I ran out of lowbrow craptainment, so I’m working my way through Cheers and Star Trek: TOS while I sit on the couch. I’m not sure how I got to be this old without seeing any whole episodes of TOS, nevermind all of them in order. I’m halfway through the second season, and the colors are fabulous.
Paddington in Peru (2024)
Netflix, original English
Yeah, we still have Netflix, because in Germany they distribute unoriginal programs and movies from around Europe and also some US content that is not available on other platforms. I accidentally opened it up the other day with my VPN set on the US, and three-fourths the stuff in my “Continue watching” row was gone. Also, I am addicted to Knittens. Sorry to disappoint.
ANYWAY, we enjoyed this one more than the second one (I found the underwater scene too realistically scary for a children’s film), despite the execrable Olivia Colman, who two months after a pogrom condemned the victims and now demands the film industry blacklist workers based one religion and nationality (in violation of British law), playing a character who mocks women of faith, but ANYWAY.
Exploring Paddington’s origin in one of the most fascinating places on earth was interesting, the treasure hunt was interesting (throw away every biological and geographic fact you know), the animation was nice, the running umbrella gag was funny, and the end was satisfying, and not as sad as I feared. The music was also pretty good, and I was a bit surprised to hear “Onward Christian Soldiers” in an early-mid-21st-century children’s movie.
OTOH, Antonio Banderas’ treasure-hunter/boat captain character reminded me of the the last Indiana Jones installment. Irritating.
Murder Most Foul (1964)
Cable (Warner Film), original English
A rewatch, as the first time was in German. The four Miss Marple films loosely based on Agatha Christie novels (this one started as a Poirot case, Mrs. McGinty’s Dead) are the only Margaret Rutherford films that show up regularly here for some reason. In the opening scene, Miss Marple knits while serving on a jury on a murder case; after hopelessly deadlocking the jury she sets out to find the real killer. Along the way, she auditions for a theater company and moves into their boarding house to get closer to the suspects, and this provides much of the humor.
And it is a time capsule of a Britain that no longer exists. Not just the interiors and the fashion, but the whole culture. Watch it for that, even if you don’t like underestimated old ladies sticking their knitting needles where they don’t belong.
Lassie Come Home (1943)
Cable (Warner Film), original English
WARNING: DOG MURDER (not Lassie, her new adorable friend Toots (which was the name of the real-life Lassie who inspired the novel) and IT’S NOT FAIR)
This one was just starting as FUZZ woke me up in the middle of the night for his breakfast, so we sat down and watched it together, which was a mistake because it started out with a dedication to Eric Knight, the author of the original novel killed in WWII, and I had to pause to cry. Later a cute little trick-performing mop-dog gets murdered by thieves, and I had to pause it to really really cry. When will I learn…
It’s actually, if you can stand so much sorrow, a really good story, and now I understand why it’s been remade so many times over the years. Scenery is beautiful, and the music that plays while no human characters are on-screen was also very beautiful. Check it out.
(I did not recognize Roddy McDowell without his ape costume, but Elizabeth Taylor, who is already wearing her adult face at just ten years old, is unmistakable. Also the mom looks familiär because she’s the Bride of Frankenstein…)
Svengali (1931)
YouTube (PizzaFlix), original English
Classic horror while being infused with antibodies, starring John Barrymore (also featuring Donald Crisp, the dad from Lassie, huh). Svengali is a music teacher who hypnotizes women to get sex and money from them, but you know he can’t be all that bad because he feeds a black cat… (“Radish, the scene with the cat is supposed to be a foreshadowing of how he hunts the women…” Yeah, and?)
And it’s not really scary anymore. This sort of thing has happened so often in real-life Hollywood and the music industry over the past ninety years, how can standard operating procedure be scary? I ended up studying the sets, lighting, and costumes.
And now, a small German internet-culture lesson. A hairstyle with bangs (“fringe” in British) is called a Pony. And my bubble calls this sort of cut-too-short-to-be-attractive bang a Problem Pony, because the young women who intentionally sport it are analogous to the young American women who wear bull-rings in their noses. If you see it, don’t let her overhear you order your coffee with milk instead of processed grain liquids…
So I couldn’t help but notice that the young Trilby who hates all societal norms sports a Problem Pony, but once she’s totally under the control of the “villain”–and married and gainfully employed, remember this is a psychological thriller!–she has a less-threatening hairstyle.
Meet Dave (2008)
Amazon Prime, original English
An Eddie Murphy sci-fi: he’s the captain of a ship of aliens who have crashed into NYC to steal the planet’s water to save their homeworld. The twist: the aliens look exactly like humans but are about three inches tall. As a disguise, they’ve built a human-size robot (also played by Eddie Murphy). The aliens are quite Vulcan-like, driven by logic and eschewing emotion, so it doesn’t take long before they get hit by a truck driven by a single-mother artist with tons of crazy feels so cross-cultural misunderstandings and rom-com clichés can ensue.
