Current Watching

[Simon G]

Due to your comments on here HP, I've started listening to the podcast you refer to. I'm two in and I find it such an easy listen. The fact I love Scrubs really helps as well and I will start re-watching it soon.

[Hot Pepsi]

I'm glad I could be helpful. It does have a bunch of ads, but you can skip those.

[Sits]

Hot Pepsi that's a fascinating point about podcasts, if they’re good it’s just the conversation and conviviality I’m there for. My usual two are the Guardian’s Football Weekly, and Garcia’s Second Captains. When it’s available, also listen to Quickly Kevin. All soccer/sport but what they’re talking about is only half the story; they are people I like listening to, chatting to each other, and they seem to get on. It’s the most important thing isn’t it?

[Jon]

You're both so right. There is a comics podcast I have bene listening to for over a decade now and they seem like old friends to me, even though I have never met nor been directly in touch with them.

That’s definitely true. It's true of most sitcoms. Tina Fey talks about this in her book. She's not really happy with the 30 Rock pilot. She says Cheers had the ideal sitcom pilot.

Also the Modern Family pilot. I remember watching that and knowing I was in for the long haul. I went into work the next day and asked if anybody else had seen it. No one had. I'll happily recommend it to anyone and everyone. It was on Sky in the UK so it didn't get a massive audience but people are starting to pick up on now it's appeared on Netflix.

[Hot Pepsi]

Hot Pepsi that's a fascinating point about podcasts, if they’re good it’s just the conversation and conviviality I’m there for. My usual two are the Guardian’s Football Weekly, and Garcia’s Second Captains. When it’s available, also listen to Quickly Kevin. All soccer/sport but what they’re talking about is only half the story; they are people I like listening to, chatting to each other, and they seem to get on. It’s the most important thing isn’t it?

I've listened to literally hundreds of hours of Pete Holmes. I feel like I know him and his wife, but I actually don't. It's weird that way.

[danielmak]

The discussion of the Cheers pilot had me revisit that tonight. What a great opening episode and a wonderful show more generally. I liked the show but need to go back and watch the early episodes since I was too young to appreciate them when I first saw them. Even the theme song, which just slightly edges out Welcome Back Kotter as a top theme song (both are being used in ads for some restaurant in the US right now), speaks to something that perhaps adults in the US feel more than teens: finding a place where everybody knows your name. Anyway, that first episode really sets up the characters, their connections, and this bar as a space that uniquely makes that happen. I have no time to get sucked into binge watching years of Cheers but might shoot for a couple each week.

https://nofilmschool.com/Download-Cheers-pilot

[Hot Pepsi]

Cheers doesn’t have many running storylines so you can just watch them here and there.

I was too young to appreciate it when it started. I was a freshman in college when it ended, so I understood it but didn’t fully get the emotion of it until I was much older, because it’s about how people create their own family.

I lived in Boston from 95-97, and almost immediately recognized how it captured the bar culture of Boston that isn’t quite the same anywhere else in the US, as far as I know.

[danielmak]

I was about the same. I think I was 12 when it started. I think my family watched it from time to time because Thursday was "must see TV" on NBC at that time and Cheers fell amidst other shows we were watching.

The bar scene in Chicago seems similar. People definitely have local taverns that can be multi-generational. Most bars are much more focused on twenty-somethings and those spaces seem to cater to people who are striving to get trashed. But I think there's certainly a scene here that is similar to Boston (per your description, HP).

[WOM]

I was about the same. I think I was 12 when it started. I think my family watched it from time to time because Thursday was "must see TV" on NBC at that time and Cheers fell amidst other shows we were watching.

There's a very good book on this era called Top of The Rock: The Rise and Fall of Must See TV by Warren Littlefield, who ran the channel at the time. Covers the run from Cheers to Seinfeld to Friends to ER. It's worth reading.

[Toby Gymshorts]

There is a comics podcast I have bene listening to for over a decade now

Well, that's good.

[WOM]

Well, that's good.

[LIKE]

[jwdd27]

Watched the first two episodes of The Third Day, with Jude Law, who as the years have passed has become one of my favourite actors, having started off as one of my least favourite - similar to Di Caprio, he's grown into his face a bit and is a fairly good actor.

The show itself is OK, but it borrows heavily from The Wicker Man, to a distracting degree. Outsider visits an isolated community of religious, cultist weirdos as a festival approaches...

What I did find interesting is that it's set on the real island of Osea in Essex, with the island's history (formed as a temperance retreat by a remorseful East End brewer) being the same on the show as in real life.

Will probably stick with it (the excellent Emily Watson and Paddy Considine also star as a husband and wife), but I get the feeling I've guessed all the plot twists to come.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Apparently comparisons with The Wicker Man, though acknowledged, are superficial. The structure, for instance, is quite different. There are seven episodes, three featuring the Jude Law character, and three centered on a female outsider (played by Naomie Harris). They're linked by an expositional episode that was filmed live. It's not generally the kind of series that would be my cup of tea, but I've been held by the first couple of hours (loved the acid trip sequence) and intrigued by where it's going — if anywhere!

