What Did You Watch? 2019-11-30 (Saturday)

[Ian J. Ball]

I focued on grading yesterday, and when I wasn't doing that I was
playing my "old school" RPG Balrum, so I didn't watch much yesterday...

Black Lightning (recorded) - "The Book of Occupation: Chapter Four:
Lynn's Ouroboros" (ep. #3.4). Slowly working through my backlog here...
In this one, Agent Odell purposely gets Lynn hooked on Green Light
(does this mean she's going to turn into a "meta" too?!). Meanwhile,
Agent Odell has stupid Jennifer pretty well snowed on the ASA's
"mission". And Black Lightning has to get one of his students out of
jam with the ASA, with Anissa's help. Oh, and Painkiller continues to
be an unfeeling killing machine.

Van Helsing (recorded) - "No 'I' In Team" (ep. #4.9). A mostly good episode.
This one revisits "The Rising", but from a "ground-eye", "in the
thick of it" viewpoint, as Jack and her school archery team have to
survive when the Yellowstone Caldera supereruption unleashes vampire
armageddon.
I'm not sure I buy the conceit, here - e.g. 1) that every vampire
bite produces a new vampire (that seemed to be the conceit here, but
I'm not sure that was the case earlier in this show's run... and if it
was the case, the vampires wouldn't have needed the eruption to take
over - they would have been able to do it years ago!!), and 2) that the
vamps could wipe pretty much everyone out in less than 24 hours. I also
didn't like the open-ended ending (nor the fact that the girls never
went back to retrieve their archery sets - this made no sense to me...)
- this episode need a more definitive ending than what we got here
(i.e. *what* happened to Jack after all this?!).
But I did appreciate what this episode was trying to do - giving us
a street-level view of The Rising...

The Twisted Nanny (LMN) - This was pretty good, in the way that the
fake nanny set up the woman/mom who hired her. However, there were a
lot of problems on this front - 1) the fact that *nobody* believed the
mom was kind of silly - the movie cheated here by having her only
confidant be her co-worker(/boss?) - there was no "best girl-friend" as
there usually is in this kind of movie, so they purposely set it up to
have no one believe the mom! and 2) this whole thing would quickly have
been solved if the mom had just quit her job (her co-worker(/boss?) was
completely unsupportive anyway) and scurried off with her kids in the
middle of the night when the nanny wasn't paying attention or was gone.
As it is, they had a semi-deus ex machina pop up in the 9th inning
to get the mom out of this jam.
I also didn't care for the ending - I thought it was going to reveal
that the nanny had a personal grudge in this case, but they didn't go
that route.
Fun fact: Tara Erickson, who played the mom, actually has an
overwhelming background in *comedy* (e.g. the Groundlings), so it's
funny that she decided to do a LMN flick! She was actually pretty good
dramatically here, though - I thought she was the most effective
person/actor in this flick, by far.


Recorded for later: Your Baby Is Mine (off LMN - somehow I missed this
when it originally aired...).


What did you watch?


--
"Three light sabers? Is that overkill? Or just the right amount
of "kill"?" - M-OC, "A Perilous Rescue" (ep. #2.9), LSW:TFA (08-10-2017)

[Arthur Lipscomb]

On 12/1/2019 9:47 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
> I focued on grading yesterday, and when I wasn't doing that I was
> playing my "old school" RPG Balrum, so I didn't watch much yesterday...
>
> Black Lightning (recorded) - "The Book of Occupation: Chapter Four:
> Lynn's Ouroboros" (ep. #3.4). Slowly working through my backlog here...
> In this one, Agent Odell purposely gets Lynn hooked on Green Light (does
> this mean she's going to turn into a "meta" too?!).

I hadn't thought of that.

