TV/Movies Megathread

[Admiral Yi]

A Noble Intention

It's 1888 in The Netherlands, and oily bespatted developers want to raze a block of houses to build a guilded hotel across from the brand new Amsterdam railway station.  One of the current residents, a violin repairer, plays hard ball and demands 50,000 guilders for his property while the developers are offering 20,000.  He holds out while the houses around him are knocked down and hotel construction begins.

Meanwhile his cousin is a country pharmacist who's primary practice is giving unlicensed medical care to downtrodden Jewish peat collectors.

These threads come together when the cousins hit on the idea of using the proceeds from the sale of the Amsterdam house to finance the emmigration of the Jews to America.  At that time they called people who financed emmigration "factors."  Now we call them "traffickers."

Everything is going great except they don't have the money because the fat cats don't want to pay 50,000 guilders and they have decided to build *around* violin maker's house.  Maybe this is historical, maybe they copied it from a similar situation in Atlantic City.  A little old lady wouldn't sell her home on the boardwalk so a casino was built around it.

In the end the Jews are saved by a very implausible plot twist.

While I was watching I kept thinking about the Dutch reputation for cheapness and for driving hard bargains.  Is violin man heroic for holding out?  Is he a fool for not accepting a good deal?  The developers are clearly supposed to be BAD MEN.  I would be interested to hear the thoughts of any Dutch posters on how we're supposed to think about the violin repairer.

[Malthus]

Life as a sailor in the Atlantic, be it on trade ships, escorts or subs seems to have been horrible and awful in almost every way. The sheer boredom mixed withe the constant total terror. Just horrible.

Some more things that stands out from the book:
[spoiler]
The survivors killed by depth charges because there could have been a submarine below.

The sounds from the "sound pipe" coming from the poor sods trapped when Compass Rose goes down.

The uboat commander presented as an ardent nazi. I've mostly seen Das Boot style anti-nazis only doing their duty.

The merry and happy girls dying must have seemed even more horrible at the time than in our more gender equal times. [/spoiler]

The guilt from the first one - just horrendous.

As for the third - now that I think of it, you are right. There seems an innate need to portray that the brave German fighting men can't also have been hardcore Nazis.

[grumbler]

My grandfather served on uboats, a lucky heart condition got him transfered to a torpedo boat instead. In the end he ended up on the eastern front. Still better than the uboats.

Three quarters of those who sailed in U-boats died in them.  The loss rate wasn't bad at the beginning of the war, but, by late 1944, to set sail in a U-boat was to commit suicide.  Over the course of war, the average U-boat lasted only 4 war patrols.  765 of the 862 boats that made a war patrol were sunk by war's end.

Yeah, the Russian front was a hell of a lot better.

[The Minsky Moment]

Why is no one in the police station or jail armed, except Rosie Perez?  How can Margot Robbie kick the asses of 30 assailants (some armed with automatic weapons) and then lose a fist fight to the 55 year old Rosie Perez?

Rosie Perez is armed with pluck and attitude.  Bringing a automatic weapon against that is just putting yourself at a disadvantage.

[Maladict]

A Noble Intention

It's 1888 in The Netherlands, and oily bespatted developers want to raze a block of houses to build a guilded hotel across from the brand new Amsterdam railway station.  One of the current residents, a violin repairer, plays hard ball and demands 50,000 guilders for his property while the developers are offering 20,000.  He holds out while the houses around him are knocked down and hotel construction begins.

Meanwhile his cousin is a country pharmacist who's primary practice is giving unlicensed medical care to downtrodden Jewish peat collectors.

These threads come together when the cousins hit on the idea of using the proceeds from the sale of the Amsterdam house to finance the emmigration of the Jews to America.  At that time they called people who financed emmigration "factors."  Now we call them "traffickers."

Everything is going great except they don't have the money because the fat cats don't want to pay 50,000 guilders and they have decided to build *around* violin maker's house.  Maybe this is historical, maybe they copied it from a similar situation in Atlantic City.  A little old lady wouldn't sell her home on the boardwalk so a casino was built around it.

In the end the Jews are saved by a very implausible plot twist.

