Ep 767 The Professional Left Podcast - What We Watched in 2023

NOTABLE TV Watched in 2023

Silo  – works because of Rebecca Ferguson who plays a cynical, suspicious engineer-turned-marshal Juliette Nichols.

Pale Blue Eye. released in late 2022.  We liked it.  Critics were “meh”.  But DG is a big Edgar Allan Poe head so…

Speaking of Poe…The Fall of the House of Usher.   All the actors were great.  The pillars were:

Bruce Greenwood as Roderick Usher.  

Mary McDonnell as Madeline Usher. 

Carl Lumbly as C. August Dupin

And Mark Hammill as Arthur Pym.

Carla Gugino as Verna.

Michael Trucco as Rufus Griswold.  

Speaking of Blue Eyes… Blue Eye Samurai.  Yowza!  Talked to our paterfamilias about it just this morning.  

Fargo – Juno Temple and John Hamm

Slow Horses – Checks every box!  Solid source material.  Excellent acting.  And Gark Oldman says he’ll keep doing ‘em as long as they keep writing ‘em.  Great balance of the season-long story…and the ongoing lives and tribulations of the main characters.

Murder at the End of the World – Emma Corrin in a role very different from Princess Diana in “The Crown.”  And for THIS she should win an Emmy but there are so many…

The Bear, Season 2 – 

Ebon Moss-Bachrach

Jeremy Allen White

Ayo Edebiri

AND THEN, suddenly

Bob Odenkirk

John Mulaney

Jamie Lee Curtis

Sarah Paulson

Olivia Colman

And Liza Colón-Zayas, who plays veteran chef Tina Marrero, sings “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” at a karaoke bar and blows us away

Poker Face  – Is all about a “crime of the week” solved by Natasha Leon, AND the guest stars, AND a season-long plot that keeps her on the run.

The Gold – 

Jack Lowden, on his down time from Slow Horses.

Hugh Bonneville, retired now from Downton Abbey.

Bodies.  We did a whole podcast at Science Fiction University on this one. 

Only Murders in the Building

Perry Mason season 2

Picard season 3 – Finally figured out what fans wanted, and gave it to us.

The Mandalorian Season 3

Ted Lasso season 3 - another Juno Temple triumph also Hannah Waddingham can sing.

Hijack - Idris Elba is not the snake on the plane.

Loki season 3  Probably need to do a podcast on Loki.  

The Continental: From the World of John Wick

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds -- Season 2 – [QUOTE] Season two Episode 5 is awesome. Spock becomes human. The last few shows have been hilarious! I love the comedy and real messages..... I am laughing like crazy on season 2 Episode 5... Now Episode 9 Subspace Rhapsody - THE BEST[UNQUOTE]  They bring a Broadway level type musical into the show... How awesome is that! I cannot believe how different these shows are.  Also -- cartoons!

Gilded Age – FRAN hate-watched it. 

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off – Will get to it.

For All Mankind – Started it but taking a break.

Justified: City Primeval – Started but it just didn’t work.

Beacon 23 – Started but it just didn’t work.

White House Plumbers – Started but it just didn’t work.

Foundation Season 2 – Season 1 was so disappointing that we never got back to it.

House of the Dragon – Nope.  

TV -- THAT EVERYONE WATCHED BUT US:

Succession

Barry

Yellowjackets

The Boys

Ahsoka

Jury Duty

The Wheel of Time

Daisy Jone & The Six

The Boys, Season 3

MOVIES: We Watched

Godzilla Minus One

The Holdovers

Spider Man --Across the Spiderverse

Asteroid City

Dream Scenario

MOVIE/TV: Barbie.

MOVIE/TV: The Flash

MOVIE/TV: The Burial

MOVIE/TV:  The Killer

MOVIE/TV:  Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

LATE TO THE PARTY:  Coherence (2013)

MOVIES -- HAVEN'T WATCHED:  (** = definitely on our to-watch list)

John Wick: Chapter 4

The Marvels (2023)

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Blue Beetle.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Indiana Jones and Medicare Part “D”.

Saltburn

Killers of the Flower Moon

Oppenheimer **

Poor Things. **

Wonka

Dumb Money

A Haunting in Venice

American Fiction **

Science Fiction University is BACK!

A lovely lesson for all of us.

From Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You (1938). Of course, it takes place in a bank during The Great Depression. Well worth five and a half minutes, if you ask me.

I pray we bloggers, writers, artists can do our work without waiting for our ship to come in. Like Mr. Poppins, the "ship" is in the work. I don't advocate abandoning responsibility (I'm a single, 'unemployed' struggling mother of three young kids after all) but I'm committed to my writing and not waiting for riches. And I'm so grateful for the riches that daily creativity brings and the opportunity to make a difference with my kids every single day.