Meanwhile, Agent
> Odell has stupid Jennifer pretty well snowed on the ASA's "mission". And
> Black Lightning has to get one of his students out of jam with the ASA,
> with Anissa's help. Oh, and Painkiller continues to be an unfeeling
> killing machine.
>
>

> The Twisted Nanny (LMN) - This was pretty good, in the way that the fake
> nanny set up the woman/mom who hired her. However, there were a lot of
> problems on this front - 1) the fact that *nobody* believed the mom was
> kind of silly - the movie cheated here by having her only confidant be
> her co-worker(/boss?) - there was no "best girl-friend" as there usually
> is in this kind of movie, so they purposely set it up to have no one
> believe the mom! and 2) this whole thing would quickly have been solved
> if the mom had just quit her job (her co-worker(/boss?) was completely
> unsupportive anyway) and scurried off with her kids in the middle of the
> night when the nanny wasn't paying attention or was gone.
>   As it is, they had a semi-deus ex machina pop up in the 9th inning to
> get the mom out of this jam.
>   I also didn't care for the ending - I thought it was going to reveal
> that the nanny had a personal grudge in this case, but they didn't go
> that route.
>   Fun fact: Tara Erickson, who played the mom, actually has an
> overwhelming background in *comedy* (e.g. the Groundlings), so it's
> funny that she decided to do a LMN flick! She was actually pretty good
> dramatically here, though - I thought she was the most effective
> person/actor in this flick, by far.
>

I think I saw the trailer to this yesterday and thought it looked
interesting. But I have way too much on my plate at the moment so I
didn't even bother to record it. But once mom knows the nanny is a
psycho, why not just fire her and/or get a restraining order?

>
> Recorded for later: Your Baby Is Mine (off LMN - somehow I missed this
> when it originally aired...).
>
>
> What did you watch?
>
>

Still mostly powering through movies. I watched:


Fresh Off the Boat - "Lou Wants to Be a Millionaire" - Taking a page
from "Slumdog Millionaire," Louis gets on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
and remembers various life events to help him answer the questions. I
guess this was an OK one.


Superman III (blu-ray) 1983 movie staring Richard Pryor as a computer
genius who under instructions of his evil billionaire boss (Robert
Vaughn) tries to go down in history as the man who killed Superman. I
*get* that people hate this one. But I was 6 when this movie came out.
To a 6 year old Superman fan, this movie was *awesome*!!! And that
feeling of joy while watching just never goes away.


Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (blu-ray) The original cast returns for
one more adventure when Superman decides to rid the world of nukes and
Lex decide to cash in on while also making an evil clone of Superman. I
was truly torn between watching Supergirl and this one. Supergirl *is*
the next movie in the franchise if you're watching them in chronological
order. I even had the disc in the player for a minute or two. But it
was really late, and IV is mercifully short. So I went ahead watched
IV, which is undeniably the *worst* Superman movie of them all.

That being said, this one has a wonderful commentary track from the
movie's screenwriter Mark Rosenthal. From the opening credits
throughout he breaks down everything wrong with the movie and gives
various behind the scene tidbits explaining what went wrong and what the
original intent was. For example, he points out about 45 minutes was
cut from the movie creating various plot holes, which he does his best
to fill in as the movie goes and he mentioned that Christopher Reeve was
originally supposed to play the evil clone before he rips into the guy
they cast instead. If you're going to watch IV, watching with this
commentary is the way to go and actually makes the experience enjoyable.
Or as enjoyable as it can be.


A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (theatrical) I went into this
knowing very little about it other than it's the Mr. Rogers movie
staring Tom Hans as Mr. Rogers. Well, it's not really a Mr. Rogers
movie. It's hard to explain. Mr. Rogers is in it, and he's used as a
framing device (to say the least without spoilers), but the movie is
really about a writer (Matthew Rhys from "The Americans") whose working
on an article about Mr. Rogers. It's definitely a solid drama and Oscar
contender.

[anim8rfsk]

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 10:47:00 -0700 Ian J. Ball<IJB...@mac.invalid> wrote:

> What did you watch?

Thanks for axing!

The Thanksgiving Axe Murderer
Not listed in IMDb,
Only 61 minutes long.
I quit with 60 minutes remaining.

Penn & Teller's Xmas Fool Us
Worst Fool Us ever from a fooling standpoint, as they dropped the fooler
angle and the magicians just perform and everybody receives a performance
trophy. The only watchable show on the CW. To be discussed elsewhere.

