Movies

[R011]

There was a Twilight Zone episode about a town in Siberia taken over by vampires involving a KGB officer sent to investigate.

 

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E21

[Stargrunt6]

44 minutes ago, R011 said:

There was a Twilight Zone episode about a town in Siberia taken over by vampires involving a KGB officer sent to investigate.

 

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E21

This is RPG gold. Tabletop, oen-and-paper style, not immersive-sim slop.

[NickM]

1 hour ago, R011 said:

There was a Twilight Zone episode about a town in Siberia taken over by vampires involving a KGB officer sent to investigate.

 

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E21

Meh, the 1980s Twilight Zone/Outer Limits were such downer stories

[Tim Sielbeck]

13 minutes ago, NickM said:

Meh, the 1980s Twilight Zone/Outer Limits were such downer stories

I of Newton was pretty good:

 

 

[NickM]

Just now, Tim Sielbeck said:

I of Newton was pretty good:

 

 

It was always when humans found themselves in a jam with aliens, humanity would always take it in the shorts (Brent Spiner pretending to break the conditioning by alien slavers is actually working for the slavers to improve the conditioning; trapped astronauts break free of mind controlling spiders/. only to find it's all in their mind and now they lure the rest of the colonists to their doom; humans get into a confrontation with an alien life form and vanquish it, only to learn they're the alien equivalent of cub scouts and now the pissed off parents are on the way to 'glass' earth...etc); it got to be as predictable as somebody in a Whedon TV show getting stabbed in the back right after winning a minor victory.

[Tim Sielbeck]

1 hour ago, NickM said:

It was always when humans found themselves in a jam with aliens, humanity would always take it in the shorts (Brent Spiner pretending to break the conditioning by alien slavers is actually working for the slavers to improve the conditioning; trapped astronauts break free of mind controlling spiders/. only to find it's all in their mind and now they lure the rest of the colonists to their doom; humans get into a confrontation with an alien life form and vanquish it, only to learn they're the alien equivalent of cub scouts and now the pissed off parents are on the way to 'glass' earth...etc); it got to be as predictable as somebody in a Whedon TV show getting stabbed in the back right after winning a minor victory.

That's why I didn't like STtNG.  They were always meeting someone who would/could kick their ass but they were always saved by the script writers.

[Stuart Galbraith]

6 hours ago, NickM said:

Meh, the 1980s Twilight Zone/Outer Limits were such downer stories

Not always. I remember reading Arthur C Clarks 'The Star' when I was a kid. Basically deep space explorers find the remnants of an alien civilisation on their equivalent of Pluto. The entire solar system was wiped out by a supernova several thousand years ago. The story is narated by a priest (im not sure why they felt the need to bring one along, but whatever), and its subsequently discovered the entire solar system and the alien civilisation was wiped out, just to provide a star over the birth of jesus. The end of the story was a screed agains God, for burning this poor innocents, just to give a roadmap to the 3 wise men.

But the Twilight zone didnt end like that. No, they miraculously are able to decript an alien message (perhaps they put it through babelfish) asking whatever civilisation that found their time capsule to not cry for them. And the priest forgives God for his misdemenor.

That is largely how I remember the later twilight zone films, missing the mark so they wouldnt be 'too' dark for network transmission. The earlier ones were goddamn terrifying, whether it was the movie reboot (I think the John Lithgow version was superior to the Shatner nightmare at 20000 feet), or the genuinely chilling Nightcrawlers.

Hmm, directed by William Friedkin. Well I guess that explains it.

Edited February 15 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stargrunt6]

8 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

 

Hmm, directed by William Friedkin. Well I guess that explains it.

I had a barber that was a crew member under Friedkin. He said the director eas bad with names, so he called everyone "Charlie," man or woman.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

[Stargrunt6]

Amazon's got Bond

https://collider.com/james-bond-franchise-amazon-studio-ownership/?utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_campaign=Echobox-CL&utm_source=Facebook

Requiem for a franchise.

It really should be owned by a British company. 