While I was watching I kept thinking about the Dutch reputation for cheapness and for driving hard bargains.  Is violin man heroic for holding out?  Is he a fool for not accepting a good deal?  The developers are clearly supposed to be BAD MEN.  I would be interested to hear the thoughts of any Dutch posters on how we're supposed to think about the violin repairer.

The story is the tragedy of an ordinary person standing up to power, only to get carried away by vanity and greed, and paying the price. Dutch stereotypes probably apply to both the violinist and the developers, but as you said it could be set in Atlantic City just as well.


Not sure if the violinist was a real person, but the story about the hotel is real.
The house can still be seen

[viper37]

The Mandalorian - Now this is good Star Wars, the best since episode V. The thing that bothers is that this is set some 30ish years (IIRC) after the fall of the Jedi order. Why does no-one remember the force?

For the same reason Han Solo did not believe in it, I guess.
Not many people knew what Jedi were capable of, what they really were, except exceptional warriors, and the Empire made sure that did not become public knowledge after that either, I guess.

[viper37]

Birds of Prey (2020)

Why do all the goons attack one at a time instead of ganging up on the (anti-)heroines? 

Conventions of any martial arts fight I've since the 70s.  Bad guys only attack one on one, never all at the same time.  Except with Xena, Hercules, Bud Spencer and other heroes doted with unnatural strenght

Why is no one in the police station or jail armed, except Rosie Perez? 

It's a fictional era where Democrats have taken power.  Crime is rampant because the police force have been abandonned, and as such can no longer afford guns for everyone   Honest citizens don't have guns either, only criminals do

[KRonn]

My grandfather served on uboats, a lucky heart condition got him transfered to a torpedo boat instead. In the end he ended up on the eastern front. Still better than the uboats.

Three quarters of those who sailed in U-boats died in them.  The loss rate wasn't bad at the beginning of the war, but, by late 1944, to set sail in a U-boat was to commit suicide.  Over the course of war, the average U-boat lasted only 4 war patrols.  765 of the 862 boats that made a war patrol were sunk by war's end.

Yeah, the Russian front was a hell of a lot better.

Yeah, it's a bit shocking the heavy losses suffered by U-Boat crews. Germans should have just stopped sending out the boats in the later war as it became so very clear that the missions were fruitless, useless, suicidal for the crews and a waste of resources.

[Savonarola]

Rosie Perez is armed with pluck and attitude.  Bringing a automatic weapon against that is just putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Heh, that she is.  I read recently that she was one of the people doing introductions at Woodstock 25.  She shut down the calls of "Show us your tits," by telling the cat-callers to go to Blockbuster and rent "Do the Right Thing."

Perez does look like she knows how to throw a punch; I think she's the only woman in the movie who doesn't use a stunt double in her combat scenes.  The problem is that her punches are slow and obvious (and, of course, she's not a heavyweight), it's not really credible that she could beat up Margot Robbie stunt-double.

[Savonarola]

Shoeshine (Sciuscià) (1946)

Leave it to the Italians to take a well respected genre like women-in-prison movies and twist it into something as perverse as a young-boy-in-prison movie.  I mean, did they really have to include the shower scene?



This is a bleak film even by the standards of neo-realism.  Giuseppe and Pasquale work as shoe-shine boys in occupied Italy.  They assist Giuseppe's older brother sell stolen US Army blankets and make enough to buy a horse; but the police catch them and they're sent to juvenile prison.  There is indeed a shower scene with full frontal nudity () as well as a fight scene between two boys.  The prison scenes are pretty rough (more so because they're contrasted with either their free wheeling life on the street or scenes of riding horses), but the ending manages to be even worse.

The horse lives, though.  I had to read the plot of the movie in advance once I saw there was a horse in it; as my wife wouldn't have watched it if the horse had died.

[Josquius]

I've watched the series of White House Farm. Surprisingly good for ITV. Spot the game of thrones alumni.

[Threviel]

So, in my sick and bored desperation I got hold of the Orville. Far better than what one would assume. Seems like a respectful homage to Star Trek.

[crazy canuck]

It gets better.  By the later episodes the characters have developed and the show becomes more than a knock off.

[Threviel]

Perhaps it will attain glory for guiding Santa Claus on Christmas eve.

[Eddie Teach]

Saw the pilot for Zooeys Incredible Playlist. Not even a little funny. People who enjoyed Glee might like it.