Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-04-12 (Saturday)

On 4/13/2025 11:11 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

On 4/13/2025 8:44 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

On 4/13/2025 9:30 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

On 4/13/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
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What did you watch?

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What did you watch?
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I watched:
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30 Days of Night (blu-ray) 2007 movie based on a comic book about a
small isolated town in Alaska that is overrun by vampires during a
month-long period when the sun doesn't rise.  This holds up very well.
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We were talking about this a couple days ago on the Facebook. Somebody
pointed out that even though they don’t see the sun, they would still see
the moon. Which means we need vampires versus werewolves at the North Pole!
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30 Days of Night: Dark Days (blu-ray) 2010 sequel which picks up where
the first movie ends with a survivor tracking down vampires to get her
vengeance on.  This is a pretty solid revenge flick with a vampire twist.
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I was disappointed in this, but I think it’s mostly because I liked the
first movie so much.
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You have to rate it on the direct to video scale.
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Vampires (4K disc) 1998 movie directed by John Carpenter and starring
James Woods as the leader of a team of vampire hunters who work for the
Church.  Mostly background noise.  I remember back in 98 watching
trailers for this and "Blade" and thinking this would be *the* vampire
movie and "Blade" would be meh.  And it turned out to be the exact opposite.
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Considering all it has going for it, this movie has no right to be as
non-entertaining as it is.
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+1
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I was going to make a comment about liking the sequel, then I realized I
was thinking of Dracula II: Ascension.  Or at least this scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-9eDJ4maak
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 I really like Dracula 2000 although it goes out of its way to be annoying.
I’ve never seen a cut that’s the proper aspect ratio all the way through.
And of course it makes me crazy that they got the millennia wrong and why
aren’t some of the brides naked?
 

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Lifeforce (4K disc) - 1985 movie directed by Tobe Hooper.  So let me get
this straight, the space shuttle is on a mission to study Halley's Comet
when they come across an alien spaceship.  They dock and board the
spaceship, where they find multiple batlike aliens and three aliens that
appear to be human.  They then bring the aliens back on the ship.  They
wrap one is a fishing net because quarantine, I guess.  Anyway, safely
wrapped up in the net they bring them back on board the spaceship and
who would have guessed it, but it turns out the aliens they found in
space weren't safe after all.  The aliens are brought back to Earth, and
I'm sure there's no need to quarantine them or anything because what
could go wrong?  Once again one thing leads to another and now there are
space vampires in Britain sucking the life force out of everyone.
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I guess I should also mention the alien spaceship that parked itself
over London and was collecting the lifeforce of the population, but no
one seemed to notice or care other than mentioning it was happening.
Maybe it's just me, but if I see space vampires sucking the life out of
people causing a blue light to stream into space where a spaceship is
conveniently parked in orbit collecting the light, I might just think
there could be a connection between the two events.  But that's just me.
Did it not occur to *anyone* to blow the thing out of orbit?   I guess
not.  Anyway, I'll just end with this has to be the most British vampire
movie ever made that doesn't star Christopher Lee.
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Ahem. Two words: Captain Kronos, vampire hunter.
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Random thoughts about LIFEFORCE
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I love this movie. It grossed less than half its budget worldwide. :-(
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I assume your disk was Cinemascope wide screen. Almost every print of this
that shows up on TV has been center cut to 1.85.
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The new 4K is 2.35:1.  I didn't realize until I put the disc in to
watch, but the 4K version is the theatrical cut only with no extras.
The set also includes a blu-ray of the director's cut with two different
commentary options.  I don't remember being so annoyed by the movie, so
I'm guessing there's stuff in the director's cut that makes it less
annoying.

