Yum yum.

One more for the thread:

Alien on Stage (2020, dir Danielle Kummer and Lucy Harvey)

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwUHTKOsZwk

This is a story about a unique crew of Dorset bus drivers whose amateur dramatics group decide to ditch doing another pantomime and try something different. They spent a year creating a serious adaptation of the sci-fi horror film Alien, finding ingenious solutions to pay homemade homage to the original film. The show is a crushing flop but fate gives them a second chance to find their audience. Whilst still adjusting to the idea that their serious show is actually a comedy, the group find out they’re suddenly being whisked from their village hall to a London West End theatre to perform this accidental masterpiece for one night only. With wobbly sets, awkward acting and special effects requiring ‘more luck than judgement,’ will their West End debut be alright on the night? This bus driving crew are our space heroes. Their bus station is our space station. Dorset is outer-space and where is the Alien? It’s behind you!

I’m going through my watch list of original films from 2024. It certainly doesn’t look like a quality problem.

The Substance, Cuckoo, A Real Pain, Heretic, The Piano Lesson, The Wild Robot (does being based on a book count?), Conclave, Here, Thelma, Your Monster, Oddity, Strange Darling, Hundreds of Beavers, Blink Twice, Rebel Ridge, Didi, Kinds of Kindness, Wildcat, In a Violent Nature, I Saw the TV Glow, Civil War, Sasquach Sunset, Love Lies Bleeding, Monkey Man, Riddle of Fire, Lisa Frankenstein, Orion and the Dark, and Drugstore June.

Battle in Seattle (2007, trailer) - A remarkably stacked cast (Martin Henderson, Michelle Rodriguez, Woody Harrelson, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Carpenter, Andre 3000, Channing Tatum, Ray Liota and Rade Šerbedžija) give the dramatization treatment to the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. The movie freely admits that no individual stories depicted actually happened, which undercuts the message a bit and does a lot to turn the whole thing into simple entertainment. There a LOT going on: the first internet-organized mass protest, a do-good-er on his last strike, police attempting to manage mass unrest, doctors and lobbyists with urgent needs that are overshadowed by rioting, non-violent vs black bloc protest tactics, and media coverage of the whole thing. Any one of these angles would have probably made a better film in isolation. Bunching them all together didn’t provide enough space for any to hit home.

If your employer requires you to have a phone for official use, keep it separate from your personal phone; different device, different number, different networks if possible (ie: only let it join your home’s guest network). Don’t do personal things on your work devices, including logging into personal services, social networks or communication tools.

Over the Garden Wall is pure essence of autumn.

It’s not a movie, but its complete runtime (ten 11-minute episodes) is under 2 hours and has all the eerie, melancholic silliness that your soul needs while dealing with family.

Obligatory:

I’m Comic Sans, Asshole by Mike Lacher from McSweeney’s Short Imagined Monologues June 15, 2010

Here’s the spotify link for the full album: https://open.spotify.com/album/4wtt08wXfDLUecMnqdZQsF

As someone who studied Latin based on the Cambridge Latin book series, I wouldn’t mind seeing a disaster movie about Pompeii featuring Caecilius, the banker at the center of the training course (and a real person whose home and records were discovered by archeologists).

He popped up in the Doctor Who episode The Fires of Pompeii, but that’s not quote the same as a legitimate Hollywood disaster movie treatment.

I also can’t tell what is in the bowls beside Roy and his sons - to the top left of Roy’s plate, right hand side of Toby and top right of Brad’s plate. Maybe Ronnie and Silvia have one of these bowls too but I can’t tell. You can see Brad eat out of his bowl at one point and it looks like something pale (I wondered coleslaw or macaroni).

It looks like everyone at the table has a bowl on one side or the other. This was a time when a common middle-class American family dinnerware place-setting might include a salad bowl with a simple salad: chopped iceberg or romaine lettuce with a store-bough salad dressing (ranch, blue cheese, 1000 island, etc). Probably not the most appetizing thing in the world, but totally legit given the era and setting (with Roy being a electrical line worker).

Agreed. The days of Warners being a destination for auteur directors died when David Sazlav wound up in charge. All the talent is bailing.

No mention of The 4:30 Movie in here at all.

If your analog control requires your entire hand, it’s interesting.

If your analog control requires several pointing fingers, it’s interesting.

If your analog control requires your thumbs, it’s shit.

Now get the fuck out of my office!

https://imgur.com/a/lCgU73f

When he’s the one paying for it.

“I hadn’t met him before. I’m saying, ‘What’s it gonna be like?’ because he was also a producer of the show, big fan of the original, working on it for 10 years."

I saw a late screening of it as it made its way through the festival cricuit this summer. I fell asleep within the first few minutes and woke up as it was wrapping up. I still wonder if I was snoring.

Trotting out a bunch of nay-saying critics was already of fairly questionable taste to begin with. Having them be made up is just plain hilarious.

Also, the narration was pretty odd. I wonder if this was even intended to be released at all.

I’m just bummed for Tig Notaro.

Shyamalan has been all about self-parody since Lady in the Water (after stumbling into it in The Village).

Critics really think he’s striving for more and landing on being ridiculous, but I’ve just accepted that this is what he does. This is him doing what he does.

I can find satisfaction in that. I know what I’m setting myself up for when I watch one of his films now; nothing more.

Thanos was introduced in a post credits scene after the first Avengers film (2012), a solid 6 years prior to Infinity War. Marvel takes their time. And with good reason; extra time to vet folks and change course if needed.