Then my Magic DVR suggested I watch some other P&T stuff, starting with
2003's Magic and Mystery Tour, a three episode mini-series traveling to
India, Egypt, and China, to visit indigenous street magicians and mind fuck
locals and tourists alike. On The Amazon Prime. Good stuff.

The worstest most incompetentest Xmas movie ever made! Abigail Hawk *is* A
Christmas in Vermont! I'll disgust this separately ...

Marked Twain - The Shat visits The Murdoch Mysteries!

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea - The Terrible Leprechaun! Yeah, I didn't
make it past the opening credits. Few shows augured as hard as Voyage did in
it's final season.

The penultimate episodes of season one of (Guns of) Paradise, with very
special guest star Chuck Connors in an incredibly blatant remake of EL DORADO
with Connors bizarrely in both the Robert Mitchum *and* the John Wayne rolls.

What did YOU watch?

--
Join your old RAT friends at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1688985234647266/

[anim8rfsk]

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 11:25:27 -0700 Arthur Lipscomb<art...@alum.calberkeley.org>
wrote:

> Superman III (blu-ray) 1983 movie staring Richard Pryor as a computer
> genius who under instructions of his evil billionaire boss (Robert
> Vaughn) tries to go down in history as the man who killed Superman. I
> *get* that people hate this one. But I was 6 when this movie came out.
> To a 6 year old Superman fan, this movie was *awesome*!!! And that
> feeling of joy while watching just never goes away.

I was pushing 30. The feeling of deep hurting is still palpable. It's the
last Superman movie I ever saw in the theater.

> Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (blu-ray) The original cast returns for
> one more adventure when Superman decides to rid the world of nukes and
> Lex decide to cash in on while also making an evil clone of Superman. I
> was truly torn between watching Supergirl and this one. Supergirl *is*

I'd have watched Supergirl. Back when she was both super and girl.

> the next movie in the franchise if you're watching them in chronological
> order. I even had the disc in the player for a minute or two. But it
> was really late, and IV is mercifully short.

Always watch the longest Supergirl version available. It may be the only film
that gets less wretched when there's more of it. I go for the "International
Cut"

> So I went ahead watched
> IV, which is undeniably the *worst* Superman movie of them all.

OMG no no no no no you are as wrong as Ian.
S4Q4P is the worst Chris Reeve Superman movie, sure. But it's still better
than *any* live action that's come since.

> That being said, this one has a wonderful commentary track from the
> movie's screenwriter Mark Rosenthal. From the opening credits
> throughout he breaks down everything wrong with the movie and gives
> various behind the scene tidbits explaining what went wrong and what the
> original intent was. For example, he points out about 45 minutes was
> cut from the movie creating various plot holes, which he does his best
> to fill in as the movie goes and he mentioned that Christopher Reeve was
> originally supposed to play the evil clone before he rips into the guy
> they cast instead. If you're going to watch IV, watching with this
> commentary is the way to go and actually makes the experience enjoyable.
> Or as enjoyable as it can be.

The Jimmy Olsen actor has discussed this. He says even he couldn't follow the
plot in the theater!

The original cut exists, and people keep lobbying to get it released. It was
seriously considered as part of that big box set a few years ago, but didn't
happen.
This is the first movie I ever wrote a super snark for.
It's amazingly bad.

[Adam H. Kerman]

anim8rfsk <anim...@cox.net> wrote:
>Sun, 01 Dec 2019 11:25:27 -0700 Arthur Lipscomb<art...@alum.calberkeley.org>:

>>Superman III (blu-ray) 1983 movie staring Richard Pryor as a computer
>>genius who under instructions of his evil billionaire boss (Robert
>>Vaughn) tries to go down in history as the man who killed Superman. I
>>*get* that people hate this one. But I was 6 when this movie came out.
>>To a 6 year old Superman fan, this movie was *awesome*!!! And that
>>feeling of joy while watching just never goes away.

