Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-03-17 (Sunday)

On 3/18/2024 8:32 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 3/18/2024 6:07 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

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What did you watch?
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The Twilight Zone S4E06 'Death Ship' - DVR
Three astronauts discover the wreckage of a ship identical to their own on an unexplored planet.  With Jack Klugman.  (Comcast)
An interplanetary expedition from Earth finds an exact duplicate of their ship and themselves crashed on the planet they were surveying. Should they stay or risk taking off and crashing?
Trivia: The spaceship E-89, is the same miniature prop that was originally created as the saucer-shaped United Planets Cruiser C-57D for the 1956 MGM science fiction classic Forbidden Planet (1956). The external set of the ship and its staircase, and the crew uniforms, are also from the same film. "The Twilight Zone" was able to make extensive use of props and costumes created for "Forbidden Planet" (including Robby The Robot) thanks to the fact that it was regularly filmed at MGM Studios, which kept all these items in storage in its prop department for many years.

I'm sure I watched this years before I ever got around to watching "Forbidden Planet."

This episode takes place in 1997.
Of the three main actors, Jack Klugman (Captain Ross) was the only one who lived to see the actual 1997.
The emblem the flight crew wears on their chest pockets is the same emblem the flight crew in the later episode, On Thursday We Leave for a Home, wears on their caps.
Some of the score was taken from Jerry Goldsmith's music used in Back There (1961).
According to "Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, Vol. 1", the author of both the source story and its television adaptation claimed that it "was my first attempt to write a 'standard' science fiction story, because at the time I was simply trying to sell as many stories as I could. I just got the idea that what if these guys went down to investigate a crash ship and went in and saw themselves dead. I had to extend the idea by having the captain present all sorts of possibilities as to why it was happening. I thought the last line was very good - 'The Flying Dutchman takes to the universe.' I don't know when the last line occurred to me, but that's what the whole concept was, basically. And they made a pretty nice Twilight Zone out of it, too. Again, writing this story in the early fifties, 1997 was, to me, the distant future."
The only equipment each of them carries to check the crashed ship is a flashlight. If humans evolved to undergo interplanetary exploration it would make sense to have specialized equipment.
  The Twilight Zone S4E07 'Jess-Belle' - DVR
A girl (Anne Francis) strikes a bargain with a witch to win a young man's heart.  With James Best, Jeanette Nolan.
Appalachian beauty Jess-Belle can't bear to lose the object of her passion to the local rich girl, so she turns to the local witch for aid. The results bring unexpected and tragic consequences.
Trivia: This haunting love story originally aired on Valentine's Day in 1963.
This is the only TZ episode not to feature a closing narration. It instead featured a poem.
 

Sounds like an episode of "Tales From the Darkside."  Did the witch swap bodies with the girl?

 What Did You Watch?
 

On St. Patrick's Day I watched:
Darby O'Gill and the Little People (blu-ray) 1959 Disney fantasy movie directed by Robert Stevenson about a man who matches wits with the king of the leprechauns.  A young James Bond also stars.  Holds up very well.
Mary Poppins  (blu-ray) 1964 Disney fantasy movie directed by Robert Stevenson with music from the Sherman brothers about a shady nanny who drugs children with LSD laced "medicine" which causes the children to go on hallucinogenic trips which Poppins then gaslights the children into thinking they never went on.  I love this movie.  I wasn't even in the mood to watch it, but once it got going, I enjoyed it.
Mary Poppins Returns (4K disc) 2018 sequel which finds Poppins (Emily Blunt) returning to once again gaslight the Banks children by taking them on fantastic adventures and then claiming to have no idea what they're talking about.  Both Dick Van Dyke and Karen Dotrice from the original Poppins make cameos along with Angela Landsbury making a nice cameo too.  They managed to knock it out of the park.  This movie is way better than it has any right to be.  I love that they brought back traditional hand drawn 2D animation.  And unlike lots of other recent musicals this movie is full of memorable songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjPmDywk4LE
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (blu-ray) 1971 Disney fantasy movie directed by Robert Stevenson with music from the Sherman brothers about a witch (Angela Lansbury) who uses her magic to fight Nazis during WWII.  I love this movie.  Holds up great.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (blu-ray) 1968 fantasy movie with music from the Sherman brothers starring Dick Van Dyke, which for some strange reason people keep mistaking for a Disney movie when it's clearly not.  It's actually a Bond movie, or that is it was based on a book by Ian Flemming. That and Goldfinger is the villain.  Anyway, the movie holds up great.  The movie was shot on 70mm and as good as the blu-rays looks a new 4K print would be jaw dropping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_l2ii_25tc
The Regime (HBO) - "The Heroes' Banquet" - Kate Winslet continues to listen to her henchman's ideas and decides to implement a plan to redistribute the country's land from the wealthy to the people.  But her husband and wealthy elite continue to manipulate things in the background to develop a plan to elevate the henchman's position to the public to create tension between them.  I thought it was a dumb idea and to my surprise they do manage to create bad blood between the two. Although the henchman is a brute who can't help himself but constantly be on the attack even at one point going after Winslet.  I think she was basically in an abusive relationship with him that she snapped out of. But now I'm pretty sure he's going to lead a coup against her, and thanks to the elites elevating him in the public eye it might succeed.
Quiet on the Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (Investigation Discovery) - I started but haven't finished this yet.  The format is a *lot* like the recent Playboy documentary but it focuses on Nickelodeon in the 90s.  I got as far as their talking about Dan Schneider and the allegations against him.  It also focuses on Amanda Bynes who shot to fame while under his control.
I grew out of Nickelodeon in the 90s so I was at the cut off and never watched any of these wildly popular shows when they aired.  But the documentary showed a lot of clips of very young children in kid's sketch shows saying and doing things that were clearly sexual.  They were saying things like there were supposed to be parent or adult supervision, but parents were not allowed on set and parents didn't want to rock the boat so they kept quiet. Similarly these were kids around 12 years old and sometimes they were supporting their entire family, so they would also keep their mouths shut even though they felt really uncomfortable with what they were being told to do.  The kids said they had to be in school on the set every day but they would often show up and Amanda Bynes was nowhere to be found.  I think the way they described it Schneider was pulling her out of school so she could be with him planning her career or something.
But it wasn't just the kids.  According to the adults interviewed who worked for him he treated the female writers like garbage.  He forced two women to share one salary and just generally created a HR nightmare.   He seemed to be able to get away with so much because people were afraid to speak up and complain.  That was just the first hour.  More episodes air today.