Quote from: pxr5 on January 05, 2023, 09:42:32 PM

Quote from: pdw1 on January 05, 2023, 09:29:34 PM

Quote from: pxr5 on January 01, 2023, 02:17:51 PMWe finished His Dark Materials Season 3 last night. Blimey they certainly dragged out the end. 7/10 overall.

We have just finished it here. I thought it was wonderful.
Have you read the books?

No I haven't and I likely won't now the TV show has finished (in saying that I do sometimes read books after a show has finished. In fact right now I'm reading The Shining Girls). Have you read them?

yes the books are good but the 3 series sorted out the timelines and themes better than the books. Well worth a read.

After the recent passing of John Bird, worked through a bunch of videos on YouTube of his "George Parr" interviews with John Fortune.

Just brilliant stuff; deadpan satirical humour at its finest, when politics wasn't beyond it.

Quote from: pdw1 on January 05, 2023, 11:01:14 PM

Quote from: pxr5 on January 05, 2023, 09:42:32 PM

Quote from: pdw1 on January 05, 2023, 09:29:34 PM

Quote from: pxr5 on January 01, 2023, 02:17:51 PMWe finished His Dark Materials Season 3 last night. Blimey they certainly dragged out the end. 7/10 overall.

We have just finished it here. I thought it was wonderful.
Have you read the books?

No I haven't and I likely won't now the TV show has finished (in saying that I do sometimes read books after a show has finished. In fact right now I'm reading The Shining Girls). Have you read them?

yes the books are good but the 3 series sorted out the timelines and themes better than the books. Well worth a read.

Thanks for the recommendation. I may well give them a go sometime then. 

Bullet Train

Former stuntman David Leitch directs this slick but often shamelessly silly Friday night popcorn fare, mashing up Kill Bill, Train To Busan and, more obviously, Kingsman and Lock, (Rolling) Stock & Two Smoking Barrels.

I found that the more I worked down my very pleasant bottle of Chilean Cab Sav, the more I enjoyed this film, so I'd recommend watching while half cut for maximum benefit.

Rating: ***

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Terribly acted, terribly written crap.

Rating: *

Quote from: The Picnic Wasp on December 28, 2022, 11:59:01 AM

Quote from: R6GYY on December 27, 2022, 04:32:25 PM

Quote from: Slim on December 27, 2022, 02:46:42 PMBut later, I watched The Detectorists; a feature-length special. I'd never seen it before and didn't intend to watch it last night. Only inertia kept me in front of the telly after University Challenge.

It was brilliant. Very clever. Funny without being a sitcom, beautifully directed and photographed and very pleasantly slow-paced. Loved it.

Something I keep meaning to watch.

I intended to watch that last night, but when I visited the iPlayer I discovered they had made three series. I'd missed all of the earlier episodes so decided to watch series 1 episode 1 instead. I'm glad I did. It provided a bit of context to the characters, albeit simple, which I hadn't known before. I'm looking forward to running through the rest now.

I've just reached Series 3 Episode 1 and the realisation is now that I might still be an episode or so away from where I joined this wonderful programme first time around. I'm at that point now where I don't want this to end and I'm glad there's a final extended length special to look forward to. It's supposed to be set in Essex but most of it was shot in the stunning, summer Sussex countryside. I spent a lot of time there in the 90s, mainly Essex, but with regular excursions into Sussex for day trips. I've lived in the same town all my life and would find it a wrench to move away, but I feel a genuine longing to spend much more time in Sussex. Perhaps it's time to make that move. This is probably one of the reasons why this series is in my top five TV programmes of the past ten years, but it's also greatly due to the gentle way it moves along, wonderful script and acting, and a terrific soundtrack. The music just fits so well. I wish this was its first screening and it had its own thread. Missed the boat.

The Rig

The Menu - Disney- foodie horror, tasty dark humour.

https://www.disneyplus.com/en-gb/movies/the-menu/6qKeWn5NKzDY

Shawshank Redemption..

The Pale Blue eye - Netflix

Just started with Wednesday. Great fun and very well done.

Ep2 of Happy Valley  Season 3  .. it's very good..

Finished off The Rig.......pants

Now onto binge watching Detectorists..glorious..... half way thru season 3

BBC Four TOTP 1994 nostalgia-fest (again).

They play some stuff from twenty years previously (i.e., in this particular case, the 70s) as some sort of...nostalgic throwback...

Which reminds me: remember that almost novelty dance song Blue by Eiffel 65 that got to no. 1 in 1998?

25 years later it's been put through the wringer of 2020s shite, atonal, hookless pop blandola resulting in it being used as a "sample" for an atrocious pop-dance effort that is of course now being played everywhere.

Some things make you glad you were young and carefree then, as opposed to now.