TV/Movies Megathread

[Admiral Yi]

Blonde is plenty fucking dark if anyone is in that mood.

[The Brain]

I've always liked Cunk's Shakespeare episode.

[Josephus]

The endless repetition of that Pump Up the Jam was funny-annoying.
The only thing I thought didn't work was her fantasy courtiers in the castle bit...went on a bit too long.

[Savonarola]

Dishonored (1931)

This is the third Marlene Dietrich - Josef von Sternberg collaboration.  The first two (The Blue Angel and Morocco) are classics of the early sound era; this one has its moments, but really doesn't live up to the first two.  Dietrich plays a war widow turned streetwalker turned spy who ultimately must choose between love and duty.  Dietrich turns in an impressive performance, but most of the supporting cast isn't there - the male lead, Victor McLaglen, is particularly egregious; he spends the entire film strutting around with this smug leer on his face (think of Bill Maher doing a Mick Jagger impression and you're in the ballpark.)  Typical for the era, but unusual for von Sternberg, the film is verbose; he does get his usual scenes of parties, diaphanous walls and bric-a-brac in, but the dialogue often slows things down.

Interestingly the rival spies come from Imperial Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire; two countries that no longer existed by the time the film was made.

It was enough of a success for MGM to make their own copycat version; Mata Hari with Greta Garbo.

[garbon]

Fawlty Towers is coming back. Does not seem like a good idea.

[mongers]

Fawlty Towers is coming back. Does not seem like a good idea.

John Cleese and Connie Booth?

[garbon]

Fawlty Towers is coming back. Does not seem like a good idea.

John Cleeves. Connie Booth?

With his daughter.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/feb/07/fawlty-towers-john-cleese-reboot

[Barrister]

Fawlty Towers is coming back. Does not seem like a good idea.

John Cleeves. Connie Booth?

With his daughter.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/feb/07/fawlty-towers-john-cleese-reboot

That sounds like a fucking terrible idea.

But Cleese has been extremely open to the point of hostility about how much prior divorces have cost him, so I guess he figured this was a chance at one more payday, plus with a shot at trying to set his daughter up financially.

[Josquius]

It'll be awful. It won't even have nostalgia. Cleese lost it some years ago.

[Josephus]

Oh God, no, let a good thing lie.

[Jacob]

Yeah... seems like every time Cleese's name has been up in the last decade or more it's been for "old man yells at cloud" type stuff.

With Fawlty Towers it was often wildly inappropriate and so uncomfortable and therefore funny. With 2.0 I kind of expect it to still wildly inappropriate but with a strong subtext of Cleese genuinely believing it while passing it off as "just a joke, don't be so sensitive." Which I don't expect to be as funny.

[crazy canuck]

"Don't talk about the war" won't translate very well.

[celedhring]

Been watching The Godfather of Harlem when I visit my mother. It's a pretty run of the mill gangster show, elevated by a  a great cast and a fascinating time and place to explore. Very watchable.

[Josquius]

Yeah... seems like every time Cleese's name has been up in the last decade or more it's been for "old man yells at cloud" type stuff.

With Fawlty Towers it was often wildly inappropriate and so uncomfortable and therefore funny. With 2.0 I kind of expect it to still wildly inappropriate but with a strong subtext of Cleese genuinely believing it while passing it off as "just a joke, don't be so sensitive." Which I don't expect to be as funny.

Thinking further I am mildly curious at how much of a train wreck it'll be.
The original was funny because despite Fawlty being a horrible person we were laughing at him. How terrible a human he was, and the comeuppance he received, was the joke.
Now however Cleese has BECAME Basil Fawlty.
In a 'proper' updated version you'd have Fawlty ranting about how now Brexit has come all his problems would be solved and it was only down to those evil arrogant French that this wasn't the case- oh look, some French visitors...and they turn out to be lovely.
In Cleese mind however....Someone with this view would be in the right and not a rabid loon.

[Josephus]

"Don't talk about the war" won't translate very well.

I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.