Most of the comedy comes from Eddie Murphy being Eddie Murphy, but the rest of the cast is also pretty funny. Not great cinema, but a decent sitting-on-the-couch-while stitching flick.
Frankie and Johnny (1966)
Amazon Prime, original English
Elvis again, this time a gambling addict who performs on a riverboat with an anachronistically large and modern stage area. It took me a long time to find a plot–a gypsy told him to trade his blonde for a redhead, and so he started pursuing one who was in love with his boss. Meanwhile, he’s also trying to gamble up enough money to move with the blonde to New York to conquer Broadway.
Nice colors, and you get to see Col Potter from M*A*S*H sing and dance at the gypsy camp, but it’s as bad as Double Trouble.
Life (1999)
Netflix, original English
Eddie Murphy again, with Martin Lawrence–and a Whos-Who of 1990s Black music and comedy in the supporting cast. I suppose technically it’s a comedy, there’s a lot of jokes and humorous situations, but it’s also a poignant piece about injustice and racism in Jim Crow-era Mississippi. The leads are from New York City, and get sentenced to life on a work farm for a murder they did not commit, and it’s a hard adjustment. They also hate each other, even though they’re destined to spend sixty years living the same shack.
I’m not real sure how to evaluate this one, but it was a thoughtful and thought-provoking story and the end was hopeful.
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)
Netflix, original English
TBF, I was tired of thinking and mostly here for David Hasselhoff.
If you’re documenting the normalization of sexualized children’s entertainment, please note Patrick dons stripper-fishnets all the way back in 2004, when the current crop of madmen demanding to pole-dance in schools were young. Other than that, the jokes were funny enough, and I really, really wanted a cheeseburger when I got done.
The Great Train Robbery (1978)
Amazon Prime, original English
Warning: Dead cat and a dog is injured fighting rats for entertainment.
More Donald Sutherland–he’s popping up everywhere–plus Sean Connery in an adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel about a 19th-century true crime, the theft of a lot of gold from a moving train. Phew, say that five times fast. The story itself is fascinating; Connery’s character invests a lot of money in bribes and props, and uses a lot of social hacking to get access to the train and the keys that will open the safe.
Superb sets and costumes; Connery does all his own stunts (running across the roof of a train flashback). Script might have been better if it had been given a serious rather than a comedic treatment, but overall an enjoyable watch.
Trivia: Had to be given a different title in the UK because “The Great Train Robbery” is the 1963 heist dramatized in the movie Buster.
Planes (2013)
Disney+, original English
Cute enough, and we laughed heartily at the Munich Airport scene and Franz the Flugzeugauto. Mr Radish watched the sequel without me, which was fine.
The Russia House (1990)
Amazon Prime, original English
More Sean Connery, this time as a British citizen pressed into obtaining information from Soviet dissidents by an international all-star cast (Fraiser’s dad! Mephisto! The dude from Jaws! Captain Hollister!!) of spy handlers to a Jerry Goldsmith score. Along the way he falls for a young, beautiful book editor. Tensions ensue.
Good story–of course, it’s from a John le Carré novel–although I scoffed a bit at how up-to-date-with-US-trends Michelle Pfeiffer’s hair and makeup were, I don’t believe even someone working in the publishing business would have had access to the latest women’s/fashion magazines. I will not spoil the moral/twist for you here.
The exteriors and street scenes were filmed on location in Moscow and St. Petersburg (“Leningrad”, at the time filming began), which makes it an interesting time capsule as well. Lisbon (opening and closing scenes) probably doesn’t look like it did 35 years ago, either.
Run Silent Run Deep (1958)
Amazon Prime, original English
The best movie of the month (although when I can step back from SENSELESS EVIL DOG MURDER, Lassie Come Home was a really well-crafted story with excellent cinematography and music…). Clark Gable is a sub commander assigned to a desk after being sunk by the Japanese destroyer Akikaze (a real ship), then given another chance on the USS Nerka, over second-in-command (and fave of the enlisted men) Burt Lancaster. Out on patrol, the captain decides to stalk and sink the Akikaze.
This is an extremely technical film, filmed inside real submarine equipment on loan from the US Navy, and we see a lot of drills and hear a lot of explanations of the procedures and strategies. That might not be for everyone, but as a land-lubbing layperson, I enjoyed learning how everything worked and why the characters were doing what they were doing. (It was also nice to see a WWII film about the Pacific for a change, I am still tired of Nazis.)
It reminded me of the day I spent at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum and my tour of the USS Cobia. After about ten minutes in the sub I was ready to get back out in the fresh air and sunshine, and I hate sunshine. We do not appreciate the men of the Silent Service enough. (Trivia from the IMDB: Nerka is the scientific name of sockeye salmon and the boat would have been built in Manitowoc had the war not ended when it did.)
Wait…that looks like: Don Rickles, who served in the Navy in WWII, plays the quartermaster. Never really thought of him as a serious actor…
