• What Did You Watch? 2026-05-16 (Saturday)

    From Ubiquitous@weberm@polaris.net to rec.arts.tv on Sun May 17 04:30:41 2026
    From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv

    I watched:

    Every LOST Handwriting Style In Detail Explained

    Mortal Kombat II (Spoiler Review) - Trash... But Fun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVXHnURwbAk

    THE ODYSSEY: WE WUZ GREEKS u Christopher Nolan Bends the Knee to The
    Message
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EivDLa8_Bj8

    Why The Studio Tried to Destroy Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6D5aqsYfJ0

    What did you watch?
    --
    Democrats and the liberal media hate President Trump more than they
    love this country.

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  • From Ian J. Ball@ijball@mac.invalid to rec.arts.tv on Sun May 17 10:28:30 2026
    From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv

    On 5/17/26 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

    What did you watch?

    This is roughly a week catch-up here, but the highlights are that a
    couple of movies I have been waiting for finally showed up on Disney+ so
    I could finally watch them:

    Spider-Man: No Way Home (Disney+) - This follows the usual pattern
    lately, that only "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" manage to beat - the pattern that the third film in the "superhero trilogy" isn't as good or
    as enjoyable as the first two installments.
    Now, this isn't as bad a misfire as "Ant-Man 3" or "Deadpool and Wolverine", and I can't fully put my finger on why, but I did not enjoy
    this one as much as the first two films in this trilogy, despite this
    flick going into overdrive in doing fan service for the earlier two "Spider-Man" film series (FTR, I am not sure I have ever seen the second Andrew Garfield Spider-Man flick, though I enjoyed his first one) - hey!
    they even bring Tobey Maguire back and he actually seems human again!
    (ergo - he must be a great actor!!).
    I think part of the reason why I didn't enjoy this one is much is
    because I misunderstood the premise - I thought it would be like
    "Multiverse of Madness", with Spider-Man (and friends!) traversing the multiverse, and coming across Garfield and Maguire that way, but instead
    the film stays in Tom Holland's Spider-Man universe, and brings all the
    others *to him*. I didn't care for that nearly as much.
    This film also does a much better job than "Multiverse of Madness"
    in showing why everyone thought Dr. Strange was as big a danger to the multiverse as Wanda was - in "Multiverse of Madness", I kept wondering
    why everyone was so afraid of Strange - well it turns out "No Way Home"
    shows Strange at his most irresponsible (and unhinged?), and "Multiverse
    of Madness" would have benefited from showing this film's Dr. Strange
    more clearly!
    Anyway, I also didn't like who they write out here, and also that
    they hit a big giant Reset Button on this film series, basically setting everything back to zero, with a Spider-Man with no friends and no
    resources (no more Stark industries!) - that was actually the thing I
    liked most about this series - that Spider-Man did have friends and
    resources - so if this is the premise for Holland's "second Spider-Man trilogy", I already don't like it.

    Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Disney+) - In addition to "No Way Home",
    I've also been waiting around for a chance to see the second (and third) "Venom" flicks ad-free on a streamer, and this must have come to Disney+
    when "No Way Home" did. (No third Venom flick there, though...)
    Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot more than "No Way Home". For one thing,
    it's a delightfully short film among the recent (over-bloated!)
    superhero flicks, clocking it at just a little over 90 minutes.
    Also, these films just seem to be *fun* - they don't take themselves seriously, and just "go with it". (Venom just wants to eat brains, OK?
    You gotta problem with that?!)
    I will say this - if Woody Harrelson was in the first "Venon" (and, apparently he was!), I don't remember him. (Which I guess shows how much
    I remember the first "Venom" flick, outside of a vague feeling that I
    enjoyed it!)
    Michelle Williams seemingly gets downgraded (in terms of screentime)
    in this one (and she's not even in the third one!) which I found
    interesting.
    Anyway, this was mostly dumb fun, and I have no problem with that.

    Season finales:

    Chicago Med - Somewhat of a reset (the challenge to Dr. Charles' job is resolved, Lenox starts coming clean about her condition and seems to
    have saved her relationship with Ripley, stupid Asher has her stupid
    baby), except at the end Goodwin's job in peril (as if S. Epatha
    Merkerson is going anywhere!).

