Recent viewings

[lester1/2jr]

Fox sake - the ending blew my mind. it was one of those times when I couldn't believe what I was seeing on the screen.

[Fox Sake]

Fox sake - the ending blew my mind. it was one of those times when I couldn't believe what I was seeing on the screen.

Yeah, me too! And despite repeat viewings I am still undecided on whether the kid was lying as per usual, or actually telling the truth for once!

[lester1/2jr]

the first season of 24 had a moment like that I was like "wahh...is there something wrong with my tv?" we are subjected to so many tricky twists in these movies, when one actually catches you off guard its something

[BoyScoutKevin]

England's Forgotten Queen, a 3-part documentary film, hosted by historian Helen Castor with dramatic reenactments reenacted by actors. And what did they get right in part 1?

His age.
"About 15" or about the same age as his wife.
We often forget how young he was, because we keep adding years to his age, when most likely he was the same age as his wife or even younger than her.

And almost everything else. So, if they got almost everything else right, then what did they get wrong? A couple of minor quibbles, which we'll take up at the end of this post.

No passive playthings pushed around by the adults were the children involved in this. They were fighting for their religion--militantly. Unfortunately, that sometimes led to religious intolerance and/or willing martyrdom.

Catholicism personified by Mary and Protestantism by Jane, And both women saw themselves the same way, so a fatal clash was almost inevitable.

No "true" villains so far, as can be seen by the motivations of both sides.

Mary wanted to bring "the 1 true religion" back to England and return to the monasteries, what was taken from the monasteries. While the great Protestant lords, if they were not fighting for their lives, as Mary had a long and unforgiving memory of how both she and her mother were treated, then for their livelihoods, as many of the lords became great, during the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry.

Everybody was winging it, because nothing like this, no male heir to the throne, had not been seen since the days of Empress Matilda, and that was almost 3 centuries ere this.

Historical hindsight is 20/20. And what was true then is true now.

Young husband rules young wife and queen. And father rules young husband. Which the populace did not want, because change is good. Change is bad. But change is also scary. And the populace did not feel husband had any right to the throne. And they also hated the father, who had previously, competently, if brutally put down a religious uprising. Of course, the next 2 queens would also brutally put down religious uprisings, but that'd be in the future.

Yet the film brings up the idea, if husband had been made king, things would have worked out. Or, the populace has contradictory opinions, just like today.

Thus, we got the wrong person on the throne. Not because she was a Catholic, but because she proved to be politically more incompetent than the other candidate for the throne. And wwe all know cases today, where the incompetent was preferred over the more competent.

And when husband was refused the right to be made king, he said: "No kingship. No sex." And wife liked sex, even if she had 1st had to be beaten into the marriage. Not by her mother, as in the film, but by her father, which we'll get to later, but the film also brings up no sex, means no heir.

And while wedding night was such a disaster, that wife packed up all she had and went home to mother, complaining about her husband's performance in bed. She later wrote to someone saying she was in all ways a "true wife" with her husband, and how much she enjoyed sleeping every night she could with him in the same bed, except neither one of them was now getting much sleep.

As to what they got wrong and final thoughts, we'll take that up in the post below.

[BoyScoutKevin]

England's Forgotten Queen, part 1.

What applied to girls, applied equally to boys. Though, maybe without the beating. Think back to when one was 15/16, and one was living in 16th century Europe, if one's parents told one that one was to marry this girl, one married this girl, whether one wanted to or not. Because, that was how things were done in Europe at that time.

And the wedding night would be harder on the young husband than the young wife, because she only had to lay there and look bored, while he had to get it up, keep it up, and hope he did not make a mess of it, like this couple did. No wonder boys of 15/16, at that time, were encouraged to visit the local brothel, so they knew what to do on their wedding night.

King/king consort. What did he mean? For while they are often used as interchangeable, they are actually 2 different things. A king is someone who is born into the royal line of succession, while king consort is not born into the royal line of succession, but marries into the royal line of succession, as here.

Though, probably the film's greatest strength is its willingness to say 'We do not know." And we know so little of what baby hubby thought. While we have a message from him to his father-in-law in a prayer book, and a bit of graffiti in his prison cell, which is believed to refer to his wife, from whom he was separated at that time, we do not know, what he thought . . .

of his wife --  of his marriage to her -- and/or of his religion. Though, he was as much a martyr to his faith as his wife.

As for what the film gets wrong . . .

1st. The hostess reads a contemporary Italian account of that time, as if it was factual. Not all believe that it was factual, but fictional, and written sometime after the events depicted in it.

2nd. The title of the film, when it comes to films on the subject. While both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I have been depicted more often in films, this "forgotten queen" has had 3 films made about her.

1923 which I have not seen.
1936 which I have seen and which is a product of its time and place.
1982 which I have seen and which I recommend, for even if the relationships are not quite correct, it does give a fairly correct look at how life was then.

And there may be a 4th film on the subject as the film rights for the book My Lady Jane have been optioned.

As opposed to films about . . .
Henry VII. Nothing I know of. Though, there is the TV miniseries The Shadow of the Tower, which I have seen and recommend.
Edward VI. Again nothing I know of, if one excludes film versions of Twain's The Prince and the Pauper.
Mary I. And again nothing I know of.

Next time: England's Forgotten Queen, part 2.

[Rev. Powell]

THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR (1993): A legendary warrior and a mystical wolf girl fall in love, despite being on opposite sides of a great war. This fantasy wuxia with expressionistic visuals was released at the height of Hong Kong's New Wave, and was enormously influential; I'd rather see Brigitte Lin whipping her hair extensions around the Siamese twin villains here than watch 5 minutes of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. 4/5.