>I was pushing 30. The feeling of deep hurting is still palpable. It's the
>last Superman movie I ever saw in the theater.

>>Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (blu-ray) The original cast returns for
>>one more adventure when Superman decides to rid the world of nukes and
>>Lex decide to cash in on while also making an evil clone of Superman. I
>>was truly torn between watching Supergirl and this one. Supergirl *is*

>>I'd have watched Supergirl. Back when she was both super and girl.
>>the next movie in the franchise if you're watching them in chronological
>>order. I even had the disc in the player for a minute or two. But it

>>was really late, and IV is mercifully short. . . .

>Always watch the longest Supergirl version available. It may be the only film
>that gets less wretched when there's more of it. I go for the "International
>Cut"

With Jill Wagner nudity?

[Ian J. Ball]

On 2019-12-01 18:25:27 +0000, Arthur Lipscomb said:

> On 12/1/2019 9:47 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
>> I focued on grading yesterday, and when I wasn't doing that I was
>> playing my "old school" RPG Balrum, so I didn't watch much yesterday...
>>

>> The Twisted Nanny (LMN) - This was pretty good, in the way that the
>> fake nanny set up the woman/mom who hired her. However, there were a
>> lot of problems on this front - 1) the fact that *nobody* believed the
>> mom was kind of silly - the movie cheated here by having her only
>> confidant be her co-worker(/boss?) - there was no "best girl-friend" as
>> there usually is in this kind of movie, so they purposely set it up to
>> have no one believe the mom! and 2) this whole thing would quickly have
>> been solved if the mom had just quit her job (her co-worker(/boss?) was
>> completely unsupportive anyway) and scurried off with her kids in the
>> middle of the night when the nanny wasn't paying attention or was gone.
>>   As it is, they had a semi-deus ex machina pop up in the 9th inning to
>> get the mom out of this jam.
>>   I also didn't care for the ending - I thought it was going to reveal
>> that the nanny had a personal grudge in this case, but they didn't go
>> that route.
>>   Fun fact: Tara Erickson, who played the mom, actually has an
>> overwhelming background in *comedy* (e.g. the Groundlings), so it's
>> funny that she decided to do a LMN flick! She was actually pretty good
>> dramatically here, though - I thought she was the most effective
>> person/actor in this flick, by far.
>
> I think I saw the trailer to this yesterday and thought it looked
> interesting. But I have way too much on my plate at the moment so I
> didn't even bother to record it. But once mom knows the nanny is a
> psycho, why not just fire her and/or get a restraining order?

That was another hole - she calls the agency, rather than going to see
them in person to check up on the nanny. IOW, she never asked for a
*photo* of her supposed nanny! Had she just done that, this movie would
have been over in an hour!!

When she eventually does move to fire her, the nanny threatens to
report the mom to Protective Services, and by that point everyone
thinks the mom is nuts, so...

[anim8rfsk]

LOL, if only. If only ....

Now that she's pregnant we'll be looking forward to the Shirley Appleby style
photos of her.

[BTR1701]

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 11:25:27 -0700 Arthur
Lipscomb<art...@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

> > That being said, this one has a wonderful commentary track from the
> > movie's screenwriter Mark Rosenthal. From the opening credits
> > throughout he breaks down everything wrong with the movie and gives
> > various behind the scene tidbits explaining what went wrong and what the
> > original intent was. For example, he points out about 45 minutes was
> > cut from the movie creating various plot holes, which he does his best
> > to fill in as the movie goes

So in the editing room, they actually recognize that their story makes
no sense the way it's been presented and they... just don't care?

I always thought those kinds of plot holes were accidental, but
apparently they know what they're doing and they just do it anyway.

[BTR1701]

In article <0001HW.23944BED01...@NEWS.EASYNEWS.COM>,

I've warned you before... I'll cut you!

