Current Watching

[Hot Pepsi]

He was the Steven Spielberg of his day.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Not a lot. He is a popular source for new cheap scifi films and TV largely because they don’t have to pay him royalties.

Well, yeah, obviously. But he was a massive source of material and ideas ever since films' earliest days (cf: Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon)

[Hot Pepsi]

Can you imagine what kind of residuals Jules Verne would be getting if he was still alive?

Not a lot. He is a popular source for new cheap scifi films and TV largely because they don’t have to pay him royalties. That’s also why we get a new take on Sherlock Holmes every year or two.

I’m not sure if that was true in the Golden Age when Disney made 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I always get distracted when Sid James turns up in minor character roles in non-saucy drama films. I watched a 1950s film last week called Campbell's Kingdom, about a struggle over land rights in Canada. Dirk Bogarde and (the great) Stanley Baker were fine as the leads, Sid and James Robertson Justice more, well, incongruous in their supporting parts. Anyway, nice location photography, worth a watch.

Yes, I can't quite handle the cognitive dissonance that creates. Leonard Rossiter in 2001, Leslie Nielsen in Forbidden Planet...

All just so wrong.

[Benjm]

That's quite the cast list - I'm not sure how often Joan Greenwood and Herbert Lom found themselves in the same production.

I always get distracted when Sid James turns up in minor character roles in non-saucy drama films. I watched a 1950s film last week called Campbell's Kingdom, about a struggle over land rights in Canada. Dirk Bogarde and (the great) Stanley Baker were fine as the leads, Sid and James Robertson Justice more, well, incongruous in their supporting parts. Anyway, nice location photography, worth a watch.

[Amor de Cosmos]

It doesn’t make a lot of sense that they take off from Richmond and end up over the Pacific Ocean. That is about 3,000 miles and at least three mountain ranges away.

But now I want to see it.

Apparently, there are at least four film versions of it, including a TV series with Patrick Stewart.

Can you imagine what kind of residuals Jules Verne would be getting if he was still alive?

[Nocturnal Submission]

That's quite the cast list - I'm not sure how often Joan Greenwood and Herbert Lom found themselves in the same production.

Directed by Cy Endfield, I see. I mainly know him for Zulu. Had to quit Hollywood after being blacklisted.

[Nocturnal Submission]

It doesn’t make a lot of sense that they take off from Richmond and end up over the Pacific Ocean. That is about 3,000 miles and at least three mountain ranges away.

But now I want to see it.

Apparently, there are at least four film versions of it, including a TV series with Patrick Stewart.

Yes, it's fair to say that there one or two plot details that don't quite add up!

[Nocturnal Submission]

That sounds like Mysterious Island, NS. It turns up now and again on Talking Pictures, Legend and other thriftily budgeted digital channels.

Great stuff! I'll keep an eye out for it.

Talking of the less celebrated film channels, Paths of Glory is on Great!action, or however it styles itself, at 7.05 this evening.

[Hot Pepsi]

It doesn’t make a lot of sense that they take off from Richmond and end up over the Pacific Ocean. That is about 3,000 miles and at least three mountain ranges away.

But now I want to see it.

Apparently, there are at least four film versions of it, including a TV series with Patrick Stewart.

[Hot Pepsi]

[Benjm]

That sounds like Mysterious Island, NS. It turns up now and again on Talking Pictures, Legend and other thriftily budgeted digital channels.

[Nocturnal Submission]

This has stirred a bitter childhood memory.

I would often be enjoying a TV programme in the early evening, only to be told to turn it off and go to bed. My mum kept strict bedtime hours and was fairly inflexible about them. One film has stuck in my mind - a bunch of American Civil War POWs escape from a camp in a balloon and end up in some sort of land that time forgot. Obviously I don't know the story proceeded from there.

Ring bells with anyone?

[Hot Pepsi]

Ah, sounds fantastic. I was thinking of The Land That Time Forgot possibly same stable.

I recalled seeing part it it on a Disney Channel free weekend when I was about 10, and thought it looked cool. So now, 40+ years later, I saw it on Disney+ and thought maybe it would be entertaining.

But it’s just awful.

The guy who used to be on Good Morning America gives the most wooden performance I’ve ever seen.

The main “eskimo” is a stereotype of the simple-but-helpful asian sidekick.

The special effects are awful even for 1974. The “Old Norse” spoken by the Vikings is just modern Swedish and Norwegian.

Good performance by the dog.

[Tony C]

‘When Bob Marley Came To England’ documentary on BBC iplayer is very good.

[Sits]

Ah, sounds fantastic. I was thinking of The Land That Time Forgot possibly same stable.

[Hot Pepsi]

No, an airship and vikings.

[Sits]

Is that the one with dinosaurs and cave people?

[Hot Pepsi]

I’m watching The Island at the Top of the World. (1974)

Breathtakingly terrible film.

[Sits]

I watched both series of Trigger Point (starring Vicky McLure fron Line of Duty). After the first couple of episodes, I thought that this is going to be crap. It did improve, but not significantly.

Agreed. Not a patch on LoD but thinks it is.

We are now watching the latest iteration of Dalgliesh starring Bertie Carvell in the role Roy Marsden owned so well. Considering the odious character he played in Doctor Foster, Carvell does a decent job. It’s not groundbreaking but sits comfortably in the Morse zone. And not everything has to be relentlessly grim.

[WOM]

Trial By Media is an interesting little docu-series on a bunch of ‘made for court tv’ crimes in the States from the mid-90s through the oughts. Hot Pepsi and ursus arctos would likely know all the stories, but it’s a bit of a trip. It’s on Netflix.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

The BBC's The Space Shuttle that Fell to Earth, about the loss of the Columbia, is fascinating, infuriating, incredibly moving. It leaves you full of admiration for some and full of contempt for others. It's brilliant.

Thanks for the tip HO, I’ll watch it. I know some of the history already, in particular I have a vague recollection of reading about the shocking absence of safety prioritisation at NASA, but no doubt I’ll learn a lot from it.

[DPDPDPDP]

I watched both series of Trigger Point (starring Vicky McLure fron Line of Duty). After the first couple of episodes, I thought that this is going to be crap. It did improve, but not significantly.

[Hot Orange]

The BBC's The Space Shuttle that Fell to Earth, about the loss of the Columbia, is fascinating, infuriating, incredibly moving. It leaves you full of admiration for some and full of contempt for others. It's brilliant.

[Bored Of Education]

Oh, it’s frightening.