[Rev. Powell]

STROSZEK (1977): A drunk street musician, an old man, and a prostitute move from Berlin to rural Wisconsin to start a new life. Largely made with a cast of amateurs, the aimless, almost nihilistic plot about misfits plays like a German take on a New Hollywood film, until the dancing chicken steals the spotlight in the bonkers final fifteen minutes. 3.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

WHITE COLLAR BLUES [FANTOZZI] (1975): The first in a series of Italian hit films about the adventures of wimpy, hard-luck accountant Fantozzi: Fantozzi goes boating, Fantozzi goes skiing, Fantozzi tries to lose to his boss in billiards, Fantozzi tries to cheat on his wife with the office hussy. Much of the comedy is slapstick violence that wouldn't be out of place in a "Bugs Bunny" cartoon, but generally this is proof of the old cinema adage that comedy doesn't travel. 2.5/5.

[Svengoolie 3]

Batman return of the caped crusaders 2.  A good tribute to the classic Adam west series and a decent sequel to the original tribute film.  Features two face voiced by adam west's frief William shatner,  also has Burt Ward,  Julie newmarr and adam west in his final role.  Not quite as good as the original return of the caped crusaders but good enough.

If you liked the series you'll like it.

[FatFreddysCat]

It was my 10-year-old's turn to pick a movie. This is what we got:
"The Emoji Movie" (2017)
Inside a teenager's cell phone, a trio of non-conforming "emojis" escape from their program and go on an adventure through the digital landscape, visiting various apps and avoiding anti-virus enforcers.
This was one of 2017's most hated films, and with good reason. This isn't a movie, it's a feature-length commercial for Spotify, YouTube, DropBox, Facebook, etc.
It's a nicely animated little dumpster fire but that's about all the praise "The Emoji Movie" will get from me.

[316zombie]

DREAM HOUSE
   this was actually quite good! NOT a daniel craig fan,but he did a good job of "happy to stoic to crazy to sane" , not something i thought he could pull off.
  my beloved naomi watts was a bit of a disappointment,but i feel that was the script, not her acting. her character just wasn't fleshed out enough.
  the end was a bit predictable, in the sense of who the true villain was, but in all it was rather sweet.

[lester1/2jr]

Existenz - as an 80's person i love jennifer jason leigh but lets face it this wasn't that great. the story is okay but. I don't know, maybe they tried to make this at the wrong point in history. Who was wowed by this? i was not wowed

3.75 /5

[indianasmith]

UNHINGED: A bride and her three bridesmaids are driving across the English countryside when a stalker who has been following them for some time cuts them off on a country road.  A struggle ensues, and one of the girls bashes his head in with a rock.  Instead of dragging his body off the road and into the woods, they stuff him in their trunk and continue on their way. But, lost as they can be and running out of gas, they stop at a remote farmhouse and ask for help.  The owner, Mrs. Perkins, doesn't have a phone, but invites them to spend the night until the gardener arrives in a day or two, since he always has cans of petrol and knows the way to town.  Mrs. Perkins is creepily eccentric, and no sooner do the lights go off in the old farmhouse than weird stuff starts to happen . . .
Creepy, but a bit disjointed.  Maybe I was just too sleepy to appreciate it, but I was underwhelmed.  3/5

MASTERS OF HORROR: IMPRINT  An American travels to a demon-haunted Japanese brothel looking for his long-lost love Kimomo, who he had promised to return for at some point.  There, a whore with a deformed face fills his head with stories of how Kimomo met her death, each more horrifying than the last. A bit hard to follow but very well acted. Not my favorite from the set, but not the worst, either.  This was the last episode of Season 1, and nearly all of them were pretty darned good.  The series went downhill in its later seasons.

[lester1/2jr]

Summer 04 (2006) - I almost sent this back right away because one of the characters is a "precocious" 12 year old girl who beguiles an adult, but they ended up handling it okay. In general, this is a good European (German but French style) drama that features an actress who's in a lot of relatively big German movies like "The lives of others".

The girl arrives because she's dating the son in the family. They all meet up with the possibly pedophile guy and hang out with him and go sailing. By the end, someone is dead and two people you woudn't expect are together. It was a compelling story that moved well and wasn'tt as gross as it sounds, but the older I get its like why, when there are movies with less barfy elements, should I watch this? it snuck down my queue though so what are you gonna do. there were some clever plot elements that could have been explained better or alluded to instead of just being revealed at the end.

4/5

[javakoala]

UNHINGED: A bride and her three bridesmaids are driving across the English countryside when a stalker who has been following them for some time cuts them off on a country road.  A struggle ensues, and one of the girls bashes his head in with a rock.  Instead of dragging his body off the road and into the woods, they stuff him in their trunk and continue on their way. But, lost as they can be and running out of gas, they stop at a remote farmhouse and ask for help.  The owner, Mrs. Perkins, doesn't have a phone, but invites them to spend the night until the gardener arrives in a day or two, since he always has cans of petrol and knows the way to town.  Mrs. Perkins is creepily eccentric, and no sooner do the lights go off in the old farmhouse than weird stuff starts to happen . . .
Creepy, but a bit disjointed.  Maybe I was just too sleepy to appreciate it, but I was underwhelmed.  3/5

Amazing that this title made it onto the "video nasties" list in the UK. I've seen more offensive stuff on "Full House".