I've seen a few friends lose their jobs in this recession and inevitably they tell me they hated their jobs. We all need to eat, but something's gotta give on the work score. I hope we can, with God's grace and some single-payer healthcare, redefine work so we can be useful AND satisfied at the end of our weeks. Life's too damn short, know what I mean?

Free Movies!

If you're frozen in today, do what I'm doing and (between posts) watch a movie online. My picks:

Love is a Ball, featuring the late Ricardo Montelban. I'm a sucker for '60's camp.

Horse Feathers, Marx Brothers mayhem.

And of course, the number one comedy of all time, according to AFI: Some Like It Hot.

I sure wish Fancast was paying me to link them, but since they're not, if you watch a Fancast movie today because of this post, please consider dropping the cost of a big-city movie ticket ($9.00 is what I'm requesting this quarter) in the BG hat. (The BG nine-dollar fundraiser ends tomorrow.)

Instead of blogging today...

I put my sore leg up (the generic tylenol, it is my friend) I watched Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967).



The golden moment runs from the 5:00 mark. Have I mentioned how ashamed I am, me, a good liberal, to admit that I see African Americans, and particularly black men, in a different, more positive light since Obama got the nomination?

We've all got growing in grace to accomplish, don't we...

For Sidney Poitier movies, I actually like A Patch of Blue better, because it makes me cry. I love to cry.

One of the best movies...

...I've seen in a long time. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day:



I suppose you could call it a chick flick, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice. For film buffs of either gender it's a well-done nod to the "women's film" of the WWII era (and set during that period to push the point). But more than that it's a lovely example of what happens when everything in a film is done exactly right: casting, costumes, music, set design, and of course script...right down to the editing...the pratfall in this featurette is wisely cut from the final print.

Highly recommended.

Autism and Filmmaking

David Mamet wrote a book about the film industry called "Bambi versus Godzilla".

Mamet [associates] “ignorance of or indifference to social norms” and “high intelligence” with a form of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome that, he writes, ... “sounds to me like a job description for a movie director.”

Individuals with autism and talented movie directors alike also frequently exhibit tremendous acuity in "visual thinking". Author Temple Grandin, who has autism, wrote a book called "Thinking in Pictures." Oh. So did movie director John Sayles. heh.

The first two youtubes are homemade videos/visual experiments, by individuals diagnosed with some variation of autism. The third one, well, diagnosis or not? Give me a break.



Found on youtube and I'm very impressed.

________________________



Yep, this filmmaker is just getting started, but there's all the signs of high visual and interest in making movies.

_________________________

So I really wish I could sit down for half an hour with this guy's MOM:



Actually, I think David Lynch would be just a bit impressed with what the first two directors did with zero budget.

And the language used, the disjointed thoughts? Knowing her and arms that bend back and pretty songs from birds? I watched this three times and thought, hey, with just a little bit of floortime and ABA therapy, Lynch's dream creatures could be, well, one of us.

Movie Review, kinda sorta...Atonement

Just some thoughts after having just seen it tonight, and no spoilers. I imagine many have read the book which I have not. I generally don't see movies when I love the book. But that's just me.

I'm absolutely convinced they wanted Russell Crowe for the lead of this movie, and then they met him and found out he was too damn old, so some "producers" flew down to Australia, stole one of Russell's ribs while he slept, and brought it back to the magic of Burbank to create the young hott James McAvoy. The trick worked.



For my friend the continuity person, there is a major gaffe when Keira Knightley has sex standing up against a wall of books in the library (geek monkey love alert) the guy lifts her out of one of her shoes. Later the shoe has jumped back on her foot in a way that says the shoe is male and just desperately wants to be up against her, which I totally understand.

The Dunkirk scene will be shown in film schools for a long time to come. It's two parts Gone with the Wind:


Then watch the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan while eating three pills of whatever pharma Terri Gilliam is on, and stir in what can be done with a tracking camera and computer-mixed sound these days and "can you spell Best Oscar Nod, Ryan Seacrest?" "Oh yes, Regis, the Academy loves movies like this one."

It should win for set design. The English country house omg you can smell the tea...yeah, set designers clearly had a huge budget and little restraint and did a fine job with the chintz and the WWII British hospitals and the war scenes, too.

As I said I won't spoil this movie for anyone, and I think I can still say that the grand things this film says about the power of narrative to transform reality are, in my very humble opinion,

a buncha BS.

I say that as a writer. I was actually offended by what this movie says about the writerly act, and I'm really, really hard to offend, trust me. If you want to chat about this film let me know but don't leave any spoilers in comments. Thanks.