[Arthur Lipscomb]

On 12/1/2019 11:04 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
> Sun, 01 Dec 2019 11:25:27 -0700 Arthur Lipscomb<art...@alum.calberkeley.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Superman III (blu-ray) 1983 movie staring Richard Pryor as a computer
>> genius who under instructions of his evil billionaire boss (Robert
>> Vaughn) tries to go down in history as the man who killed Superman. I
>> *get* that people hate this one. But I was 6 when this movie came out.
>> To a 6 year old Superman fan, this movie was *awesome*!!! And that
>> feeling of joy while watching just never goes away.
>
> I was pushing 30. The feeling of deep hurting is still palpable. It's the
> last Superman movie I ever saw in the theater.
>

It was the first Superman movie I ever saw in the theater. Back then,
Superman II was the best movie ever made in the history of all cinema.
I watched it religiously whenver it aired. And I was watching Superman
II when my mother said it was time to go see Superman III. Talk about a
Sophie's choice for a 6 year old. But we went and I was not
disappointed. And as an added bonus I was scarred for years by that
scene when the woman was turned into robot. They sure knew how to scar
kids for life back in the day. ;-)

>> Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (blu-ray) The original cast returns for
>> one more adventure when Superman decides to rid the world of nukes and
>> Lex decide to cash in on while also making an evil clone of Superman. I
>> was truly torn between watching Supergirl and this one. Supergirl *is*
>
> I'd have watched Supergirl. Back when she was both super and girl.
>> the next movie in the franchise if you're watching them in chronological
>> order. I even had the disc in the player for a minute or two. But it
>> was really late, and IV is mercifully short.
>
> Always watch the longest Supergirl version available. It may be the only film
> that gets less wretched when there's more of it. I go for the "International
> Cut"
>

I'm not sure which version is on the blu-ray, but it is definitely one
of the longer cuts.

>> So I went ahead watched
>> IV, which is undeniably the *worst* Superman movie of them all.
>
> OMG no no no no no you are as wrong as Ian.
> S4Q4P is the worst Chris Reeve Superman movie, sure. But it's still better
> than *any* live action that's come since.
>
>> That being said, this one has a wonderful commentary track from the
>> movie's screenwriter Mark Rosenthal. From the opening credits
>> throughout he breaks down everything wrong with the movie and gives
>> various behind the scene tidbits explaining what went wrong and what the
>> original intent was. For example, he points out about 45 minutes was
>> cut from the movie creating various plot holes, which he does his best
>> to fill in as the movie goes and he mentioned that Christopher Reeve was
>> originally supposed to play the evil clone before he rips into the guy
>> they cast instead. If you're going to watch IV, watching with this
>> commentary is the way to go and actually makes the experience enjoyable.
>> Or as enjoyable as it can be.
>
> The Jimmy Olsen actor has discussed this. He says even he couldn't follow the
> plot in the theater!
>
> The original cut exists, and people keep lobbying to get it released. It was
> seriously considered as part of that big box set a few years ago, but didn't
> happen.
> This is the first movie I ever wrote a super snark for.
> It's amazingly bad.
>

The blu-ray has 30 minutes of deleted scenes. I know I watched them
before, but I didn't really remember them all that well. So I *tried*
to watch some of them again, mainly for the deleted first attempt at
Nuclear man plot. Those scenes are beyond bad and unwatchable.
Especially with the music. I honestly don't know if the music that
plays during those scenes was meant for theatrical release or just
tacked on to highlight how bad it is.

[anim8rfsk]

You almost always see people at Moviolas with the sound off anyway.

[Arthur Lipscomb]

Yes. According to the commentary, the movie was green lit with one
budget which was cut in half once filming began. I don't remember the
exact quote but he also said something along the lines of the studio
betrayed Christopher Reeve. He said due to the budget cuts they loss
all the original crew who knew how to do the effects properly. He
complained about the effects throughout the commentary. I think he took
a lot of it personally. He said it was a low budget film studio that
was trying to get into the big budget game, but the studio was in free
fall during production. I don't recall if he said anything too specific
about the editing other than 45 minutes was cut from the movie which
introduced a ton of holes. I know early on he also mentioned the scene
where Luthor is rescued from a prison was supposed to be shot at a
location where it would have made sense for a car to come driving
through. He'd point out various details like that too. I get the
impression the original script actually made sense. That doesn't mean
it would have been a good movie, but the studio taking half their money
away and otherwise not giving a crap made sure it was released as a bad
one.