    Chicago Fire - Severide is in the clear and now has the choice of being
    either captain of the firehouse or the arson squad. Pascal returns (presumably, Dermot Mulroney will be back full-time next season...).
    Herrmann considers retiring (long overdue!). Mouch gets an offer to
    publish a book, just not his memoir.

    Chicago PD - A two-parter about Imani (really?!) and her long-lost
    kidnapped sister. Voight indulges Imani way too much as they chase down
    leads on the sister. Of course, after 20 years of sexual abuse, etc. the sister is a garbage person who nearly kills Imani. In the end, I guess
    they didn't kill the sister off, but it looked like she was going down
    on a murder one charge instead.

    soaps: GH - Evol Willow's and Nina's house of cards looks to be coming
    down, esp. after Nina injects Drew's paralytic agent into Jack Brennan!
    (by accident!) instead, likely burning her bridges to Valentin in the
    process. Meanwhile, how has everyone not yet figured out that this is
    *not* Nathan West?!?!!

    What did you watch?


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  • From shawn@nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com to rec.arts.tv on Sun May 17 14:00:13 2026
    From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv

    On Sun, 17 May 2026 10:28:30 -0700, "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
    wrote:

    On 5/17/26 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

    What did you watch?

    This is roughly a week catch-up here, but the highlights are that a
    couple of movies I have been waiting for finally showed up on Disney+ so
    I could finally watch them:

    Spider-Man: No Way Home (Disney+) - This follows the usual pattern
    lately, that only "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" manage to beat - the >pattern that the third film in the "superhero trilogy" isn't as good or
    as enjoyable as the first two installments.
    Now, this isn't as bad a misfire as "Ant-Man 3" or "Deadpool and
    Wolverine", and I can't fully put my finger on why, but I did not enjoy
    this one as much as the first two films in this trilogy, despite this
    flick going into overdrive in doing fan service for the earlier two >"Spider-Man" film series (FTR, I am not sure I have ever seen the second >Andrew Garfield Spider-Man flick, though I enjoyed his first one) - hey! >they even bring Tobey Maguire back and he actually seems human again!
    (ergo - he must be a great actor!!).
    I think part of the reason why I didn't enjoy this one is much is
    because I misunderstood the premise - I thought it would be like
    "Multiverse of Madness", with Spider-Man (and friends!) traversing the >multiverse, and coming across Garfield and Maguire that way, but instead
    the film stays in Tom Holland's Spider-Man universe, and brings all the >others *to him*. I didn't care for that nearly as much.
    This film also does a much better job than "Multiverse of Madness"
    in showing why everyone thought Dr. Strange was as big a danger to the >multiverse as Wanda was - in "Multiverse of Madness", I kept wondering
    why everyone was so afraid of Strange - well it turns out "No Way Home" >shows Strange at his most irresponsible (and unhinged?), and "Multiverse
    of Madness" would have benefited from showing this film's Dr. Strange
    more clearly!
    Anyway, I also didn't like who they write out here, and also that
    they hit a big giant Reset Button on this film series, basically setting >everything back to zero, with a Spider-Man with no friends and no
    resources (no more Stark industries!) - that was actually the thing I
    liked most about this series - that Spider-Man did have friends and >resources - so if this is the premise for Holland's "second Spider-Man >trilogy", I already don't like it.

    If you've seen any clips for the next movie it seems that they are
    returning to classic story lines from the comics with Holland getting
    a job as a news photographer while working on rebuilding his
    connections to his friends. Seems like an interesting story to me.

    Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Disney+) - In addition to "No Way Home",
    I've also been waiting around for a chance to see the second (and third) >"Venom" flicks ad-free on a streamer, and this must have come to Disney+ >when "No Way Home" did. (No third Venom flick there, though...)
    Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot more than "No Way Home". For one thing,
    it's a delightfully short film among the recent (over-bloated!)
    superhero flicks, clocking it at just a little over 90 minutes.
    Also, these films just seem to be *fun* - they don't take themselves
    seriously, and just "go with it". (Venom just wants to eat brains, OK?
    You gotta problem with that?!)
    I will say this - if Woody Harrelson was in the first "Venon" (and,
    apparently he was!), I don't remember him. (Which I guess shows how much
    I remember the first "Venom" flick, outside of a vague feeling that I >enjoyed it!)

