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Watch, Watched, Watching: November Rain


Ramsay B.

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There is Mohammed Al Faye’s episode of The Crown that is probably the most entertaining episode so far, because there are so few royals in it. 
 

What I don’t understand is how much they brushed his extremely dodgy nature under the carpet. How he manages to get hold of Harrods, the Tiny Roland story is fucking mindblowing but they basically skipped it. I guess he would sue the pants off them. Speaking of which , on top of that he’s got a long list of sexual harraasment accusations against him that seemed totally glossed over, turning him into this lovable little old man. 
 

If they pretend he didn’t build that Michael Jackson statue I’m done with this show. 

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31 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Just heard Orphan Black: Echoes is filming 5 minutes from me.  Someone give me a good excuse to tell security when they find me stalking Krysten Ritter.

I don't think this has ever not worked:

Edit: and I'm now, ~25 years later just getting that it's because U2 are Irish. I liked it better when I thought it was a total non-sequitur. 

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I liked The Good Fight finale (Kurt and Lyle's stairs ascent was hilarious, as was countdown resolution), though I wouldn't mind another spin off. In DC? With Diane and Marissa? I will miss up to date commentary they always managed to provide.

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1 hour ago, 3CityApache said:

I liked The Good Fight finale (Kurt and Lyle's stairs ascent was hilarious, as was countdown resolution), though I wouldn't mind another spin off. In DC? With Diane and Marissa? I will miss up to date commentary they always managed to provide.

I can't see Christine Baranski doing another spinoff...but if love more Marissa, Jay, Carmen, and a number of others from that deep deep bench of characters.  In this day and age, another show is almost a necessity.  

Even when it drifted into an absurdist nature, The Good Fight really had taken the pulse of the nation as a whole. 

It was only a tiny bit odd that neither Adrian or Lucca or Maia got any kind of reference in the end. 

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8 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

It was only a tiny bit odd that neither Adrian or Lucca or Maia got any kind of reference in the end. 

That's true. Nor any other notable character from The Good Wife apart from those who had cameos and Alicia. Cary Agos or Kalinda Sharma for starters.

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1 hour ago, 3CityApache said:

That's true. Nor any other notable character from The Good Wife apart from those who had cameos and Alicia. Cary Agos or Kalinda Sharma for starters.

Cary was name dropped in the episode where the feds start investigating STR Laurie and David Lee accuses Diane of doing what Cary did by stealing clients...but other than that, no. 

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Hitler: A Career (German: Hitler – Eine Karriere) (1977)

West German documentary film about the career of Adolf Hitler directed by Christian Herrendoerfer and Joachim Fest and written by Fest, a German historian.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler:_A_Career

Everything on screen is documentary film footage shot at the time in real time, though the narration – in English -- is not, and overdubbed.

This latest edition of the digitally restored period film footage, which the team that got this on Netflix did, taking out the herkyjerky fast walking and so on that we were used to from footage of the time – the miracles that can be done now.  It’s much easier watching this 1977 film in 2022 than it was to watch on television in 1977.

As per usual, my first question was the same as it always is when watching nazi documentaries. Where did the nazi organizers get these hundreds of thousands participants in the spectacles, that are viewed by an equal number of wildly cheering spectators, how is it possible the paraders and performers can execute the endless vast unison parading and maneuvers that, among other things, create monumental swastikas of human beings?  (Later in the film there's some analysis as to why so many of these spectacles were arranged at night -- the dark covered up much of the reality of what was there.)  I also think, seeing the scenes of the nazi youth groups how much I’d hated growing up in nazi Germany – those girl youth camps in which one is told that washing clothes for the family was more fun for girls than going to school, forced to play volleyball instead of reading books.

Poland, often regarded as comically out of date wrt confronting Hitler’s invasion with none of the infrastructure and weapons of a modern army* – we forget, how little time Poland had in the last 100 years or so to even BE A NATION, much less have the money or time to create a modern army, since the partition and disappearance of it in the 18th C. Under the circumstances, that it took Hitler’s forces 2 weeks to subdue Poland seems, to me, at least, admirable and truly heroic, not something for non-Poles to feel superior about. One also knows the maga-rats would never have stood up to such an invasion, but turned and run.  They can't even stand to miss a lunch.