[Benjm]

I'm watching the Elvis '68 Comeback Special on Sky Arts. There are some weird set piece song and dance numbers alongside the well remembered in the round sections.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Have you seen it before? I wonder if it can truly transcend its time and immediate audience. It was an air punching moment for sure... "He's got it! The boy's still got it!" After all those cruddy movies and sappy songs he can still ROCK AND ROLL! It was a keeper without a doubt, right down to the black leather.

[Benjm]

Have you seen it before? I wonder if it can truly transcend its time and immediate audience. It was an air punching moment for sure... "He's got it! The boy's still got it!" After all those cruddy movies and sappy songs he can still ROCK AND ROLL! It was a keeper without a doubt, right down to the black leather.

I had seen it before, some time ago, but wonder whether it was a different edit of the footage which showed more of the small group performance ("you have made my life...a wreck!") and less of the big production sections. I remembered the opening Guitar Man with Jailhouse Rock referencing background and the big ELVIS sign but some of the later choreographed routines, like the gospel and r'n'b medley, were unfamiliar. It may just be the same reaction as returning to a film that has several very well known scenes and being surprised how much of the 90 minutes around them hadn't stuck in the mind.

Anyhow, it still packs an almighty punch. His voice, looks and movement are all awesome and the engaging side of his personality really comes over. The post hoc context that hovers around the edges is the tragic one; watching it knowing that he was gone less than a decade later.

[Ray de Galles]

I had a lovely evening watching Sky Arts the other night as they segued straight from the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert to ''68 Comeback Special (which is something of a sacred text in my family).

I did spend a lot of the evening in tears though and felt very, very middle-aged.

There are definitely albums (and I think DVDs) that focus more on the in-the-round- group performances, Ben . I presume they've been broadcast too.

[jwdd27]

There was an edited down TV Special/DVD called "One Night With You", which is just the sit down concert bit, like Benjm, I only remember the sit down bits so perhaps that's what I watched.

Whenever I watch it, it's astounding how good Elvis is, how good he looks, and how tragic it was that he'd wasted the previous 6 years making dumb movies, and that this was about as good as it got, considering the downward trajectory of his remaining 9 years.

Fun fact/scurrilous rumour: they shot two concerts on the same day, and in between they had to wash Elvis' leathers, which, according to director Steve Binder, were not just sweat soaked - he claims Elvis had ejaculated during the performance. Can't say I blame him.

[WOM]

If you're an Elvis fan, this is an interesting article. As Elvis fans know, he never played outside the US. Two or three concerts in Canada* was literally about it. Apparently that's because Col. Tom Parker wouldn't let Elvis tour unaccompanied by him, and since CTP would never leave the US, neither would Elvis. According to this article, that's because CTP was a fugitive murderer from Germany and was wary of being identified if he crossed an international border.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...lam-108042206/

*My mom was at one of them.

[Wouter D]

from Germany

Ahem.

[WOM]

Ahem.

Oop...shit, sorry. The Netherlands. In my defense, I read that article ages ago and didn't re-read before I posted it.

[jwdd27]

To be fair, Breda and Bochum are candidates for a "European place names I get confused" thread, probably because they both have mid ranking football teams with 3 letter abbreviated prefixes.

[Sits]

Watched the first two episodes of The Third Day, with Jude Law, who as the years have passed has become one of my favourite actors, having started off as one of my least favourite - similar to Di Caprio, he's grown into his face a bit and is a fairly good actor.

The show itself is OK, but it borrows heavily from The Wicker Man, to a distracting degree. Outsider visits an isolated community of religious, cultist weirdos as a festival approaches...

What I did find interesting is that it's set on the real island of Osea in Essex, with the island's history (formed as a temperance retreat by a remorseful East End brewer) being the same on the show as in real life.

Will probably stick with it (the excellent Emily Watson and Paddy Considine also star as a husband and wife), but I get the feeling I've guessed all the plot twists to come.

Have you read The Essex Serpent, a mystery/romance set in Victorian times on the Blackwater between Maldon and Osea?

[Sits]

To be fair, Breda and Bochum are candidates for a "European place names I get confused" thread, probably because they both have mid ranking football teams with 3 letter abbreviated prefixes.

AFC Bournemouth?

[Wouter D]

Oop...shit, sorry. The Netherlands. In my defense, I read that article ages ago and didn't re-read before I posted it.

We do not have many internationally famous grifters in this country, and hence we definitely cannot afford to lose one to our neighbors to the East.

But don't worry. Canada has, and hence all Canadians have, a _massive_ amount of goodwill in the Netherlands for historical reasons.