[Stargrunt6]

Nolan finna jump the shark

Edited February 20 by Stargrunt6

[TrustMe]

The book was fanastic I read it in my teens. If the movie is half as good as the film it will be an epic.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, Stargrunt6 said:

Amazon's got Bond

https://collider.com/james-bond-franchise-amazon-studio-ownership/?utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_campaign=Echobox-CL&utm_source=Facebook

Requiem for a franchise.

It really should be owned by a British company. 

There aren't any film studios here with that kind of skin, not since the 70s.

I hope they leave it alone. The only concession I'd like to see would be a tv series about young Bond. There was at least one graphic novel about that, and some hints in the novels that would be enough to work with.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, TrustMe said:

The book was fanastic I read it in my teens. If the movie is half as good as the film it will be an epic.

All the cast will have Irish accents...

[TrustMe]

29 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

All the cast will have Irish accents...

Maybe, but as long as it's not Troy it will be good. 

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332452/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_2_nm_6_in_0_q_troy 

[Ivanhoe]

This one popped up in my YT feed. I would have ignored it, but Vanity was in it;

Vanity was Denise Matthews' stage name. One of the hottest singers/actresses of the 1980s. And surprisingly, Canadian.

Now I'll try to work it into the rotation, sooner or later.

 

[Ivanhoe]

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/gene-hackman-10-greatest-film-121015688.html

From that list, I've only watched The French Connection and Unforgiven to completion, and part of The Conversation.

The latter is an interesting movie. Very well-crafted, but also very slow. I'm sure its a must for film students.

 

[R011]

I posted one of his finest performances in the Obit thread.  "I made espresso!"

 

[NickM]

On 2/21/2025 at 8:07 PM, Ivanhoe said:

This one popped up in my YT feed. I would have ignored it, but Vanity was in it;

Vanity was Denise Matthews' stage name. One of the hottest singers/actresses of the 1980s. And surprisingly, Canadian.

Now I'll try to work it into the rotation, sooner or later.

 

Deleted for being wholly inappropriate

Edited February 28 by NickM

[Stuart Galbraith]

9 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/gene-hackman-10-greatest-film-121015688.html

From that list, I've only watched The French Connection and Unforgiven to completion, and part of The Conversation.

The latter is an interesting movie. Very well-crafted, but also very slow. I'm sure its a must for film students.

 

The Conversation is brilliant. He sort of reprised the role as a paranoid ex NSA guy in 'Enemy of the State.' Thats quite good fun, has Jon Voight and Will Smith before he turned into a prize fighter. Sort of set out the store for Person of Interest over a decade later.

 Surprised French Connection 2 didnt make the list. I thought that was more interesting that 1, and that was already excellent. Only made 5 on that list so I got work to do.

 

[Stefan Fredriksson]

Harakiri (1962).

A samurai turns up at a fort, requesting to commit harakiri in their compound. A slow-cooking story you can not stop watching. No spoilers. If not for the fight-scenes, which should have been left out, this would have been 10/10. The best film you will watch before summer.

[Stuart Galbraith]

As good as 13 Assassins?

[Stefan Fredriksson]

Different, I would say. 13 Assassins (7,5 on Imdb) is an action movie. Harakari (8,6 on Imdb) is more of a stage play. I just read on Imdb trivia that real (sharp I guess) weapons were used in Harakiri, which would explain the amateurish looking fight-scenes. Again, the film would be hugely better with fight-scenes cut. In 13 Assassins on the other hand , they are well performed.

[Yama]

17 hours ago, Stefan Fredriksson said:

Harakiri (1962).

A samurai turns up at a fort, requesting to commit harakiri in their compound. A slow-cooking story you can not stop watching. No spoilers. If not for the fight-scenes, which should have been left out, this would have been 10/10. The best film you will watch before summer.

I have watched it, it's great, one of the best (if not the best) Japanese films I have seen. Focus is in slow unwrapping of the story, and asking hard questions about samurai ethos, rather than glorification of violence.

[Stuart Galbraith]

On 2/15/2025 at 1:11 AM, R011 said:

There was a Twilight Zone episode about a town in Siberia taken over by vampires involving a KGB officer sent to investigate.

 

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E21

Thank you, that was really good.