On! To Moscow. Mud up to the horses’ shoulders. Mud past the tanks' treads.  Then snow, higher than the horses' bellies. This is footage shot on that advance, and the defeat WWII -- a scene of Hitler walking in snow behind the lines and the front's 'advance', stating, "I hate snow.  I never want to see snow again." Then going back to Germany, where, presumably some heads rolled, due to snow not foretold or removed.

Whilst the viewer ponders how so many of the scenes of vast numbers adoring Hitler and the nazis, united in joy of hatred, often in tears – thousands of girls melting down over the Beatles have nothing on these hormonal charges – we’ve been seeing in the last few years.

* Poland's cavalry charge against nazi tanks is a myth. Which only increases my admiration.

Quote

 

The true story behind the myth is as follows.

On Sept. 1, 1939, a Polish Cavalry regiment operating along Poland’s northwestern border attacked a column of unsuspecting German infantry.

The invaders were quickly scattered, but before the Poles could celebrate, a squad of German armoured vehicles appeared on the scene and inflicted heavy casualties on the horsemen with their canons and machine guns.

The next day, war correspondents were brought to the scene and told that the Poles had charged German tanks.

Despite no one actually having witnessed the supposed charge, seemingly overnight the story spread across the globe and was quickly accepted as true. Both Time Magazine and The New York Times described the incident in hyperbolic detail; high ranking German officers recalled it in their memoirs; and even Winston Churchill mentioned it in his history of the Second World War.

 

I suppose we need not be surprised that one of the most solid, enduring platforms of this myth is a film the nazis shot to show their infinite military superiority to everyone?

 

Quote

.... Perhaps the most notorious example was the pseudodocumentary Kampfgeschwader Lützow, which featured staged footage of Polish cavalry charging panzer tanks. ....

 

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Season 2 of Cuphead is pretty good. A bit more "Ren and Stimpy" in its sight gags than season 1 and all in all I chuckled more.

Lou wasn't half bad. Allison Janney actually makes a pretty credible action star. Who'd have thunk it?

I can't decide if I'm just hate watching Farzar at this point. I find it incredibly "lowest common denominator" offensive but I can't look away.

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42 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Nobody in the show seems to be coming out of it looking good. 

No. Not really. Though there seems to be particular interest in Diana this season.  While the Queen is almost more background and thus given a little better light than the previous seasons...

But no. No one is very good.

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Haven't had much time to watch much of anything lately. Patiently waiting for the time, I need to binge Emily Blunt's The English Western on the BBC. In the meantime, I did manage to see two films in the theatre. The first was Zillion and the second was Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever.

Zillion was a rather delightful surprise. It's a Belgian movie that I accidentally walked into thinking it was a documentary on the legendary club of the same name. It turned out it was a movie telling the story of that same legendary club. It was quite engaging. You could rather tongue-in-cheek describe it as The Wolf Of Wallstreet In The Disco.

Narratively there is definitely a relation, although the Zillion guy would certainly give Leo's character a run for his money when it comes to craziness. What makes the film better than a mere knock-off is the directing acumen of Robin Pront. There are some stunningly beautiful scenes in this movie, rather surprising. It definitely isn't on the same level as something like Rundskop but it feels like a popular cousin of that same film.

Black Panther 2 I also enjoyed. It is way too long however, and the bloat does hurt my overall enjoyment. Visually speaking the film is achingly well put together though. You feel that Ryan Coogler plays a few levels above the average journeyman MCU director (like Champions League v. Conference). I just wish they had a tighter script.

Still, overall they did a pretty good job, especially in the difficult circumstances they found themselves in. There were a lot of good performances (I liked the antagonist) and they also had one absolutely brilliant scene in the movie

Spoiler

And that was the vision of Killmonger. Michael B. Jordan is such a great actor. What happened to him? I thought after Creed he would be in everything, but I feel like he's not getting his due. He steals the entire film with his appearance in Black Panther 2.

That entire scene was such a big surprise and it was really well put together. Again, I would have respected it more if the new Black Panther had committed more to Killmonger's teaching instead of the final wishy-washy bullshit they landed on. However, at least Black Panther gets to flirt with these ideas. That is already more than most superheroes I guess.

 

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