A celluloid closet moment from 1958

IMDB on "A Certain Smile": "Dominique, a law student at the Sorbonne, is engaged to a fellow classmate. Unfortunately, she's more attracted to his philandering Uncle Luc, who's married to the charming Francoise. Dominique and Luc begin a tawdry affair..."

Okay so watch the dynamics between Dominique and Francoise in this scene and tell me what the hell is going on between them.

Francoise: "I kept her in bed for three days." I'll bet you did, Joan.

I can't discuss this movie clip further right now as my eyes have completely rolled back into my head:

Salon tonight (wherein I blame the Matrix)

Blue Gal Salon November 5 hosted by blue.gal.

Join now

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Chat about what's on your mind. More about public chats.

Salon is open and I'll be there around 9 Eastern/8 Central and whatever savings time my computer set itself to.

I can't send the email file I wanted to get out and I can't post my vlog... The Matrix is sitting in my laptop's DVD drive. Coincidence? I think not. Plus, somebody's been watching it way too much.



Hope to see you tonight.

Saturday Song

A friend's definition of "favorite movie": You're having sex with the motel TV on (not part of my experience but I'll roll with it) and all of a sudden you realize the favorite movie is on. You tell your partner it's time to stop what you're doing and watch. Oy.

But if he has never seen Truly, Madly, Deeply...that would be the one. I'm gonna post a shorter clip because I want you to rent the whole thing if you haven't seen it. One thing I love about this clip is, it's two very intelligent creative people, obviously turned on by each other's brains, having fun together. (Nevermind one of them is dead and has come back as a ghost. Like that's a roadblock to a relationship. Please.)

Blue Gal Vlog 10/1

Yeah yeah file this one under "fourteen minutes of your life you'll never have again" and you won't be interested at all unless you're into

a. the knitting creative process,
b. my seamstress brain's reaction to Silence of the Lambs, or
c. what kind of bras I wear.

Salon tonight I'll have the link up later as usual. xoxo

UPDATE: If you think I'm making up this whole knit the bra cup thang I'm serious. Make your own bra online tutorial is here.

Crocheted thong and knit bra from Interweave Knits magazine, Spring 2007.

Ugliest hand-knit bra evah, but they do provide a pattern, ick, is here.

Great examples of what "fair isle" looks like in sweaters, here.

Up yours for stealing my thunder, Wapo.

transforced to see this movie?

A friend emailed to say that while he didn't want to sound like Bill Bennett, it really irritated him that the Transformers movie was rated PG-13, when all the marketing for the film is clearly directed at younger kids.

Turns out the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (and good luck with that) feels the same way.

"A review by CCFC found more than one hundred Transformers’ toys for children under six; Transformer promotions by Kraft and Burger King clearly aimed at young children; and advertisements for the movie on children’s television programming rated appropriate for kids as young as two.

“It is extremely disappointing that Hasbro and DreamWorks would choose to promote a film to preschool children that the industry deems inappropriate for anyone under the age of thirteen,” said CCFC’s Dr. Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids. “In their cynical attempt to wring every last dollar from one of this summer’s blockbusters, these companies have shown little regard for children’s well-being or parents’ desires to limit their children’s exposure to violent entertainment.”

Speaking as a parent, we're really used to this. It's really more disappointing that the film industry wants its Burger King toys and box office, too. If I were in that 15-17 boys demographic that moviemakers seem to find so essential, I don't think I'd want to see a movie that had been pushed to little kids.

"Once" -- Blue Gal highly recommended

It's hard to pick a favorite song from this movie. Here's one.

One for your Netflix Queue...

If you haven't seen Robert Downey Sr's Putney Swope (1969), get it.

From Wikipedia:

Putney Swope is a 1969 film written and directed by Robert Downey Sr. and starring Arnold Johnson as Swope. Swope is the only black man on the executive board of an advertising firm, and is accidentally put in charge after the death of the chairman of the board. In particular, following the unexpected death of the chair, the other members of the board believed that each of them, individually, should be elected to the board. However, the bylaws of the corporation prohibit voting for oneself for the chair, so each individual member voted in a secret ballot for the person that no one else would vote for, i.e., Putney Swope.

Renaming the business "Truth and Soul, Inc.", Swope replaces all but one of the white employees and insists they no longer accept business from companies that produce alcohol, war toys, or tobacco. The success of the business draws unwanted attention from the United States Government, which considers it "a threat to the national security."

Ahead of its time? Yup.

WARNING: As qwerty points out in comments:

As someone who loves this film, I want to post a warning: it's very much a product of its time, which means that you may find some of the characterizations to be somewhat racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted -- because they are.

And if you're ok with all that, you should also check out Downey's other masterpiece, Greaser's Palace.