Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-05-25 (Sunday)

On 5/26/2025 8:38 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

Fringe S2E23 'Over There: Part 2'.
 Olivia and Walter continue their interuniversal tourism and like most American tourists make a mess of things.  "A new and improved episode with twice the Anna Torv!"
 The glyphs in this episode spell "Weiss".
 Dr. Walter Bishop: Hello, William.
William Bell: Walter.
Dr. Walter Bishop: I see you've aged.
William Bell: It appears I'm not the only one!
 When Peter and the Olivia "over there" talk about the difference between universes, Peter looks at a famous comic book cover starring Green Lantern and Green Arrow, but in this alternate universe, they are Red Lantern and Red Arrow.
 The movie marquee on the Other Side lists several movies playing : Superman vs. Batman 2, Indiana Jones and the Hex of the Hydra, Star Wars: Legion of Droids, Splash 7, Smokey and the Bandit: The Final Lap and Mask vs. Joker.
 Walter is eating at alternate KFC and says on Wednesday 1983 he identified the last of the 11 herbs and spices. In 1983 William Poundstone claimed to have analyzed a sample of the seasoning and found it to contain only flour, salt, MSG, and black pepper. Since then recipes purporting to reveal the real 11 secret herbs and spices have been published.
 On Walternate's desk are two photos. One is an autographed photo of President John Kennedy, apparently in his sixties, and the other is of Walternate with Obama.
 When Peter first looks out of his alternate NY apartment window we see, to his right, a distant pointy skyscraper. In our world that building is the Transamerica Pyramid, the tallest building in San Francisco.
 When Fauxlivia and Frank are awakened by a videophone, the ringtone plays the song "Science Fiction/Double Feature" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The song, like "Fringe," is full of references to classic science fiction movies, and the song's title references the "dual universe" subject matter of the series.
 When Peter is shown his new room by Fauxlivia on the wall are several pictures relating to comics. There is the lightning picture of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns but where Batman should be there is Superman.
 In the first part of this two-parter, the alternate Fringe agents nearly used a quarantine device to contain an event. Walter and Bell's journey to Walternate's lab at alternate Harvard showed the effects of such a device, which closely parallel the effects of the weapon used on the bus in The Ghost Network (2008).
 It is quite possible that the wormhole event occurring at Madison Square Garden happened during the NBA finals which were played there that year.
  Fringe S3E01 'Olivia'
 Olivia continues to be a running tourist in the Redverse while her tour group arrives home with the wrong Olivia.
 The glyphs in this episode spell "Amber".
 The alternate Manhattan headquarters for Fringe Division is a several story oval building with a hint of Roman Colosseum and a roof garden. The building is actually the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library.
 The taxi that Olivia commandeers in the alternate universe has a rooftop ad for the Broadway show "Dogs" (instead of "Cats").
   Fringe S3E02 'The Box'
 A box containing a piece of The Machine is dug up but leaves dead bodies.  Alternate Olivia tries to track it down while attempting to seduce Peter to keep him distracted.
 The glyphs spell "Alert".
 Dr. Walter Bishop: Kent Street. I frequented a massage parlor just around the corner. I used to get off right here.
Peter Bishop: Sure hope you're talking about the station, Walter.
 Newton tells Olivia that she joined Fringe Division on September 9, 2008. This was the date that the show premiered.
 The running joke of Walter having difficulty remembering Astrid's name is used again. This time he calls her "Aspirin".
  John Wick: Chapter 4 (Syfy)
Keanu Reeves plays a skinny Terminator mowing down bad guys from an honorable secret criminal sect.  Do you really need more than that?

No, not really.
  And

isn't a massive body count to traditional way to celebrate Memorial Day?
 

I believe it is.

What Did You Watch?
 