 Huh. I have no idea what’s different about the Director cut.
 OK from IMDb
 Tobe Hooper's Director's Cut was two hours and eight minutes, then the
movie was cut down to one hour and fifty-six minutes, the cuts being mostly
scenes set on the spaceship Churchill. The original unedited European
version contains more violent and erotic footage, which Tri-Star Pictures
cut from the domestic U.S. version. It also contains the full Henry Mancini
score, in place of the occasional Michael Kamen music cues placed at the
last minute for U.S. prints. This version is now available on video, and
runs one hour and fifty-six minutes.
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 The Churchill scenes at first, took up the first thirty-five minutes of the
movie. Approximately twelve minutes of these were cut, plus some scenes
were moved to later in the movie, and turned into flashbacks. All this was
done against Director Tobe Hooper's wishes.
 

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It sounds like the director's cut is a lot more coherent.  In the theatrical cut there's a very annoying jump between finding the alien ship then being back on Earth with minimal explanation until the exposition dump flashback scenes later in the movie.

Wonderful score which I attribute to Henry Mancini.
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Patrick Stewart’s best movie although some will make the case for
Excalibur.
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Long before TNG, I recognized Steward from this and Dune.  I'm far less
familiar with his work in Excalibur.

 Nothing special about it, but he just happens to be in a movie that a lot
of people like a lot.
 

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We were horrified a few years ago to learn that the naked vampires in
stasis in the ship are actually beautifully made models about half scale.
Not people at all.  I think a lot of yutes may have unknowingly been
jumpstarted into puberty by puppets.
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Despite the wildly advanced shuttle technology, this 1985 movie must take
place in 1986 if they’re visiting Halley’s Comet. Either that or it’s in
2061 or something. Anyway, assuming the mid 1980s I don’t think we’d have a
way to blow a spaceship out of orbit. I’m not sure we would now unless Elon
Musk has something up his sleeve.  And yes, I am using orbit wrong. Too
many years of watching Star Trek. “Hovering over London“ would be more
correct.
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Doctor Who (Disney+) - "The Robot Revolution" - The new season kicks off
with the doctor picking up a new companion.  The Doctor has to save a
nurse from robots that have kidnapped her so she can be their new Queen,
but there is a Timey-wimey twist.  I picked up on some "Superman 3" and
"Timecop" references that probably went over most younger viewers heads.
But as someone who was scarred for life by a certain scene in Superman
3, I couldn't help but notice.  Overall, it was an OK start.  I like the
dynamic with the new companion who does *not* want to be a companion.  I
liked that she immediately picked up on the Doctor is dangerous and
traveling with him can get her killed.  She has no interest in being his
next victim, I mean companion, and just wants to go home.  I don't
recall a companion like that since maybe Tegan.  If I recall correctly
she also started out similarly saying to take her home because she
didn't want any of his nonsense.

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I didn’t notice the references you mentioned,

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I assure you, Superman 3 traumatized an entire generation of children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuSsSwg9MXs
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 Thanks for the link. Yeah that sequence is also lifted very very
consciously from Demon Seed, especially since Robert Vaughn is the evil
computer in the first movie.
 

This is the timecop reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D01mdGW9-Zg
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 Shades of the thing! He’s lucky they didn’t all go up in the biggest
explosion since the last star in these parts went nova.
 

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but I was too busy thinking

“what the hell this is demon seed“
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I am on record as saying that this episode absolutely did not suck.
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I had to read the whole thing though I couldn’t understand anything anyone
said.
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And I didn’t catch what the old woman said when she broke the fourth wall
and talked to the audience.
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I missed that!!!  I have to track that down!  When in the episode did
that happen?

 OK at the six minute and 30 second mark
 The robots spaceship takes off.
 The doctor gets there a couple seconds too late and is shouting Belinda
Belinda
 The old woman starts to leave presumably to take shelter from the takeoff
exhaust and stops and turns to the camera and says to us “you ain’t seen
me“
 I assume she’s the same old woman that was sitting on the steps when the
doctor was running for the tardis last season when he picked up the
previous companion
 Checks IMDb.
 Yeah, she’s credited as Mrs. flood and this is her fifth appearance
starting all the way back with episode zero and Ruby Sunday
  

Thank you!  She's been breaking the 4th wall since last season.  We still don't know who exactly she is.