[Arthur Lipscomb]

On 12/1/2019 10:53 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
> Sun, 01 Dec 2019 10:47:00 -0700 Ian J. Ball<IJB...@mac.invalid> wrote:
>
>> What did you watch?
>
> Thanks for axing!
>
> The Thanksgiving Axe Murderer
> Not listed in IMDb,
> Only 61 minutes long.
> I quit with 60 minutes remaining.
>
> Penn & Teller's Xmas Fool Us
> Worst Fool Us ever from a fooling standpoint, as they dropped the fooler
> angle and the magicians just perform and everybody receives a performance
> trophy. The only watchable show on the CW. To be discussed elsewhere.
>
>

I watched about a minute of this before turning it off. I still plan on
watching it when I can pay attention.

Coincidentally, I was at a magic show on Saturday, "The Champions of
Magic." At least one (maybe all) of the magicians had been on P&T. It
was an OK show with competent magicians, but it never rose to the level
of great. I have no idea how the tricks were done, especially the
mentalist. That is unless the audience was full of plants or people
just saying "yes" to his guesses. But all the tricks seemed to be the
old stuff that's been done to death.

[anim8rfsk]

She's already up to about 50psi.

[anim8rfsk]

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 13:13:54 -0700 Arthur Lipscomb<art...@alum.calberkeley.org>

That happens all the time.

I did an educational film for kids in the classroom. It was budgeted at $38k.
Suddenly it was budgeted at $19k.
Um ... wtf?
"That money goes into the producers retirement fund, so it doesn't count."
Doesn't count FOR WHAT? Doesn't count for WHOM??!?
It was half my freaking production budget!
Then they gave me a script that timed out at twice as long as we'd budgeted
for, because they didn't time it.
So I tossed scenes left and right until I got it back to the right length.
Then they recorded all the dialog separately, and again didn't time it, and
had

the narrator

read his lines

like an old man

very

very

slowly

And the running time doubles AGAIN.

So I had to go through and toss half the dialog. Mostly the old slow
narrator.

And that's how this sort of thing happens.

[anim8rfsk]

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 13:50:43 -0700 Arthur Lipscomb<art...@alum.calberkeley.org>
wrote:

> What Did You Watch? 2019-11-30 (Saturday)
> Arthur Lipscomb<art...@alum.calberkeley.org>
> December 1, 2019 at 1:50:43 PM MST

>
> On 12/1/2019 10:53 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
> > Sun, 01 Dec 2019 10:47:00 -0700 Ian J. Ball<IJB...@mac.invalid> wrote:
> >
> > > What did you watch?
> >
> > Thanks for axing!
> >
> > The Thanksgiving Axe Murderer
> > Not listed in IMDb,
> > Only 61 minutes long.
> > I quit with 60 minutes remaining.
> >
> > Penn & Teller's Xmas Fool Us
> > Worst Fool Us ever from a fooling standpoint, as they dropped the fooler
> > angle and the magicians just perform and everybody receives a performance
> > trophy. The only watchable show on the CW. To be discussed elsewhere.
>
> I watched about a minute of this before turning it off. I still plan on
> watching it when I can pay attention.

It took me three tries to get through it all. It wasn't nearly as captivating
when you aren't playing along with P&T trying to catch them!

[shawn]

On Sun, 01 Dec 2019 15:25:30 -0700, anim8rfsk <anim...@cox.net>

Did they know what they were doing? As in, did they have actual work
experience that should have let them know what needed to be done or
were they totally clueless? In the latter case I can cut them some
slack even though they really should have had someone involved with
experience. In the former case someone should have been fired at a
minimum as the retirement fund sounds like pure theft from whomever
was funding the film.

[anim8rfsk]

This is what they did for a living. But traditionally producers don't have
the slightest idea what they're doing, even though it's what they do.