    As far as I can remember it was at the end of the film so he didn't
    play a huge role.

    Michelle Williams seemingly gets downgraded (in terms of screentime)
    in this one (and she's not even in the third one!) which I found >interesting.
    Anyway, this was mostly dumb fun, and I have no problem with that.


    I have this on my list to watch one day but that day has not arrived.


    What did you watch?

    MARSHALLS episode 10 where the two female agents were sent to watch
    over a prisoner transfer. They encounter the worst fake rock fall I've
    seen that forces their bus off the road, kills the two guards and
    leaves the Marshals dealing with three of the prisoner while three
    others have escaped. Two get into town and encounter two of the
    Marshals, which goes badly for the prisoners. The last one was
    apparently part of the Yellowstone family and heads up to a place that
    the crew used to go to. Which leads to him being caught.

    What did you watch?
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  • From Arthur Lipscomb@arthur@alum.calberkeley.org to rec.arts.tv on Sun May 17 13:36:03 2026
    From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv

    On 5/17/2026 11:00 AM, shawn wrote:
    On Sun, 17 May 2026 10:28:30 -0700, "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
    wrote:

    On 5/17/26 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

    What did you watch?

    This is roughly a week catch-up here, but the highlights are that a
    couple of movies I have been waiting for finally showed up on Disney+ so
    I could finally watch them:

    Spider-Man: No Way Home (Disney+) - This follows the usual pattern
    lately, that only "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" manage to beat - the
    pattern that the third film in the "superhero trilogy" isn't as good or
    as enjoyable as the first two installments.
    Now, this isn't as bad a misfire as "Ant-Man 3" or "Deadpool and
    Wolverine", and I can't fully put my finger on why, but I did not enjoy
    this one as much as the first two films in this trilogy, despite this
    flick going into overdrive in doing fan service for the earlier two
    "Spider-Man" film series (FTR, I am not sure I have ever seen the second
    Andrew Garfield Spider-Man flick, though I enjoyed his first one)

    What?!? See it! See it now! This movie references the events from the sequel. And of course Jamie Foxx's Electro is from the Andrew Garfield sequel.

    - hey!
    they even bring Tobey Maguire back and he actually seems human again!
    (ergo - he must be a great actor!!).
    I think part of the reason why I didn't enjoy this one is much is
    because I misunderstood the premise - I thought it would be like
    "Multiverse of Madness", with Spider-Man (and friends!) traversing the
    multiverse, and coming across Garfield and Maguire that way, but instead
    the film stays in Tom Holland's Spider-Man universe, and brings all the
    others *to him*. I didn't care for that nearly as much.

    Oddly enough Multiverse of Madness was supposed to come out first which
    would have introduced America Chavez's character and explained how the different Spider-Men were able to show up. When they swapped release
    dates they also had to do a quick script rewrite.

    That being said, I guess I liked No Way Home a lot more than you did.


    This film also does a much better job than "Multiverse of Madness"
    in showing why everyone thought Dr. Strange was as big a danger to the
    multiverse as Wanda was - in "Multiverse of Madness", I kept wondering
    why everyone was so afraid of Strange - well it turns out "No Way Home"
    shows Strange at his most irresponsible (and unhinged?), and "Multiverse
    of Madness" would have benefited from showing this film's Dr. Strange
    more clearly!
    Anyway, I also didn't like who they write out here, and also that
    they hit a big giant Reset Button on this film series, basically setting
    everything back to zero, with a Spider-Man with no friends and no
    resources (no more Stark industries!) - that was actually the thing I
    liked most about this series - that Spider-Man did have friends and
    resources - so if this is the premise for Holland's "second Spider-Man
    trilogy", I already don't like it.