I watched:
The Andromeda Strain (4K disc) 1971 sci-fi movie based on a Michael Crichton novel, directed by Robert Wise.  The story involves a group of scientists racing against time to analyze and figure out how to destroy a deadly virus from space.  I watched with a pretty good commentary track.  On the commentary they talked a lot about the visual effects all being done practically by Douglas Trumbull.  He also mentioned the plot is very similar to another Crichton book called, "Sphere."  I also happened to pick up on that plot similarity early on.  The commentary also mentioned this movie features the one and only on screen cameo by Crichton.
Originally, I was going to watch that popular movie based on a Michael Crichton story about the amusement park where the creator spared no expense, but the attractions started to kill the guests, then I changed my mind and decided to skip "Westworld."  Mainly because there is no commentary track on the disc, and I really only cared about listening to the commentary track.
Runaway (blu-ray) 1984 sci-fi movie written and directed by Michael Crichton and starring Tom Selleck as a cop in the future who is hunting a psycho (Gene Simmons) who is reprogramming household robots to be deadly.  Simmons also has at his disposal killer spiderbots that shoot acid, and a gun that shoots bullets that can turn corners to target specific people.  I watched with a commentary track for the first time. It was a good commentary that talked about the making of the movie and the cast.  The commentary also talked about the young actor who played Selleck's son.  I already knew the actor had fallen on hard times, and there is even a documentary about him, that I keep meaning to watch. The commentary talked about his fall from grace, including robbing a bank. On the commentary they said even though he wore a mask while robbing the bank, everyone recognized him. Now I *have* to track down that documentary and watch it.  I'll if I can get to it today.
Sphere (blu-ray) 1998 sci-fi movie based on a Michael Crichton novel, directed by Barry Levison. The story involves a group of scientists (Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson) who are assembled to investigate an alien spacecraft found in the ocean.  This is a very frustrating movie to watch.  It had the potential to by so much better than the end product.  I watched with a commentary by Dustin Hoffman and Sam Jackson.  Jackson mentioned several times on the commentary that he couldn't follow the movie and had no idea what was happening.  But he was nice enough to point out plot holes.  And Hoffman blamed the movies problems on the director running out of time and not being able to finish the movie.
Twister (4K disc) 1996 movie written by Michael Crichton.  I don't think I've ever watched this movie before.  I also had no idea Crichton had anything to do with the movie, although I did intentionally pair it with the other Crichton movies once I learned he wrote the script.  The movie stars Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt as a pair of storm chasers who are trying to drive into a tornado so they can have their machine sucked into the eye of the storm to take readings. But they have to do this before their rival played by Cary Elwes can launch his machine into a tornado.  It all felt really ridiculous.  And how am I supposed to take a movie like this seriously when there weren't even any sharks in the tornadoes, only cows?
Twisters (Amazon streaming) 2024 sequel (I guess) that feels more like a remake considering it has the exact same opening, and as far as I can tell, none of the characters from the first movie appear or are even referenced.  I went into this thinking it was going to be a direct sequel, and that Helen Hunt was in it.  I also thought the leading lady (Daisy Edgar-Jones), was going to be the daughter of Hunt's character. The actress is the exact right age to be Hunt's daughter, and there is even a scene where the leading man (Glen Powell) asks what's her last name and she gets all coy and refuses to say.  Then, nothing.  Anyway, this is pretty much the first movie with YouTube thrown in.  And still no sharks!
Pee-wee as Himself (HBO) Part 2 of the two part documentary about Paul Reubens.  The first half focused on Reubens rise to fame and I think it ended with the release of the movie.  The second half picks up with the success of the TV show then Reubens' downfall and scandals.  Again, this is an excellent documentary.  One thing of note in both halves is, I'll call it, animosity between Reubens and the director.  Because Reubens is a comedian, in the first half his snarky comments came off like jokes, he's just kidding and doesn't really mean it.  But in the second half, and when he flat out stopped cooperating with the making of the documentary, it became clear he meant it.  But I think what was really going on is Reubens had secretly been fighting cancer.  He obviously knew he was dying, but the filmmakers didn't know he was sick.  And I think the animosity was coming from him very vocally saying he wanted to control the documentary, and the filmmakers pushing back and basically saying, no.  And all of that is on film.
I'm approaching this documentary as a fan of Pee-wee Herman who watched Pee-Wee's Playhouse as a child on Saturday mornings in between the cartoons.  So I'm watching with that perspective as someone who when all of this was happening was a child and had *no* idea.  One of the most shocking things for me was the fallout between Reubens and Phil Hartman. I had no idea the two essentially became enemies.  There was even a clip of Hartman being interviewed and completely trash talking Reubens after Reubens was caught in an adult theater.  It was like Hartman was gleefully twisting the knife in Reubens' back, at a time when Reubens was on a suicide watch after the scandal broke.  Anyway, I suspect the director was right about not letting Reubens have creative control.  I suspect if Reubens did have control over the documentary it would have toned way down the scandal aspects of his life.