The guy who stole the $19k *was* funding the film!

Producers do this weird shit all the time. We guys on the line have long
discussions about what level of it is dishonesty and what is stupidity.

One classic you get from ad agency producers, that I've heard from multiple
people in different parts of the country, goes like this:

Agency producer gives you $10k to animate a talking armadillo. You do it. To
their design and specifications and approval stages and satisfaction.
Then they call.
"We've got an even better idea! Instead of a talking armadillo, we want an
iguana in a top hat!!"
Um. This job is done. Signed, sealed, delivered. Probably not paid for
though, which is why I'm still taking to this idiot.
"I don't understand why I can't just trade you the armadillo for the iguana."
As if this is a furniture store and she wants to trade a lamp she bought for
an end table.
As if I'm going to put that talking armadillo back into inventory and sell it
to somebody else.
As if I have a talking iguana laying around to 'trade' her.

[David Barnett]

In article <qs0uak$4lt$1...@dont-email.me>, IJB...@mac.invalid says...
> What did you watch?

On Saturday November 30, I watched:

THE FLASH: 6x7 The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Pt. 1
I didn't care much for this Dr. Ramsay episode.
Grade C-

ARROW: 8x6 Reset
The presence of Paul Blackthorne is a plus.

--
David Barnett

[Ian J. Ball]

On 2019-12-02 04:14:57 +0000, David Barnett said:

> In article <qs0uak$4lt$1...@dont-email.me>, IJB...@mac.invalid says...
>> What did you watch?
>
> On Saturday November 30, I watched:
>

> ARROW: 8x6 Reset
> The presence of Paul Blackthorne is a plus.

Yep.

[anim8rfsk]

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 21:14:57 -0700 David Barnett<dbar...@bigpond.net.au>
wrote:

> In article<qs0uak$4lt$1...@dont-email.me>, IJB...@mac.invalid says...
> > What did you watch?
>
> On Saturday November 30, I watched:
>
> THE FLASH: 6x7 The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Pt. 1
> I didn't care much for this Dr. Ramsay episode.
> Grade C-

I thought this was outright awful. And to be continued!

> ARROW: 8x6 Reset
> The presence of Paul Blackthorne is a plus.

Yep

[Ubiquitous]

In article <qs0uak$4lt$1...@dont-email.me>, IJB...@mac.invalid wrote:

>What did you watch?

I watched nothing, but TV related, played a D&D game based on Rick and
Morty.

--
"We need to impeach the President to find out what crime he committed."
- Nancy Pelosi

[Ubiquitous]

In article <qs10ip$qh7$1...@dont-email.me>, art...@alum.calberkeley.org wrote:

>Superman III (blu-ray) 1983 movie staring Richard Pryor as a computer
>genius who under instructions of his evil billionaire boss (Robert
>Vaughn) tries to go down in history as the man who killed Superman. I
>*get* that people hate this one. But I was 6 when this movie came out.
>To a 6 year old Superman fan, this movie was *awesome*!!! And that
>feeling of joy while watching just never goes away.

It happened b/c Richard Pryor, who I guess was popular at the time, said
on Johnny Carson's show that he wanted to be in the next Superman movie.

>Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (blu-ray) The original cast returns for
>one more adventure when Superman decides to rid the world of nukes and
>Lex decide to cash in on while also making an evil clone of Superman. I
>was truly torn between watching Supergirl and this one. Supergirl *is*
>the next movie in the franchise if you're watching them in chronological
>order. I even had the disc in the player for a minute or two. But it
>was really late, and IV is mercifully short. So I went ahead watched
>IV, which is undeniably the *worst* Superman movie of them all.
>
>That being said, this one has a wonderful commentary track from the
>movie's screenwriter Mark Rosenthal. From the opening credits
>throughout he breaks down everything wrong with the movie and gives
>various behind the scene tidbits explaining what went wrong and what the
>original intent was. For example, he points out about 45 minutes was
>cut from the movie creating various plot holes, which he does his best
>to fill in as the movie goes and he mentioned that Christopher Reeve was
>originally supposed to play the evil clone before he rips into the guy
>they cast instead. If you're going to watch IV, watching with this
>commentary is the way to go and actually makes the experience enjoyable.
> Or as enjoyable as it can be.