    If you've seen any clips for the next movie it seems that they are
    returning to classic story lines from the comics with Holland getting
    a job as a news photographer while working on rebuilding his
    connections to his friends. Seems like an interesting story to me.

    Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Disney+) - In addition to "No Way Home",
    I've also been waiting around for a chance to see the second (and third)
    "Venom" flicks ad-free on a streamer, and this must have come to Disney+
    when "No Way Home" did. (No third Venom flick there, though...)
    Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot more than "No Way Home". For one thing,
    it's a delightfully short film among the recent (over-bloated!)
    superhero flicks, clocking it at just a little over 90 minutes.
    Also, these films just seem to be *fun* - they don't take themselves
    seriously, and just "go with it". (Venom just wants to eat brains, OK?
    You gotta problem with that?!)
    I will say this - if Woody Harrelson was in the first "Venon" (and,
    apparently he was!), I don't remember him. (Which I guess shows how much
    I remember the first "Venom" flick, outside of a vague feeling that I
    enjoyed it!)

    As far as I can remember it was at the end of the film so he didn't
    play a huge role.



    He shows up in a mid-credits scene wearing a horrible wig.

    The Mid-credit scene of "Let There Be Carnage" ties directly into
    Spider-Man: No Way Home. Venom *should* have been in Spider-Man: No Way
    Home for a proper Sinister 6. I don't know exactly what went wrong
    behind the scenes, but Venom was technically there the entire movie, you
    just never see him. I saw an interview with Hardy where he talked about
    the original script and the scenes that were scripted for him, but I
    think never filmed. "Then Venom: The Last Dance" picks up after the
    events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. You can watch the three movies
    together as a sort of missed opportunity trilogy.

    Venom post credit scene:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd9Yf3sbuy0

    Venom: Let There Be Carnage post credit scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XKDXMSjB0k





    Michelle Williams seemingly gets downgraded (in terms of screentime)
    in this one (and she's not even in the third one!) which I found
    interesting.
    Anyway, this was mostly dumb fun, and I have no problem with that.


    I have this on my list to watch one day but that day has not arrived.


    What did you watch?

    MARSHALLS episode 10 where the two female agents were sent to watch
    over a prisoner transfer. They encounter the worst fake rock fall I've
    seen that forces their bus off the road, kills the two guards and
    leaves the Marshals dealing with three of the prisoner while three
    others have escaped. Two get into town and encounter two of the
    Marshals, which goes badly for the prisoners. The last one was
    apparently part of the Yellowstone family and heads up to a place that
    the crew used to go to. Which leads to him being caught.

    What did you watch?

    I watched:

    The Talented Mr. Ripley (blu-ray) 1999 movie starring Matt Damon as a
    young man who latches onto a rich young man (Jude Law) and worms his way
    into the man's life and wealthy lifestyle. There are some people who
    can see Damon is up to no good, but Damon has ways of dealing with them.


    Saltburn (HBO) 2023 movie starring Barry Keoghan as a young man who
    latches onto a rich young man (Jacob Elordi) and worms his way into the
    man's life and wealthy lifestyle. There are some people who can see
    Keoghan is up to no good, but Keoghan has ways of dealing with them. I remember seeing Saltburn in the theater when it first came out and
    thinking this movie reminds me a *lot* of "The Talented Mr. Ripley."
    And knowing I would have to pair them one day.
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  • From super70s@super70s@super70s.invalid to rec.arts.tv on Mon May 18 04:03:35 2026
    From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv

    On 2026-05-17 20:36:03 +0000, Arthur Lipscomb said:

    Saltburn (HBO) 2023 movie starring Barry Keoghan as a young man who
    latches onto a rich young man (Jacob Elordi) and worms his way into the man's life and wealthy lifestyle. There are some people who can see
    Keoghan is up to no good, but Keoghan has ways of dealing with them. I remember seeing Saltburn in the theater when it first came out and
    thinking this movie reminds me a *lot* of "The Talented Mr. Ripley."
    And knowing I would have to pair them one day.

    Have you seen Christy with Sydney Sweeney going around on the HBO
    channels yet? I watched it the other night, for some reason it was one
    of the biggest box office bombs of 2025 but I thought it was terrific.

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