode, in which the show simultaneously pissed, shat and puked on itself while laughing at the viewers for being stupid enough to watch this nonsense.

[Hot Pepsi]

Manhunt is better than expected.

It’s about the effort to find John Wilkes Booth.
What a shithead.

[ad hoc]

I think Guy Ritchie is more suited to episodic TV than theatrical movies. Shorter episodes, characters that are tiresome over two hours are less so over an hour. Plots short on depth but long on action and repartee likewise. I think the man's found his medium.

Yes I think this is true. I haven't seen the film of The Gentlemen that he made (to be honest I didn't even know it existed until I started watching this TV series), but I really have no great interest in doing so. But I'm enjoying the series very much. Especially surprised at how well Vinnie Jones has grown into acting. He was still a bag of shit on the football pitch*, but he's found a post career niche

(*though he was no Dennis Wise in the competition for most repulsive individual ever to don** a Wimbledon shirt)

(** yes, intended)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Another thumbs-up here for The Gentlemen. What a ton of fun.

I think Guy Ritchie is more suited to episodic TV than theatrical movies. Shorter episodes, characters that are tiresome over two hours are less so over an hour. Plots short on depth but long on action and repartee likewise. I think the man's found his medium.

[Hot Pepsi]

Oh, I see. I’m not sure why I inferred that.

I’m not really sure why they wouldn’t trade him. Perhaps they just thought he was paranoid and couldn’t find a deal.

These are perpetually adolescent people who do not care about anything that will not help them win a Super Bowl. Something like “I fear for my life because of Connecticut gangsters” is not something that would make sense to them.

He was offered security, apparently but he didn’t take it.

It’s not a stretch to believe he was not of sound mind.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...-trade-request

[Uncle Ethan]

No, I think its pretty clear that's not what I am suggesting. The doco makes it clear Hernandez requested he be traded and the organisation (coach) refused. Hernandez later murdered someone else. Kraft is openly apologetic about that in the documentary. I have no axe to grind either way on the Patriots.

[Hot Pepsi]

The spygate thing was real, but I don’t know if it really helped them much. I don’t think the deflategate thing created any advantage at all.

I don’t think the Patriots had Aaron Hernandez murdered, if that’s what you’re suggesting.

https://sports.yahoo.com/aaron-herna...191453838.html

[Uncle Ethan]

I don't think their chicanery really added up to much.

But it shows the kind of people they are. Same with the Michigan sign-stealing thing.

I have no idea if it really gave them a competitive advantage, but it shows that these are people who think winning at sportsball is what makes people valuable in the eyes of God (and a lot of them would think of it that in exactly those terms) and therefore the rules should not apply to them.

In a sane world, we'd see these people as terrible role models. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world where "winning" is what matters even though anyone remotely acquainted with reality understands that we are all losers in the end.

Well, they admitted that filming opposition coaches was forbidden and did it anyway. They knew the air pressure in the balls was a rules requirement but deflated them anyway* and when the bloke who eventually murdered someone asked to be released to a west coast club to get away from his old gang, the request was rejected.

*I have no idea how this would have helped one quarter back and not the other btw.

It does remind me of the Sampdoria kitman who, when the referee was testing the pressure in footballs for friendly v Glory many years ago with a gauge, picked each ball up, pressed it and gave the exact result for every ball that the gauge did seconds later.

[hobbes]

Another Halo episode where F all happens.
I want my ultraviolence!

[Hot Pepsi]

The Dynasty, copyrighted as it is to the Kraft foundation, could easily be named "Blame Bill for Everything" as they sometimes subtly and often not so subtly blame Bill Belichick for every negative at the club. The theme appears to be that Belichick let people he managed get away with stuff as long as the team was winning, which is lacking in self-awareness, as if that was the case then the Kraft organisation was giving exactly the same latitude to the coach.

Interesting time to be watching how a club that dominated a sport for so long got away with so much chicanery, though that is of course in no way replicated in the premiership.

I don't think their chicanery really added up to much.

But it shows the kind of people they are. Same with the Michigan sign-stealing thing.

I have no idea if it really gave them a competitive advantage, but it shows that these are people who think winning at sportsball is what makes people valuable in the eyes of God (and a lot of them would think of it that in exactly those terms) and therefore the rules should not apply to them.

In a sane world, we'd see these people as terrible role models. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world where "winning" is what matters even though anyone remotely acquainted with reality understands that we are all losers in the end.

[WOM]

Another thumbs-up here for The Gentlemen. What a ton of fun.

[Nocturnal Submission]

On Tuesday I watched one of the worst things I think I've ever seen. The first episode of the 1988 Andy Capp TV series. Wow it was dreadful.

Yesterday I started watching Peep Show for the first time.

Peep Show is brilliant. I was going to say that "It's my favourite British sitcom since..." but I can't really think of one that I like more.

[Benjm]

I remember seeing an episode of that at the time and it being very bad, even in an era of rock bottom expectations for mainstream domestic sitcoms.

We watched a 2021 Paul Schrader film called The Card Counter last night. Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish were engaging in the lead roles. Otherwise it was very Paul Schrader-ish but quite watchable by his variable standards.

[Simon G]

On Tuesday I watched one of the worst things I think I've ever seen. The first episode of the 1988 Andy Capp TV series. Wow it was dreadful.

Yesterday I started watching Peep Show for the first time.

[Uncle Ethan]

The Dynasty, copyrighted as it is to the Kraft foundation, could easily be named "Blame Bill for Everything" as they sometimes subtly and often not so subtly blame Bill Belichick for every negative at the club. The theme appears to be that Belichick let people he managed get away with stuff as long as the team was winning, which is lacking in self-awareness, as if that was the case then the Kraft organisation was giving exactly the same latitude to the coach.

Interesting time to be watching how a club that dominated a sport for so long got away with so much chicanery, though that is of course in no way replicated in the premiership.

[Ray de Galles]

She might be a ghost, according to the internet.

I feel like it all was a waste of time. The first three episodes were great.

You’ve probably already seen this but the creator, writer and showrunner Issa Lopez said this ;

I’m not saying that she’s alive, and I’m certainly not saying that she’s dead. I very carefully crafted this as an ink block test for you to discover yourself as an audience member. I do love that Navarro states very early in the series that she has this impulse to just walk away and leave everything behind. On the other hand, the entire series is an exploration of the fact that she feels a calling to the beyond. In the climax of the finale, and instead of fighting it and going in with pain and fear, she surrenders to it. And in doing it, she receives a piece of herself. So that call that she was afraid of is solved. The Aboriginal people in Australia go and walk about, find themselves and then come back, which is I think is what Kali embraced [for the character]. However, there is a chance that she is also going to be with the women before her to visit them. You can read it both ways and it’s up to you to interpret which one fulfills your heart.

But, you know, ghosts don’t exist so it fulfils my heart to say she’s alive and has faked her death/disappearance - otherwise it’s bollocks.

I don’t think it was “all a waste of time” at all, there was a lot to like throughout the series even if it did peak midway through and have an unsatisfying finale.