Hmm, I need to find that without buying/renting a DVD...

[Ubiquitous]

If memory serves, there were severe budget constraints, either b/c it was
mismanaged or the studio had gone bankrupt and reallocated their money for
another movie (Masters of the Universe?).

[Ubiquitous]

anim...@cox.net wrote:
> Arthur Lipscomb<art...@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

>> Superman IV, which is undeniably the *worst* Superman movie of them all.

>> That being said, this one has a wonderful commentary track from the
>> movie's screenwriter Mark Rosenthal. From the opening credits
>> throughout he breaks down everything wrong with the movie and gives
>> various behind the scene tidbits explaining what went wrong and what the
>> original intent was. For example, he points out about 45 minutes was
>> cut from the movie creating various plot holes, which he does his best
>> to fill in as the movie goes and he mentioned that Christopher Reeve was
>> originally supposed to play the evil clone before he rips into the guy
>> they cast instead. If you're going to watch IV, watching with this
>> commentary is the way to go and actually makes the experience enjoyable.
>> Or as enjoyable as it can be.
>
>The Jimmy Olsen actor has discussed this. He says even he couldn't follow
>the plot in the theater!
>
>The original cut exists, and people keep lobbying to get it released. It was
>seriously considered as part of that big box set a few years ago, but didn't
>happen.
>This is the first movie I ever wrote a super snark for.

Where is it? Google is being uncooperative.

[anim8rfsk]

I've never found it.

[Micky DuPree]

Arthur Lipscomb <art...@alum.calberkeley.org> writes:

> On 12/1/2019 9:47 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

>> Black Lightning (recorded) - "The Book of Occupation: Chapter Four:
>> Lynn's Ouroboros" (ep. #3.4). Slowly working through my backlog
>> here... In this one, Agent Odell purposely gets Lynn hooked on Green
>> Light (does this mean she's going to turn into a "meta" too?!).
>
> I hadn't thought of that.

I had, but I also noticed they've referred to it as "modified Green
Light," so they can always claim that it was modified not to be
mutagenic if they don't want Lynn to be a metahuman.

> Fresh Off the Boat - "Lou Wants to Be a Millionaire" - Taking a page
> from "Slumdog Millionaire," Louis gets on Who Wants to Be a
> Millionaire and remembers various life events to help him answer the
> questions. I guess this was an OK one.

I liked it a lot, although it did take them a long time to realize that
fusion means combination.

I only just recently learned that the real-life Eddie Huang is a chef.

-Micky

[Micky DuPree]

David Barnett <dbar...@bigpond.net.au> writes:

> THE FLASH: 6x7 The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Pt. 1
> I didn't care much for this Dr. Ramsay episode.

I've gotten to where I detest Ramsay.

I liked how Grant Gustin handled Barry's anger and frustration at not
getting to have all the things that a normal person gets to have. The
material is a little derivative (you could almost hear Jesus saying,
"Take this cup away"), but it was acknowledged in the title, and the
scene was well acted. Most of the rest of the episode dragged, though.
I feel like the camera should be on Nash Wells most of the time rather
than on Team Flash.

> ARROW: 8x6 Reset
> The presence of Paul Blackthorne is a plus.

It did make the episode a lot more watchable.

-Micky

[Ubiquitous]

I found a posting from 3/2006 in which you mentioned writing it on your Mac
Plus, but no sign of it, unless it's one of the deleted messages from
Google...

You posted it, right? ;-)

[anim8rfsk]

No, that's talking about the released theatrical version; my very first super
snark.

I've never found the original unreleased cut, but various interviews say it
does exist and Warner's just won't release it.

[Ubiquitous]

Yeah, I'm looking for yuour snarky recap of the theatrical release.

[anim8rfsk]

It might be on a 30 year old floppy somewhere, but since I'll never be able
to access those again, assume it's gone.